The following links lead to material on this website that describes or offers approaches to teaching various aspects of the Victorian period. This material includes questions on key works by individual authors and artists, generally added to the appropriate sections by our founding editor-in-chief and webmaster, George Landow, and our longest-serving contributing editor, Philip Allingham (who has assembled this list). Note that "discussion questions" follow the commentaries on many other famous Victorian artworks, including those in the sections on design. More material of this kind would be most welcome. — JB.
Discussions
- Dean Stanley on Thomas Arnold's Approach to Teaching
- On Teaching Jane Eyre (Herbert J. Rosengarten)
- Teaching Dickens in the American Two-Year College (M.H. Allen)
- Why Jane Eyre? (Derek Furr)
Literature: The Pre-Victorian Period
- Leading Questions about Eighteenth-Century Authors
- Leading Questions about Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
- Leading Questions about Jonathan Swift
Cultural Criticism
- Pater on the Function of the Critic
- [Pater] The Critic as Scientist
- Walter Pater: Reading and Discussion Questions
- Thomas Carlyle: Leading Questions [Six Works & Miscellaneous]
- John Ruskin: Leading Questions [Ten Works]
Literature: The Novel
- Leading Questions for the Alice Books
- Leading Questions for Charlotte Bronté's Jane Eyre (Philip V. Allingham)
- Leading Questions for Charlotte Bronté's Jane Eyre (George Landow)
- Six Collaborative Exercises and Discussion Passages for Dickens's A Christmas Carol [click on each of the following numbers for the link]: One; Two; Three; Four; Five; and Six
- Chapter by Chapter Discussion Questions for Dickens's Great Expectations (Philip Allingham)
- Discussion Questions for Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (Glen Downey)
- Reading and Discussion Questions for Charles Dickens's Great Expectations (UBC and Brown University)
- Co-operative Learning Projects for Dickens's Hard Times
- Reading and Discussion Questions for Charles Dickens's Hard Times
- Discussion Questions for Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities [click on each part for the link]: Synopsis; A Quiz; Key to the Quiz; Reading Questions, Book I; Reading Questions, Book II; Reading Questions, Book III
- George Macdonald: Leading Questions
- Reading Questions for Graham Swift's Waterland
Literature: Short Fiction
- Leading Questions on Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Half-Brothers"
- Hardy's "The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion" (1888): Reading Questions
- Hardy's "The Three Strangers" (1883): Reading Questions
Literature: The Drama
- Oscar Wilde:
- Essay Topics for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
- Writing Assignments and Questions for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
- Writing Assigned Paragraph Questions for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Act One
Literature: Poetry
- Leading Questions about the Poetry of Keats and Shelley
- Discussion Questions for Wordsworth and Coleridge
- Thomas Hardy — Reading, Study, and Discussion Questions on His Fiction and Poetry [click on each of the titles for the link]: "Afterwards"; "Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?": reading and discussion questions; "At Lulworth Cove A Century Back"; "Channel Firing"; "The Darkling Thrush": reading and discussion questions; "Drummer Hodge": reading and discussion questions; "Hap"; "Neutral Tones"; "Nobody Comes": text and reading questions; Student Questions on "The Oxen"; "The Oxen"; "The Ruined Maid"; "A Trampwoman's Tragedy"; and "Where the Picnic Was"
- Gerard Manley Hopkins: Leading Questions [Six Poems & Miscellaneous]
- Christina Rossetti — Leading Questions [Seven Poems & Miscellaneous]
- Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market": Leading Questions — Image and Symbol; Genre, Mode, and Style; Theme and Subject
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poems — Leading Questions [Ten Poems & Miscellaneous]
- A. C. Swinburne: Leading Questions [Ten Poems & Miscellaneous]
- Tennyson's Idylls of the King — Leading Questions [Seven Poems]
- Reading and Discussion Questions for Wilde's Poetry
- Oscar Wilde: Reading and Discussion Questions for "The Decay of Lying"
Literary Criticism and Other Non-fiction
- Leading Questions about the Aesthetes and Decadents
- Aubrey Beardsley: Discussion Questions
- Max Beerbohm (1872-1956): Reading and Discussion Questions
- Ernest Dowson: Reading and Discussion Questions
- Richard Le Gallienne: Reading and Discussion Questions
- Discussion Questions for Tillotson's Novels of the Eighteen-Forties, based on the Introduction [click on each part for the link]: Part 10; Part 11; Part 12
Visual Arts and Illustration
- You Haven't Seen The Last of England: Five Questions on Ford Madox Brown
- Discussion Questions on Holman Hunt
- Hogarthian Touches in The Awakening Conscience by William Holman Hunt
- The Enchanted Journey — Questions on Holman Hunt's Triumph of the Innocents
- John Leech's Illustrations of A Christmas Carol (1843) — Reading and Discussion Questions
- Albert Moore, Art for Art Sake, and The Quartet, a Painter's Tribute to Music: Discussion Questions
- Representing Alice: John Tenniel's Collaboration with Charles Dodgson (four questions appended)
- All Tied Up in Lady of Shalott: Five Questions
- Visiting Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" with Millais: Five Questions
Created 30 August 2011
Last modified 24 August 2026