TEMA 47: LA REVOLUCIÓN INDUSTRIAL INGLESA; SU INFLUENCIA COMO

MODELO DE TRANSFORMACIÓN HISTÓRICA. LOS CAMBIOS SOCIALES Y

POLITICOS A TRAVES DE LA LITERATURA DE LA ÈPOCA. CHARLES
DICKENS.
I.- THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
From the mid-18th century until World War I, economic history centres
around a group of changes known as the industrial revolution. The term industrial
revolution is commonly used to denote those changes in the processes and
organization of production that mark the passage from an agrarian, handicraft
economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture, from what is
sometimes called a premodern or traditional economy to a modern one. The term,
when capitalized, refers specifically to the first historical instance of this
transformation, which began in Britain in the 18th century, spread from there to the
Continent and to offshoots of Europe overseas (the United States, in particular), and
transformed in the span of a century the life of Western man, the nature of his
society, and his relationship to the other peoples of the world.
At the heart of the Industrial Revolution was a cluster of innovations in the
technique and mode of industrial production: (1) the substitution of inanimate for
animal sources of power (in particular, the introduction of steam power fuelled by
coal), (2) the substitution of machines for human skills and strength, (3) the
invention of new methods for transforming matter (in particular, new ways of making
iron and steel and industrial chemicals), and (4) the organization of work in large,
centrally powered units (factories, forges, mills) that made possible the immediate
supervision of the production process and a more efficient division of labour. These
innovations in industry promoted and were, in turn, supported by major changes in
the technology of agriculture and transport.
Underlying all of this was the systematic application of knowledge to the
devising of more efficient production. In the first part of the Industrial Revolution, the
knowledge was mostly the result of practical experience and informed empiricism.
With time, however, beginning in such industries as chemical manufacture,
applications were derived from pure science,and, by the end of the Industrial
Revolution, the relationship was reversed. Theory had moved ahead of practice in
most domains, and inventors were tapping the pool of scientific knowledge for
usable ideas and information.
As we have already mentioned, the first country to make the transition to
modern industry and economic growth was Britain. The reasons for this precocity
were partly material, partly social and institutional. Britain was favoured by its
oceanic position, which gave the country easy access to markets and suppliers
overseas; by its modest size and highly indented coastline, which placed most of the

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country within easy reach of water transport; and by the abundance of those natural
resources that proved to be particularly important for the new industrial technology.
These included water (for waterpower, chemical processes, textile finishing, and, in
the form of high humidity, for the spinning of yarn); salt, for the manufacture of
industrial alkalis and acids; china clay; iron and nonferrous ores; and, above all,
huge, accessible deposits of coal, for use as fuel and as a source of carbon in the
smelting of iron. The one resource Britain lacked was timber, but this very handicap
was turned to an advantage by the precocious recourse to fossil fuel.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Britain was a medium-sized nation. Its
population of nearly 6,000,000 people was less than one-third that of France; yet,
Britain constituted the biggest single market in the world, not only because of the
island's compactness but also because the movement of goods through the country
was unimpeded by man-made obstacles. France, Britain's chief political and
economic rival, was divided into three major customs areas, and traffic was further
trammelled by a multiplicity of special tolls and by customary restraints on the
shipment of critical commodities such as grain. Most of central Europe was even
more fragmented, and the burden of feudal tolls was such as to make traffic shun
the rivers (though they were more navigable than those of France and Britain) and
opt for the costly and uncomfortable alternative of land transport.
This large market was also the richest in purchasing power per head. The
purchasing power of the British population was, in its mass, an important stimulus to
agricultural and industrial production. The effect was reinforced by the relatively
wide distribution of wealth, both socially and geographically. Unlike most European
nations, Britain was not polarized between a small class of wealthy consumers of
highly individualistic, labour-intensive luxury products and a large mass of poor
peasants with little to spare for manufactures and those only the highly differentiated
products of local industry. British society was more complex in its structure, with a
large and heterogeneous middle class, and the peasantry was, in many parts, fully
integrated into the national market. This, in turn, reflected the precocious
commercialization of agriculture- which learned early to specialize in cash crops,
above all for the great London market. Specialization means dependency on the
outside, and one of the striking features of the English countryside in the 18th
century was the extent to which not only itinerant peddlers but even fixed shops
(which, of their nature, are evidence of a substantial and continuing trade) were
catering to the rural population. All of this conduced to the breakdown of regional

