Victorian Literature
(1830-1899)
Queen Victoria
Windsor
Castle
in
Modern Times: Queen
Victoria, Prince Albert
and Victoria, Princess
Royal
Sir Edwin Landseer
1841-1845
Scholarly Commentary
This painting exemplifies the
mid-Victorian attraction to
glossy images of domestic bliss.
This particular work exposes the
tension inherent in Victoria's
role as Queen, and the
conventional duties of wife and
mother in nineteenth-century
Britain.
Queen Victoria (1819 -1901)
• Born at Kensington Palace on May 24, 1819 – only child of
Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III
• Became queen at the age of 18 on the death of her uncle, William IV
• In 1840, married a German prince, Albert (Prince-consort). After he died in
1861, she sank into a deep depression and wore black every day for the
rest of her life. They had nine children
• She was graceful and self-assured. She also had a gift for drawing and
painting
• Throughout her reign, she maintained a sense of dignity and decorum that
restored the average person’s high opinion of the monarchy after a series
of horrible, ineffective leaders
•
January 22, 1901: She died after a reign of 64 years – longest in
British history
Queen Victoria (1819 -1901)
• Worked for the peace and prosperity of her country
• Was able to keep at bay any conflict over constitutional
matters
• Reigned constitutionally avoiding the storm of
revolutions
• Played a more active role
• Became a mediator above political parties
• Model for her people: exemplary family life, strictly
respectable and decent code of behaviour (Victorianism)
• Beloved especially by the middle class who shared her
moral and religious views
Queen Victoria (1819 -1901)
Queen Victoria (1819 -1901)
Prince Albert (Prince-Consort)
•
Son of Duke Ernest of Coburg,
Victoria’s maternal uncle – he and
Victoria were first cousins, born the
same year
•
Became Victoria’s closest advisor
• As chancellor of Cambridge, he
modernized the traditional classicsand-theology curriculum with science
and technology. Arranged for the
design and building of experimental
houses to better serve working class
families
Prince Albert (Prince-Consort)
• A serious patron of the arts, a
composer and a painter, an
architect and an educator
• Organized and oversaw the
Great Exhibition of 1851 -- the
first World's Fair.
• "Machinery, Science, and
Taste…are of no country, but
belong, as a whole, to the
civilized world."
Victorian Period
• Enormous changes occurred in political and social life
in England and the rest of the world
• The scientific and technical innovations of the
Industrial Revolution,
• The emergence of modern nationalism, and the
European colonization of much of Africa, the Middle
East, and the Far East changed most of Europe
• Far-reaching new ideas created the greatest
outpouring of literary production the world has ever
seen
Victorian Period
Historical Context : At Home
• Britain was a model of industrial success, individual
freedom and constitutional government
• Upper and industrial middle-classes believed in a policy of
“laissez-faire” i.e. non-interference with industry or with
national economy in order to promote free trade and free
competition (= Liberalism)
– triumph
of
industry
(steam
shipbuilding, trains, iron industry)
– scientific progress (electricity,
stamp+postal system, medicine)
engine,
steamboats,
telegraph,
gas-lighting,
Historical Context : At Home
Historical Context : At Home
Historical Context : At Home
Historical Context: Imperialism
• During the Victorian Age the British Empire reached its
largest extension: it was called “the Empire where the sun
never sets”
• British Imperial power was sustained by:
• Willingness to gain new territories
• Willingness to protect British trade routes and
interests against other nations;
• Firm belief in the excellence of English culture and
institutions
Historical Context: Imperialism
Historical Context: Imperialism
Historical Context: Imperialism
• During the Victorian age most British citizens believed in their right
to an empire and thought that imperial expansion would absorb
excess goods, capital and population
• By the mid-1800s, England was the largest exporter and importer of
goods in the world. It was the primary manufacturer of goods and
the wealthiest country in the world
• Because of England’s success, they felt it was their duty to bring
English values, laws, customs, and religion to the “savage” races
around the world. Colonial expansion was seen as a mission. It was
“the white man’s burden”.
• They were also extremely proud of their empire and of spreading
their civilisation and culture to every corner of the globe
(Jingoism=aggressive patriotism)
Historical Context: Imperialism
• But at the moment of its greatest power, Britain also
discovered that every conquered area or land had new
dangers to be controlled or stopped
• Britain found itself involved in a contradiction between its
imperial ambition and its liberal ideas
• This contradiction would lead to the collapse of the
British Empire in the 20th century.
Historical Context: Imperialism
1853-1880: Over 2 million Britons emigrated to settle in British
colonies – especially Canada and Australia
1839-42; 56-60: Opium Wars with China
1857: Parliament took over rule of India from East India Co.
and set up a civil service government
1867: Canadian provinces united into Dominion of Canada
1876: Victoria declared Empress of India
1880s: The Irish question – Home Rule
1899-1902: Boer War in South Africa
By 1890, the British Empire contained ¼ of the
earth’s territory, and ¼ of the earth’s population.
