1

An İn-depth Study of Victorian Literature

Submitted by

ABU JAFOR

Student No: 521020020

Department of English Language Teaching, Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University.

ING 509: History of English Language Literature 1

Submitted to

Professor Dr. Ali Güneş

 2

An İn-depth Study of Victorian Literature

The Victorian period is also called 19th-century Literature. The Victorian literary

period starts with the reign of Queen Victoria and the duration of the Victorian Literary

period is from 1837 to 1901. The Victorian period is a very important period as to literary

creation and creates great literary products in literary history. The period was that vast,

flourished, and rich with literary work that it is not that easy to discuss it briefly (James Eli

Adams, 2009). It was so important that later it influenced modern literature and even

postmodern literature. This period is the transition between romanticism and modernism.

Some postmodern writers even followed and imitate the style of the Victorian period.

The period underwent so many radical changes, development and reforms and

eventually influenced the literary creation, writing, culture and so on (Eli Adams, 2010).

When Queen Victoria becomes a queen, she had a great influence in every sector of British

society. She was taking as a model in her era all over the country in every aspect. In her

period, the city of London becomes the most important city in Europe. As a result, a huge

amount of people from different for a different reason from different part of the world

migrated to London and a vast amount of them was from British colonial regions. Because of

the vast number of migrants, London’s population rose rapidly from two million to six

million. London’s landscape rose and the urban economy flourished as well in that era. One

important change happed in this period is that the middle class of the society became

powerful and rich who are called bourgeois. The reason this change was because of the

industrial revolution (Moran, 2006). They became very powerful in the trade and went in the

parliament and gain the voting power by “the act of Reform bile of 1832”. In her period, the

country Britain became the British Empire and ruled one-third of the world because of its
 3

colonizing policy all over the world. Another important action that helped the social change

is “the act of new poor law of 1834”. It was the law about the act of child labour in the

workhouse with low paid wages.

In the Victorian period, there was a huge scientific development that made a radical

and influential change of the people in the society (Dear, 2015). One of the most important

scientific theories was Charles Darwin’s origin of species. His theory of the origin of human

has a great influence on literature. Some writers supported his theory and that reflected in

their writing but some of the writers were against this and criticize his theory in their

writings. Another important theory is called “the theory of unconscious by Sigmund Freud. In

his theory, he shutters unitary perception of individuals. He argues that human psyches

consist of three parts which are eat, ego and superego and we are not uniformed. It always

struggles and changes and it discharges and disturbs us, and we change our feeling. The third

theory that also helped the change of society is Carl mark’s communist manifesto.

Although there were a lot of discoveries of science and technology, the social unrest,

personal issues at home that also caught the attention of the writers. The writers were

criticizing the society and hypocrisy of the society in their writings. For example, children

and women were working in a hard condition with low wages although they were working

the same sometimes more than their male companions. The great writers in the Victorian

period like dickens and hardy focused the real situation in their writings that society was

experiencing. English literary works from this era reflect the major transformation in most

aspects of English life. The transformation of science, economic, technological advances,

changes in social structures and the role of religion in society (Gold, 1966). While the

Romantic period was a time of abstract expression and inward focus, essayists, poets, and

novelists during the Victorian era began to reflect and comment on realities of the day. These

include criticisms of the dangers of factory work, the plight of the lower class, and the
 4

treatment of women and children. The prominent examples of the writers include poet

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and novelists Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Barrett's

poem entitled "Cry of the Children," published in 1844, focused on the horrific conditions

faced by children working in factories. The popularity of the poem served to shed light on

important social and political issues of the day. While also furthering the cause of feminism,

cementing her standing as a successful and renowned female poet in a male-dominated world.

Dickens employed humour and an approachable tone while addressing social problems such

as wealth disparity. Hardy used his novels to question religion and social structures.

As we saw that the Victorian literature was so flourished in every aspect. In the

following chapters, there will be focused on the literature of Victorian period briefly. We will

see how novels, poetry, dramas, children literature, naturalistic writings, supernatural and

fantastic literature were flourished in this period. There also will be focused on the position of

women and their works in society and how they contribute in the literature.

Victorian Novel

Victorian period is called the age of the novel. In English literature, the novel was

started written in the 18th century. The first of the novelist are Samuel Richardson (his

famous book is Pamela), Daniel Defoe ( Moll Flanders), henry fielding, and Joseph Andrews.

