UNIVERSITY OF EL SALVADORWESTERN MULTIDISCIPLINARY CAMPUSFOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENTLITERATURE II

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1837- 1901)

The literature of the Victorian period was in some aspects a continuation of the romanticism. The romantic emphases on individualism, liberty, natural scenery, and the emotions were all continued, but they were chastened and subdued , short , they were domesticated. Domesticity was the a word for the Victorian Period: it was the great era if the home, the family, the domestic virtues( the Family Bible, magazines such as Household Words and the Woman’s Home Companion and the Family Herald.

Victorian literature modifies romantic feeling with a tincture of eighteen common-sense, romantic exuberance with a tincture of neo-classical restraint.Another strong similarity between the Romantic and Victorian literary periods was their common opposition to materialism, to the preoccupation with material wealth and material progress. The Industrial Revolution was accelerated in Victorian times , and England was growing more and more wealthy at the top and more and more poverty-stricken at the bottom. The chief unifying factor in Victorian literature is the revulsion it expresses against ugliness, arrogance, and vulgarity bred of the new wealth. Dickens´ sympathetic portrayals of the poor and satirical attacks upon the harsh employers such as Mr. Gradgrind; Tennyson’s caustic comments on the arrogance of the newly rich in poems such as “Locksley Hall” or “Maud”; Thackeray’s lampooning of social snobbery : all these actions stem from the same basic dissatisfaction with the impact of the Industrial Revolution upon English society. If the Victorian writers seem rather timid and half-hearted to us in their attacks, a little too ready to compromise, we should recognize that they were fighting against an enemy far more entrenched than we can easily imagine: the tyranny of wealth.

Victorianism was an age of snobbery, of prudery (even the legs of a table must be referred to as limbs, lest the former word excite lascivious thoughts), and of frequent hypocrisy and humbug. But if we indict the age , we should not indict the writers of the age, for they were all almost as critical of it as we are. Nor should we forget that Victorian society had many difficult problems to solve, and that it made much progress towards their solution.

There was a problem that we have already glanced at: how to take advantage of the positive effects of the Industrial Revolution and yet to mitigate its evil effects of unsanitary labour conditions, ugly factories and smoked-clouded towns, over-powerful employers and under-paid employees. This problem was not altogether solved, but certain developments did much to make our more equable and just society possible: The various Acts setting minimum wage rates and maximum working hours, the successive Reform Bills extending the franchise to more and more members of the population, the Education Acts, of 1870 and 1891 extending free education to all, and the growth of socialist thoughts signalized by the development of the Fabian movement in the eighties and nineties and foundation of the Labour Party in 1900.

Another important Victorian problem concerned religious belief, and particularly the conflict between religion and science. The scientific examination of the Bible, known as the Higher Criticism, made it appear that hitherto sacred book had some serious inconsistencies; Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1835), suggesting that man had evolved from ape-like creatures over long centuries of time, made the Genesis of Adam and Eve look, like a fairy-tale.

Another important Victorian problem was that of the British Empire. The bravery of English soldiers and sailors, and the enterprise of English merchant adventurers, had built up a great overseas empire_ in America, India, Africa and in the Pacific_ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Already, in the American Revolution of 1776-17834, one large segment of that empire had split away. In the Victorian period there were restlessness in Canada, India, Ireland and parts of Africa. Should England seek to hang on to the Empire by brute force or should she give the colonies concessions which might quiet them for a while but allow them eventually to drift away from her? There were extremists who wanted to rule with an iron hand, and other extremists that wanted to get rid of the colonies entirely. Here again the Victorians made a large measure of progress towards a solution. Lord Durham’s Report on Canada in 1838 and the British North America Act of 1867, set a pattern of enlightened colonial administration by which the modern Commonweath has gradually developed. Something more admirable that the triumph of brute force was symbolized by the pageant of Imperial splendour that marked Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

This development of English civilization abroad, of course, meant that English literature was no longer confined to England. The American colonies had had the beginnings of literature well before the revolution ; early in the nineteenth century Washington Irving, by tales such as “The Legend of Sleepy Hallow” and “Rip Van Winkle” had won international audience.

In the Victorian literature the romantic emphases on individualism, natural scenery , and emotion are uppermost ; the problems of an industrial society are reflected in Dickens and Arnold; for all there is the issue of religious belief in a scientific age; for all there is the problem of controlling material pride in a period of rapid material expansion.