Historical Context: Imperialism
• England grew to become the
greatest nation on earth
• Empire included Canada, Australia,
New
Zealand,
Hong
Kong,
Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, and
India
• England built a very large navy and
merchant fleet (for trade and
colonization)
Historical Context: Important Events
1853 - 1880 Over 2 million Britons emigrated to settle in British
colonies – especially Canada and Australia
1839 - 1842 Opium War against China
1853 - 1856 Crimean War
1857 Indian Mutiny Parliament took over rule of India
from East India Co. and set up a civil service
government
1877 Queen Victoria was named “Empress of India”
1899 - 1902 Boers’ War
By 1890, the British Empire contained ¼ of the
earth’s territory, and ¼ of the earth’s population.
Socio-Cultural Context
• Urbanization
– Britain became a nation of town dwellers
• Extraordinary industrial development
– Overcrowding
– Poverty – appalling living conditions in slums
(squalor, disease, bad sanitation, crime, high death rate)
– Terrible working conditions
(polluted atmosphere, disatrous
especially on children)
effects
on
health
Socio-Cultural Context: The Great Stink
• This expression is
used to describe the
terrible smell in
London,
coming
from the Thames.
• The
“Miasmas”,
exhalations
from
decaying
matter,
poisoned the air.
Socio-Cultural Context: Poverty
• Poor families, with 4-5
children, lived in houses
with 2-3 rooms and without
a lavatory
• The houses of the rich had
water in the kitchen, gas
lighting, flushing toilets and
were decorated.
Socio-Cultural Context: The Clubs
• The clubs had their
origin in the coffee
houses, but they
contributed
to
increase
the
difference between
social classes.
• In fact, only people
belonging to high
classes could
be
members of a club.
Socio-Cultural Context
• Material progress + wealth emerge from hard work
• Appearance is very important
• Respectability = a mixture of both morality and hypocrisy,
severity and conformity to social standards
• Philanthropy = charitable activity addressed to every kind
of poverty
• Victorian family = a patriarchal unit where the husband
was dominant and the wife was the angel in the home
Socio-Cultural Context
• The fallen woman
• Patriotism
• Private life was separated
from public behaviour
• The Victorian Age was an
age of misery, because the
process of industrialization
had a high social cost
Socio-Cultural Context: Contrasts
• On one side, there was PROSPERITY and MATERIAL
SCIENTIFIC
PROGRESS,
ETHICAL
CONFORMISM,
MORALISM and PHILANTHROPY on the other side
POVERTY, UGLINESS, CORRUPTION, INJUSTICE, MONEY
and CAPITALISTIC GREEDINESS
• This aroused the concern of more and more theorists and
reformers who tried to improve living conditions at all
levels, including hospitals, schools and prisons.
• A Victorian Compromise
– A set code of moral values that explained the general tendency to
be excessively puritanical and to avoid taking definite positions
Socio-Cultural Context: Frame of Mind
• Contained a lot of contradictions caused among other
things by the influence of new philosophical trends,
religious movements, economic theories and scientific
discoveries of the period:
– Evangelicalism = good moral Christian conduct
– Utilitarianism = only what is useful is good, any problem could be
overcome through reason
– Evolutionism = theory of evolution of species governed by
natural selection and struggle for survival
– Determinism = theory which denies human freedom of action,
everything is strictly governed by cause and effect
Socio-Cultural Context: Frame of Mind
• A Victorian Compromise
– A set code of moral values that explained the general tendency to
be excessively puritanical and to avoid taking definite positions
• People tried to live up to a national spirit of earnestness,
respectability, modesty and domesticity.
• Common sense and moral propriety, which were ignored
by the Romanticists, again became the predominant
preoccupation in literary works.
Political Reforms
1832: The Reform Bill extended voting rights to all males
owning property worth £10 in annual rent – lower
middle classes
1838-48: Chartist Movement “People’s Charter” advocated
universal suffrage, secret ballots and legislative
reforms
1867: Second Reform Bill: extended right to vote to some
of working class
1870-1908: Married Women’s Property Acts – granted women
the right to own property –”women were legally
recognized as individuals in their own right for the
first time in history.”
Political Reforms
1834: Poor
Law-Amendment
applied a system of
workhouses for poor
people
1871: Trade Union Act-made it
legal for laborers to
organize to protect their
rights
Social Reforms
1846: Repeal of Corn Laws – elimination of tax on grains –
Free trade
1833-78: Factory Acts – restricted child labor, limited work hours,
required public education. Abolished slavery/Factory
Act-regulated child labor in factories
1834: Poor Law-Amendment applied a system of workhouses
for poor people
1857: Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act
1848: Establishment of first Women’s College in London. By
the end of Victoria’s reign, women could get degrees at
12 universities and study at Oxford and Cambridge
Technological Advancements
1830: Liverpool and Manchester RR – first public steam railway
in the world
• Steam ships
• Telegraph -- intercontinental cables
• Photography
• High speed printing
• Cast iron for building
• Anesthetics – Ether
• Others
Science
• All accredited geologists agreed that the earth was millions of
years old, that strata were layers from different times and that
Genesis was incompatible with the findings of modern geology
or irrelevant. Many discoveries about dinosaurs throughout
the 19th
• Astronomy: new planetary and cosmic discoveries
• Charles Darwin (1809-82) & Darwinism
• Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95): Huxley advocated broad
primary school instruction: reading, writing, arithmetic, art,
science, and music.