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peculiarities and the homogenization of taste, which promoted a demand for the kind
of standardized product that lent itself to machine production.
This domestic demand, reinforced by a large and growing demand for British
products abroad, placed heavy strains on the existing techniques and organization
of production. One of the first industries to feel the pressure was mining.
The growth of demand in the 18th century pushed rural putting out to its limits,
especially in spinning, where it took four or five persons to keep one weaver
supplied with yarn. Given the high cost of land transport, the extension of the radius
of labour recruitment increased disproportionately the cost of distribution of
materials and collection of finished work.
It was in this context of frustrated entrepreneurial opportunity that manufacturers
sought for some way to bring the labour force under control. One way was to
concentrate work under one roof, so that the employer could supervise
performance. This solution was not feasible in the context of the old technology. The
answer was found in the invention of machines that grew to be too large and costly
for cottage work.
The growth of modern industry in Britain generated a rapid increase in goods
traffic, which meant the creation of canals, a road network, and, above all, the
railway system.
II.- SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGES EXPRESSED THROUGH LITERATURE
The precisian may limit the Victorian period to the years between the Queen's
accession in 1837 and her death in 1901, but a new era really began with the
passage of the Reform Bill in 1832 and closed at the end of the Boer War in 1902.
The seven decades between these two dates are often divided into three phases of
national life, what is called the "Mid-Victorian" period being considered as embracing
the years 1855 to 1879 from the ascendancy of Palmerston to the great economic
depression. For our purposes, however, it is more convenient to recognize but two
divisions - "Early" and "Late" - of almost exactly equal length. According to this
scheme early Victorian period extends from the Reform Bill of 1832, which coincides
with the death of Scott, the definite emergence of Carlyle, and the publication of
Tennyson's first significant volume, to the formation of Gladstone's first
administration in 1868, the year which saw the climax of Browning's career with the
appearance of The Ring and the Book and of Morris's with The Earthly Paradise.
The rearrangement of the old Whig and Tory groups which resulted in the
modern Liberal and Conservative parties is of small significance for the student of

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literature. Party intrigues provided material for such writers of memoirs as Creevey
and Greville and for a kind of fiction revived by Disraeli and carried on by Trollope -
the political novel. But Carlyle, Ruskin, and other writers who were concerned with
the pressing social problems of the time viewed with scornful impatience the
parliamentary see-saw of "Ins" and "Outs."
The most important immediate legislative accomplishment of the reformed
Parliament was the emancipation of slaves in British dominions. This triumph (1833)
of the long struggle of the abolitionists was not won without recalcitrance on the part
of the slave-owners, especially in Jamaica, notwithstanding the fact that they were
compensated for their losses.
The impetus of reform had other progressive results. The admission of
Quakers to Parliament, with the substitution of an affirmation for the oath, was a
notable advance in toleration. Steps towards the abolition of various cruel forms of
sport were signs of increasing refinement and compassion. The first effective act
regulating child labour in factories was passed in 1833.
The Poor-Law-Amendment Act of 1834 abolished out-door relief and
parochial responsibility. The system of workhouses which already obtained in
London was applied to the whole country, contiguous parishes being amalgamated
into a "union" and central control over the entire system of unions being vested in
three commissioners.
The rapidly increasing population which was concentrated in London,
Liverpool, Glasgow, and the new manufacturing towns of the Midlands lived in
circumstances of physical and moral wretchedness. The "rookeries" of London and
Westminster were pestiferous dens of iniquity, and a large fraction of the
populations of Liverpool, Manchester, and other towns lived in crowded cellars. The
lack of sanitation of even the most rudimentary kinds was scandalous - the
water-supply costly, inadequate, and often contaminated; proper means for the
disposal of sewage and refuse nonexistent; noisome graveyards in immediate
proximity to the living. The pictures of the London slums in Oliver Twist and of the
cemetery in Bleak House are not the romantic exaggerations of a Gothic
imagination but transcripts from actuality that can be verified. Between 1832 and
1836 a greater confidence, born of good harvests, brisk trade, railway building, and
higher wages, led to increased activity in the trade-unions. In I836 the "London
Workingmen's Association" determined to embark upon a campaign of political
propaganda and drew up a "Charter" which embodied and enlarged upon the