The early poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson were much criticized, but in his later books he rewrote some and omitted others altogether. His Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) and Poems) (1833) were an improvement though they were still the work of a young man. The music is there already, but the thought is not deep. “The Lotus Easter”, a poem on the wandering of Ulysses and his men, gives a taste of the rhythm of which Tennyson was a master. Tennyson knew well that more thought was needed in great work, and in 1842 he published two books of poems which are serious and thoughtful as well as musical. The rhythm is still there, and Fitzgerald thought that Tennyson never wrote better poems than these; but today many people prefer The Idylls of the King.Tennyson had become a very careful artist, choosing each word and its exact place with close attention. In “Morte D’Arthur” he put Malory’s story in blank verse in which

the magic voice may clearly be heard. The Idylls of the King included this short poem and others on the same story: “Enid”, “Vivien”,” Elaine”, and “Guinevere” appeared in 1869, 1871-2 and 1885. “The Passing of Arthur” describes at the end how Sir Bedivere, in sorrow because of the end of the Round Table and the death of the other knights.Tennyson used many metres and made experiments with new ones. He tried hexameters, and he was fond of the four-line stanza rhyming abba:

Yet waft* me from the harbour mouth *blowWild wind , I seek a warmer skyAnd I will see before I dieThe palms and temples of the south

This is also the metre that he used for his long poem In Memoriam (1833-50), an elegy for his friend Hallam, who died in Vienna at the early age of 22.. Though the poem has its fine qualities, it is too long for a discussion of death alone, and the sorrow for the loss of a friend gradually changes into an expression of a wider love of God and man.

In general Tennyson’s shorter poems are better. “Ulysses” (1842) expresses in fine lines the leader’s decision to” sail beyond the sunset and the baths Of all the western stars until die”.

Tennyson’s plays are not important. The best is Becket (1884) on the subject of a quarrel between King Henry II and Thomas à Becket, who was murdered at Canterbury in 1170. Tennyson’s influence in his own time was immense. He reflected the changing ideas of his age in his various poems.

Robert Browning was unlike Tennyson. For Browning the intellect was, from the beginning more important than the music. This made him popular in universities after his death he did not reflect very much of the ideas of his time; he did not go to an ancient university. His immense knowledge came from his studies in London, his travels and his own work. He was hopeful by nature and often attempted poems beyond his powers. In 1846 he married Elizabeth Barret, one of England’s major poetesses, against her father’s wishes and in spite of her bad health. They went to live in Italy at Florence, a place which influenced the work of both.

Browning’s “Pauline” (1833), containing more than 1,000 lines, is only part of a much longer poem that he planned but never wrote. “Sordello”(1840) is his most difficult poem. It is a story of events in 1200 and its details are complicated. One of his successful dramatic poems is “Pippa Passes” (1841). In this a girl, Pippa, wanders through the town singing, and her song influences people who ( unknown to her) hear it. Part of it is a cheerful as Browning himself:

The year’s at the springThe day’s at the morn;Morning’s at seven …All’s right with the world.

The poems in Dramatic Lyrics (1842) and Dramatic Romances (1845) are a great advance on Browning’s dramas. “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” a poem in the second of these books, described the removal of rats from a city by a musician whose music lead them away.Browning’s difficult style is the result of his unusual knowledge of words and his bold ways of building sentences. “The Ring and the Book” (1868-9) is a poem based on a book that he found in Florence. It is an old story of the murder of a wife Pompilia by her husband, told in various ways of different people, who do not always have the same view of the details. Asolando was published on the day of his death This volume contain a lot of important poems.

Another greatest poetess of this time is Elizabeth Barret, who on her marriage became Elizabeth Barret Browning. Some of her poems are too long, but in a sonnet she could not write too much. Thus much of her best work is contained in Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850). They were really an entirely original expression of her love for Robert Browning:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach.

Mary Shelley the poet’s wife is remembered now chiefly as the writer of a famous novel of terror, Frankenstein ( 1818). She also wrote The Last Man (1826) the story of the slow destruction by a disease of every member( except one ) of the human race.

Charles Dickens is considered to be one of the greatest English novelists, and he is one of the few whose works did not become unpopular after his death. He began with Pickwick (1836-7), which came out in parts and gave English literature some of its most charming and amusing characters. Mr. Pickwick himself is almost too kind to be true; it is fortunate to for him that he meets and employs the cheerful Sam Weller to keep him out of most of the trouble caused by his own kindness, or to comfort him with his words of wisdom when the trouble has not been avoided.Twice Dickens wrote historical novels, Barnaby Rudge (1841) and A Tale of Two Cities (1849), a story of the French Revolution and of events in London at the same time. Sometimes his novels were partly with purpose of improving social conditions. Oliver Twist (1837-8), the story of a poor boy’s cruel treatment and miserable adventures, includes descriptions of hunger, stealing, murder and hanging. A Christmas Carol (1843) is the story of a bad character who improves his behaviour after a ghost tells him the manner of his death. Hard Times (1854) is set in industrial surroundings, where Gradgrind’s children are brought up among hard facts and without any help for the spirit. The son robs a banks, and the girl makes an unhappy marriage; but luckily the father suddenly understands his own foolishness.David Copperfield (1849-50) is based on Dicken’s own life, which had a sad beginning. It is one of the most popular of his novels. Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9) is the tale of a boy who is left poor on his father’s death. He is sent to work in a school, Dotheboys Hall [= Do-The-Boys], where the master, Squeers, treats forty forty miserable pupils

cruelly , and teaches them nothing. Nicholas gives the reader a good deal of pleasure when he gives the criminal Squeers a good beating , and then escapes.

