0the Victorian Age

THE VICTORIAN AGE: THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND THE LITERARY LANDSCAPE
a) Queen Victoria and the Empire

The young princess Victoria was only eighteen when she was ready to rule the destiny of the world's most powerful nation.
Her uncle, William IV had died, and in her diary, she wrote she got the news on a morning and she felt she was ready to be a queen.
So she remained, until her death, sixty-four years later. Her long reign is considered one of the best among the British monarchs, and
it was a period of progress for the nation. She also consolidated the people's respect for the monarchy by her exemplary personal life,
honesty and sense of morality.
The historians and the literary critics identify her reign (1837 1901) as covering the most remarkable events in the 19 th
century.
Obviously, the Victorian Age did contain conflict, in a period of great changes in the entire world. Moreover, how could not
there have been conflicts in the process of the British Empire spanning over the Globe?
A dispute between Upper and Lower Canada led to union between the two in a wide dominion. Britain took the control in
India but on the other side, it was economically involved in the American Civil War. The British interests in China led to the gaining
of the Hong Kong Island.
Although she was a successful monarch, Queen Victoria had the fortune of being counselled by distinguished ministers such
as the Duke of Wellington. The British political scene was dominated by the rivalry between the Liberal Party (Whig), led by
Gladstone, and the Conservatory Party (Tory) led by Benjamin Disraeli, who was the queen's favourite political man. The Reform Bill
extended the right to vote to the middle class.
The industrial revolution had effects that produced drastic social and economic changes. An agricultural nation became
almost overnight industrialised, urbanised and having three important social classes. The new working class developed but its people
were confronted with poverty and children exploitation. For the rich it was the time of extravagance and lavish social display and in
most cases, they were largely indifferent to the deprivation and suffering of the poor.
b) Life in the Victorian Age
During the 19th century the industry, transportation and commerce had important developments. The railway network became
larger and larger; the Queen herself was the owner of some shares to the Railway Company.
Steamships facilitated the trade with the colonies and the United States.
Powerful industrialists and merchants expanded the British middle class, the group that would represent the age. The values
of this social class included hard work, morality, social reform and pragmatism. Progress was everywhere, but not without sacrifice.
At the same time, the changes in the world expanded to science too. In Austria, Gregor Mendel presented the laws of heredity, in Italy,
Marconi invented the telegraph and Charles Darwin published the results of his research. As is easy to observe the conflict between
religion and science became very sharp as some famous names of the time, such as David Strauss, tried to reconsider the Bible and
Jesus' life in scientific terms.
Ordinary people began to demand and struggle for their rights, so after the Reform Bill in 1832 there followed the Chartist
movement in 1838. People asked for secret vote, annual elections, and changes in the payments and other democratic claims.
Gradually their demands started to be granted.
One innovative and positive aspect of the Victorian Age was that everybody could share in the great events of the time. In
spite of their lack of political influence, their long working hours and inadequate wages, in spite of the danger of poor sanitary
conditions and disease - the plague came back in 1849 and 1853 the workers showed interest in what happened overseas, or even in
art. In this respect, the most famous names were John Ruskin and William Morris.
Although the lives of the British workers were difficult, some major steps were taken to correct the abuses against them. For
women and children laws were adopted that limited their work at ten hours a day and they were not allowed to work in mines. The
workers in textile industry gained a half-free day on Saturday. In 1869, the Debtors Prison was abolished. In 1884, the first line of the
London underground was built and at the end of the century, the first steam driven cars appeared on the streets of the great city.
Against this background of major transformation, the people adopted the incipient socialist ideas, which at least in the
beginning seemed to lead to movements of the working class.
In this respect, the literature of the time illustrated very well the aims and the transformation of the Victorian society.
c) The Literary Landscape in the 19th century
People living at the beginning of the 19th century knew there was something unique and dramatic about their times even if no
one officially named the period the Romantic Age. During this period, much of Europe and America experienced a monumental
upheaval in political, economic, social and philosophical systems. Revolutionary attitudes spread across the Old World and a new
literature came out of the new energy.
Romanticism, as a distinct literary trend, appeared at the end of the 18th century as a reaction to Classicism. It represented a
renewal of progressive thought and emotion which had existed before the 1700s and which had never totally died out. While
Romanticism in the 1800s signalled a new mood, the world had witnessed earlier cultural movements that also merit the qualification
4
Romantic. Specifically, the ancient Greek epics can be called Romantic, as much as literature of the Middle Ages and of the
Renaissance or Elizabethan Age can, as far as they cultivated the romance.
Under the sign of Romanticism, writers could release their imagination; sincerity of the feelings stirred their social and moral
sidei, originality and sensitiveness. All their writings emphasise human adventure, passion, delight, and love of splendour, of
extravagance and of the supernatural ii. The main philosophical ideas of that time placed man in the centre of the Universe and the
