Victorian Novels
Social Background
England was the “workshop of the world.”
Widespread poverty and wretchedness among
the working class.
People were trying 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.
Victorian Literature
Literature produced during this period reflects the “spirit
of the times”:
Expansion of newspapers and periodicals led to
ongoing debates about current political and social
issues.
Victorian literature (especially novels) offered a realistic,
day-to-day portrayal of social life and represented these
issues in the stories of the characters.
Suddenly, 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).
Victorian Literature
Chronologically the Victorian period roughly coincides
with the reign of Queen Victoria over England from
1836 to 1901.
In literature, the early Victorian age can be said to be
the age of critical realism. The critical realism of the
19th century flourished in the forties and in the early
fifties.
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 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.
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.
The 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.
Victorian Literature
The novel became the dominant form of literature
Novels 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
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.
Victorian Novels
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.
Aspects of Victorian Novels
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.
Novel of 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.
Novel of Realism II
Class is important; The novel has traditionally
served the interests and aspirations of an insurgent
middle class.
Selective presentation of reality with an emphasis
on verisimilitude, even at the expense of a wellmade plot.
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.
Critical Realism
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.
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.
William Makepeace Thackeray
(1811-1863)
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 Brontë sisters
Charlotte (1816-1855):
Jane Eyre
Emily (1818-1848):
Wuthering Heights
Anne: Agnes Grey
The Sisters & their Identities
Wutheirng 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.
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 Sisters & their Identities
Wanting their works to be judged for their literary merit
and not on their sex, Anne, Charlotte, and Emily
published their novels under names which were not
obviously masculine, Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell.
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.
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte wrote three other books,
Shirley, Villette,and The Professor.In
1854 Charlotte married.But she died
in the following year after a lengthily
painful illness.
Charlotte Bronte published Jane Eyre
under the pen name Currer Bell, in
London in 1847.
Bildungsroman
A novel of formation or a coming-of-age story --- the
story of a child’s maturation and focuses on the
emotions and experiences that accompany and incite
his or her growth to adulthood.
Such a novel takes the reader through a character's
young adulthood as she defines her identity against
forces of opposition.
Emily Bronte (1818 - 1848)
On July 30, 1818, Emily Bronte
was born in Thornton, Yorkshire.
Most accounts portray Emily as
the brightest, most intense, and
most difficult of the three sisters.
Her "powerful and peculiar"
character, said Charlotte, inspired
"an anguish of wonder and love."
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).
Naturalism
Characters’ lives are governed by scientific determinism,
i.e., heredity and environment.
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.
Thomas Hardy
The last and one of the
greatest of Victorian
novelists
His best local-colored works:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The Return of the Native
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Jude the Obscure
(1840-1928)
Characteristics of Hardy’s Writing
1)
2)
3)
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.
Novels of 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.
Literary Criticism
Tess of the d’Urvervilles
Editors forced Hardy to rewrite parts of it
Well received, but heavily criticized
Jude the Obscure
Harsh criticism- considered blasphemous
Critic G.K. Chesterton wrote that Hardy “became a
sort of village atheist brooding and blaspheming over
the village idiot”
Because of the criticism, Hardy was “cured” of his
desire to write novels, and returned to poetry
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Pure
Woman
It came into conflict with Victorian
morality. It explored the dark side
of his family connections in
Berkshire.
The tragic story of a woman
wronged by two men and by the
harsh, repressive society in which
she lives.
Hardy's most striking and tragic
heroine, Tess is a woman of
intense vitality and innate
goodness, and the author's
favorite character.
Tess
Tess, a poor peasant girl, is seduced by Alec. Then she
meets Angel Clare who falls in love with marries her.
On their wedding night They tell each other about their
past, hoping to be forgiven by each other. But after
hearing Tess’s confession, Clare leaves her abruptly for
Brazil.
Poverty forces Tess to seek for work at a farm where
she is insulted by the master. Her father’s death and the
poverty of her family drive her to seek for assistance
from Alec.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Pure
Woman
Alec soon resumes his former illicit relations
with her. Tess can do nothing but obey.
Angel Clare returns repentant and ready to be
reconciled to Tess, but Tess finds that her living
with Alec hinders her from returning to Clare. She
kills Alec in hatred and despair and then is quickly
arrested, tried and hanged.
The Transformation of the English Novel:
1890-1930
The novels of Hardy, Lawrence, Conrad, Joyce, Forster
and Woolf represent a radical break from the past.
The great change in major British fiction from the
realistic to the expressionist novel begins roughly in
1895, the year of Hardy’s last novel, Jude the Obscure,
and reaches a climax with Woolf’s major novels, Mrs.
Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927).
Influenced by English romanticism, developments in
modern art, and a changing intellectual milieu that
questioned the possibilities of universal values or
objective truth, these novelists erased the
boundaries between art and life.
They no longer believed that they could or should
recreate the real world in their art and they
questioned the assumption that verisimilitude was
the most important aesthetic value. They realized
that each man perceived a different reality.
According to traditional writing techniques developed
before the 20th century, a piece of narrative works
should tell a vivid, interesting story and portray one or
more characters who have distinct traits and who are
often involved in certain kind of psychological or social
conflicts which, with the development of the plots, will in
the end come to certain solution.
This kind of notion, however, was fiercely attacked since
the end of 19th century. Since then the concept of
narrative literature and its writing techniques have
undergone profound changes.
Stylistic Innovations of
Modernist Novels
Reality as understood by traditional writers was merely
the mortal beings and natural objects in the material
world. Thus the task of the traditional writers was to
reflect and imitate this exterior world.
Modern short story writers, however, turn to explore and
delve into man’s interior world. Instead of looking at the
stern reality from the angles of money, class status,
social desire, or other material desires, they tend to be
preoccupied by the sub-consciousness of the mind; they
pay more attention to human beings’ experience, feeling,
and introspection.