Dickens’s prose varies in quality, but he is nearly always readable. In his different novels he describes and attacks many kinds of unpleasant people and places. _ bad schoolmasters, government departments, bad prisons, dirty houses. His characters include thieves, murderers, men in debt, stupid and unwashed men and women, hungry children, and those who do their best to deceive the honest. Although many of his scenes are terribly unpleasant, he usually keeps the worst descriptions out of his books; therefore the reader does not throw the book into the fire, but continues to read. Some of his gentler characters are weak; some of the sad situations that he describes are too miserable to be true. He uses too much black paint. But he wanted to raise kindness and goodness in men’s hearts, and he uses tears and laughters to reach his aim. He probably brought some improvement in some conditions, but very often he failed to do so.

William Makepeace Thackeray studied and described the nobility instead of the poor. He followed in the steps of Fielding and Goldsmith. His best known book, Vanity Fair (1847-8) , describes the adventures of two girls of different sorts: Rebecca (Becky) Sharp, a clever, brave and poor girl without conscience; and Amelia Sedley, the gentle daughter of a rich Londoner. The title of the novel comes from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. The Newcomes (1853-5) is based on the life, love and marriage of Clive Newcome, the son of an honourable officer who loses all his money. Thackeray gives a good picture of English society in the 18th century. Thackeray was not a romantic, and he did not produce his characters for the purpose of expressing violent feelings. He could describe strange qualities in human beings, and he could also show life’s cruelties and people’s weakness. He wrote as an educated man.

Charlote Bronte’s finest novel, Jane Eyre (1847), also describes the life of a poor and unbeautiful girl who is brought up by a cruel aunt and sent to a miserable school. After that she goes to teach the daughter of Mr. Rochester at Thornfield Hall. Although she is not beautiful, Rochester falls in love with her; but when she discovers that his wife is still alive, she runs away. Later the Hall is burnt down and the mad wife is killed. In trying to save her, Rochester is blinded and loses all hope of happiness. On hearing of all this, Jane marries him and so is able to bring comfort into the remaining part of his life.The book was very successful , although the heroine was neither beautiful nor rich. It is an hones description of strong feelings at a time, when some feelings expressed in books were shallow. The power of the writing made it sell fast, and in a few months two more editions were printed. The dialogue is more realistic, like real life, and less formal than in many novels of the period. Here are a few lines of dialogue between Jane and Rochester which came near the end of the book. ( Jane’s use of “Sir” might be explained by that fact that she had been Rochester’s employee):

“Jane will you marry me?”“Yes, Sir.”“A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?”

“Yes, Sir.”“ A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait on?”“Yes, Sir.”“Truly Jane?”“Most truly, Sir.”“Oh! My darling! God bless you and reward you!”

Another, and less important, novel by the same writer is Shirley (1849), which is concerned with the wool industry, with riots, and the Napoleonic wars.

Charlotte’s sister, Emily Bronte, wrote one of the greatest of English novels, Wuthering Heights (1847). The passionate Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine Earnshaw, but he hears her say that she could never marry such a low sort of creature, and so he leaves the house. Three years later, when he returns, he finds that Catherine has married Edgar Linton, a man of weak character. Heathcliff then begins a life of cruelty and revenge. Catherine dies, and Heathcliff marries Edgar’s sister and treats her very badly. The novel has been compared to Shakespeare’s King Lear , chiefly because of its immense and uncontrollable passions. In the opinion of some critics, no woman could have written it !

Another woman novelist, known as George Elliot, writes calmer books than this. Her real name was Mary Ann Evans. Her first novel was Adam Bede (1859), which influenced by memories of her childhood. She showed at once that she could draw character and describe scenes with great skill, and that she had pity and humour. The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner ( 1861) followed, and then she wrote a historical novel about Florence, Romola (1863). Her finest novel is probably Middlemarch (1871-2) which is set in a provincial town where Dorothea Brooke, a girl of noble qualities marries old Mr. Casaubon; but the marriage is a failure.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson became Mrs. Gaskell on her marriage. She is often considered a one-novel writer because of the immense success of Cranford , a delicate picture of life in a village. Social problems a part. Her other novel is Mary Barton ( 1848), which shows deep feeling for the poor employed at that time in factories. Ruth (1853) is the sad story of a girl whose parents are dead. North and South (1854-5) is a study of the different lives led by English people, especially the poor in the north and the happier ones in the south.