THE VICTORIAN PERIOD

The Victorian era was a period of dramatic change that brought England to its
highest point of development as a world power. The rapid growth of London, from a
population of 2 million when Victoria came to the throne to one of 6.5 million by the
time of Victoria's death, indicates the dramatic transition from a way of life based
on the ownership of land to a modern urban economy. England experienced an
enormous increase in wealth, but rapid and unregulated industrialization brought a
host of social and economic problems. Some writers such as Thomas Babbington
Macauley applauded Englands progress, while others such as Mathew Arnold felt
the abandonment of traditional rhythms of life exacted a terrible price in human
happiness.
The early Victorian period (183048) saw the opening of Britains first railway and
its first Reform Parliament, but it was also a time of economic distress. The Reform
Bill of 1832 extended voting privileges to men of the lower middle classes and
redistributing parliamentary representation more fairly. Yet the economic and social
difficulties associated with industrialization made the 1830s and 1840s a Time of
Troubles, characterized by unemployment, desperate poverty, and rioting. The
Chartists, an organization of workers, helped create an atmosphere open to further
reform. The condition of England became a central topic for novelists including
Charles Kingsley, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Benjamin Disraeli in the 1840s and early
1850s.
Although the mid- Victorian period (184870) was not free of harassing problems, it
was a time of prosperity, optimism, and stability. The achievements of modern
industry and science were celebrated at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park (1851).
Enormous investments of people, money, and technology created the British
Empire. Many English people saw the expansion of empire as a moral
responsibility, and missionary societies flourished. At the same time, however,
there was increasing debate about religious belief. The Church of England had
evolved into three major divisions, with conflicting beliefs about religious practice.
There were also rationalist challenges to religion from philosophy (especially
Utilitarianism) and science (especially biology and geology). Both the infallibility of
the Bible and the stature of the human species in the universe were increasingly
called into question.
In the later period (18701901) the costs of Empire became increasingly apparent,
and England was confronted with growing threats to its military and economic
preeminence. A variety of socialist movements gained force, some influenced by
the revolutionary theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The literature of the

1890s is characterized by self-conscious melancholy and aestheticism, but also

saw the beginnings of the modernist movement.

The extreme inequities between men and women stimulated a debate about
womens roles known as The Woman Question. Women were denied the right to
vote or hold political office throughout the period, but gradually won significant
rights such as custody of minor children and the ownership of property in
marriage. By the end of Victorias reign, women could take degrees at twelve
universities. Hundreds of thousands of working-class women labored at factory
jobs under appalling conditions, and many were driven into prostitution. While
John Stuart Mill argued that the nature of women was an artificial thing, most
male authors preferred to claim that women had a special nature fitting them for
domestic duties.
Literacy increased significantly in the period, and publishers could bring out more
material more cheaply than ever before. The most significant development in
publishing was the growth of the periodical. Novels and long works of non-fiction
were published in serial form, fostering a distinctive sense of a community of
readers. Victorian novels seek to represent a large and comprehensive social
world, constructing a tension between social conditions and the aspirations of the
hero or heroine. Writing in the shadow of Romanticism, the Victorians developed a
poetry of mood and character. Victorian poetry tends to be pictorial, and often
uses sound to convey meaning. The theater, a flourishing and popular institution
throughout the period, was transformed in the 1890s by the comic masterpieces of
George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. Very different from each other, both took
aim at Victorian pretense and hypocrisy.

The Victorian period formally begins in 1837 (the year Victoria became Queen) and
ends in 1901 (the year of her death). As a matter of expediency, these dates are
sometimes modified slightly. 1830 is usually considered the end of the Romantic
period in Britain, and thus makes a convenient starting date for Victorianism.
Similarly, since Queen Victorias death occurred so soon in the beginning of a new
century, the end of the previous century provides a useful closing date for the
period.
The common perception of the period is the Victorians are prudish, hypocritical,
stuffy, and narrow-minded. This perception is not universally accurate, and it is
thus a grievous error to jump to the conclusion that a writer or artist fits that
description merely because he or she wrote during the mid to late 19th century.
However, it is also true that this description applies to some large segments of
Victorian English society, particularly amongst the middle-class, which at the time

