History of the Victorian age

Department of English

 Name: Baldaniya Vanita Velabhai

Semester: 2

Class: M.A. Part: 1

Roll No: 29

Topic:  History of Victorian Age

Paper: 6 (The Victorian Age)

Work Form: Assignment

Guidance by: Heeneba Zala 

  

       The Historical Background

•    An Era of Peace:-

       The few colonial wars that broke out during the Victorian epoch did not seriously disturb the national life. There was one continental war that directly affected Britain the Crimean war and one that affected her indirectly though strongly the Franco-German struggle; yet neither of these caused any profound changes. In America the great civil struggle left scars that were soon to be obliterated by the wise statesmanship of her rulers.

        The whole age may be not unfairly described as one of peaceful activity. In the earlier stages the lessening surges of the French Revolution were still felt; but by the middle of the century they had almost completely died down, and other hopes and ideals, largely pacific, were gradually taking their place.

2) Material Development:-

    It was an age alive with new activities. There was a revolution in commercial enterprise, due to the great increase of available markets, and, as a result of this, an immense advance in the use of mechanical devices. The new commercial energy was reflected in the great Exhibition of 1851. This was greeted as the inauguration of a new era of prosperity.

            On the other side of this picture of commercial expansion we see the appalling social condition of the new industrial cities, the squalid slums, and the exploitation of cheap labour, the painful fight by the enlightened few to introduce social legislation and the slow extension of the franchise. The evils of the Industrial Revolution were vividly painted by such writers as Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell, and they called forth the missionary efforts of men like Kinsley. 

3) Intellectual Development:-

   There can be little that in many cases material wealth produced a hardness of temper and an impatience of projects and ideas that brought no return in hard cash; yet it is to the credit of this age that intellectual activities were so numerous. There was quite a revolution in scientific thought following upon the works of Darwin and his school, and an immense outburst of social and political theorizing which was represented in the country by the writing of man like Herbert Spencer and John start mill. In addition, popular education becomes a practical thing. This in its turn produced a new hunger for intellectual food, and resulted in a great increase in the productions of the press and of other more durable species of literature.

      The sixty years (1830 to 1890) commonly included under the name of the Victorian age present many dissimilar features; yet in several respects we can safely generalize.

1)Its Morality:-

    Nearly all observers of the Victorian age are struck by its extreme deference to the convention. To a later age these seem ludicrous. It was thought indecorous for a man to smoke in public and for a lady to ride a bicycle. To a great extend the new morality was a natural revolt against the grossness of the earlier Regency, and the influence of the Victorian court was all in its favors. In literature it is amply reflected.

2)The Revolt:-

       Many writers protested against the deadening effects of the conventions. Carlyle and Matthew Arnold in their different accents, were loud in their denunciation; Thackeray never tired of satirizing the snobbishness were an indirect challenge to the velvety diction and the smooth self-satisfaction of the Tennyson an school.

3)The New Education:-

   The education acts, making a certain measure of education compulsory, rapidly produced an enormous reading public. The cheapening of printing and paper increased the demand for books, so that production was multiplied. The most popular from of literature was the novel, and the novelist responded with a will.

4) International Influences:-

       During the nineteenth century the interaction among American and European writers was remarkably fresh and strong. In Britain the Influence of the great German writers was continuous, and it was championed by Carlyle and Matthew Arnold.

5) The Achievement of The Age:-

       With all its immense production, the age produced no supreme writer. It revealed no Shakespeare, no Shelly, Not A Byron or a Scott. The general literary level was however, very high; and it was an age, moreover, of spacious intellectual horizons, noble endeavors, and bright aspirations.

      History of the Victorian Age

                 (1832-1892)

          The high water-mark of 19^th century novel was reached by Dickens who established the popularity of the novel. Following the practice of the fore-runners- Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Jane Austen- he/she made the novel, the mirror of the times, a criticism as well as a chronicle of contemporary life.

            Dickens, like Richardson, was a sentimental realist to whom didactic purpose was a matter of great significance his contemporary, Thackeray, began in protest against this sentimentalism and reverting to Fielding as a model, sought to paroled actual truths in his plots and characters.

        Thackeray’s important in the development of the English novel lies in his resolute use of realism. He has the realist’s skill of depicting scenes. As his vision was pessimistic, his best novels deal with the moral weaknesses of humanity.

      Dickens and Thackeray were followed by two women novelist, Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot- who extended the domain of the novel, still further Charlotte, Bronte Geared a sensation in Victorian literature by applying realism to a new purpose, where as her predecessors used life, she used it to reveal those of individual life instead of depicting the outside world, she used realism as a revelation of the innermost of life of thought and feeling. She concentrated her attention on displaying a woman’s inner life and thus extended the already wide province of the novel.

