English Literature of the Victorian Age

The literature written during Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901) has been given the name Victorian. The basic characteristics of the period, however, would have been the same with or without Queen Victoria. Many great changes took place in the first half of the 19th century. Intellectual rebellions, such as those of Byron and Shelley, gave place to balance and adjustment. Individualism began to be replaced by social and governmental restraints. More and more people were gaining comfort and prosperity. Great Britain changed from a provincial nation to a worldwide empire. This progress brought its problems. Often men had to choose between ideals and material gain.

Science made rapid strides in the 19th century. The theory of evolution gave new insight into the biological sciences. Technical progress transformed Britain into a land of mechanical and industrial activity, but science also created doubts. Old ideas of faith and religion were put to serious tests by the new attitudes brought about by scientific progress. There was a reemphasis--oftentimes stuffy and pompous--of moral and religious beliefs. Literature, said some, should show people how to be good.

Nevertheless, many people in England were still poor--badly housed, undernourished, and sick. Progress, obviously, would not come by itself--it had to be earned. Freedom had to be guarded zealously. Would the spirit of man be destroyed by the machine? Would people become slaves to industry and the pursuit of wealth? Would art be replaced by skills and crafts? These were the questions that troubled Englishmen in the age of Queen Victoria.

The transition from the late Romantic to the Victorian period is best understood in the figure of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881). His life spanned the years of Romantic excitement and Victorian achievement. Carlyle thoroughly repudiated the Romanticists. To him the universe seemed the "living garment of God." In 'Sartor Resartus' (1833-34) he counseled that the way out of the "Everlasting Nay," or negative denial, was first to find what one could do; then to give all one's energies to it. The effort of the moral will, he said, would bring freedom from despair. (See also Carlyle.)

 

Major Victorian Poets

Poets shifted from the extremely personal expression (or subjectivism) of the Romantic writers to an objective surveying of the problems of human life. The poems of Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold especially reflect this change. Much Victorian poetry was put to the service of society.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-92) attempted to give direction to his readers. 'Idylls of the King' (1859) is a disguised study of current ethical and social conditions. 'Locksley Hall' (1842), 'In Memoriam' (1850), and 'Maud' (1855) deal with conflicting scientific and social ideas. Much of Tennyson's poetry, however, can be read without worrying about such problems. His narrative skill makes many of his poems interesting just as stories. For example, each of the Arthurian tales in 'Idylls of the King' brings the reader a wealth of beauty and experience. 'The Lady of Shalott' and 'The Death of Oenone' are pleasing tales to young readers. (See also Tennyson.)

For those who have seen Rudolph Besier's modern play 'The Barretts of Wimpole Street', Elizabeth and Robert Browning need no introduction. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) wrote the most exquisite love poems of her time in 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' (1850). These lyrics were written secretly while she was being courted by Robert Browning. (See also Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.)

Browning (1812-89) is best remembered for his dramatic monologues. 'My Last Duchess' (1842), 'Fra Lippo Lippi' (1855), and 'Andrea del Sarto' (1855) are excellent examples. The stirring rhythm of 'How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix' (1845) and the simple wonder of 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' (1842) endear Browning to readers. His expressions of personal faith have inspired thousands of readers ('Epilogue to Asolando', 1889; 'Rabbi Ben Ezra', 1864; 'Prospice', 1864). The poetic drama 'Pippa Passes' (1841) is one of his finest efforts. (See also Browning, Robert.)

The poetry of Matthew Arnold (1822-88) is marked by an intense seriousness and classic restraint. 'Sohrab and Rustum' (1853) is a fine blank-verse narrative. His elegiac poems on the death of his father, Dr. Thomas Arnold ('Rugby Chapel', 1867), and of his friend Arthur Hugh Clough ('Thyrsis', 1867) are profound and moving. His interest in the problem of making Englishmen aware of higher values of life caused him to quit writing poetry and turn to critical prose. As a critic, he drove his ideas home with clarity and force. (See also Arnold, Matthew.)

Arnold's somber and disillusioned poem 'Empedocles on Etna' (1852) was characteristic of the poetry dealing with the conflict between religion and science. A much more popular poem on the same theme was the free translation of the 'Rubбiyбt of Omar Khayyбm' (1859), by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-83). The poem was originally written by Omar, a Persian astronomer. Fitzgerald claimed that the only course of action left to the man whose religious ideals had been destroyed by science was self-indulgence.