artists pleaded for the re-evaluation of the medieval and antique motifs and ideals. There was a preference for myth, symbol, dream,
magic. In the literary style prevails the blending of lyrical elements, and even dramatic elements, in the structure of the novel. This
explosion of fantasy and of the inner ego has its origins in the changing of society.
Of all literary movements, the Romantic one is the most difficult to define. Romantic artists did not flourish at exactly the
same time in different countries, but they did share some general characteristics. They asserted the importance of emotion over reason,
they stressed the individual personality over social and artistic conformity, and they focussed on personal experience rather than on
rules and traditions, as the best guide to truth and happiness. Romantics went to nature as a source of inspiration. One of the most
significant elements in the Romantic spirit was idealism. Romantic artists posses a deep-rooted belief in a noble way of life; they
often see the real world as a reflection of an ideal world.
The Romantic Age in England saw excruciating living conditions as well as the possibility for relief and improvement. The
Romantic poets keenly felt the strength of the common working people and the promise of freedom from oppression. In the Preface
accompanying the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth enunciated his aims, among which was the belief that poetry should
reflect spontaneity and emotion, that the language should be accessible and the events should be presented from an unusual point of
viewiii. Though Romanticism shared with Neo-classicism an interest in the past, Romanticism emphasised Ancient Greece over
Ancient Rome. Furthermore, the Romantic concern with the past encompassed a renewed interest in the Middle Ages.
Therefore, Victorian literature, as well as almost the whole European literature of the 19th century, identifies mainly with
Realism.
As an aesthetic doctrine, Realism appears as a reaction to Romanticism, being generated by the great scientific discoveries
and by the social and philosophical changes. To sensitiveness and imagination are opposed lucidity and will. Therefore, the swing
from Romanticism to Realism seems to have been a natural reaction. The realist writer observes human behaviour, he empathises,
while the romantic writer projects himself, reveals some of his own psychological features and lends them to his characters iv.
From a literary point of view, Realism shows that the artist does not have to idealise reality, but see it the way it is, taking
into account the relation cause effect, the psychical reactions, and so on. The artists wanted to tell the unadorned truth of life as they
saw it: harsh, hard, sometimes joyful, but usually filled with work, pain, and disillusion. They stripped away the lovely masks of the
Romantics and sought to get to the heart of the human condition.
The greatest Realist achievements are the novels. They reveal vast panoramas of people and places, complex life stories. The
reader felt the necessity of reality, of objectivity. Yet, the reality being sometimes dry and colourless, it had to be adorned with
imaginary elements. This is why, in many novels belonging to Realism, Romantic elements interfere, giving new dimensions and a
necessary complexity to the plot and to the characters. The social problems came in the first place, erupted from the people
subconscious, meaning the same world of magic and archetypes, so much enjoyed by the Romantics.
The Victorian Age means the consolidation of capitalist ideology, the triumph of Jeremy Benthams and John Stuart Mills
philosophy that will generate modern Utilitarianismv, based on positivism and agnosticism. Although in the 19th century we can notice
a development of almost all present days theories, as scientism, symbolism, realism, naturalism vi, etc., the novel is generally known as
the Victorian novel.
Its main characteristics are the direct observation of reality (Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, A. Trollope, Ch. Bront, W.
Collins), as well as the interest for introspection, society/individual relation, or individual/individual relation, also meant the detailed
description of mannersvii (G. Eliot, Th. Hardy, G. Meredith).
Nevertheless, no matter to what category they were included into, their concern for the poor as reflected in their novels, made
some critics in the 1950s associate it with Marxismviii. During the development of the novel, we can notice a more philosophic
analysis of the implications of a situation, and a more careful and poetic rendering of experience ix.
Like the Elizabethan drama, the Victorian novel could be subdivided into novels about history, crime, mystery, domestic
novelsx.
From another point of view, Albert Thibaudetxi considers Dickens as an exponent of the passive novel, because he describes
society as it is, and does not re-create one.
In the pages that follow we shall show how much Dickens was a writer of recording passive novels, a Realist, a Romantic, or
how all of these blended in the Dickensian work.
Notes:
Ren Wellek Istoria Criticii Literare Moderne, ed. Univers, Bucureti, 1974, vol.IV, p. 148.
Dicionar de termeni literari, coord. Al. Sndulescu, ed. Academiei R.S.R., Bucureti, 1976, p. 383, 384.
iii
Leon Levichi, Sever Trifu, Veronica Foceneanu Istoria Literaturii Engleze i Americane, ed. Dacia, ClujNapoca, 1994, vol. II, p. 204.
iv
Ren Wellek, Austin Warren Teoria Literaturii, Editura Pentru Literatur Universal, 1967, Bucureti, p.
v
Dicionar de termeni literari, p. 470.
vi
Ren Wellek op. cit., vol. III, p. 28.
vii
Ren Wellek op. cit., vol.IV, p. 2.
viii
Boris Ford (editor) The Pelican Guide to English Literature, Penguin Books, 1958, vol. V, p. 98.
ix
Boris Ford op. cit., p. 104.
x
Boris Ford op. cit., p. 103.
xi
Albert Thibaudet Fiziologia criticii, Editura Pentru Literatur Universal, Bucureti, 1966, p. 173, 619.
ii

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THE VICTORIAN AGE: THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND AND THE LITERARY LANDSCAPE

a) Queen Victoria and the Empire

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