Religion
1829: Catholic Relief Act – granted Catholics the same political
rights as Protestants
1835: Jews are granted the right to vote
–
–
1857: Sir David Salomons elected Lord Mayor of London
1868: Benjamin Disraeli, a convert to Anglicanism, becomes
Prime Minister
• The Church of England
–
–
–
Low Church – evangelical, highly individual, abolitionists,
Puritanical (Christian Right )
Broad Church – open to modern advances in science,
emphasized inclusion ( Liberals )
High Church – emphasized tradition, ritual and authority – the
Oxford Movement – resistant to liberal ideas (Conservatives)
Religion
Evangelical Movement
It emphasized a Protestant faith in
personal salvation through Christ. This
movement swept through England. Led
to the creation of the Salvation Army
and YMCA.
Oxford Movement (Tractarians)
It sought to bring the official English
Anglican Church closer in rituals and
beliefs to Roman Catholicism
Philosophy/Ideology: Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
A philosopher who introduced two important
ideas
– Utilitarianism: the object of moral action
was to bring about the greatest good for
the greatest amount of people
– Liberalism: governments had the right to
restrict the actions of individuals only
when those actions harmed others, and
that society should use its collective
resources to provide for the basic welfare
of others. Also encouraged equal rights for
women
Philosophy/Ideology: Utilitarianism
• Philosophical Radicalism
• All humans seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
• Idea of Morality – that which provides the greatest pleasure to
the greatest number
• Religion – outmoded superstition
• Fails to provide for spiritual needs
• Attacked by:
–
–
–
–
Carlyle, Sartor, Resartus (1833-34)
Dickens, Hard Times (1854)
Ruskin, Unto This Last (1860)
John Stuart Mill, Autobiography ( 1873)
Philosophy/Ideology: Marxism
• Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and
method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a
materialist interpretation of history, and an analysis and
critique of the development of capitalism. “A theory in which
class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social
change in Western societies.”
• Friedrich Engels
– 1844: The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
– 1884: The Origin of the Family Private Property and the State
• Karl Marx
– 1867-94: Das Kapital
– 1848: Co-authored The Communist Manifesto
Philosophy/Ideology: Others
Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
Showed that geological features on Earth had
developed continuously and slowly over
immense periods of time
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
He established that all species of life have
descended over time from common ancestry,
and proposed the scientific theory that this
branching pattern of evolution resulted from
a process that he called natural selection.
Philosophy/Ideology: Others
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
Applied Darwinism to human society: as in
nature, survival properly belongs to the
fittest, those most able to survive. Social
Darwinism was used by many Victorians to
justify social inequalities based on race, social
or economic class, or gender
Important Aspects of The Victorian Age
• Industrial Revolution: The Industrial Revolution started with
the introduction of capitalism.
• Scientific & Technological Advancement: Introduction of steam
hammers, locomotives, Darwinism etc.
• Economic Progress: Britain was the first economical power in
the world till 1901, as the USA became the leader, but it
remained the first in manufacturing.
Victorian Literature
• Victorian literature roughly coincides with the reign of Queen
Victoria from 1836 to 1901. The period has been regarded as
one of the most glorious in English History.
• Literature produced during this period reflects the “spirit of
the times”:
• The summit of Victorian literature is realistic novel. Victorian
literature (especially novels) offered a realistic, day-to-day
portrayal of social life and represented these issues in the
stories of the characters. The representative writers include:
Dickens, Thackeray, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, and
Thomas Hardy.
Victorian Literature
• The novel became the dominant form of literature. They were
commonly read aloud in family gatherings. This led to
novelists avoiding some topics which would be inappropriate
for the entire family.
• Readers wanted to be guided and enlightened by authors.
• Much of Victorian literature has a positive, eager or earnest
response to the innovations of life in the 19th century
• Expansion of newspapers and periodicals led to ongoing
debates about current political and social issues.
Victorian Literature
• Puritan morality of the early and mid Victorian period was
reflected in the novels. In Victorian novels the society’s effects
on individual are analyzed.
• The once-silent female segment of society raised their voices.
They could even appear onstage, acting in dramas (a privilege
denied to them prior to this time).
• Typical middle-class families read together in the evenings
– wives or daughters read aloud to the rest of the household
• Magazines containing serialized novels and poems
• General literacy meant there was an enormous amount of
printed material produced during the period
– 97 percent of both sexes able to read by 1900
Victorian Literature
• The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian
literature with an interest in both classical literature but also
the medieval literature of England.
• The Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of
old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly
behaviour and impress it upon the people both at home and in
the wider empire.