 

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The Pre-Raphaelites, a group of painters and poets, rebelled against the sentimental and the commonplace. They wished to revive the artistic standards of the time before the Italian painter Raphael (1483-1520). Their poems are full of mystery and pictorial language. One member was Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82). His 'Blessed Damozel' (1850) and 'Sister Helen' (1870) are typical of this highly sensuous verse. 'Goblin Market' (1862), by his sister Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-94), is one of the most fanciful poems in the language. (See also Rossetti Family.) William Morris (1834-96) also was interested in both painting and poetry. His interest in handicrafts grew into a philosophy of art, and he dedicated the rest of his life to the attempt to bring a love of workmanship back into the English workingman's life. This activity took two forms: the promotion of the crafts through such organizations as the Kelmscott Press and the promotion of the worker's happiness through guild socialism. 'The Earthly Paradise' (1868-70) is a series of tales linked by the same device used in 'Canterbury Tales'. In 'The Dream of John Ball' (1888), a prose romance, Morris dealt with one of the leaders of the 14th-century revolt of Wat Tyler. (See also Morris, William.)

Another poet closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites was Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909). Swinburne wrote many verse dramas on classical and historical subjects ('Mary Stuart', 1881). Many of his lyrics were criticized for their eroticism. All his poetry is filled with rich, melodic effects. Some critics have said that his verse is all "sound and fury signifying nothing." (See also Swinburne.)

The direct opposite of Swinburne was Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), a Jesuit priest. His imagery and metrical technique are quite modern, and his subject matter is intensely religious. His poems, written between 1876 and 1889, were appreciated by his close friends but they were not published until 1918 because their unusual rhythm and metaphors were considered too strange to be accepted earlier.

There were other notable poets writing at the end of the century. They included Francis Thompson (1859-1907), author of 'The Hound of Heaven' (1893); Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), who wrote 'Cynara' (1896); and the pessimist John Davidson (1857-1909), author of 'Fleet Street Eclogues' (1893).

 

Victorian Novelists

The English novel came of age in the Victorian period. There had been a decline in novel writing at the beginning of the century, partly because fiction had turned to horror and crude emotionalism and partly because of religious and moral objections to the reading of novels.

Even Sir Walter Scott, at first, considered the craft of the novelist degrading and kept his authorship a secret. In the Victorian period, however, these attitudes toward the novel were to change.

With the rise of the popular magazine, authors began to experiment with serialized fiction. Soon they were writing novels. Such was the beginning of Dickens' 'Sketches by Boz' (1836) and of Thackeray's 'The Yellowplush Correspondence' (1837-38).

Charles Dickens (1812-70) became a master of local color, as in 'The Pickwick Papers' (1836-37). Few of his novels have convincing plots, but in characterization and in the creation of moods he was outstanding. By 1850 Dickens had become England's best-loved novelist. (See also Dickens.)

The talents of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) produced a different type of novel. He was not a reformer, as Dickens was, and he was not moved to tearful sentiments by the world's unfortunates. Instead, he attempted to see the whole of life, detached and critically. He disliked sham, hypocrisy, stupidity, false optimism, and self-seeking. The result was satire on manners. Literature would be the poorer without 'Vanity Fair' (1847-48) and its heroine, Becky Sharp. (See also Thackeray.)

The novels of the Brontл sisters (Charlotte, 1816-55; Emily, 1818-48; Anne, 1820-49) have very little to do with the condition of society or the world in general. Charlotte's 'Jane Eyre' and Emily's 'Wuthering Heights' (both 1847), especially, are powerful and intensely personal stories of the private lives of characters isolated from the rest of the world. (See also Brontл Family.)

Later English novelists turned to the logical plot and the concept of a central theme. Anthony Trollope (1815-82) dealt with middle- and upper-class people interestingly, naturally, and wittily ('Orley Farm' 1862). George Eliot (1819-80) was one of England's greatest women novelists. In 'Silas Marner' (1861) and 'Middlemarch' (1871-72) she used the novel to interpret life. (See also Trollope; Eliot, George.)

Wilkie Collins (1824-89) was one of the earliest writers to build a novel wholly around an ingenious plot--the formula that is used in the modern mystery story. 'The Moonstone' (1868) is his best.

