The Victorian age 1850 -1900

The Victorian age 1850 -1900

      The age was started with the arrival of Queen Victoria on the throne in 1837. The influence of the era has started from 1830 and stayed till 1900. These were the years of development. The romance of the Romantic age has vanished and now the period was known as,

“The modern period of progress and unrest”

   

  In this period there was huge progress in science and arts but with social unrest. Wordsworth was upset with the deaths of romantic poets because he was the only survivor of the romantic poets. In deep pain, he has written,

“How fast has brother followed brother,

From sunshine to the sunless land!”

   It was a time of material development with ideal peace and moral instincts. The sorrow of Wordsworth also depends upon the ‘Prosaic’ element of the age.

          The age was concerned as the age of “democracy”. The long battle of Anglo-Saxon was now settled and people were feeling freedom. Common people have chosen their representatives by their will and it can be said that,

 “The house of common people become the ruling power in England”

       

     The freedom of writing, painting, and living life has been given to all, and spread of education was the most important democratic movement ever.

     

        Secondly, it was also an age of social unrest. For a long time, education was not allowed for everyone. In this era, education was for all. New education came into existence and people were living with new ideas. There were some moments that were the reason for social unrest.

     1.  Oxford Movement:

      This was the movement around the 19^th century, and led by John Henry Newman. It was generated by those who were against scientific development and wanted the church to rule over people by resettling the glory of religion. The movement was mostly on pamphlets and tracts so it was also known as “The Tractarian Movement”. The center of the movement was Oxford, so it is known as ‘The Oxford Movement.

    2.  The Pre- Raphaelite School of Poetry:

      This movement was for establishing the quality of poetry through ‘Pictorial effects’. Raphael was a painter and all the leaders of the moment like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt founded a society in 1848, getting inspired by Raphael.

   

       The age had many revolts but overall it is known as the age of ‘The Ideal of Peace'. Education was spreading everywhere at that time, and it was a time to stop wars with the help of knowledge. As England come to know that the slaves were not Africans but the people working in the workhouses, they realized that material development is creating social unrest among the people. It will create a burden upon the middle-class people. As the war has stopped, and the major focus of people on arts and science with earning money, it can be considered as the age of peace.

   

      The most important development has been done in the field of arts and science. Darwin has given the origin of species in 1859, Geology has been developed in 1811, and galaxies were established in 1841. Electricity and steamboats were also established during this time. In various pieces of literature, writers have depicted the development of science. In “Oliver Twist” Charles Dickens has depicted the effect of industrialization. In “”Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” Robert Stevenson has depicted the effect of scientific development. In “Frankenstein” Mary Shelly has presented the power of electricity. Overall it can be said that the era was ‘Progressive’.

 

     After the death of all Romantic poets, there were only two poets in the Victorian Age, Alfred Tennyson, and Robert Browning. Both were prominent poets who represented poetry and kept it alive but the age was mostly known as the age of prose. It is said that,

“Novels were famous in the Victorian age as Drama was in Elizabethan age”

   

   Novels were popular and novelists presented the reality of society in their novels. Dickens has presented sentiments with harsh truth, Ruskin has presented individual viewpoints and conditions of people, Arnold has presented the culture and criticism and George Eliot has presented the psychology of human life. These were the reasons that the novel was so close to the hearts of people.

   

   This was also an age of morality and truth. The imagination of the Romantic age has vanished and the harsh reality of society and human life has been presented by the new writers. Poets have mainly presented the good part of life in their poems, but these writers were not only writers but also critics. Robert Browning has written,

“God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world! “

   

  It was the age of harsh realism rather than fiction stories of fantasy.

   

     The important part of the age was optimism and idealism. Writers were more focused on the life of an individual and its connection with society rather than mere imagination. Every age has some faults in it, this age can be considered as the last period of English history which has magic and scientific spirits together. As Browning said,

“Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake”

Novelists	Poets	Essayists
Charles Dickens	Alfred Tennyson	Thomas B. Macaulay
W.M. Thackeray	Robert Browning	Thomas Carlyle
George Eliot	Elizabeth Barrett	John Ruskin
Charles Reade	D. G. Rossetti	Matthew Arnold
Charlotte Bronte	William Morris	John Henry Newman
Thomas Hardy

 

References - William J. Long, English Literature.