They are called the first example of English literature. Novels were perfected it selves in

those periods. The novel was the product of the middle class. so, it represents the value,

understanding the middle class and its perfect sample of the wife of bath. In this period, the

novel was written chronologically in the newspapers. Readers were mostly middle class and

novels were written by the expectation of readers which are middle class. In the novels, they

represent morality, moral responsibility, domestic aspect of life, religion, social expectation,
 5

especially half of the 19th century of this period. As writers try to represent the real

expectation of the readers in the novel, it is called realistic representation. Most of the realist

novels are generally big. The characters of the novels were mostly round characters. Other

types of the novel characters were created in this period called buildings roman and

naturalism (scientific representation of the society).in the 2nd of 19th century, there was

disinterest and criticism of religion and they that is why there were two types of writers; one

was supporting the religion and another part was criticizing the religion. There are different

types of characters in Victorian the novels: -

1. Protagonist—which generally represent author himself.

2. The chief characters- which represents flat and round characters.

3. Antagonists which is opposite of a protagonist.

Charles Dickens is the most famous Victorian novelist. With a focus on strong

characterization, Dickens became extraordinarily popular in his day and remains one of the

most popular and read authors of the world. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836–37)

written when he was twenty-five, was an overnight success, and everyone his subsequent

works sold extremely well(O’Gorman, 2002). The comedy of his first novel features a

satirical edge and this pervades his writing. Dickens worked diligently and prolifically to

supply the entertaining writing that the public wanted, but also to supply commentary on

social problems and therefore the plight of the poor and oppressed. His most vital works

include Oliver Twist (1837–39), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–39), A carol (1843), Dombey and

Son (1846–1848), David Copperfield (1849–50), Bleak House (1852–53), Little Dorrit

(1855–1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1860–61). There is a

gradual trend in his fiction towards darker themes which mirrors a bent in much of the

writing of the 19th century.

 6

William Thackeray was Dickens' great rival within the half of Queen Victoria's reign. With

an identical style but a rather more detached, acerbic, and barbed satirical view of his

characters, he also attended depict a more middle-class society than Dickens did. He is best

known for his novel lifestyle (1848), subtitled a completely unique without a Hero, which is

an example of a form popular in Victorian literature: a historical novel in which recent

history is depicted.

The Brontë sisters wrote fiction rather different from that common at the time. Anne,

Charlotte, and Bronte produced notable works of the amount, although these were not

immediately appreciated by Victorian critics(Bell Henneman, 1901). Wuthering Heights

(1847), Emily's only work, is an example of Gothic Romanticism from a woman's point of

view, which examines class, myth, and gender. Jane Eyre (1847), by her sister Charlotte, is

another major nineteenth-century novel that has gothic themes. Anne's second novel The

Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), written in realistic instead of romantic style, is especially

considered to be the primary sustained feminist novel(Vance, 1982). Later during this period

Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), published The Mill on the Floss in 1860, and in 1872 her most

famous work Middlemarch. Like the Brontë’s she published under a masculine pseudonym.

In the later decades of the Victorian era, Hardy was a crucial novelist. His works

include Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), far away from the Madding Crowd (1874), The

Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895).

Other significant novelists of this era were Gaskell (1810–1865), Trollope (1815–1882),

George Meredith (1828–1909), and George Gissing (1857–1903).

Poetry

The Victorian literary period was poor in poetry to the novel. Browning and Tennyson

were two important poets in that period. They wrote romantic poets and dramas. Lord
 7

Tennyson, the Poet Laureate Robert Browning (1812–1889) and Tennyson (1809–1892) were

notable poets in Victorian England(Gold, 1966). Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life but

did not publish a set until 1898.[8] Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), whose poetry was

published posthumously in 1918. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) is additionally

considered a crucial literary figure of the amount, especially his poems and important

writings. The early poetry of W. B. Yeats was also published in Victoria's reign. With

reference to the theatre, it had been not until the last decades of the nineteenth century that

any significant works were produced. This began with Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas,

from the 1870s, various plays of George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) within the 1890s, and

Oscar Wilde's (1854–1900) The Importance of Being Earnest.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Browning conducted their romance through verse and

produced many tender and passionate poems(Dear, 2015). Both Arnold and Gerard Manley

Hopkins wrote poems which sit somewhere in between the exultation of nature of the

romantic Poetry and therefore the Georgian Poetry of the first 20th century. However,

Hopkins's poetry was not published until 1918. Arnold's works anticipate several the themes

of those later poets, while Hopkins drew inspiration from verse sorts of Old English poetry

like Beowulf.

The reclaiming of the past was a significant part of Victorian literature with an

interest in both classical works of literature but also the medieval literature of England. The

Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old which they hoped to regain

sort of that noble, courtly behaviour and impress it upon the people both reception and within

the wider empire. The best example of this is often Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King,

which blended the stories of a fictitious character, particularly those by Thomas Malory, with

contemporary concerns and concepts. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also drew on myth

and folklore for his or her art, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti contemporaneously considered the
 8

chief poet amongst them, although his sister Christina is now held by scholars to be a

stronger poet.

Drama

In drama, farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas, and comic operas competed with

Shakespeare productions and high drama by the likes of James Plenches and Thomas William

Robertson. In 1855, the German Reed Entertainments began a process of elevating the extent

of (formerly risqué) musical theatre in Britain that culminated within the famous series of

comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan and were followed by the 1890s with the primary

Edwardian musical comedies. The first play to understand 500 consecutive performances was

the London comedy Our Boys by H. J. Byron, opening in 1875. It is an astonishing new

record of 1,362 performances was bested in 1892 by Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas.[9]

After W. S. Gilbert, Wilde became the leading poet and dramatist of the late Victorian period.