Birth of the Psychological Novel As biology and psychology advanced, it became clear that human beings could no longer be shown simply as heroes and villains. The study of human character demanded the examination of motives and causes rather than the making of moral judgments. To find the cause of action meant probing into the secrets of individual psychology. George Meredith (1828-1909) was one of the first to apply psychological methods to the analysis of his characters. For the average reader the brilliance of such novels as 'The Ordeal of Richard Feverel' (1859) and 'The Egoist' (1879) is obscured by the absence of plot and the subtleties of the language. Meredith was also a poet of merit, and his essay on comedy and the comic spirit is a masterly interpretation of the function of comedy in literature. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) brought to fiction a philosophical attitude that resulted from the new science. He believed that the more science studies the universe the less evidence is found for an intelligent guiding force behind it. If there is just chance--meaningless blind force--in the universe, what hope is there for mankind? In a series of great novels, from 'The Return of the Native' (1878) to 'Jude the Obscure' (1895), Hardy sought to show how futile and senseless is man's struggle against the forces of natural environment, social convention, and biological heritage. (See also Hardy.) Samuel Butler (1835-1902) entered into the scientific controversies of his day. Holding that evolution is the result of the creative will rather than of chance selection, Butler wrote a novel about the relations of parents to children--'The Way of All Flesh' (1903). The point of the story, made with irony, is that the family restrains the free development of the child. Charles Reade (1814-84) was, like Dickens, an ardent critic of the social abuses of his day. His most famous novel, 'The Cloister and the Hearth' (1861), however, is a historical romance with a 15th-century setting. Filled with exciting incidents, intrigue, and witchcraft, it is based on the birth and boyhood of the Dutch scholar Erasmus. George Gissing (1857-1903) was greatly influenced by Dickens. His hatred of the degrading effects of poverty is reflected in many of his novels. Gissing's most successful book was 'The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft' (1903), the imaginary journal of a retired writer who lives in happy solitude in the country amid his beloved books (as Gissing always wished that he could do).

 

 

Romance and Adventure

Not all fiction of the late 19th century falls into the intellectual or scientific classification. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) wrote stories in a light mood. His novels of adventure are exciting and delightful: 'Treasure Island' (1883), 'Kidnapped' (1886), 'The Master of Ballantrae' (1889). Stevenson also wrote for adults. 'David Balfour' (1893) and 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' (1886) are quite suited to adult tastes. As a short-story writer Stevenson ranks high. In light verse and in the informal essay Stevenson was unusually successful. (See also Stevenson, Robert Louis.)

One of England's most popular writers was Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). He glamorized the foreign service and satirized the English military and administrative classes in India. He stirred the emotions of the empire lovers. Kipling also wrote delightful children's tales. He was, however, neither a cheap versifier nor a vulgar imperialist. Whoever has not read 'Barrack Room Ballads' (1892), 'Soldiers Three' 1888), 'The Jungle Books' (1894, 1895), and 'Captains Courageous' (1897) has a treat in store for him. (See also Kipling.)

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832-98) belongs in a category by himself. 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1865) combines fantasy and satire in an inimitable way to the immense satisfaction of old and young. (See also Carroll, Lewis.)

 

Th-Century Drama

Drama did not flourish early in the 19th century. Romantic poetry had its dramatic phases, and Shelley and Byron both wrote verse dramas. These were closet dramas, intended for reading rather than for staging. Several of Tennyson's plays were produced. The stage, however, was primarily interested in low melodrama and sentimental farce-comedy. Musical comedy achieved respectability when librettist William Gilbert (1836-1911) teamed up with composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) in 'Trial by Jury' (1875). Many successful collaborations by these two followed. (See also Gilbert and Sullivan.)

As was the case among readers of fiction, some theatergoers matured. They were ready for satire, for serious treatment of social problems, and for drama that was well constructed. From the Continent came realistic, intellectual, and socially significant works.

The first English dramatists to attempt the "new drama" were Henry Arthur Jones (1851-1929) and Sir Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934). Neither, however, could compare in wit and brilliance with two young contemporaries--Wilde and Shaw. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), also a poet and novelist, wrote several fine plays. His 'Importance of Being Earnest' (1895) is brittle in its humor and clever in its dialogue and is probably the best of his dramas.

The plays of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) read even better than they act. They are important for their prefaces, sizzling attacks on Victorian prejudices and attitudes. Shaw began to write drama as a protest against existing conditions--slums, sex hypocrisy, censorship, war.