• The best example of this is Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King
which blended the stories of King Arthur, particularly those by
Thomas Malory, with contemporary concerns and ideas.
Victorian Literature
• Victorian novels tend to be idealized portraits of difficult lives
in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the
end; virtue would be rewarded and wrongdoers are suitably
punished. They tended to be of an improving nature with a
central moral lesson at heart. While this formula was the basis
for much of earlier Victorian fiction, the situation became
more complex as the century progressed.
• On the other hand, moralizing often led to hypocrisy, oversentimentality and false religiousness. Many authors rebelled
against and mocked Victorianism.
• An age of violent contrasts, in literature as in life.
Victorian Literature
Illustrations
• Helped unpracticed readers to follow the story.
– 1875 wood engravings gave way to photogravure
– 1880s photographs to replace hand-drawn works
• Colored illustrations
– hand-tinted at first, often by poor women and children working at home
– chromolithography soon made colored reproductions of artwork possible.
• British publishing
–
–
–
–
gradually transformed itself into a modern industry
worldwide distribution and influence.
Copies of The Times circulated in uncharted Africa
illustrations torn from magazines adorned bushmen's huts
Victorian Literature
Readers' tastes varied according to:
– Class
– Income
– Education.
Upper-class
– The well-educated but unintellectual
– Small portion of the Victorian reading public.
Working-class
–
–
–
–
Literacy rates far below the general standard
Increased as working hours diminished
Housing improved
Number of public libraries increased
Victorian Literature: A Cheap Fix for Working Class
The appetite for cheap literature steadily grew
• religious tracts
• self-help manuals
• reprints of classics
• newspapers
• sensational entertainment:
– Penny Dreadfuls & Shilling Shockers
• Varney the Vampire
• serials,
• bawdy ballads
• police reports of lurid crimes
Victorian Literature: The Middle Class
• Largest audience for new
prose and poetry
• Produced the authors to
meet an increasing demand
for books:
– Edify
– Instruct
– Entertain
Victorian Literature: The Middle Class
• Major authors:
–
–
–
–
Dickens
Brontes
George Eliot
Thomas Hardy
• Considered a “woman’s genre”
– Female protagonists
– Large female audience
• Most novels serialized
Victorian Literature: Serialisation
• 1860s most novels were serialized in
weekly or monthly magazines
• This allowed the author to alter the
shape of his narrative based on
public
response
to
earlier
installments.
• Later changed to Three volume
works
• Publishers and libraries required
authors to produce "three deckers”,
– "long novels packaged in three separate
volumes that tripled rental fees
Victorian Literature: Serialisation
• English novel
– Most popular form
– New books, especially fiction, were still a
luxury
– Publishers inflated prices
• readers would rent novels and narrative
poems
• commercial circulating libraries
• larger and steadier income than
individual sales
• Also popular:
– Poetry
– Serious nonfiction
Victorian Literature: Literary Responsibility
• Close relationship authors shared
with their public had its drawbacks:
– Writers had to censor their content
– Meet the prim standards of
"circulating library morality."
– Any hint of impropriety was
aggressively
ferreted
out
by
publishers and libraries.
– Even revered poets such as Tennyson
and
Barrett
Browning
found
themselves edited by squeamish
publishers.
Victorian Literature: Themes
• Social unrest
– Corruption in government
– Economy
– Significant changes in society
• Realism
– Details
– Average person
• Sublimity
– “Perfection”
– Admiration
– Gender
Victorian Literature: Themes
• Social status
– Overall importance
– Appearance
• Pathetic Fallacy
– Often related to personification
– Artistically suggests emotion
• Judgment
– Judgment by Others
– Narrator’s Judgment
– Author’s Judgment
The Victorian Novel
• Victorian novels seek to represent a large and comprehensive
social world, with a variety of classes.
• Victorian novels are realistic, their major theme is the place of
the individual in society, the aspiration of the hero or heroine
for love or social position.
• The protagonist’s search for fulfillment is emblematic of the
human condition.
• For the first time, women were major writers: the Brontës,
Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot.
• The Victorian novel was a principal form of entertainment.
The Victorian Novel
• Most were concerned with people in society and with
manners, morals and money.
• Typically a protagonist struggles to find him or herself in
relation with other men and women, in love or marriage, with
family or neighbors, or with work associates.
• Most novels were set in 19th century England, a world that
would be recognizable to the reader.
• Many novels were published in installments. This challenged
the writer to sustain the interest of the readers. In every single
installment they had to entertain.
The Victorian Novel: Features
• The narrator is obtrusive and omniscient:
–
–
–
–
He provides his comments on the plot and he establishes
A rigid barrier between what is right or wrong (judge);
Retribution and punishment usually appear in the final
Chapter where all the events, adventures, incidents are explained and
justified.
