Victorian Literature by Marina Zrnic©

Historical Context

It is not easy to enjoy in Victorian Literature. For some of the readers, it is impossible. Nevertheless, literature is not about making yourself enjoy in something, it is about finding where your socket is. Art has to be felt, not forced. Its behaviour is of a butterfly: easily crashed. Literature is a pattern that some simply perceive when others will never be able to get there. In my opinion, it is even more the case with Victorian Literature. Therefore, if you have tried it for a few times and it just didn’t work out, let it be for some time. Maybe a day will come when you too will be able to open your eyes for chimney sweepers, coal miners at the age of 4, white linen, weird illnesses in women and a huge Industrial Revolution that brought amazing changes into the lives and mentality of the 18th and 19th century people. Even though Victorian Literature was born and bred in England, its influence surpasses the frontiers and spreads across Europe and reaches other continents.

As the name itself says, Victorian literature appeared roughly during the era which is called the Victorian Era and therefore it spans Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901). The Victorian Era is characterized by an increased desire of scientists and artists to explore, investigate and question religion, science and all forms of art. In 1848, Marx and Engels published the Communist Manifesto and, just a few years later, Charles Darwin published his Origin of the Species, a shocking and dogma-breaking investigation of evolution totally different from the idea that the Bible offered. The world will never be the same.

The Victorian Era is also marked by a variety of technological discoveries and industrialization. Queen Victoria’s reign overlaps with the period of the first and the second Industrial Revolution. The first Industrial Revolution happened in the period between 1760 and 1830. It was largely limited within the borders of Britain. In this period, Britain banned the export of machinery and techniques and the production was mechanised. This way, for example, they achieved eight times the production volume of cotton when compared to the simple spinning wheel.

“In 1770, the cotton was worth around £600,000. By 1805, this had grown to £10,500,000 and by 1870, £38,800,000. By comparison, over the same hundred years, wool had increased in value from £7,000,000 to £25,400,000 and silk from £1,000,000 to £8,000,000. In Manchester alone, the number of cotton mills rose dramatically in a very short space of time: from 2 in 1790 to 66 in 1821.”(https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/)

The revolution was focused mainly on iron, coal and textiles. It was a period when new energy sources were starting to be used. In 1769, Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot built a cumbersome steam carriage for the roads and, in 1803, Richard Trevithick was the first to build a steam locomotive. The same locomotive made its first successful run in Wales. The first simple steamboat was built by William Symington in 1802. The patents just went on steaming through the first Industrial Revolution.

The second Industrial Revolution is also called the Technological Revolution. It is usually dated between 1870 and 1914 and it started with the discovery of electricity and assembly line production. Modern industry began to exploit materials such as light metals, plastics and rare earths. The telegraph was invented and, through this invention and railroad networks, the movement of the people and the news was much easier. It was the period during which electrification began.

Imagine the world where the train or a steamboat is used for the first time in the history of a civilization. Imagine the world where people live under strict moral and social rules, but even so, a world where everything is changing rapidly and where everything is being questioned. Just imagine then what innovationswere made in literature.

“Also during the Victorian Era, the influence of literature became more prevalent in society as reading evolved into a social pastime indicated by the increasing literacy rate. At the era’s beginning in 1837, it is estimated that approximately half of the adult male population was literate to a certain degree. Because of the new practices, compulsory education and technological advances in printing resulting in widely available reading materials, standard literacy was more or less universal by the end of the century (Greenblatt 993).”

People started reading, they started investigating. They started wondering. Therefore, the change came.

Victorian Literature and its characteristics

There is a prevailing feeling in Victorian Literature of the battle. It is always about a battle or a quest. You have to be strong and you have to endure and survive whatever the path may be opened for you. Victorian Literature is about tough men and women and about notable achievements: getting rich, surviving the famine, watching your children starve, children working in factories and dying poor and weak of cancer, all this is repeated in so many novels that stand out today as classics. The Victorian Era was not made for the weak ones and this is clearly stated in its literature. The two symbols of Victorian Literature are the endurance and the quest.

Undoubtedly, the change that people felt in this era made literature so special. “This is the basic and almost universal conception of the period. And it is peculiarly Victorian. For although all ages are ages of transition, never before had men thought of their own time as an era of change from the past to the future. Indeed, in England that idea and the Victorian period began together.” 1

The Victorians meet the challenge with dignity and they challenge their own mind and soul to accept all the novelties of the human race. Consequently, they are proud of their achievements and they are aware of the eccentricity of their society and their acts. In literature, this reflected in new genres or in a combination of old genres with new ones. Whatever the case, it was not traditional, it had to be different and fresh and always a bit eccentric. It was the golden age of realism and novels, mystery and detective fiction, children’s literature, social realism, industrial novels, the gothic and poetry. Among all these genres, we can pick and choose what is best for us. The options are endless if you like to investigate.

