Victorian period in English literature

In the minds of many, Queen Victoria personified the spirit of ninctcenth-century England: she was Queen of the United King­dom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, and mother of nine children; her monarchy was a model of respectability, self- righteousness, conservatism, and the domestic virtues.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, England dominated the world. Many English people were acutely conscious of their success and sell'-confidently pleased by it. The essayist and histo­rian Т. B. Macaulay spoke for them when he argued (in 1846) that the English had become «the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw, [they] have spread their dominion over every quarter of the globe... have created a maritime power which would annihilate in a quarter of an hour the navies of Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Venice, and Genoa together, have carried the science of healing, the means of locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical art, every manufacture, every thing that promotes the convenience of life, to a perfection which our ancestors would have thought magical».

When he wrote of British «dominion» Macaulay alluded to the British empire. By the Victorian era England controlled more of the earth than had any country in history.

England's world power grew out of the critical role she played in the beginning of the century. While Napoleon kept Europe em­broiled in a series of bloody wars, England, isolated by the Chan­nel, was developing into the first modem industrial state. Ready money, a skilled work force, and a government dedicated to leav­ing business alone, enabled ambitious middle-class factory owners to invent and develop modem production methods. During the pe­riod from 1780 to 1840 the British perfected the factory system for mass-producing goods, the practice of making interchangeable parts, and a system of railroads to carry raw materials to the factories and finished goods to the seaports. By 1850 England had eighteen thou­sand cotton mills, made half the pig iron in the world, and had five thousand miles of railroad track. It was the most modem, the most powerful, and the most wealthy land on earth.

Who reaped the profits? First, the middle class. They had been a small but important segment of the population for centuries. Now their numbers ballooned and their economic power dominated En­gland commercially. These were self-made men and women, proud of the thrift, the hard work, the strict moral discipline of their lives. Most were intensely religious, sure that their success was a result of God's favor.

For hundreds of years English politics had been the playground of the aristocrats. The newly powerful middle class now demanded a share in governing, and got it in the Reform Bill of 1832 which gave them the right to vote and hold elective office.

The working class was without any political power at all, and in times of economic hardship, particularly in the late 1830's and early 1840's, England, for all of its power and success, came perilously close to a working-class revolution. A boom in the market saved the country, labor unions grew slowly but steadily, and by 1867 the British were ready, with the Second Reform Bill, to let some of the workers vote.

The tension between financial growth and social instability in Victorian England affected its literature. Prosperity brought a great number of new readers, with money to spend on books and peri­odicals. In a pre-electronic era, when few people went to the the­ater or concerts, literature functioned as a primary source of enter­tainment. Writers had available an audience eager to read and will­ing to pay. In addition, writers were respected more than at any time in English literary history. The masses knew and loved the works of the most famous, while the wealthy and tilled sought their company. Major Victorian writers had the attention of political and social leaders — when they spoke, they were listened to.

The most popular, and many might say the most successful, form of writing in this era was the novel. Reading novels seems to have been an addiction for most Victorians. The most successful novel­ists — Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot, and Charlotte Bronte — enjoyed great fame during their lifetimes and have remained permanently popular with subsequent generations. But Victorian novels were usually long — «loose, baggy monsters» Henry James was to call them — frequently running nine-hundred pages or more. Poets faccd more demanding problems than novelists. Readers frequently wanted «relevance» in what they read. The glorification of the sci­entific and the practical during this period made many readers and some writers sceptical about the «usefulness» of poetry.

There was, in addition, the burden of trying to continue the enor­mous successes of the Romantic poets. Ideas and values had shifted. Social rebellion was altogether too likely in the 1840's to make its appearance in poetry tolerable. It was less easy to praise people, now that they had become threatening industrial workers. The Ro­mantic cult of emotion seemed dangerously excessive, and Victo­rian poets frequently responded with carefully balanced rationality. The Romantic love of nature remained, but frequently with a new, scientific precision of observation that replaced the old love of wild- ness for its own sake. Fascination with the medieval past contin­ued, though now it was given a contemporary social significance. While in «The Eve of St. Agnes» Keats reveled in the delight of pure imagination, Tennyson in «The Passing of Arthur» saw in the trials of a medieval hero the challenges which faced the political leaders of his own era. This strong sense of public responsibility pervaded much Victorian poetry, and at times gave it an integrity missing from poetry that served only private ends.

