The Victorian Period

The Victorian period of literature roughly coincides with the years that Queen Victoria ruled Great
Britain and its Empire (1837-1901). During this era, Britain was transformed from a predominantly rural,
agricultural society into an urban, industrial one. New technologies like railroads and the steam printing
press united Britons both physically and intellectually. Although now the period is popularly known as a
time of prim, conservative moral values, the Victorians perceived their world as rapidly changing.
Religious faith was splintering into evangelical and even atheist beliefs. The working class, women, and
people of color were agitating for the right to vote and rule themselves. Reformers fought for safe
workplaces, sanitary reforms, and universal education. Victorian literature reflects these values,
debates, and cultural concerns. Victorian literature differs from that of the eighteenth century and
Romantic period most significantly because it was not aimed at a specialist or elite audience; rather,
because the steam printing press made the production of texts much cheaper and because railroads
could distribute texts quickly and easily, the Victorian period was a time when new genres appealed to
newly mass audiences.

Reference:

Adams, James Eli. A History of Victorian Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2012.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Victorian Age. Ed. Carol T. Christ and Catherine Robson.
New York: Norton, 2006.

MAJOR WRITERS

Prose (fictional)

1. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) also produced major works during this period, most notably Adam
Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–1872), and Daniel
Deronda (1876). Like the Brontës she published under a masculine pseudonym.

2. Thomas Hardy's best-known novels are Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of
Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Renowned for his
cynical yet idyllic portrayal of pastoral life in the English countryside, Hardy's work pushed back against
widespread urbanization that came to symbolize the Victorian age.

POETRY

Robert Browning (1812–1889) and Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) were notable poets in Victorian
England.[9] Thomas Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, but did not publish a collection until 1898.
[13] The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was published posthumously in 1918. Algernon
Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) is also considered an important literary figure of the period, especially
his poems and critical writings. Early poetry of W. B. Yeats was also published in Victoria's reign. It was
not until the last decades of the 19th century that any significant theatrical works were produced,
beginning with Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas of the 1870s, George Bernard Shaw's (1856–1950)
plays of the 1890s, and Oscar Wilde's (1854–1900) The Importance of Being Earnest.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning became acquainted first by reading each other's poetry
and both produced poems inspired by their relationship. Both Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley
Hopkins wrote poems that sit somewhere in between the exultation of nature of the romantic Poetry
and the Georgian Poetry of the early 20th century. However, Hopkins's poetry was not published until
1918. Arnold's works anticipate some of the themes of these later poets, while Hopkins drew inspiration
from verse forms of Old English poetry such as Beowulf.

The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian literature with an interest in both classical
literature and also medieval literature of England. This movement can be traced back to Letitia Elizabeth
Landon and her poetry collections. Victorians loved chivalrous stories of knights of old; they hoped to
regain some of that courtly behavior for readers 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. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also drew on
myth and folklore for their art, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti contemporaneously regarded as the chief
poet amongst them, although his sister Christina is now held by scholars[citation needed] to be a
stronger poet.

DRAMA

In drama, farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas and comic operas competed with Shakespeare
productions and serious drama by the likes of James Planché and Thomas William Robertson. In 1855,
the German Reed Entertainments began a process of elevating the level of (formerly risqué) musical
theatre in Britain that culminated in the famous series of comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan and were
followed by the 1890s with the first Edwardian musical comedies. The first play to achieve 500
consecutive performances was the London comedy Our Boys by H. J. Byron, opening in 1875. Its
astonishing new record of 1,362 performances was bested in 1892 by Charley's Aunt by Brandon
Thomas.[14] After W. S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde became the leading poet and dramatist of the late
Victorian period.[10] Wilde's plays, in particular, stand apart from the many now-forgotten plays of
Victorian times and have a closer relationship to those of the Edwardian dramatists such as George
Bernard Shaw, whose career began in the 1890s. Wilde's 1895 comic masterpiece, The Importance of
Being Earnest, was the greatest of the plays in which he held an ironic mirror to the aristocracy while
displaying virtuosic mastery of wit and paradoxical wisdom. It has remained extremely popular. The
plays of Arthur Wing Pinero have been staged again in the last few decades.

NON FICTION
Science, philosophy, and discovery

edit

The Victorian era was an important time for the development of science and the Victorians had a
mission to describe and classify the entire natural world. Much of this writing does not rise to the level
of being regarded as literature but one book in particular, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species,
remains famous. The theory of evolution contained within the work challenged many of the ideas the
Victorians had about themselves and their place in the world. Although it took a long time to be widely
accepted, it would dramatically change subsequent thoughts and literature. Much of the work of
popularizing Darwin's theories was done by his younger contemporary Thomas Henry Huxley, who
wrote widely on the subject.

A number of other non-fiction works of the era made their mark on the literature of the period. The
philosophical writings of John Stuart Mill covered logic, economics, liberty and utilitarianism. The large
and influential histories of Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History (1837), and On Heroes,
Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History (1841) permeated political thought at the time. The writings of
Thomas Babington Macaulay on English history helped codify the Whig narrative that dominated the
historiography for many years. John Ruskin wrote a number of highly influential works on art and the
history of art and championed such contemporary figures as J. M. W. Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites.
The religious writer John Henry Newman's Oxford Movement aroused intense debate within the Church
of England, exacerbated by Newman's own conversion to Catholicism, which he wrote about in his
autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Victorian Realism

Victorian Compromise

Utilitarianism

Agnosticism

Introduction

Victorian Literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) A.D.
During this time, England was undergoing a tremendous cultural upheaval; the accepted forms of
literature, art and music had undergone a radical change.
The Romantic Movement, which preceded the Victorian Renaissance, had often portrayed the human
pursuit of knowledge and power as a beautiful thing, as in the works of Wordsworth.