1 Victorian Frame of Mind by Walter Houghton, p.1

Sherlock Holmes

Few characters in literature are so well-known as Mr Holmes. Few or none. There are four novels written and fifty-six short stories with Sherlock Holmes as a main character and they have been reprinted ever since A Study in Scarlet came out in 1887. Indeed, there are many more that we all know of but we simply do not connect them with Victorian Literature. Think of Alice in Wonderland and all the mugs, cups, posters, t-shirts and beautifully illustrated books. Then think of Frankenstein or Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. Nevertheless, none of them made such a huge mark in literature and cinematography as Sherlock Holmes.

It is quite interesting that Holmes is a purely intellectual character who does not give us the pleasure of love and passion while reading. The only passion that you can find there is the mystery. He arouses our curiosity because there are only few scattered pieces of information about his past, sexual orientation, drug abuse or even his family. He himself is an enigma and we love him even more because of that. He does not belong to any club nor society circles. Basically, he is an isolated intellectual who maintains himself outside of Victorian laws and circles. He is an eccentric in a Victorian sense of the word. He is not glamorous and he has little knowledge of conventions.

Over more than forty years, Conan Doyle published Sherlock Holmes stories and tried to kill him a few times, but the readers’ reaction was so abrupt and emotional that, at the end, Doyle accepted to go on with his famous protagonist.

Holmes might also be very interesting because of his bipolar personality and his ability to skip from a lethargic and depressive mood to a highly maniacal mood and laughter. His passion is the London crime scene and when there is no crime, he is bored and down in the dumps.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the best literary products of the Victorian era, an eccentric as he had to be and a loner who won the hearts of readers throughout the whole world.

Alice in Wonderland 

and 

Through the Looking-Glass

Lewis Carroll

Simply put: a masterpiece. Two of the greatest books ever written.

The books of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass have many faces and the face perceived only depends on how the reader sees it. They are magical books that work wonderfully with children, boosting their imagination and creativity. On the other hand, they are philosophy books too, full of crazy logical problems, uses of words and strange meanings of words. It is a dream come true for linguists and English language lovers. The problem of personal identity and who we are is treated in a very unusual and sometimes even absurd way that makes us laugh or cry, once again depending on how we see it.

Lewis Carroll is remarkable when defining and analysing Time. Time can move backwards and that way all you do loses its meaning and looks quite silly. Just remember when the King, the Lion and the Unicorn sit to eat the cake and they ask Alice to cut it.

“You don’t know how to manage Looking-Glass cakes”, the Unicorn remarked. “Hand it around first, and cut it afterwards.”

These books are a real treasure chest, full of surprises no matter how many times you read them. It is a sort of a reflection of our possibility to open our minds. In a way, I see it as a reflection of our faces in the mirror. The thoughts that come to you while reading this book somehow reflect your philosophical approach to life.

Utterly stunning Victorian work of literature. I hope I will go back to this work at some point in the future and analyse it profoundly.

Victorian Authors

When I started investigating the Victorian era and its literature, I came to a conclusion that all the writers and authors were immensely keen on knowing more about Victorian society and its peculiarities. For instance, there are many books about their sexuality, weird habits and ideas, their way of thinking and their inventions, their aristocracy and their passions, but it was very difficult to find a text where someone had actually investigated and analysed the literature itself from the Victorian era. We must not forget that Victorian literature is not a genre, even though it has its recognisable characteristics. Therefore, when investigating Victorian literature, you should choose a genre and focus your interest on that. My idea, when I started writing this short text, was to depict the surface of the historical moment when Victorian Literature appeared and to simply mention some of the most distinguished authors from this period. They are chosen by my personal preference as I find literature from this period very much to my taste. I highly recommend you to investigate yourself and find those authors that would interest you more. Use this list only as a starting point.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, England. He was a Victorian realist who wrote novels and poems and much of Hardy’s work was set in Wessex.

Hardy criticized Victorian society and the position of rural people in England. As usual in Victorian literature, his works can be highly dramatic, always concerning some tragic characters who have to struggle in social circumstances of the time. Even though a realist, the influence of the Romanticism is notable in his works, most of all in his poetry.