• Didactic aim
• Linearity (stories have a beginning, a middle, an end)
• Long complicated plots and sub-plots
The Victorian Novel: Features
• Urban setting: the city was the most common setting the main
symbol of industrial civilisation as well the expression of
anonymous lives and lost identities
• Precise creation of characters and deep analysis of characters’
inner lives (psychology)
• Most popular genre = Bildulgsroman (novel of formation)
• Main themes: money, wealth, realistic portrait of society
denouncing its injustices and iniquities
The Victorian Novel: Forms or Types
From a structural point of view we can divide Victorian Novels
mainly into three groups:
– Early-Victorian Novel (social-problem novel) dealt with social and
humanitarian themes, realism, criticism of social evils but faith in
progress, general optimism. Charles Dickens
– Mid-Victorian Novel (novel of purpose) showing Romantic and
Gothic elements and a psychological interest. The Brontë sisters and
R. L. Stevenson
– Late-Victorian Novel (naturalistic novel) showing a scientific look
at human life, objectivity of observation, dissatisfaction with
Victorian values. Thomas Hardy & Oscar Wilde
The Victorian Novel: Forms or Types
Other minor forms of novel developed
in this period:
– Novel of Manners
• Focusing on economic problems of a
particular class (W. Thackeray)
– Colonialist Fiction
• Presenting an exaltation of British
imperialistic power (R. Kipling)
– Nonsense Literature
• Dealing with fantastic adventures (L.
Carroll)
The Victorian Novel
• Realism – capturing everyday life as it really is lived; identified
social problems: Charles Dickens, William M. Thackeray,
Charlotte Brontë, & Emily Brontë.
• Psychological Realism – focused on inner realities of the mind:
George Eliot’s.
• Naturalism – views nature and society as forces indifferent to
human suffering. E.g. Thomas Hardy
The Victorian Novel: Realism
• Renders reality closely and in comprehensive detail.
• Characters appear in their real complexity of temperament
and motive; They are in explicable relation to nature, to each
other, to their social class, to their own past.
• Character is more important than action and plot; Complex
ethical choices are often the subject.
• Events will usually be plausible. Realistic novels avoid the
sensational, dramatic elements of naturalistic novels and
romances.
The Victorian Novel: Realism
• The attempt to produce in art and literature an accurate
portrayal of reality
• Realistic, detailed descriptions of everyday life, and of its
darker aspects, appealed to many readers disillusioned by the
“progress” going on around them.
• Themes in Realist writing included families, religion, and social
reform
• Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis on
verisimilitude, even at the expense of a well-made plot.
• Class is important; The novel has traditionally served the
interests and aspirations of an insurgent middle class.
The Victorian Novel: Critical Realism
• Diction is natural vernacular, not heightened or poetic; Tone
may be comic, satiric, or matter-of-fact.
• Objectivity in presentation becomes increasingly important:
overt authorial comments or intrusions diminish as the
century progresses.
• The critical realists described with much vividness and artistic
skill the chief trait of the English society, and they criticized the
capitalist system from a democratic viewpoint and delineated
the crying contradictions of the social reality of that time.
• The English critical realists of the 19th century not only gave a
satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes,
but also showed profound sympathy for the common people.
The Victorian Novel: Psychological Realism
• A work of prose fiction which places more than the usual
amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the
motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs
from, and develops, external action.
• The psychological novel is not content to state what happens
but goes on to explain the motivation of this action.
• In this type of writing character and characterization are more
than usually important, and they often delve deeper into the
mind of a character than novels of other genres.
The Victorian Novel: Psychological Realism
• In some cases, the stream of consciousness technique, as well
as interior monologues, may be employed to better illustrate
the inner workings of the human mind at work. Flashbacks
may also be featured.
• While these three textual techniques are also prevalent in
"modernism," there is no deliberate effort to fragment the
prose or compel the reader to interpret the text.
The Victorian Novel: Naturalism
• Based on the philosophical theory that
actions and events are the results not of
human intentions, but of largely
uncontrollable external forces
• Authors chose subjects and themes
common to the lower and middle classes
• Attentive to details, striving for accuracy
and authenticity in their descriptions
• Characters’ lives are governed by scientific
determinism,
i.e.,
heredity
and
environment.
The Victorian Novel: Naturalism
• To show this determinism, naturalists often
create weak and passive characters. The
naturalistic trap.
• Sex and violence are bed partners; sex is
brutish, without tenderness. Violence
dominates the lives of the naturalistic
character. The beast in man. The chronicle
of decline.
• Zola showed writers how to document the
determinism.
Émile François Zola
The Victorian Writers: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
• The last and one of the greatest of
Victorian novelists
• He was also a great poet at the turn
of the twentieth century.
• His best local-colored works:
–
–
–
–
–
The Return of the Native
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Jude the Obscure
Far From the Madding Crowd
Hardy’s Writing: Character & Environment
• Hardy is a meditative story-teller or romancer, as well as a
great painter of nature. Naturalism has played an important
part in Hardy’s works.
• His heroes and heroines are all vividly and realistically
depicted. Hardy's characters have a fascinating ambiguity:
they are victimized by a stern moral code, but they are also
selfish and weak-willed creatures who bring on much of their
own difficulties through their own vacillations and submissions
to impulse.
