Victorian Literature: A Comprehensive Guide

Victorian Literature: An Overview

Introduction

Victorian literature encompasses the literary works produced during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901), coinciding with the Victorian era. It serves as a bridge between the Romantic period’s writers and the distinct literature of the 20th century.

The Rise of the Novel

The 19th century witnessed the novel’s emergence as the dominant literary form in English. Pre-Victorian authors like Jane Austen and Walter Scott had refined social satire and adventure narratives, creating a market for novels among a growing readership. The 19th century is often considered a golden age for British literature, as well as for literature in countries like France, the United States, and Russia. Books, particularly novels, became widespread.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens epitomizes the Victorian novelist. Immensely popular during his time, his characters transcended the page, and he remains a beloved author. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, written at age 25, was an instant success, and subsequent works sold exceptionally well. Dickens was a self-made man who diligently catered to public taste, often adapting his plots based on reader feedback. His early comedic works possess a satirical edge that pervades his writing, addressing the plight of the poor and oppressed. His later works, such as his unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, explore darker themes, reflecting a broader trend in Victorian literature.

William Thackeray

William Thackeray was Dickens’s main rival. With a similar style but a more detached and satirical perspective, he focused on middle-class settings. His most famous work, Vanity Fair, subtitled A Novel without a Hero, exemplifies the historical novel, a popular Victorian genre depicting recent history.

Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope’s novels centered on the landed gentry and professional classes, offering a different perspective on Victorian society.

The Brontë Sisters

The Brontë sisters—Anne, Charlotte, and Emily—produced remarkable novels during their short lives, though their works weren’t immediately embraced by Victorian critics. Emily’s sole novel, Wuthering Heights, stands out for its blend of violence, passion, supernatural elements, heightened emotions, and emotional distance. It’s a prime example of Gothic Romanticism from a female perspective, exploring themes of class, myth, and gender.

George Eliot

George Eliot, the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, sought to write serious novels that defied the conventions of women’s writing at the time. Virginia Woolf, in her essays The Common Reader, praised Eliot’s Middlemarch as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.” This critique, while broad, reflects a common characteristic of Victorian fiction.

The Evolving Style of the Victorian Novel

Influenced by the lengthy novels of sensibility from the previous era, Victorian novels often presented idealized portrayals of challenging lives where hard work, perseverance, love, and luck ultimately triumphed. Virtue was rewarded, and wrongdoers faced appropriate consequences. These novels often carried a moral message, instructing readers on how to be upstanding Victorians.

Realism and Social Commentary

Eliot, in particular, championed realism in her fiction, striving to eliminate the picturesque and burlesque. Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels depicted the harsh realities of poverty in northern England, though even these often concluded with happy endings. After Dickens’s death in 1870, happy endings became less prevalent.

Charles Dickens’s Influence

As a prominent literary figure and editor of the journal All the Year Round, Dickens significantly influenced Victorian literature. His preference for happy endings with resolved conflicts is evident. While he wrote about the poor, his portrayals were often sentimentalized, making them palatable for readers who sought to be shocked but not repulsed. Henry Mayhew’s articles and book London Labour and the London Poor offered a more unvarnished depiction of Victorian urban poverty.

Shifting Trends

The shift towards realism and darker themes in Victorian fiction gained momentum by the late 19th century. Even prominent Victorian authors faced criticism for challenging social norms. Adam Bede was labeled “the vile outpourings of a lewd woman’s mind,” and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was deemed “utterly unfit to be put into the hands of girls.” The reading public’s disapproval perhaps reached its peak with Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, which was allegedly burned by an outraged bishop. Hardy’s frank treatment of sex, religion, and marriage—a central theme in many Victorian novels—provoked this strong reaction.

Thomas Hardy and Other Authors

Hardy began his career with seemingly conventional novels depicting rural life, but his disillusionment with certain Victorian institutions and the changing English countryside became increasingly apparent. The negative response to Jude in 1895 marked the end of his novel-writing career, though he continued to write poetry until the mid-1920s. Other authors, such as Samuel Butler and George Gissing, also challenged Victorian morality and conventions in their works. Butler’s Erewhon, a utopian novel satirizing Victorian society, drew criticism for its critique of religious hypocrisy.

Popular Literature

The vast number of eager readers led to a surge in popular literature, including sensational and poorly written novels. Many of the flaws found in more accomplished writers were amplified in these works: excessive sentimentality, unrealistic plots, and heavy-handed moralizing. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, immensely popular in his time, is now considered an example of the worst of Victorian literature, known for his sensational storylines and overblown prose. Other once-popular but now largely forgotten authors include Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Charles Kingsley, and R. D. Blackmore.

Children’s Literature

The Victorians are sometimes credited with “inventing childhood,” partly due to their efforts to abolish child labor and introduce compulsory education. As literacy rates among children increased, children’s literature became a thriving industry. Established authors like Dickens (A Child’s History of England) wrote for children, and a new generation of dedicated children’s authors emerged. Lewis Carroll, R. M. Ballantyne, and Anna Sewell primarily wrote for children, though their works also appealed to adults. Authors like Anthony Hope and Robert Louis Stevenson, who mainly wrote for adults, are now often categorized as children’s authors. Popular genres included nonsense verse (e.g., Lewis Carroll) and school stories (e.g., Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Kipling’s Stalky & Co.).

