The Victorian Novel

In the Victorian age novels were the most widespread form of literature, they were a form of
ENTERTAINMENT to the middle class and often they were read aloud within the family
To cut down the expenses novels were always published BY INSTALMENTS * on newspapers
or magazines.

* INSTALMENTS = puntat
Advantages
- writers could adapt their stories according to readers’ tastes (they listened to feedbacks
- they could use narrative tools to build suspense and keep the readers interested (plotwists,
cli anger, surprises..
Drawback
- They felt the social pressure mor

Women were especially fond of books (they had more time to devote themselves to reading).
Some of them even developed a passion for writing and published their works under fake male
names (PSEUDONYM, PEN NAME). That happened because, at the time, creative writing
was considered masculine
The novelists felt as if they had a moral and social responsibility to ful ll. They aimed at
re ecting the big social changes of their time. (See the Industrial revolution, the growth of
towns, the struggle for democracy…). They depicted society as they saw it; they were aware of
the evils in it and denounced them however, their criticism was not radical, but it aimed at
making the readers aware of social injustices.

Phases of the Victorian Novel

Late-Victorian
Early- Novel
Victorian Novel Mid-Victorian Novel Nearer to the European
development of Naturalism, an
It dealt with social and It was linked to the Romantic almost scienti c look at human
humanitarian themes and and Gothic traditions and to a behavior, upon which the
expressed the ideas of psychological vei narrator no longer had power to
this perio comment or judge
Bronte: sister
Charles Dickens (he Thomas Hard
criticized the mentality Stevenson
of his peers Oscar Wilde
Jane Austen
-contemporanei)



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Most common features in the Victorian novels:

- omniscient narrator (comment of the plot: divides what’s right and wrong
- Setting —> city (= main symbol of the industrial civilisation, anonymous lives
and lost identities
- Long and complicated plot with subplot
- Focus on the creation of characters (deep analysis of their inner life
- Retribution and punishment at the end of the stor
- At the end of the book everything is explained and justi e

Dickens VS Wilde
The Victorian novel Dickens Wilde

Setting City City

Characters Stereotypes Deep analysis of the interiority

Retribution The good characters get Dorian is punished in the end

rewarded and the bad punished

Society critique Dickens stated what was right
and what was wrong. Through his
critics he tried to push his readers
to act (his critics were hidden
thanks to exaggeration)
open about his opinions.
Wilde criticized the excessive
morality of his society by living in
a revolutionary way. He thought
morality was bad and he was

Morality is a good thing, the bad Morality is hypocrisy

thing is hypocrisy The only important thing is

pleasure and the cult of beauty.

Omniscient narrator The narrator judges the event and The narrator stands aside and
the characters’ behavior doesn’t give moral judgements

Sexuality Dickens doesn’t talk about it. Hedonist who is open about his
During the Victorian age sexuality opinions on the importance of
was repressed and there was an pleasure. He also doesn’t hide his
excessive prudery homosexual a air (even in the
picture of Dorian Gray there is a
hidden homosexual subplot)
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