Because his plays were not well received (often they were not even allowed to be presented), Shaw wrote their now-famous prefaces. Not until after 1900 did the Shavian wit achieve acceptance on the stage. Controversial ideas and Shaw productions came to be synonymous. Shaw had the longest career of any writer who ever lived. He began in the Victorian Age and wrote until 1950. (See also Shaw.)

 

Essayists and Historians

There are other great names in Victorian literature, chiefly in criticism and history. Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59) is known for his 'History of England' (1848-61). Although it is often inaccurate, it represented a new concept of historical writing: history must be detailed, vivid, and pictorial. (See also Macaulay.)

Social, religious, and educational criticism was the field of John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-90). His essays on liberal education are especially important, and his 'Apologia pro Vita Sua' (1864) is a fine autobiography. (See also Newman, Cardinal.)

John Stuart Mill (1806-73) dealt with political and economic problems. His essay 'On Liberty' (1859) was the most important discussion of that subject since Milton's time. (See also Mill.)

Of those who wrote about aesthetic matters, Ruskin and Pater are best remembered. John Ruskin (1819-1900) made his first bid for fame in 'Modern Painters' (1843-60). He studied architecture and wrote 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture' (1849). Ruskin's ideas on art were at odds with social conditions. He became a reformer, devoting his writing to social and economic problems. (See also Ruskin.)

Walter Pater (1839-94), in 'Marius the Epicurean' (1885), developed a theory of beauty which ignored the social situation. It held that art could have no ethical content, that it must be a matter of personal ecstasy.

 

Modern English Literature

The growth of science and technology in the 19th century had held forth the promise of a new and richer life. It became clear, however, that what man did with his discoveries and his newly found mechanical power would depend upon his ability to master himself. With new inventions upsetting old ways, it became increasingly difficult to find order or pattern in life. People began to talk of the "machine age" and to ask whether it was wholly good. Could man trust science to bring about a better life?

Other developments began to influence man's thought. Psychologists explored the mind and advanced varied and conflicting theories about it. Human behavior was no longer easily explainable. The new sciences of anthropology and sociology contributed to the upheaval of ideas. Religious controls and social conventions again were challenged. Naturally, there were changes in literary taste and forms. Old values were replaced by new values or were lost. Literature became pessimistic and experimental.

 

Early 20th-Century Prose

Before 1914 the post-Victorian writers were in the unhappy position of looking back at a well-marked literary road and looking ahead at a pathless jungle. They had to grapple with new forces--sociological, psychological, and scientific--because these forces were a part of their lives. They were writers in transition.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933) turned to the social life of an upper-class English family in 'The Forsyte Saga' (1922), a series of novels which records the changing values of such a family. Galsworthy also wrote serious social plays, including 'Strife' (1909) and 'Justice' (1910). (See also Galsworthy.)

The first works of H.G. Wells (1866-1946) were science fiction--'The Time Machine' (1895), 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' (1896), 'The War of the Worlds' (1898). Then he turned to social and political subjects. Of his many books criticizing the middle-class life of England, 'Tono-Bungay' (1909), a satire on commercial advertising, is probably the most entertaining. (See also Wells.)

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a literary experimenter who was drawn chiefly to realism, the slice-of-life approach to fiction. 'The Old Wives' Tale' (1908) and 'Clayhanger' (1910) are novels of people in drab surroundings. (See also Bennett.)

Out of his years as a merchant-marine officer Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) wrote such remarkable novels as 'The Nigger of the Narcissus' (1898) and 'Lord Jim' (1900). The scenes, chiefly of a wild and turbulent sea, are exotic and exciting. The characters are strange people beset by obsessions of cowardice, egoism, or vanity. (See also Conrad.)

A master of the traditional plot was E.M. Forster (1879-1970). His characters are ordinary persons out of middle-class life. They are moved by accident because they do not know how to choose a course of action. 'A Passage to India' (1924) is a splendid novel of Englishmen in India.

The naturalist W.H. Hudson (1841-1922) will long be remembered for 'Green Mansions' (1904), a fanciful romance of the South American jungles. Hudson's skill as a nature writer, however, surpassed his skill as a novelist. John Buchan (1875-1940), who served as governor-general of Canada, wrote exciting novels of adventure and mystery. 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' (1915) is perhaps his best-known work.