• All works of Hardy are noted for the rustic dialect and a poetic
flavor which fits well into their perfectly designed architectural
structures.
Hardy’s Writing: Character & Environment
• Hardy’s novels are all Victorian in date. Most of them are set in
Wessex, a fictional primitive and crude rural region which is
Hardy’s home town he both loves and hates.
• These works, known as “novels of character and
environment”, are the most representative works by Hardy.
• Hardy believes in fate. He attributes the tragic end of his hero
or heroine to bad fortune. Therefore, he is considered to be a
naturalistic writer.
Hardy’s Writing: Character & Environment
• His pessimistic philosophy seems to show that mankind is
subjected to the rule of some hostile and mysterious fate,
which brings misfortune to human life.
• The outside nature is shown as mysterious supernatural force,
uncaring to the individual’s will, hopes, passion, or suffering. It
likes to play practical jokes upon human beings by producing a
series of mistimed actions and unfortunate coincidences.
• Man proves impotent before Fate, however he tries, and he
seldom escapes his ordained destiny.
• Though naturalism plays a part in Hardy’s novels, there is also
bitter and sharp criticism of the hypocritical and unfair
Victorian institutions, conventions and moral values.
Hardy’s Writing: Character & Environment
• His pessimistic philosophy seems to show that mankind is
subjected to the rule of some hostile and mysterious fate,
which brings misfortune to human life.
• The outside nature is shown as mysterious supernatural force,
uncaring to the individual’s will, hopes, passion, or suffering. It
likes to play practical jokes upon human beings by producing a
series of mistimed actions and unfortunate coincidences.
• Man proves impotent before Fate, however he tries, and he
seldom escapes his ordained destiny.
The Victorian Writers: George Eliot (1819-1880)
• The pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans,
born in Warwickshire, England in
1819
• Called
“the
embodiment
of
philosophy in fiction” by Oscar Wilde
–
–
–
–
–
Adam Bede (1859)
The Mill on the Floss (1860)
Silas Marner (1861)
Middlemarch ()
Daniel Deronda (1876).
The Victorian Writers: George Eliot (1819-1880)
• Writing at the latter half of the nineteenth century and
closely following the critical realist writers, George Eliot
was working at something new.
• By joining the worlds of inward propensity and outward
circumstances and showing them both operating in the
lives of her characters, she initiates a new type of realism
and sets into motion a variety of developments, leading
in the direction of both the naturalistic and psychological
novel.
The Victorian Writers: George Eliot (1819-1880)
• As a woman of exceptional intelligence
and life experience, George Eliot shows a
particular concern for the destiny of
women, especially those with great
intelligence,
potential
and
social
aspirations.
The Victorian Writers: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
• Without doubt the most popular
of Victorian writers was Charles
Dickens.
• His
combination
of
sentimentality and his attacks on
the social evils of the day made
him highly successful.
• He is concerned with the
problems of crime and poverty
and the life of the lower class.
The Victorian Writers: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
• Charles Dickens is one of the greatest critical
realistic writers of the Victorian age.
• He sets out a full map and a large scale
criticism of the nineteenth century England,
especially London. In his early novels, he
attacks one or more specific social evils.
• For example, the dark, criminal world in
Oliver Twist; the cruel school discipline in
Nicholas Nickleby; the debtor’s prison in
David Copperfield; legal fraud in Pickwick
Papers.
• In his later works, he begins to attack the
whole capitalist system.
The Victorian Writers: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
• Charles Dickens is a great master of story-telling. His humor
and wit seem inexhaustible. Character portrayal is the most
distinguishing feature of his works.
• He is a master of the grotesque (unsuitable, odd, ridiculous,
incongruous); his characters are really exaggerations of one
human quality to the point of caricature (Mr. Micawber –
optimism personified; Uriah Heep - creeping hypocrisy).
• Dickens’ works are also characterized by a mingling of humor
and pathos. He seems to believe that life is itself a mixture of
joy and grief.
• Faults: unconvincing plots; clumsy, ungrammatical sentences;
sentimentality.
The Victorian Writers: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
• His world is a kind of a nightmare London of
chop-houses (restaurants serving meat),
prison, lawyers’ offices, and taverns, dark,
foggy and cold but very much alive.
• His novels are animated by a sense of
injustice and personal wrong; he is concerned
with the problems of crime and poverty, but
he does not seem to believe that things can
be improved by legislation or reform
movements – everything depends on the
individual,
particularly
a
wealthy
philanthropist. Compassion to the weak,
oppressed and abused.
The Victorian Writers: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
• Oliver Twist – concentrates on social conditions; social evils:
the poor, the life of poor children and the life of London’s
petty criminals. Compassion of the author who condemns
the cruelty and insensitivity of one class to the other.
• A Christmas Carol – the miser Scrooge miraculously
transforms into a philanthropist. Christmas symbolizes the
only way in which the world can be improved – by the
exercise of charity.