During the Victorian age, however, there was a lot of radical social change and as such. Many poets of
this time didn’t like the romanticised version of society.

Victorian Realism

Coming down to the history of English Literature from the Romantic Age of Idealism to the Victorian era
of Realism, one experiences the feeling of a return from solitude to society, from nature to industry,
from concepts to issues, from spiritualism to pragmatism, from optimism to agnosticism, from lyricism
to criticism and from organicism to compromise. A large part of the complex of change that comes
about in English Literature from early 19th century to the later 19th century can be measured from the
kind of the change, the images of the ocean undergo when we move from Byron to Arnold.

The movement of Realism is generally a minor movement in the later 19th century, which began in
France and was later, followed by England.

Victorian Compromise

In terms of philosophical ideas, the Victorian period, unlike the earlier periods of literary history in
England, was marked by conflicting movement carried on through crusades and counter-crusades,
attacks and counter-attacks.

The Victorian Compromise was a combination of the positive and negative aspects of the Victorian Age:

The expansion, great technology, communication and colonial empire (Middle Class).

Poverty, injustices, starvation, slums (working class).

Whereas, the Romantics could afford to withdraw from the town in the initial stages of the
Industrialisation, the Victorians, facing the flowering of the Industrial Revolution had no such soft option
available to them.

Therefore rather than living in solitude, writers of the Victorian Age had to cope with the process of
change in which the old agrarian way of life had to make the place for the new individual civilisation.

Utilitarianism
Against the chain of thinkers, including Newman, Arnold and Ruskin, who were essentially religious, was
the formidable force of utilitarian thinkers, continued by J.S. Mill and agnostic scientists like Darwin,
Spencer, Huxley, etc.

Although utilitarianism was propounded by Jeremy Bentham, the philosophy came into operation during
the Victorian era. Both the state and the industry came under the heavy influence of this mechanical
approach to matters of the human soul.

The celebrated principle, “the greatest good of the greatest number” was the governing rule of the
utilitarian thought on morals, law, politics and administration.

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is defined as the belief, “that nothing is known or can be known of immaterial things,
especially of existence or nature of God”. The term “agnostic” was coined by T.H. Huxley in 1869 A.D.

The realisation that God’s existence is neither observable nor provable drove society into a state of
uncertainty.

People of the Victorian Era sought to explore and understand questions about the metaphysical world,
but ultimately found no answers and were left in doubt.

Agnosticism was a means of identifying the scepticism that stemmed from the inability to logically
support the existence of spiritual beings.

The thematic preoccupations of the Victorian era of English literature include ¹ ² ³:

- Realism vs. Idealism: The Victorian era was characterized by a shift from idealism to realism, with
writers focusing on the harsh realities of life and the social and political issues of the time.

- Industrialization and its effects: The Industrial Revolution had a significant impact on Victorian society,
leading to the growth of cities, the development of new technologies, and the exploitation of the
working class
- The "Condition of England" question: This term, coined by Thomas Carlyle, referred to the social and
political problems facing England, including poverty, inequality, and political unrest.

- The role of women: Victorian women were expected to conform to traditional gender roles, but many
writers challenged these expectations and explored the limitations placed on women.

- Morality and ethics: Victorian writers often grappled with moral and ethical issues, including the nature
of good and evil, the consequences of sin, and the role of religion in shaping moral values.

- Class and social status: The Victorian era was marked by a rigid class system, and many writers
explored the tensions and contradictions between different social classes.

- Love and relationships: Victorian writers often explored the complexities of love and relationships,
including the constraints placed on women and the social conventions surrounding marriage and
sexuality.

- Death and mourning: The Victorian era was marked by a fascination with death and mourning, with
many writers exploring the emotional and psychological impact of loss on individuals and society.

Late Victorian literature

inEnglish literature inThe post-Romantic and Victorian eras

Written by Richard Beatles, Hugh Alisster Davies/ All Fact-checked by the editors of encyclopedia
Britannica

Last Updated: May 22, 2024 • Article History

The Victorian era of English literature is characterized by a focus on social issues, morality, and a
concern for the middle-class persona. Writers of this era were often optimistic about progress but also
acknowledged the conflicts and problems associated with modern life.
The style of writing during the Victorian period was typically very descriptive and detailed, with a focus
on creating realistic depictions of the world around them. Sentences tended to be long and complex,
with a great deal of attention paid to precise language and phrasing.

Novels were an extremely popular form of literature during this period, and the genre was often used to
explore social issues and the experiences of everyday people. Many Victorian writers also incorporated
elements of romance, adventure, and mystery into their works, creating stories that were both socially
relevant and entertaining.

Overall, the style of writing during the Victorian era was characterized by a combination of social
commentary, realism, and a strong focus on detail and description.