The most famous novel of his was Tess of the d'Urberville. Though nowadays considered a masterpiece of fiction, in 1891, when it was first published, Tess of the d'Urberville wasn’t received so well and it was even censored. This book made a vast comment on Victorian sexual morals. As frequently done in his works, the story was set in rural England, in fictional Wessex. In Tess, Hardy sewed in maybe the most traumatic event of his life to which he was a witness when he was 16. Hardy saw how Elizabeth Martha Brown was hanged. She was the last woman to be hanged in public in Dorset. She was accused and convicted of the murder of her second husband. "I saw—they had put a cloth over the face—how, as the cloth got wet, her features came through it. That was extraordinary." "I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain," he wrote, "and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back."

Thomas Hardy wrote more exceptional novels, such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) and Jude the Obscure (1895). 

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was born in 1810 in Chelsea, London. She wrote over forty short stories and novels, such as Cranford, Wives and Daughters, North and South and Sylvia’s Lovers. Mrs. Gaskell was also friends with Charlotte Brontë and she wrote Brontë’s biography in 1857, two years after Brontë had died. It is a well-documented biography and a nice work of art, where Mrs. Gaskell opened her heart and soul in a wish to depict her friend for the future generations. Elizabeth Gaskell started writing quite late, affected by the death of her only son. She had six children, but only four of them lived to adulthood.

Her characters are inseparable from their Victorian surroundings and from the Industrial Revolution. They are like bricks in a wall, but even so, each one of them is different, with its own worries and remorse. Some of them fight with the problems that their destiny brought upon them, some of them live through the Napoleonic Wars and some of them have to survive the depression of 1839. Sometimes, Elizabeth tries to wake up the collective conscience and sometimes she just tells us a marvellous leathery story of her childhood, a social history of people who struggled to maintain their dignity and keep their appearances up. Her world, the same as the private one often was, is full of rural surroundings and its simple way of life. Even though she wrote many novels, Mrs. Gaskell is also very famous for the Gothic short stories, written between 1851 and 1861. All her Gothic tales contain a sort of a message, usually a moral one. Her fiction can be quite atmospheric and macabre. Many of these tales were published in Charles Dickens’ weekly magazine, Household Words. The most famous ones are The Old Nurse’s Story, The Grey Woman, The Doom of the Griffiths and Lois the Witch.

Charles Dickens

By no means can we speak of Victorian Literature without mentioning Charles Dickens who was and is one of the most famous Victorian authors and a literary genius. Even though Dickens died at the age of 58, he wrote 15 novels, five novellas and hundreds of short stories and articles. He created some of the strangest and most eccentric fictional characters from Victorian Literature. Many of his stories were adapted in all possible artistic genres, such as A Christmas Carol (1843), Oliver Twist (1837), Bleak House (1853) and Great Expectations (1861). His work was very likeable and attracted the simple and the educated, which usually is the criteria for refined and high-quality literature. He wrote about the poor and the rich, technology and society. He described 19th century society in a simple and marvellous way, appealing to the Victorians and to us.

During his lifetime, Charles Dickens had quite a few shocks which affected him and, I suppose, helped him in creating all those incredible characters. In 1824, Charles had to leave his school and was set to work in a factory. At the same time, his father was sent to prison because of the debts he had. In many of his novels, Dickens wrote about lost and forgotten children, poverty and prisons.

Dickens also started a new literary genre that became very popular during the Victorian Era. When he published A Christmas Carol, he started a series of Christmas books and many writers followed his steps. Even today, we read and give some of these Christmas stories as a gift for Christmas and many of them speak of poverty, love and affection among people. As Dostoevsky said: “Beauty will save the world.”

If you are interested in a bit darker picture of Victorian society, then Bleak House, Hard Times and Little Dorrit would be more suitable for you. These novels depict some very complicated plots and the political scene of that time. But most of all, these are some very tragic stories.

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti is quite important English poet who wrote fantasy, religious and children poetry. One of the most famous poems she has written is Goblin Market, which is a truly remarkable poem, the closest one could approach to goblins and the other world, at least the closest you could get there through words. Here you can read the poem Goblin Market:

https://www.witchymagiccircle.art/2021/07/goblin-market-by-christina-rossetti.html

She was the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a painter and a poet who founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Christina was always surrounded by painters and writers. In the 1850s, she published seven poems in the Pre-Raphaelite journal, the Germ. She was also a model for a few paintings made by painters from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

In 1850, she broke up her engagement to the artist James Collison. It seems she did it because he had become a Roman Catholic and Christina was a devoted High Church Anglican. After that, she broke up another engagement to Charles Bagot Cayley.