• David Copperfield – autobiographical
• Hard Times – the problems of developing industrial cities in
the north; a critique of utilitarianism – only material things
are good and needed
The Victorian Writers: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
• It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the
age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch
of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of
hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before
us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to
Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the
period was so far like the present period, that some of its
noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or
for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
- A Tale of Two Cities
The Victorian Writers: W. M. Thackeray (1811-1863)
• Thackeray is one of the greatest
critical realists of the 19th century
Europe .
• He paints life as he has seen it . with
his precise and thorough observation ,
rich knowledge of social life and of
the human heart , the pictures in his
novels are accurate and true to life .
• Thackeray is a satirist . His satire is
caustic and his humor subtle.
The Victorian Writers: W. M. Thackeray (1811-1863)
• Besides being a realist and satirist,
Thackeray is a moralist. His aim is to
produce a moral impression in all his
novels.
• English journalist, novelist, famous for
his novel Vanity Fair.
• William Thackeray wrote of the upper
classes.
"This I set as a positive truth. A woman
with fair opportunities, and without a
positive hump, may marry whom she
likes.“
The Victorian Writers: W. M. Thackeray (1811-1863)
• As opposed to Dickens, who wrote of low life and was a warmblooded romantic, Thackeray wrote of upper life and was an
anti-romantic.
• His most read work Vanity Fair tells of the career of two girls
with sharply contrasted characters – Becky Sharp,
unscrupulous and clever; Amelia Sedley, pretty, moral but
unintelligent – and draws clever portraits of officers and
gentlemen of the time of Waterloo
• He saw himself as a realist, without Dickens’ romantic
exaggerations and sentimentality; criticized society but
without the wish or the method to improve it; read much less
than Dickens today; mostly remembered for Vanity Fair, and
his unscrupulous but charming protagonist Becky Sharp.
The Victorian Writers: The Bronte Sisters
• Wanting their works to be judged for
their literary merit, Anne, Charlotte,
and Emily published their novels under
names which were not obviously
masculine, Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell.
• Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey
were accepted for publication before
Charlotte had finished writing Jane
Eyre.
• However, their publisher delayed
bringing their novels out so that Jane
Eyre was published first. It became a
best seller.
The Victorian Writers: The Bronte Sisters
• In an effort to cash in on the success
of Jane Eyre, he implied that
Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey
were written by "the author of Jane
Eyre – to the distress of all three
sisters.
• The pseudonyms they had adopted
unintentionally contributed to his
deception.
The Victorian Writers: The Bronte Sisters
• Preserving their male identities was
so important to the Brontë sisters
that Charlotte maintained that
identity even in writing to her
publishers.
• In order to prove to Charlotte's
publishers that Acton, Currer, and
Ellis Bell were not one person,
Charlotte and Anne met with them
in London; during the interview,
Charlotte inadvertently revealed
that they were three sisters.
The Victorian Writers: The Bronte Sisters
• A picture of Victorian society from a woman’s point of view;
Victorian picture of a woman as “an angel in the house”.
• Modern – in a sense that female protagonists try to make their
living by their intelligence and perseverance, not through
marriage; those that do, bitterly regret it – Catherine in
Wuthering Heights. “Nature vs. culture”.
• Psychological portraits of characters – not idealized. Gothic
Romanticism - violence, passion, the supernatural, heightened
emotion and emotional distance, an unusual mix for any novel
but particularly at this time. Examining class, myth, and gender.
Victorian Poetry
• Victorian poetry developed in the
context of the novel. Poets sought
new ways of telling stories in verse.
• All poets show the strong influence of
the Romantics, but cannot sustain the
confidence the Romantics felt in the
power of the imagination.
• Victorian poets often rewrite
Romantic poems with a sense of
belatedness.
• Passion is more tempered, more
“grown-up”
Victorian Poetry
• Dramatic monologue – the idea of creating
a lyric poem in the voice of a speaker
ironically distinct from the poet is the great
achievement of Victorian poetry.
• Perfection of the dramatic persona, in
which the author speaks to the reader in
another’s voice
• Sought to represent psychology in new
ways.
Victorian Poetry
• The Victorian age also produced two great English poets:
Browning & Tennyson.
• Their poetry was characterized by experiments with new styles
and new ways of expression. Browning has paved the way for
modern English poetry in the twentieth century.
• The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian
literature with an interest in both classical literature but also
the medieval literature of England. The Victorians loved the
heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to
regain some of that noble, courtly behaviour and impress it
upon the people both at home and in the wider empire. The
best example of this is Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King
which blended the stories of King Arthur, particularly those by
Thomas Malory, with contemporary concerns and ideas.
Victorian Poetry: Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
• Tennyson was born in 1809 at Somersby,
Lincolnshire. In 1827, he and his elder
brother published Poems by Two
Brothers.
• Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate
in 1850.
• Tennyson used a wide range of subject
matter, ranging from medieval legends
(Arthurian, e.g. The Lady of Shalot) to
classical myths (The Lotus Eaters,
Ulysses) and from domestic situations to
observations of nature, as source
material for his poetry.