Poetry and Drama

Poetry

Victorian poetry can be seen as a transition between the Romantic era and the modernist poetry of the 20th century. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate for over 40 years, produced both celebrated and criticized works. While some of his later poems are now considered bombastic, his early work and poems like “The Charge of the Light Brigade” are highly regarded. Comic verse flourished in Victorian times, with magazines like Punch and Fun catering to a well-educated readership. The Bab Ballads is a notable collection of Victorian comic verse. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning’s love affair played out through their poetry, resulting in many tender and passionate poems. Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry bridges the gap between Romantic and Georgian poetry, with Arnold anticipating themes of later poets and Hopkins drawing inspiration from Old English verse forms.

Medievalism and Myth

The Victorians were fascinated by the past, particularly classical and medieval literature. They admired the heroic tales of knights and sought to revive chivalrous ideals. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, blending Arthurian legends with contemporary concerns, exemplifies this trend. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also drew inspiration from myth and folklore, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti initially considered the leading poet among them, though his sister Christina is now recognized as a more significant poet.

Drama

Victorian drama featured a mix of farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas, and comic operas alongside Shakespearean productions and serious plays by authors like James Planché and Thomas William Robertson. The German Reed Entertainments, starting in 1855, contributed to the elevation of musical theater in Britain, culminating in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas and paving the way for Edwardian musical comedies. H. J. Byron’s Our Boys (1875) achieved an unprecedented 500 consecutive performances, a record later surpassed by Brandon Thomas’s Charley’s Aunt (1892). Oscar Wilde emerged as a leading poet and dramatist in the late Victorian period. His plays stand out from many forgotten Victorian plays and share a closer connection with the works of Edwardian playwrights like George Bernard Shaw.

The Influence of Empire

The Victorian fascination with literature extended beyond Europe, leading to a surge in translations of works from the far reaches of the British Empire and beyond. Arabic and Sanskrit literature were among the most significant discoveries. Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, though a rather free adaptation, introduced this 11th-century work to a wider audience. Explorer Richard Francis Burton translated numerous exotic works, including The Perfumed Garden, The Arabian Nights, and the Kama Sutra.

Science, Philosophy, and Discovery

Charles Darwin and the Impact of Science

The Victorian era was a period of significant scientific advancements, and Victorians were driven to document and categorize the natural world. While much of this writing isn’t considered literature, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species remains a landmark work. His theory of evolution challenged Victorian beliefs about humanity’s place in the world and profoundly impacted subsequent thought and literature.

Philosophy, History, and Social Commentary

Other notable non-fiction works include John Stuart Mill’s philosophical writings on logic, economics, liberty, and utilitarianism; Thomas Carlyle’s influential historical works like The French Revolution, A History and On Heroes and Hero Worship; and Thomas Babington Macaulay’s The History of England from the Accession of James II. Despite criticism of religion in some novels, religious publications thrived. John Henry Newman and Henry Edward Cardinal Manning sought to revitalize Anglicanism through a return to the Roman Catholic Church. Socialist ideas gained traction, with Friedrich Engels’s Condition of the Working Classes in England and William Morris’s utopian novel News from Nowhere reflecting this trend. The Oxford English Dictionary, a monumental project initiated during this era, would eventually become the definitive historical dictionary of the English language.

Supernatural and Fantastic Literature

The late 19th century saw the emergence of fantastic fiction, often featuring larger-than-life characters like Sherlock Holmes, Sexton Blake, and Phileas Fogg, alongside fictional figures like Dracula, Edward Hyde, and the Invisible Man. Gothic literature, spanning the 18th and 19th centuries, blended romance and horror to thrill and terrify readers. Gothic novels often featured elements such as foreign monsters, ghosts, curses, hidden rooms, and witchcraft, typically set in locations like castles, monasteries, and cemeteries. These gothic monsters sometimes ventured into the real world, appearing in cities like London and Paris.

The Legacy of Victorian Literature

International Influence

Writers from the United States and British colonies like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were influenced by British literature and are often considered part of the broader Victorian literary landscape, though they developed their own distinct voices. Notable Victorian-era American writers include Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry James, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman.

Bridging Eras

Classifying Victorian literature can be challenging due to the significant differences between early and late Victorian works. Authors like Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, Bram Stoker, H. Rider Haggard, Jerome K. Jerome, and Joseph Conrad produced some of their major works during Victoria’s reign, but their writing often reflects an Edwardian sensibility.

Enduring Appeal

Victorian literature continues to resonate with modern audiences. Authors like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters remain popular, and Victorian influences can be seen in contemporary films and novels. Modern works like Sarah Waters’s Affinity and Fingersmith demonstrate the enduring fascination with the intricate social and cultural dynamics of the Victorian era.