 

Early 20th-Century Poetry

The poetry of the Edwardian and Georgian periods (Edward VII, 1901-10; George V, 1910-36) showed many new and unusual characteristics. Robert Bridges (1844-1930) experimented in verse forms. He employed the usual subjects of the poet but brought strange rhythms and unusual music to his verse. The poet A.E. Housman (1859-1936) was an anti-Victorian who echoed the pessimism found in Hardy. In his 'Shropshire Lad' (1896) nature is unkind; people struggle without hope or purpose; boys and girls laugh, love, and are untrue (see Housman).

John Masefield (1878-1967) stressed the bold and the violent in his poetry. 'The Everlasting Mercy' (1911), containing a Homeric prizefight, and 'Dauber' (1912), the story of a painter among unsympathetic seamen, will please the most masculine mind. His descriptions of sea and land and of brutal people are powerfully realistic. (See also Masefield.)

A different sort of poet from his contemporaries was Walter de la Mare (1873-1956). The wonder and fancy of the child's world and the fantasy of the world of the supernatural were his to command. 'Peacock Pie' (1913) is representative of his verse. As a novelist and teller of tales, De la Mare was a supernaturalist who believed in the reality of evil as well as of good. (See also De la Mare.)

Sir James M. Barrie (1860-1937) was probably the greatest master of the romantic-fantasy drama of the period. Beginning with 'The Admirable Crichton' (1903), in which a butler becomes a Swiss Family Robinson character, and continuing through 'Peter Pan' (1904) and 'Dear Brutus' (1917), Barrie wrote of life as seen by children, for an audience that was tired of adult viewpoints. (See also Barrie.)

Intensely nationalistic, the Irish writers were looking to their own country for literary inspiration. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), John Millington Synge (1871-1909), and Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) worked vigorously for the Irish cause. All were dramatists and all helped found the famous Abbey Theatre. (See also Yeats; Irish Literature.)

 

Impact of World War I

World War I cut forever the ties with the past. It brought discontent and disillusionment. Men were plunged into gloom at the knowledge that "progress" had not saved the world from war.

World War I left its record in literature. Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), who died during the war, has been idealized for what is actually a rather thin performance in poetry. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), also a war casualty, was far more realistic about the heroism and idealism of the soldier. Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) and Edmund Blunden (1896-1974), both survivors of the carnage, left violent accounts of the horrors and terror of war.

In fiction there was a shift from novels of the human comedy to novels of characters. Fiction ceased to be concerned with a plot or a forward-moving narrative. Instead it followed the twisted, contorted development of a single character or a group of related characters.

Of these writers William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) achieved the greatest popular success. 'Of Human Bondage' (1915) portrays a character who drifts. 'The Moon and Sixpence' (1919), based on the life of the artist Paul Gauguin, continues the examination of the character without roots. 'Cakes and Ale' (1930) shows how the real self is lost between the two masks--public and private--that every person wears. (See also Maugham, W. Somerset.)

The writer D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was a man trying to find himself, trying to be reborn. This tragic, heroic search is reflected in his curious novels about the secret sources of human life. The records of his search and torment are his great novels 'Sons and Lovers' (1913) and 'Women in Love' (1920). (See also Lawrence, D.H.)

James Joyce (1882-1941) was searching for the secret places in which the real self is hidden. He believed he had found the way to it through human vocal language. To him language was the means by which the inner, or subconscious, feelings gained expression. Civilized man tries to control his spoken language; natural man would let his language flow freely. If one could capture this free flow of language in writing, he would have the secret of man's nature. Thus was born stream of consciousness, a technique that has been employed in much contemporary literature. 'Ulysses' (1922), a vast, rambling account of 24 hours in the lives of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, was banned in some countries but has nevertheless greatly influenced modern fiction. (See also Joyce, James.)

Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique was refined by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). For her, reality, or consciousness, is a stream. Life, for both reader and characters, is immersion in the flow of that stream. 'Mrs. Dalloway' (1925) and 'To the Lighthouse' (1927) are among her best works (see Woolf, Virginia). Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), Dorothy M. Richardson (1882-1957), and Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) also wrote fiction of this type (see Mansfield, Katherine).

While these writers were concerned with the realities of the mind, Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) worked with the external world. He found it false, brutal, and inhuman. In 'Point Counter Point' (1928), 'Brave New World' (1932), and 'After Many a Summer Dies the Swan' (1939), his cynicism reached its peak.