Teaching Victorian Literature in the Context of Photography

Abstract

Iwould argue that any discussion of realism and its relationship to Vic torian c lture necessitates a conside ation of pho ography; certainly, n helping students to navigate between the strangeness and the intimacy of Victorian literature, I've found putting it in the context of photography to be extremely useful. The camera was a shaping force, and its images served as a site of contest regarding the nature of the real. As evidence of the pervasiveness of that contest, photography's metaphors are to be found throughout Victorian writing. Literally, of course, photographs make tangible our perceptions about the nature of reality; they express philosophical beliefs and aesthetic desires, and offer an acute reminder of shared humanity and mortality. As much as the nineteenth century may be strange and distant to our students, photographs allow them to establish a kind of intimacy with the Victorians, while they may also suggest to us the limits of our own perception. My intention here is to share with you some of the ways that thinking broadly about the advent of photography, and looking specifically at individual Victorian photographs, can prove useful to a range of issues that emerge in the course of teaching nineteenth-century novels and poems. These are not recommendations for a class that is on Victorian photography per se, but are simply reflections on how the subject of photography can inform and assist the teaching of nineteenth-century literature.