Christina Rossetti published Goblin Market and Other Poems in 1862 and The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems in 1866. Arthur Hughes illustrated her Sing-Song: a Nursery Rhyme Book in 1872 and this book is one of the most famous children’s books from the 19th century.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater, is an English poet, commonly regarded as one of the leading poets of the Victorian Age.

Lord Tennyson was one of 12 children born into an old Lincolnshire family. He was an extremely talented child, and after quitting the Louth grammar school, he went back home and was homeschooled. As a child, he composed in the styles of Sir Walter Scott and John Milton. The collection named The Devil and the Lady was written when he was a child and it was published posthumously in 1930, where he showed an amazing understanding of Elizabethan dramatic verse.

In 1824, his father began to drink and in 1827 Alfred went to Trinity College in Cambridge. There he met Arthur Hallam and made friends with him. Hallam was the son of a historian, Henry Hallam. In 1830, Tennyson won a gold medal with a poem Timbuctoo, and his reputation increased.

In 1832, Tennyson published a volume of poems which included The Lotos-Eaters, The Palace of Art and The Lady of Shalott. If you are not a big admirer of poetry, then maybe one Tennyson’s poems you should read is The Lady of Shalott. It is an otherworldly poem, mystical and foggy, full of medieval ambience and wildly picturesque. In my view, if the Pre-Raphaelite movement could be shown in one and only one poem, I would choose this one to represent their enchanting paintings and poetry, even though Tennyson does not belong to this movement.

In 1833, Hallam died a sudden death just around the time when he was finally accepted as Tennyson’s sister’s future husband. It was a huge shock for the whole family and for Tennyson himself, being very good friends. At that time, three of his brothers showed symptoms of mental illnesses. In spite of that, Tennyson wrote some of his most recognisable work, such as The Two Voices, Ulysses and Morte d’Athur.

In 1842, he published two volumes under the name Poems. It was composed of some old poems and some new poems. It was not well received by the critics nor by the reading public.

In 1850, after much trouble and many attempts to marry Emily Sellwood, he finally got engaged and celebrated their marriage. He published a long poem named In Memoriam and won Queen Victoria’s heart.

His marriage brought him happiness and peace and two children were born. His wife and he settled in a house on the Isle of Wight, where they spent the rest of their lives.

In 1859, Tennyson published his Idylls of the King, a series of 12 poems about the legend of King Arthur which was a huge success and he also wrote a few poetic dramas and a few volumes more of poetry until 1892.

Tennyson’s poetry is remarkable, full of rich descriptions, melodies and metrical variety and knowledge. He was and is the best known poet of the Victorian Era in England.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. He started studying medicine in 1876 and it is said that one of his professors at Edinburgh was the inspiration for his Sherlock Holmes. The professor’s name was Joseph Bell and he had an unusual way of diagnosing patients, at least unusual for that time. His diagnosis included and analysed information not only obtained through scientific observation, but also from the patient’s occupation and personal background. He started his writing career by publishing in smaller literary magazines and by 1886 he had had his first Sherlock Holmes story written.

He himself was quite interested in spiritualism and wrote about the topic. Having lost his son in 1918, he got even more involved with the idea of the possibility of contacting the dead. He wrote many stories and articles, mystery stories and military writings, but he was always recognised as the creator of a famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was knighted in 1902 because of his service in a hospital in South Africa and because of his service in the Boer War.

Here you can find one of his mystery stories that I like a lot and which does not come from the Sherlock Holmes series:

https://www.witchymagiccircle.art/2021/06/the-mystery-of-sasassa-valley-by-conan.html

Hardy's Tree

London's St. Pancras Old Church

Hardy Tree can be found in the cemetery alongside London's St. Pancras Old Church. During the 1860s, many changes were made on the Britain's rail system due to its growth. This affected the graveyard in St.Pancras Old Church and the bodies had to be reburied at another place. In that time, young Thomas Hardy was one of the employees in an architecture firm that was to perform the task. When the bodies were reburied, there were hundreds of headstones left and nobody knew what to do with them. Hardy was the one to decide to place them in a circular pattern around the ash tree in the churchyard. It has been preserved this way for centuries.

END.