[10] Wilde's plays, especially, stand apart from the varied now-forgotten plays of Victorian

times and have a better relationship to those of the Edwardian dramatists like George Bernard

Shaw, whose career began within the 1890s. Wilde's 1895 comic masterpiece, The

Importance of Being Earnest, was the best of the plays during which he held an ironic mirror

to the aristocracy while displaying virtuosic mastery of wit and paradoxical wisdom. It has

remained extremely popular.

Children literature

The Victorians are credited with 'inventing childhood', partly via their efforts to

prevent child labour and therefore the introduction of compulsory education. As children

began to be ready to read, literature for children became an industry, with not only
 9

established writers producing works for youngsters (such as Dickens' A Child's History of

England) but also a replacement group of dedicated children's authors. Writers like Lewis

Carroll, R. M. Ballantyne and Anna Sewell wrote mainly for youngsters, although that they

had an adult following. Other authors like Anthony Hope and Robert Louis Stevenson wrote

mainly for adults, but their adventure novels are now generally classified as for youngsters.

Other genres include amphigory, poetry which required a childlike interest (e.g., Lewis

Carroll). School stories flourished: Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays and Kipling's

Stalky & Co. are classics.

Rarely were these publications designed to capture a child’s pleasure; however, with

the rise within the use of illustrations, children began to enjoy literature and were ready to

learn morals in a more entertaining way. With the newfound acceptance of reading for

pleasure, fairy tales and folk tales became popular. Compiling folk tales by many authors

with different topics made it possible for youngsters to read literature about many topics

which interested them. There were different types of books and magazines written for boys

and girls. Girls' stories attended be domestic and to specialise in family life, whereas boys'

stories were more about adventures.

Nature writing

In the USA, Henry David Thoreau's works and Susan Fenimore Cooper's Rural Hours

(1850) were canonical influences on Victorian nature writing. In the UK, Philip Gosse and

Sarah Bowditch Lee were two of the most popular nature writers in the early part of the

Victorian era (Dear, 2015). The Illustrated London News, founded in 1842, was the world's

first illustrated weekly newspaper and sometimes published articles and illustrations handling
 10

nature; within the second half of the 19th century, books, articles, and illustrations on nature

became widespread and popular among an increasingly urbanized reading public.

Supernatural and fantastic literature

The old Gothic tales that came out of the late 19th century are the first examples of

the genre of fantasy fiction. These tales often centred on larger-than-life characters like

Sherlock Holmes, famous detective of the times, Sexton Blake, Phileas Fogg, and other

fictional characters of the age, like Dracula, Edward Hyde, The Invisible Man, and lots of

other fictional characters who often had exotic enemies to foil (Eli Adams, 2010). Spanning

the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a sort of specific story-writing referred to as gothic.

Gothic literature combines romance and horror to thrill and terrify the reader (Vance, 1982).

Possible features during a gothic novel are foreign monsters, ghosts, curses, hidden rooms,

and witchcraft. Gothic tales usually happen in locations like castles, monasteries, and

cemeteries, although the gothic monsters sometimes cross over into the important world,

making appearances in cities like London.

Women in the literature and society

Although this was the era of a queen, the situation and position of the women of the

society and in literature was not good, it was worst. It was still felt that ladies should

normally be private and almost anonymous. But the imagination perpetually seeks ideal

things (Vance, 1982). One of the characters of Victorian literature is gender identity strictly

patriotic and men are powerful in literature. There were distinctions between men and women

writers although women writers wrote on their own styles. Male writers like dickens mostly

present the dark and important things of the society and dark side like discrimination,
 11

imbalance, and problem of the industrialization of the society in their book like Oliver twist

and so on. Female writers also wrote about their own issue on their writing on their own way,

but they were not that focused on male writers. The famous women writers of this era were

Brontë sisters (Vance, 1982). Women were kind of commodity not like a human. In this era,

women started to express their voice for their right or desire. Because industrialized needed

to be raised and men were not trained and so, women started to be participated and founded

their own although that was not enough. Bronte sisters struggle their rights, and all of these

represents overall about society. Even the queen herself believes that women’s duty is at

home. She wrote that on her book “our life in the highness”. Women were raised strictly, did

not have the right to raised voice or vote in the society.

 12

Reference

Bell Henneman, J. (1901). The Brontë Sisters (Vol. 9). The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dear, P. (2015). Romanticism and Victorian Scientific Naturalism. European Romantic

Review, 26(3), 329–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509585.2015.1028131

Eli Adams, J. (2010). A History of Victorian Literature. Indiana University Press, Vol. 52,

No. 3 (Spring 2010), 463–465.

Gold, B. J. (1966). ThermoPoetics: Energy in Victorian Literature and Science. Library of

Congress in Cataloging-in-Publication Data.

O’Gorman, F. (2002). The Victorian Novel. Blackwell Publishing Company.

Vance, N. (1982). Heroic Myth and Women in Victorian Literature. Vol. 12, 169–185.