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demands in the petition of 1819. Of the six "points" in the Chartists' program, four -
manhood suffrage, the removal of property qualifications for membership in the
House of Commons, the payment of members, and the secret ballot have long since
become part of English law; while the two others - annual Parliaments and equal
electoral districts - remain to this day unrealized. Though this programme was on
the face of it political, the basic purpose of the Chartists was the redress of social
grievances which could, they held, be accomplished only when workingmen had
representation in Parliament.
Meanwhile, in contrast to the ill-managed fanaticism of this movement, had
been the efficient and well-directed purposefulness of the Anti-Corn Law League.
The League had the advantages of ample funds and of guidance by Richard
Cobden. The repeal of the Corn Laws was only part of their larger programme of
freedom of trade. Even after 1833 the land-owners interests controlled four-fifths of
the votes in the House of Commons while the industrial and commercial classes
controlled but one-fifth. The League was supported not only by the mercantile class
and urban labour but by many landless rural worker who were without security. An
indirect result of the clash between the protectionists and the advocates of free trade
was the further advance of social reform, for when the industrialists upbraided the
land-owners for low wages paid rural labor the land-owners countered with
reproaches against the conditions of labour in factories and mines.
It is also worth mentioning the concept of the Scale of Being or Ladder of Life,
which influenced the speculations of evolutionists, though in itself it was creationists
rather than evolutionary. The definite statements of the idea of mutability of species
was drawn by Erasmus Darwin. His great book did not immediately excite
opposition.
We cannot end this brief survey without mentioning B. Disraeli, C. Kingsley
and Mrs. Gaskell.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) began with many disadvantages (he was born
a Jew, though baptized in childhood); he was never at a public school or university,
till then the normal training ground of most English statesmen.
His earliest novel Vivian Grey (1826) is a young man’s book, wild and
melodramatic; it has, however, some brilliant sketches of character and gorgeous
sallies of wit. The Young Duke (1830) embodies some acrid political criticism.
Contarini Fleming (1832) has its main attraction in being a self-portrait. He gave up
the political theme in favour of love in Henrietta Temple (1836).

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 Sybil, or the Two Nations (1845) deals with the “Two Nations”, the rich and
the poor; there are some good sketches of industrial squalor and agricultural misery,
the cruelty to children and the explotaition of the poor.
He turns to religion in Tancred, or the New Crusade (1847) with
realistic satire and criticism of occultism. It is at the close of his first ministry that he
turns to fiction. In Lothair (1870) a young wealthy man is in quest of the true path.
With Endymion (1880) Disraeli glances over his triumphant career.
His taste for opulence is the conspicuous weakness of Disraeli as a novelist
of social reform, as well as the want of creative imagination; he merely draws
conventional figures or caricatures.
Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) was the son of a clergyman who grew up in the
country, where he developed an interest in nature study and geology. After
graduating from Magdalene College, Cambridge, he was ordained as curate of
Eversley and was one of the founders of the Christian Socialist movement.
He soon turned to writing his popular historical novels: Hypathia (1853), a
story of 5th-century Alexandria; Westward Ho! (1855), an anti-Catholic adventure
story set in the Elizabethan period; and Hereward the Wake (1866), a story of
Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman conquest, with some anti-Catholic slant.
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (18101865) she was the daughter of an Unitarian
minister, brought up in the Chesshire village of Knutsford; after marrying William
Gaskell they settled in the industrial city of Manchester, this meant a great contrast
with the sleepy village she was accustomed to. Her first novel, Mary Barton, reflects
the temper of Manchester in the late 1830s.
The conflict between Mrs Gaskell’s sympathetic understanding and the
rigidness of Victorian morality resulted in a mixed reception for her next social novel,
Ruth, (1853).
Among her later works, Sylvia’s lovers (1863), dealing with the effects of the
Napoleonic Wars upon simple people, is notable. Her last and longest work, Wives
and Daughters (1864-6), concerning the interlocking fortunes of country families, is
considered by many to be her finest.
It is obvious that we have to leave aside a lot of important events, but it is
almost impossible to give more time to this exposition, especially taking into account
that we have to deal with Charles Dickens.
III.- CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70)
The 19th century was the golden age of the novel. It opened with the gentle