was increasing both in number and power. Many members of this middle-class
aspired to join the ranks of the nobles, and felt that acting properly,

according to the conventions and values of the time, was an important step in that
direction.
Another important aspect of this period is the large-scale expansion of British
imperial power. By 1830, the British Empire had, of course, existed for centuries,
and had already experienced many boons and setbacks. Perhaps the most
significant blow to its power occurred in the late 18th century with the successful
revolt of its 13 American colonies, an event which would eventually result in the
formation of the United States as we now know it. During the 19th century, the
British Empire extensively expanded its colonial presence in many parts of Africa,
in India, in the middle-east and in other parts of Asia. This process has had many
long-term effects, including the increased use of the English language outside of
Europe and increased trade between Europe and distant regions. It also, of
course, produced some long-standing animosity in colonized regions.

Literature of the Victorian Period

It is important to realize from the outset that the Victorian period is quite long.
Victorias reign lasted over 63 years, longer than any other British monarch. The
Victorian era lasted roughly twice as long as the Romantic period. Keeping in mind
that even the relatively short Romantic period saw a wide variety of distinguishing
characteristics, it is logical that much longer Victorian period includes even more
variety. Below are a few of the noteworthy characteristics which appear often
enough to be worth mentioning, but certainly do not encompass the entirety of the
period.

The drive for social advancement frequently appears in literature. This drive
may take many forms. It may be primarily financial, as in Charles Dickenss
Great Expectations. It may involve marrying above ones station, as in
Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre. It may also be intellectual or educationbased. Typically, any such attempt to improve ones social standing must be
accompanied by proper behavior.

The period saw the rise of a highly idealized notion of what is English or
what constitutes an Englishman. This notion is obviously tied very closely
to the periods models for proper behavior, and is also tied very closely to

Englands imperial enterprises. Many colonists and politicians saw it as

their political (and sometimes religious) duty to help or civilize native
populations in colonized regions. It was thus important to have a model

which provides a set of standards and codes of conduct, and the idealized
notion of what is English often provided this model.

Later Victorian writing saw the seeds of rebellion against such idealized
notions and stereotypical codes of conduct. These proper behaviors often
served as subjects of satire; Oscar Wildes plays are an excellent example.
The later years of the Victorian period also saw the rise of aestheticism, the
art for arts sake movement, which directly contradicted the social and
political goals of much earlier Victorian literature. One of the fascinating
ways of approaching the Victorian period is to examine the influence of
these later developments on the Modernist period which follows.

The Novel
The Victorian era was the great age of the English novelrealistic, thickly plotted,
crowded with characters, and long. It was the ideal form to describe contemporary
life and to entertain the middle class. The novels of Charles Dickens, full to
overflowing with drama, humor, and an endless variety of vivid characters and plot
complications, nonetheless spare nothing in their portrayal of what urban life was
like for all classes. William Makepeace Thackeray is best known for Vanity Fair
(1848), which wickedly satirizes hypocrisy and greed.
Emily Bront's single novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), is a unique masterpiece
propelled by a vision of elemental passions but controlled by an uncompromising
artistic sense. The fine novels of Emily's sister Charlotte Bront, especially Jane
Eyre (1847) and Villette (1853), are more rooted in convention, but daring in their
own ways. The novels of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) appeared during the
1860s and 70s. A woman of great erudition and moral fervor, Eliot was concerned
with ethical conflicts and social problems. George Meredith produced comic novels
noted for their psychological perception. Another novelist of the late 19th cent. was
the prolific Anthony Trollope, famous for sequences of related novels that explore
social, ecclesiastical, and political life in England.
Thomas Hardy's profoundly pessimistic novels are all set in the harsh, punishing
midland county he called Wessex. Samuel Butler produced novels satirizing the
Victorian ethos, and Robert Louis Stevenson, a master of his craft, wrote arresting

adventure fiction and children's verse. The mathematician Charles Lutwidge

Dodgson, writing under the name Lewis Carroll, produced the complex and
sophisticated children's classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and
Through the Looking Glass (1871). Lesser novelists of considerable merit include

Benjamin Disraeli, George Gissing, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Wilkie Collins. By the
end of the period, the novel was considered not only the premier form of
entertainment but also a primary means of analyzing and offering solutions to
social and political problems.

