Characteristics of Victorian age

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Characteristics of Victorian age

S. B. Gardi DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

M.K.BHAVNAGAR University

Written by:- Vala Jyotsna T

Course No:-06

Course Name:- The Victorian  Literature

 Enrollment no :- PG15101042

Characteristics of Victorian age

Introduction:-
                             

 The queen Victoria rules England from 1837 to 1901. This period is considered as Victorian age in the history of english literature. It was the age of peace and prosperity and also the age of prose and novel. The literature of Victorian age was influenced by three different factors which are industrial revolution, scientific inventions and political freedom.
Characteristics of Victorian age:-
                           
(1). An age of Prose and Novel
(2). Deep Moral Not
(3). Realism
(4). Intellectual Development
(5). Search For Balance
(6). Humanitarian Approach.

An age of Prose and Novel:-
                                                               

  The Victorian age was essentially the age of prose and novel W.J.Long in his book history of English literature says Though the age produced many poets nevertheless this is emphatically an age of prose and novel. (The novel in this age fill a place which the drama held in the days of Elizabethan).
The novels were looking like the bright stars in the sky of england during the Victorian era. The great novelists like:- Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray, GeorgeEliot, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Anne Bronte filled the sky of the Victorian era with their novels.
Some important novels are:-

Thomas Hardy:- 1). Oliver Twists
                            2). Hard Time
                            3). A Tale Of Two Cities
                            4). Great Expectation.

Charrlotte Bronte:- 1). The professor.

Emily Bronte:- 1). Wuthering Heights.

George Eliot:- 1). Middle March.

These novels are just an ice-berg in the ocean of the Victorian novels.

Deep Moral Note:-

The Victorian literature was marked by a deep moral note. In literature this tendency is reflected in the early poetry of Tennyson and in the novel of Charles Dickens. Dickens novels show great respect for tradition and morality. Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle and Ruskin were interested in spreading their message and moral philosophy to their country men.

Realism:-
                           

 The literature of the Victorian age is literature of realism. The literature of this age is related with the socialand political life of his age. The Victorian writers tried to represent the problems of their own age. There for the Victorian literature is the literature of realism rather than of romance. During this time literature became an instrument of social reform (the literature of this age was marked by didacticaims).

Intellectual Development:-
 There was a great revolution in the scientific thoughts during this period. The well-known scientist durvin published his theory of evalution in his famous work “The origin of species”. (This book realism of ideas).
 

Tennyson responded this new thought in his famous poem “In Memoriam” Mathew Arnold showed the science of new intellectual development in his prose and poetry. This new science created a note of passinism in many thinkers.

Search For Balance:-

 During this period the writers tried to balance the romentic as well as the classical influence. This is well obsereved in the works of J.S.Mill during this time. The new religious movement called the oxford movement was started. This movement shows a search for balance.

Humanitarian Approach:-

 In the novels of Charles Dickens, J.S.Mill and certain other novelist. We came accross the humanitarian approach. It is important to note that this age was an age of industrial revolution this industrial revolution creates two classes:-

(1). Labourers

(2). Capitalists.

Some Victorian novels deals with the class consciousness and also present the problems of poverty during this period.

Moral Purpose:-


Victorian literature in its varied aspects was marked by a deep moral note. “the second marked characteristic of the age is that literature, both in prose and poetry, seems to depart from the purely artistic standard of art’s sake and to be actuated by a definite moral purpose.” Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin were primarily interested in their message to their countrymen. They were teacher of England and were inspired by a conscious moral purpose to uplift and instruct their fellow man. Behind the fun and sentiment of Dickens, the social miniatures of Thackeray, the psychological studies of George Eliot, lay hidden a definite moral purpose to sweep away error and to bring out vividly in unmistakable terms the underlying truth of human life. We found good example in ‘The Mill on the Floss’ by Eliot. We found many of the writers write about family and morality in their literary work.
          

 The Victorian literature seems to deviate from “art for art’s sake” and asserts its moral purpose. Many of the writer gives the moral message to the world.

Realism:- 


The literature of the Victorian age was correlated to the social and political life of the age. The Victorian literary artists, living aside a few votaries of art for art’s sake represented by the Pre-Raphaelite school of poets, were inspired by a social zeal to represent the problem of their own age.
           