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yet incisive satire of English society and manners in the novels of Jane Austen, and
with Sir Walter Scott's immensely popular retelling of old legends and tales in his
long "historical" romances. Between 1830 and 1850 the novel became dominant
literary form, and subsequently enjoyed a popularity that for the first time ranged
through the whole of society. Major writers of this period include Charles Dickens,
W.M.Thackeray, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell and Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli and Mrs.
Gaskell were noted at the time for their concern with political and social issues of the
day, but the dry and sometimes biased way in which they discussed these problems
make them rather difficult and even boring for the modern reader.
The comedy and vivacity of Dickens and Thackeray however has ensured
their permanent popularity. When their novels first appeared, they were praised for
their realistic presentation of life at all levels of society, and for their strong
humanitarian leanings. Through them novel readers of the period learned much of
the conditions of life of the poor, a topic that previous writers as a rule considered
too "low" a subject for art.
1.1 Biographical notes.- Dickens, the most popular and perhaps the greatest of
English novelists, was born at Portsmouth in 1812. His father was a government
clerk in the navy Pay Office, a man of vivid temperament, and all through life a man
of wavering and unstable status, partly by his misfortunes and partly by his own
fault.
Taught to read by his mother, he read intensively 18th century novelists who
influenced the form of his earlier novels, his characterization, and his prose:
Fielding, Goldsmith, Defoe, and Smollet. In 1823, further difficulties took the family
to Camden Town, a poor, truly Dickensian part of London. Here his schooling
temporarily ceased and from here he explored London. The London scene,
especially the slums, began to stimulate his imagination.
At the age of ten he was sent to work in a blacking factory while the rest of
the family served a term in the debtor's prison of the Marshealsea. Dickens did,
however, spend two years at a school in Hampstead before entering a solicitor's
office as a junior clerk at the age of fifteen. He learned shorthand and became a
reporter, first in the law courts and then in Parliament.
1.2 Development as a Novelist.- Dickens soon came in more ways than one to
the high turning point of his fortunes. His marriage and his first real literary work can
be dated at about the same time. We began by contributing to the old "Monthly
Magazine" and went on to write a series of sketches which were, in the broadest

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sense, caricatures of the life and manners of the time.
A well-known humorous artist, Robert Seymour, was to produce a series of
plates illustrating the adventures, or misadventures, of the Nimrod Club, a group of
amateur sportsmen. Dickens convinced the firm that illustrations should follow the
text, rather than vice versa, and began writing the first installment of "THE
POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB", which appeared in April,
1836. Writing in monthly installments was a mode of publication that proved
congenial to Dickens. On the surface this novel is a series of sketches, loosely held
together by the adventures of Samuel Pickwick and his friends. Yet there are certain
basic themes that unify the novel; the celebration of travel, benevolence,
youthfulness, fellowship, plenty, romance; the contrast between freedom of the open
road and the constriction of Fleet Prison; the comic treatment of various institutions
and professions; and the gradual revelation of Mr. Pickwick's endearing humanity.
As "Pickwick" was the foundation of his public life, so his marriage was the
foundation of his private life. His wife was Catherine Hogarth, eldest daughter of
George Hollarge, editor of the "Evening Chronicle". The marriage was genuinely
happy at first and there were ten children, born over a period of 15 years. The
couple separated twenty-two years later in disagreeable circumstances. All this,
however, happened long afterwards.
From then onwards Dickens produced one book after another. "OLIVER
TWIST", which might be meant for a contrast to "Pickwick", consists of a queer
mixture of melodrama and realism; but both the realism and the melodrama are
deliberately dark and grim. The novel marked a new departure for Dickens,
presenting an attack on workhouse conditions and London's criminal-infested slums
through the nightmarish experiences of an innocent young boy. It is not only the first
of his nightmare novels but also the first of his social tracts. Something of social
protest could be read between the lines of Pickwick in prison; but the prison of
Pickwick was mild compared with the almshouse of Oliver. Whether we call the
transition from "Pickwick" to "Oliver Twist" a change from comedy to tragedy, or
merely a change from farce to melodrama. It is notable that Dicken's next act is to
mix the two in about equal proportions.
With "NICOLAS NICKLEBY" (1838-9) we have the new method, which is
like a pattern of bright and dark stripes. The melodrama is,if possible, even more
melodramatic than in "Oliver Twist"; and what there is of it is equally black and
scowling. The novel is an exposure of private schools for unwanted boys. The hero

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this time actively seeks a gentlemanly position in life, whereas Oliver is a passive
character. The private school, the slums, the-workhouse are degrading conditions,
analogous in some respects to prison. The only proper alternative is gentility.
In "THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP" (1840-11) the heroine's urge to leave the
corrupt, threatening city and find a pastoral peace and security may represent a
drive towards death. In fact the novel contains some of the most attractive and
imaginative humour in all his humorous works; there is nothing better than Mr.
Swiveller's imitation of the brigand or Mr Brass's funeral oration over the dwarf. But
in general association, everything else in the story is swallowed up in the
lachrymose subject of Little Nell.
"BARNABY RUDGE" (1841) centred on London's anti-Catholic riots of 1780
and examined the relationship between vicious misguided fathers and the obtuse,
selfish authority of public institutions.
About this time a determining event interrupted his purely literary
development, his first visit to America (1842), which resulted in an unflattering travel
book, "AMERICAN NOTES" (1842), and in "MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT" (1843-4). At
this point there is a break in Dicken's life, in more ways than one. It is represented
by his decision to live abroad for a time, chiefly on grounds of economy. In the
Italian landscape of Genoa, he concentrated on a study so very domestic, insular,
and even cockney as "THE CHIMES" (1844); and industriously continued the series
of short Christmas stories that had recently begun in the very fog of "A CHRISTMAS
CAROL" (1843).
All the early books, from "Pickwick" onwards, appeared, it must be
remembered, serially and in separate parts. They were awaited eagerly and were
sometimes only just in time. One effect of this method was that it, at first,
encouraged the novelist in a sort of opportunism and hand-to-mouth habit of work.
As time went, however, it had a very different effect: the mere fact of serial
publication meant that the writer had to think ahead.
For his eighth novel, "DAVID COPPERFIELD" (1849-50) he made use of
autobiographical material. This was Dicken's first effort to show the education of a
hero from the inside, using a first-person narration. The interest of the book lies in
the peripheral characters and intrigues as the raw material of Copperfiel's growth.
The most remarkable thing about Dickens is that from his first novel to his
last he never ceased experimenting with his forms, themes, and characters. In
"BLEAK HOUSE" (1852-3) he made a new departure. Dickens himself said of it,"I