The Victorian compromise between public concerns and private urge did not last long. By the 1860's and 1870's a rebellious new generation of writers began to break away from the conventions of midcentury.

Early Victorian literature includes some of the greatest and most popular novels ever written. Most novelists of the period wrote long works with numerous characters. In many instances, the au­thors included actual events of the day in their tales.

The novels of Charles Dickens are noted for their colorful — and sometimes eccentric — characters. In «Oliver Twist» (1837— 1839) and «David Copperfield» (1849—1850), Dickens described the lives of children made miserable by cruel or thoughtless adults. He pictured the grim side of Victorian life in «Bleak House» (1852— 1853). In this novel, Dickens criticized the courts, the clergy, and the neglect of the poor.

William Makepeacc Thackeray created a masterpiece of Victo­rian fiction in «Vanity Fair» (1847—1848). The story follows the lives of many characters at different levels of English society dur­ing the early 18()()'s.

The novels of the three Bronte sisters — Emily, Charlotte, and Anne — have many romantic elements. The novels are known es­pecially for their psychologically tormented heroes and heroines. Critics rank Emily's «Wuthering Heights» (1847) and Charlotte's «Jane Eyre» (1847) among the greatest works of Victorian fiction. Several writers wrote nonfiction that dealt with what they believed to be the ills of the time. For example, Thomas Carlyle attacked the greed and hypocrisy he saw in society in «Sartor Resartus» (1833— 18341). John Stuart Mill discussed the relationship between soci­ety and the individual in his long essay «On Liberty» (1859).

Later Victorian literature. During the late 1800's, a pessimis­tic tone appeared in much of the best Victorian poetry and prose. Lord Tennyson discussed the intellectual and religious problems of the time in his long poem «In Memoriam» (1850). Matthew Arnold described his doubts about modern life in such short poems as «The Scholar-Gypsy» (1853) and «Dover Beach» (1867). Arnold's most important literary achievements arc his critical essays on culture, literature, religion, and society. Many of these essays were collected in «Culture and Anarchy» (1869).

Robert Browning was one of the leading Victorian poets. He cre­ated finely drawn character studies in poems called dramatic mono­logues. In these poems, a real or imaginary character narrates the story. Browning's best-known work is «The Ring and the Book» (1868—1869). He based the poem on an Italian murder case of 1698. Twelve characters discuss the case, each from his or her own point of view. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Browning's wife, wrote a famous sequence of love poems called «Sonnets from the Portuguese» (1850).

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote experimental religious verse. His poems were not published until 1918, almost 30 years after his death. Hopkins wrote in a style he called «sprung rhythm», in which he tried to capture the rhythm of natural speech. Hopkins filled his poetry with rich word pictures and unusual word combinations. The «Terrible» sonnets (written in 1885) are typical of his work.

The leading late Victorian novelists were George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans); George Meredith; and Thomas Hardy. Eliot's stories deal with social and moral problems. Her masterpiece is «Middlemarch» (1871—1872). Meredith's novels, as well as his poems, are noted for their sophisticated psychological treatment of character. His major works include the novels «The Ordeal of Ri­chard Fevercl» (1859) and «The Egoist» (1879) and the sonnet se­quence «Modern Love» (1862). Hardy's novels dominated English literature in the late 1800's. Hardy wrote realistic stories in which the characters are defeated by a hostile fate. He used the landscape of the imaginary county of Wesscx to help create the brooding at­mosphere of such novels as «The Mayor of Casterbridge» (1886) and «Jude the Obscure» (1895).

English drama was reborn near the end of the Victorian Age. From the late 1700's to the late 1800's, almost no important dra­mas were produced in England. But by 1900, a number of play­wrights had revived the English theater both with witty comedies and with realistic dramas about social problems of the time.

Oscar Wilde recalled the glittering Restoration comedy of man­ners in «Lady Windermere's Fan» (1892) and «The Importance of Being Earnest» (1895). George Bernard Shaw wrote witty plays, but he was primarily interested in exposing the faults he saw in society. His major works of the late 1800's include «Arms and the Man» (1894) and «Candida» (1895). Sir Arthur Wing Pinero wrote a num­ber of comedies and melodramas. However he bccame better known for «The Second Mrs. Tanqueray» (1893) and other social dramas.