 Perhaps for this reason the Victorian literature is the literature of ‘realism’ rather than of romance, not the realism of Zola and Ibsen, but a deeper realism which strives to tell the whole truth, showing moral and physical diseases as they are, but holding up health and hope as the moral conditions of humanity. Literature became an instrument of social reform and social propaganda and it was marked with purposeful, propagandistic and didactic aims.
         

The Victorian literature is full of realism. We can say that Oliver twist is a realistic character; in Victorian age we found there is child labor in workhouse. So it called realism, and in Frankenstein there is no real character like monster in real life, but we found character like Oliver in real life. So the Victorian literature represents realism. There is no imaginative character in the literature. In Victorian literature we found realistic character rather than romantic character.

Pessimism:-


A note of pessimism, doubt and despair runs through Victorian literature and is noticed especially in the poetry of Matthew Arnold and Arthur Hugh Clough. Though a note of pessimism runs through the literature of the age, it cannot be dubbed as a literature of bleak pessimism and dark despair. A note of idealism and optimism is also struck by poets like Browning and prose writers like Ruskin. Rabbi Ben Ezra brings out the courageous optimism of the age. Stedman’s Victorian Anthology is, on the whole, a most inspiring book of poetry. Great essayists like Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, and great novelists like Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot inspire us with their faith in humanity and uplift us by their buoyancy and large charity.
                    

The literature of the age is considerably modified by the impact of science. “It is the scientific spirit, and all that the scientific spirit  implied, its certain doubt, its care for minuteness and truth of observation, its growing interest in social processes, and the conditions under which life is lived that is the central fact in Victorian literature.”
           

The questioning spirit in lough, the pessimism of James Thomson, the melancholy of Matthew Arnold, the fatalism of Fitzgerald, are all the outcome of the skeptical tendencies evoked by scientific research. Tennyson’s poetry is also considerably influenced by the advancement of science in the age, and the undertones of scientific researchers can be heard in ‘In Memoriam’.

Patriotism:-


A note of patriotism runs through Victorian literature. Tennyson, Dickens and Disraeli are inspired by a national pride and a sense of greatness in their country’s superiority over nations. Tennyson strikes the patriotic note in the following lines
                              It is the land that freemen till
                              That sober-suited freedom chose
                              A land of settled government,
                              A land of just and old renown,
                              Where freedom slowly broadens down
                              From precedent to precedent.

In one direction the literature of the Victorian age achieved a salient and momentous advance over the lecture of the Romantic Revival. The poets of the Romantic were interested in nature, in the past, and in a lesser degree in art, but they were not intensively interested in men and women.
           

To Wordsworth the dalesmen of the lakes were a part of the scenery they moved in. He treated human being as natural objects and divested them of the complexities and passions of life as it is lived. The Victorian poets and novelists laid emphasis on men and women and imparted to them the same warmth and glow which the Romantic poets had given to nature. “The Victorian age extended to the complexities of human life, the imaginative sensibility which its predecessor had brought to bear on nature and history. The Victorian poets and novelists added humanity to nature and art as the subject matter of literature.”
                    

We can say that in the literature the effect of patriotism. The writer focuses on national identity and patriotism in Victorian age.


Some other characteristics of this age:-


We found some other minor characteristics of Victorian age. A few literary artists of this age struck the note of revolt against
The Materialistic tendencies of the age, and sought to seek refuge in the overcharged atmosphere of the Middle age.an escapist note is also perceptible in the Victorian literature, and this is particularly noticed in the works of the pre-Raphaelite poets. Morris busied himself in its legends and sagas. “There were some minor reversions to classicism, but taken largely, literature of the age continued to be romantic, in the novelty and variety of it’s from, in its search after undiscovered springs of truth and beauty, in its emotional and imaginative intensity.”
          

 Idealism is often considered as an age of doubt and pessimism. The influence of science is felt here. The whole age seems to be caught in the conception of man in relation to the universe with the idea of evolution.
          

 Though, the age is characterized as practical and materialistic, most of the writers exalt a purely ideal life. It is an idealistic age where the great ideals like truth, justice, love, brotherhood, are emphasized by poets, essayists and novelists of the age.

Conclusion:-

Thus the Victorian era was peaceful reign Englisn people made a remarkeble progress in industrial, commercial and social life. This age witnessed a variety of tendencies in literature.

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