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History of English Literature

Notes Though the Romantic Age in the real sense of the term ended in 1820, the Victorian Age started
from 1832 with the passing of the first Reform Act, 1832. The years 1820-1832 were the years of
suspended animation in politics. It was a fact that England was fast turning from an agricultural
into a manufacturing country, but it was only after the reform of the Constitution which gave right
of vote to the new manufacturing centres, and gave power to the middle classes, that the way was
opened for new experiments in constructive politics. The first Reform Act of 1832 was followed by
the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 which gave an immense advantage to the manufacturing
interests, and the Second Reform Act of 1867. In the field of literature also the years 1820-1832 were
singularly barren. As has already been pointed out, there was sudden decline of Romantic literature
from the year 1820, but the new literature of England, called the Victorian literature, started from
1832 when Tennyson’s first important volume, Poems, appeared. The following year saw Carlyle’s
Sartor Resartus, and Dickens’ earliest work, Sketches by Boz. The literary career of Thackeray
began about 1837, and Browning published his Dramatic Lyrics in 1842.

Notes The Victorian period in literature officially starts from 1832, though the Romantic
period ended in 1820, and Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837.
The Victorian Age is so long and complicated and the great writers who flourished in it are so
many, that for the sake of convenience it is often divided into two periods—Early Victorian Period
and Later Victorian Period. The earlier period this was the period of middle class supremacy, the
age of ‘laissez-faire’ or free trade, and of unrestricted competition, extended from 1832 to 1870. The
great writers of this period were Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold, Carlyle, Ruskin, Dickens
and Thackeray. All these poets, novelists and prose-writers form, a certain homogenous group,
because in spite of individual differences they exhibit the same approach to the contemporary
problems and the same literary, moral and social values. But the later Victorian writers who came
into prominence after 1870—Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris, George Eliot, Meredith, Hardy, Newman
and Pater seem to belong to a different age. In poetry Rossetti, Swinburne and Morris were the
protagonists of new movement called the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, which was followed by the
Aesthetic Movement. In the field of novel, George Eliot is the pioneer of what is called the modern
psychological novel, followed by Meredith and Hardy. In prose Newman tried to revolutionise
Victorian thought by turning it back to Catholicism, and Pater came out with his purely aesthetic
doctrine of ‘Art for Art’s Sake’, which was directly opposed to the fundamentally moral approach
of the prose-writers of the earlier period—Carlyle Arnold and Ruskin. Thus we see a clear
demarcation between the two periods of Victorian literature—the early Victorian period
(1832–1870) and the later Victorian period (1870–1900).
But the difference between the writers of the two periods is more apparent than real. Fundamentally
they belong to one group. They were all the children of the new age of democracy, of individualism,
of rapid industrial development and material expansion, the age of doubt and pessimism, following
the new conceptions of man which was formulated by science under the name of Evolution. All of
them were men and women of marked originality in outlook and character or style. All of them
were the critics of their age, and instead of being in sympathy with its spirit, were its very severe
critics. All of them were in search of some sort of balance, stability, a rational understanding, in the
midst of the rapidly changing times. Most of them favoured the return to precision in form, to
beauty within the limits of reason, and to values which had received the stamp of universal
approval. It was in fact their insistence on the rational elements of thought, which gave a distinctive
character to the writings of the great Victorians, and which made them akin, to a certain extent, to
the great writers of the neo-Classical school. All the great writers of the Victorian Age were
actuated by a definite moral purpose. Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold wrote with a
superb faith in their message, and with the conscious moral purpose to uplift and to instruct. Even
the novel broke away from Scott’s romantic influence. Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot wrote
with a definite purpose to sweep away error and reveal the underlying truth of humanity. For this
reason the Victorian Age was fundamentally an age of realism rather than of romance.
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