Nonfiction
Among the Victorian masters of nonfiction were the great Whig historian Thomas
Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle, the historian, social critic, and prophet whose
rhetoric thundered through the age. Influential thinkers included John Stuart Mill,
the great liberal scholar and philosopher; Thomas Henry Huxley, a scientist and
popularizer of Darwinian theory; and John Henry, Cardinal Newman, who wrote
earnestly of religion, philosophy, and education. The founders of Communism, Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels, researched and wrote their books in the free
environment of England. The great art historian and critic John Ruskin also
concerned himself with social and economic problems. Matthew Arnold's theories
of literature and culture laid the foundations for modern literary criticism, and his
poetry is also notable.

Poetry
The preeminent poet of the Victorian age was Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Although
romantic in subject matter, his poetry was tempered by personal melancholy; in its
mixture of social certitude and religious doubt it reflected the age. The poetry of
Robert Browning and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was immensely popular,
though Elizabeth's was more venerated during their lifetimes. Browning is best
remembered for his superb dramatic monologues. Rudyard Kipling, the poet of the
empire triumphant, captured the quality of the life of the soldiers of British
expansion. Some fine religious poetry was produced by Francis Thompson, Alice
Meynell, Christina Rossetti, and Lionel Johnson.
In the middle of the 19th century the so-called Pre-Raphaelites, led by the painterpoet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, sought to revive what they judged to be the simple,
natural values and techniques of medieval life and art. Their quest for a rich
symbolic art led them away, however, from the mainstream. William Morris
designer, inventor, printer, poet, and social philosopherwas the most versatile of
the group, which included the poets Christina Rossetti and Coventry Patmore.

Algernon Charles Swinburne began as a Pre-Raphaelite but soon developed his

own classically influenced, sometimes florid style. A. E. Housman and Thomas
Hardy, Victorian figures who lived on into the 20th cent., share a pessimistic view

in their poetry, but Housman's well-constructed verse is rather more superficial.

The great innovator among the late Victorian poets was the Jesuit priest Gerard
Manley Hopkins. The concentration and originality of his imagery, as well as his
jolting meter ("sprung rhythm"), had a profound effect on 20th-century poetry.
During the 1890s the most conspicuous figures on the English literary scene were
the decadents. The principal figures in the group were Arthur Symons, Ernest
Dowson, and, first among them in both notoriety and talent, Oscar Wilde. The
Decadents' disgust with bourgeois complacency led them to extremes of behavior
and expression. However limited their accomplishments, they pointed out the
hypocrisies in Victorian values and institutions. The sparkling, witty comedies of
Oscar Wilde and the comic operettas of W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan were
perhaps the brightest achievements of 19th-century British drama.

Victorian Writers
The Period is often divided into two parts: the early Victorian Period (ending around
1870) and the late Victorian Period.
Writers associated with the early period are:
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), Robert Browning (1812-1889), Elizabeth
Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Emily Bronte (1818-1848), Matthew Arnold (18221888), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Christina Rossetti (1830-1894),
George Eliot (1819-1880), Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) and Charles Dickens
(1812-1870).
Writers associated with the late Victorian Period include:
George Meredith (1828-1909), Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), Oscar Wilde
(1856-1900), Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), Henry James (1843-1916), Rudyard
Kipling (1865-1936), A.E. Housman (1859-1936), and Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850-1894).
While Tennyson and Browning represented pillars in Victorian poetry, Dickens and
Eliot contributed to the development of the English novel. Perhaps the most
quintessentially Victorian poetic works of the period is: Tennyson's "In Memorium"

(1850), which mourns the loss of his friend. Henry James describes Eliot's
"Middlemarch" (1872) as "organized, moulded, balanced composition, gratifying
the reader with the sense of design and construction."