Victorian Era Literary Giants: Thackeray to Stoker
Victorian Era Literary Giants
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 – 1873): Born in India in 1811, where his parents served in the British administration. He is considered both a novelist and an illustrator. Acclaimed as the best Victorian novelist after Dickens during his lifetime, although his relevance and popularity have declined since the 20th century, partly because of his focus on the nobility instead of the poor. Thackeray traveled to Africa on several occasions, reflecting those experiences in his travel narratives. His novels should be understood as a satire of the Dickensian novel (and of the traditional novel), aiming to show the lack of a hero. He included previous authors like Steele, Addison, and Swift as characters in some of his novels. Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ (1987) was a contemporary homage to Thackeray.
- The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844)
- Vanity Fair (serialized 1847-1848)
George Eliot (1819 – 1880): Born Mary Ann Evans in 1819. She chose the pen name George Eliot to be taken seriously in the world of journalism and literature. She lived outside of Britain between 1854 and 1878. Her novels are mostly set in the provincial and rural areas of England, which she considered the heart of the nation. Through her novels, especially Middlemarch, we see an accurate picture of British rural society. Towards the end of her career, her novels began showing characteristics that foreshadowed 20th-century literature, like psychological realism, something also explored by some of her contemporaries (i.e., Henry James). Her novels are highly relevant to the evolution of literature, offering examples of the representation of political and social reform (first railways, 1832 Reform Act…).
- Daniel Deronda
Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928): His novels can be understood as a mixture of the techniques of George Eliot and William Wordsworth. The main theme of his major works is the decadence of rural societies during the late Victorian period. Another important theme in Hardy’s work is the denied dream, where a character pursues a particular ambition and is constantly defeated by society. Due to his friendship with George Meredith, his novels became influenced by this author, making them more difficult to follow than those of his contemporaries.
- Tess of the d’Urbervilles
- Jude the Obscure
Charles Dickens: A Literary Phenomenon
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was the most famous author and cultural figure during the Victorian era. Elizabeth Gaskell held a similar position in the north of England, especially in Manchester. Dickens remains one of the most famous figures in 19th-century literature. He was already famous during his lifetime, unlike other authors. Born in Portsmouth in 1812, he started working in a factory at an early age to pay for his father’s debts. Soon, he began a career as a journalist. (This is where he learned his literary style, as would happen with later authors like Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway.) Besides writing realist novels, Dickens cultivated other genres or subgenres, like the ghost story, the travel narrative, and the adventure novel. Although he never advocated for social movements, his novels had a strong impact on social issues.
Dickens’ Literary Characteristics
Dickens was an excellent recipient of previous traditions, like the picaresque novel or the novel of sensibility. Satire and caricature were key elements in his work (similar to William Hogarth’s pictorial art). He gave his characters whimsical names to be easily remembered. Besides, his characters share many features with previous models (i.e., Quixotism). His own life was continually used as a resource for his work. Dickens tried to introduce social reforms that did not attack the interests of the higher classes. For instance, he fought for better living conditions in workhouses and for the introduction of sanitation measures. He influenced the social activism of Florence Nightingale.
British authorities created workhouses to drive children into industrial labor, teaching them how to be industrial workers. The reason given was to provide a basic education to these children, but the reality was that these institutions were under-covered worker institutions, making the kids pay. His narration had a reflection in British politics; the recognition acquired by his narrations provoked a social movement that led to the political discussion of some of the negative aspects included in his narrations, leading to the improvement of working conditions for children.
Mary Shelley and the Gothic Imagination
Mary Shelley (1797-1851): Born in 1797, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Her mother died shortly after her birth; many of the problems in Frankenstein deal with the lack of a mother figure, which Mary Shelley herself experienced. She was the author of historical novels, romantic novels, travel accounts, and post-apocalyptic fiction, besides Frankenstein. Frankenstein, the first novel that she wrote, debates about science, which was a common concern around the 18th century. Without Percy Shelley’s influence, we might not have had Frankenstein. She doesn’t explore the classical myths but the modern view of them. She married Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. He was probably the best romantic poet of his generation, even better than Byron. He met Mary Shelley when she was a teenager and fell in love with her even though he was married. This relationship was very influential in Mary Shelley’s works. Their only surviving child was Percy Florence Shelley (1819-1889). She died in London in 1851.