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have purposely dwelt on the romantic side of familiar things". It is a satire against
Chancery and the law's delay which opens out to satirize the whole society.
"HARD TIMES" (1854) may be considered as historically important as the
revolt of a radical against the economic individualism which was originally identified
with radicalism. It is not simply an attack on capitalist society, but on the soulless
and sordid industrial life it had brought about and on human nature itself. Like all the
novels that follow, including its immediate successor,"LITTLE DORRIT" (1855-7), it
demands the regeneration of men as well as social reform.
"A TALE OF TWO CITIES" (1856), a romance about the French revolution,
appeared in the periodical which took its place, "All the Year Round" (edit. by
Dickens until his death); it was an overdramatic simplification designed to appeal to
the even wider audience that Dickens hoped to reach through his new medium- the
"family magazine". Yet the height of his new method was eventually attained in his
next work,"GREAT EXPECTATIONS" (1860-1), and perhaps he never did anything
better than its opening chapters. There is no fine writing in it, however; it has all the
virtuoso's brilliance with none of his tricks. Even his exuberant fancy was kept in
check and subordinate to the main design.
"OUR MUTUAL FRIEND" (1864-5) was Dickens' last completed novel, and it
is more complete than most. Indeed, it is one of the best, though not one of the most
Dickensian. Through an ancient narrator Dickens explores the corrupting taint of
money in the whole of society. Here he stresses the regenerating force of love
rather than that of work. His last work, "THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD"
(1870), remained unfinished.
I.3 Dickens' Genius and Reputation.- Dickens had a slight and rather frail
body, but he was very active. He loved taking twenty-mile walks, horseback riding,
making journeys, entertaining friends, dining well, and playing practical jokes. He
enjoyed games charades with his family, was an expert amateur magician, and
practiced hypnotism. One tends to share Shaw's opinion that Dickens was always
on stage. He was the quintessence of a master of ceremonies: ebullient, dynamic,
quick, observant, full of zest for life. Yet he was also high-strung, impatient, irascible,
and subject to fits of depression.
Dickens' writing, which extended approximately over the first thirty-five years
of Victoria's reign, showed particularly to begin with, the continuity of the 18th
century tradition of the writers Fielding and Smollet, in the novel form (loosely
connected adventures, moving in locality from place to place), and in his use for

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farcical situations and a profusion of "typed" comic, often eccentric characters. In his
writing he showed himself a liberal reformer of his age, concerned with the problems
arising in city life and the life of the poor, especially in London, as a result of the
Industrial Revolution.
Dickens appealed to all classes of society-from aristocrats to labourers. He
appealed to intellectuals and simple people, and to different levels of emotion. In this
range and universally he has been compared to Shakespeare. He was the first
writer to enjoy such mass popularity, and some critics have suggested that he was
sometimes too ready to bow to popular opinion to retain that popularity: the happy
ending of "Great Expectations" is a case in point.
All his novels were originally published as monthly or weekly serials, and in
the earlier ones this is one of the causes of a certain happy-go-lucky
formlessness..But from the time of publication of "Dombey and Son", Dickens' mood
and method altered. He began to use highly organized, often cumbersome plots. His
social criticism grew more mature and searching. He began to attempt the more
subtle modern of psychological characterization.
His irresistible greatness has always been recognized. Dickens is still
tremendously popular in the ex-Soviet Union, but though it is sometimes thought
that this is because the Russians find it particularly easy to believe in the picture he
gives of life in Britain, it would be rash to assume that this is the only reason. He
increasingly attracts scholarly understanding and receptive criticism. For, though
intensively committed to the life of his time, he created an imaginary world which has
a life of its own.

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