Victorian Poetry: Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
• Tennyson’s most noted poems include: In Memoriam, Maud,
Idylls of the King, Ulysses, and Break, Break, Break.
• Tennyson is the most representative poet of Victorian age. He
has perfect control of the sound of English.
• His works are not only the products of the creative
imagination of a poetic genius but also products of a long and
rich English heritage.
• Although the influence of John Keats and other Romantic
poets published before and during his childhood is evident
from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing, he
was severely criticized by Imagist poets in the early twentieth
century for his affectation and wordiness.
Victorian Poetry: Robert Browning (1812-1889)
• Browning was born into a wealthy family so
that he can dedicate himself to poetry
writing without worrying about money.
• Before dedicating himself to poetry,
Browning tried play writing, which
equipped him with a unique poetic form--dramatic dialogue.
• In 1846 he married Elizabeth Browning, a
famous poetess who was semi-invalid and
had been confined home for many years.
• Their love story is very famous in literary
history.
Victorian Poetry: Robert Browning (1812-1889)
• Browning’s greatest contribution to
English poetry is his “dramatic
dialogue”. In his most famous poems,
Browning chooses a dramatic moment
or a crisis, in which his characters are
made to talk about their lives, and
about their minds and hearts.
• In “listening” to those one sided talks,
readers can form their own opinions
and judgments about the speaker’s
personality and about what he has
really happened.
Victorian Poetry: Robert Browning (1812-1889)
• Browning’s poetic style belongs to the twentieth century
rather than to the Victorian age. His poems are not meant to
entertain the readers with the usual acoustic and visual
pleasures. They are supposed to keep them alert, thoughtful
and enlightenment.
• They did not reflect much the ideas of his time. He found
themes for his poetry in his travels and his studies.
• His most famous books include: Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic
Romances and Lyrics, Bells and Pomegranates, Men and
Women, The Ring and the Book, Dramatic Idylls, and Dramatic
Personae.
Victorian Poetry: Robert Browning (1812-1889)
• He chooses some of the most debased, extreme and even
criminally psychotic characters for the challenge of building a
sympathetic case for a character who doesn't deserve one and
to cause the reader to squirm at the temptation to acquit a
character who may be a homicidal psychopath.
• One of his more sensational dramatic monologues is
Porphyria's Lover. The opening lines provide a sinister setting
for the macabre events that follow. It is plain that the speaker
is insane, as he strangles his lover with her own hair to try and
preserve for ever the moment of perfect love she has shown
him.
• Other famous dramatic monologues are: Fra Lippo Lippi,
Andrea del Sarto, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, My Last Duchess.
Victorian Poetry: Other Poets
•
•
•
•
Elizabeth Barret Browning
Matthew Arnold
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Christina Rossetti
Victorian Drama
• In drama, farces, musical burlesques and comic operas
competed with Shakespeare productions and serious drama.
The famous series of comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan and
were followed by the 1890s with the first Edwardian musical
comedies.
• Oscar Wilde became the leading poet and dramatist of the late
Victorian period. Wilde's plays, (The Importance of Being
Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan) in particular, stand apart
from the many now forgotten plays of Victorian times and
have a much closer relationship to those of the Edwardian
dramatists such as George Bernard Shaw, many of whose most
important works were written in the 20th century.
Victorian Drama
• The theater was a flourishing and popular institution during
the Victorian period.
• The popularity of theater influenced other genres.
• Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde transformed British theater
with their comic masterpieces.
• More prominent in the “late” (1871-1901) period
• European drama is very heavy and serious
– Chekhov
– Ibsen
• English drama is lighter
– Gilbert & Sullivan
– Oscar Wilde
Victorian Drama
• The abuses of the past came under closer scrutiny
– Literature becomes the vehicle that helps to reform social inequalities.
• Period was a time of sustained peace
– Domestic issues could be addressed
Victorian Drama: Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
• Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland and
educated at Trinity College, Dublin and at
Magdalen College, Oxford.
• At Oxford he came under the influence of
aestheticism. He advocated “art for art’s
sake” in literature.
• Wilde was a great Victorian playwright. He
was also famous for his children’s book The
Happy Prince and other Stories.
• He wrote only one novel: The Picture of
Dorian Gray. For the single unique novel, he
should be listed as one of the greatest
Victorian novelists.
Victorian Drama: Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray – hedonism as the
way of life.
– The beautiful Dorian Gray wishes that he should
remain eternally young and handsome while his
picture, painted in the finest flush of his beauty,
should grow old in his stead. The wish is granted:
Dorian remains ever-young, but his portrait shows
signs of ever-increasing age and, moreover, the
scars of the crimes attendant on asking too much
(a murder, the ruining of many women, unnamable
debauchery). Dorian, repentant, tries to destroy his
portrait, symbolically quelling his sins, but –
magically – it is he himself who dies, monstrous
with age and ugliness, and his portrait that reverts
to its former perfection of youthful beauty.