Elizabeth Gaskell: Bridging Traditions
The work of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) is considered today as the bridge linking the previous Romantic and Gothic traditions and the realist literature that was being produced by the mid-century. Gaskell spent most of her adult life in Manchester, where her husband was a pastor. From there, she was offered the opportunity of representing the lives and conditions of the industrial city. Therefore, she is usually considered the ‘Dickens of the North’. Among her vast oeuvre, probably the most influential works are:
- The Old Nurse’s Story (1852): Collection of stories following the trend of the ghost narration, very popular during the Victorian Era.
Oscar Wilde: Wit and Social Commentary
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): As with Dickens, he was seen as one of the greatest authors of the Victorian era. He was not fully recognized until the 50s and 60s of the century. His life and extra-literary activities have made him a much more famous literary figure than his novels. Born in Dublin, Ireland, into a family belonging to the higher social classes of society. His mother, Lady Wilde (Esperanza), was a very important recorder. He was familiar with the folkloric and literary past of Ireland, thanks to his father. Irish traditional literature prior to the 20th century was traditionally oral; Oscar Wilde replicated this with the exception of The Picture of Dorian Gray. He was awarded a Scholarship to Oxford, where he met Walter Pater. Most of his plays are a recreation of ancient comedies, with the exception of Salome. He is especially known for being a dramatist and a socialist. His socialist novels were a revolution in British drama. Thanks to Oscar Wilde, British audiences had the opportunity to face a new creator who started achieving the same level of popularity as Shakespeare. Oscar Wilde’s plays focused on the exploration and recreation of social aspects (exploring family and marriage issues, misconception of identity). He needs to be considered a renewer of European comedy, especially new Greek and Latin comedy, giving entry to the sit-com. He participated in the renovation of drama.
Besides being a dramatist, he was especially renowned for being an editorial idol from a very early age, as he started working on different journals, renewing them and making them much more popular. Magazines didn’t really elevate the issues, so through his formation in university and his professional participation in the editorial market, we start seeing the creation of his aspects.
Two pain points: discussion of beauty and the discussion/confusion of religion. He was never a religious person but shows in many of his works a deep religious concern. His acceptance of religion was associated with the concept of the ritual and the beautiful. Religion was attractive to Oscar Wilde because he considered certain branches of Christianity as more aesthetically elevated than others because the Catholic Church had developed a series of rituals, celebrations, and representations that were aesthetically more elevated and less elaborated than the Protestants’, even though he was more familiar with the Anglican tradition.
Bram Stoker and the Gothic Horror
Bram Stoker (1847-1912): A famous cultural icon of the Victorian era, author of Dracula. He produced other novels, short stories, poetry, essays, criticism, etc. He was a prolific author, mostly remembered for the epistolary novel Dracula. Born in Dublin, with a Protestant background, from a lower social class than Oscar Wilde, he had great talents in academic life. After graduating, he started working at the university; his position was created especially for him as it never existed before. It didn’t last long as his second passion was drama. Dublin was becoming the hotspot for European drama, and companies created theaters. He met the actor Henry Irving, the most famous actor of his time. After establishing an epistolary relationship, Henry hired him as his representative and secretary, traveling with him representing Shakespeare’s drama. Henry Irving made him the public person that he was. Florence Balcombe was responsible for fighting to defend Bram Stoker’s Dracula after his death.
Literature and Empire
He lived in the last decades of the Victorian era, the peak of the British Empire. In many of his narrations, even though he wasn’t interested in politics (never defended the independence of Ireland, he was a home ruler), he would criticize Irish nationalism and the peak of the British Empire. Many authors did similar things, but in more exotic places than Ireland, such as India, and not Europe.
Dracula’s Enduring Legacy
Since its publication in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula has received many different interpretations, from psychoanalysis to gender studies, and from historicism to structuralism. However, one of the most interesting points of view is that offered by Stephen D. Arata (1990), in which the novel is explored as a representation of the risk the Empire could mean for Britain. According to Arata, Count Dracula (along with other popular characters of the period, like Wells’s Martians, Haggard’s Queen Ayesha, or Conrad’s Kurtz) represents the problems.