          Charlotte Bronte achieved this new realism of drawing. Upon the bitter experiences of her own life. “Jane Eyre”, which is her masterpiece, is perhaps the most passionately honest novel face to face with life and killed the myth of woman as the queen of beauty, receiving the homage of admiring men, as was the case of pretty stories of ‘Romance’.

        As George Eliot never had the same bitter experience in her life, as Charlotte Bronte had. She is mellower, more patient and unhorsed by personal feelings. In Bronte, her chief character dominated the situation, George Eliot gives a truer account of the emotional conflict in so far as she relates it to the world outside individual experiences with a calmer vision, and she has a truer perspective and candor's the other figures besides the heroine. Her great contribution to the novel was that she presented a world of really credible and analyzed their behavior with sympathy and common sense.

     The tendency to resist sentiment and romance and to tell the truth about men and women was continued by later Victorian novelists.

     The tendency of realism completely divorced from romance and sentiment, was brought to a logical continued by Hardy. Hardy tried to portray characters, who lived in primitive conditions, who unpolished by civilization and he found these conditions in the unsophisticated country side, which he calls, Wessex. His concentration on simple and unsophisticated life of people, untouched by conclusions is similar. Thus, Hardy explored a new era in the novel.’

     Perhaps the most important of the late Victorian novelist, however, is Henry James, and with him as with Jane Austen at the beginning of the century the emphasis is upon the manners and conventions of a narrow section of society.

         Perhaps the most notable development of nineteenth- century fiction is the method of approach that is characterized as impressionism’. This is strictly neither romance nor realism. In the novel, ‘proper the chief exponent of impressionism is Henry James’.

      In all people Victorian age is money minded. They have come to ‘Humanize’. London is now nothing and so Victoria is talk about social issues. Cultural beliefs:-

      This was a time period of doubt toward religion. George Eliot is also major woman writer, Robert Browning is beautiful imagination. In 19^th century, basically a religious movement. Outcome of a long controversy and ideological conflict amongst different Christian sects and churches. It was centered at the university of oxford that sought a renewal of “catholic “or Roman Catholic, thought and practice within the church of England in opposition to the protestant tendencies of the church. John Henry Newman, the most important of all leaders originator of the movement was John Keble.

      Three English painters named ‘Dant Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman, Hunt founded a society in 1848 and called it pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.

          “Art for art sake,

                Art for life sake”

           This above idea of per-Raphaelite and they never believe art for life sake. Dramatic monologue narrated by the various characters in the story showing their individual perspectives on events book ended by an introduction and confusion by Browning himself. Dover Beach written by Matthew Arnold and this poem is symbol French and England between the two country in which the one bridge and this political two party of by world.

      Poets of Victorian Age:-

*ALFRED LORD TENNYSON (1809-1892)

    His famous poetry:

1)The Brother-1827

2)Timbuictoo-1829

3)Chiefly Lyrical-1830

4)Volume of Poem-1833

5) In Memoriam-1850(nine poem)

His Plays:

1)Queen Many-1875

2)Harold-1876

3)Becket-1884

4)The Falcon-1879

5)The Cup-1881

*ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889)

  His poems and plays:

   1) Pauline-1833

   2) Paracelsus-1835

   3) Strafford-1837

   4) Strafford-1840

   5) Collected in one Volume as Bells and              Pomegranate- 1846

   6) Pippa Passes-1841

     *Other poets:-

1) Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)

2) Matthew Arnold (1822-88)

3) Edward Fitzgerald (1809-83)

4) Arthur Hugh Clough

5) Henry Wordsworth Longfello(1807-82)

6) Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82)

7) Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-94)

8) William Morris (1834-96)

9) Algermon Charles Swinburne (1837-09)

10)  Arthur Edgar O’Shaughnessy (1844-81)

11) Walt Whitman (1819-92)

  *Famous Novelist:-

1) Charles Dickens (1812-70)

·       Oliver Twist-1837

·      Barnaby Rudge-1841

2) William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63)

·      The Book of Snobs- 1849

·      The History of Pendennis-1848-50

3) Bronte

·      Jane Eyre-1847

·      Shirley-1849

·      Villette-1853

4) George Eliot (1828-80)

·      Blackwood Magazine-1857

·      Adambede-1859

·      The Mill on the Floss-1860

·      Daniel Deronda-1876

5) George Meredith (1828-1909)

·      Volume were Poems-1851

·      Evan Harrington-1861

·      Emilia in England-1864

·      Rhoda Fleming-1865

·      The Adventures of Harry Richmond- 1871

·      The Egoist-1879

·      The Tragic Comedias-1880

   So, in conclude Victorian age is compromise is religious and science, and compromise of Democracy and Autocracy. Tennyson was write down Elegy and it is his most of Themes are:- The divided self, Links external scenery to interior states of mind, The historical past, The Mythological past, social and political concerns etc. so thus age is very changing era in all things.