Growth of Victorian Literature & Important Facts

A Brief Introduction

The Victorian Age is one of the brightest and the most glorious periods in the history of England. In the realm of Literature it can favourably compared with the Elizabethan age. In the opinion of compton Rickett “The steady Advance of democratic ideals and progress of scientific thought” were the two important factors in the life and literature of the victorian Age. Victorian Age is called the Age of Science and Religion. The impact of the Industrial Revolution and the influence of the practical application of science to the life had brought about a great change in the social, political and religious sphere. Since Literature is an interpretation of life, all this was reflected in the literature of the age.

Important Facts to Remember

1. In poetry, a number of writers made notable contribution in the field of poetry. Alfred Lord Tennyson was a true representative of the Victorian Age. Tennyson is a typical Victorian in hist attitude towards science and religion. Robert Browning presents an almost complete contrast to Tennyson. Among the poets of the Victorian age, Arnold comes after Tennyson and Brownings in order of precedence. Arnold’s Dover Beach, Memorial Verses and Rugby Chaphel are masterpiece work of his age. Thyrsis and scholar Gipsy are chief elegic poems.

2. The chief Novelists of the victorian Age are Charles Dickens, W.M. Thackery, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. Charles Dickens is the most popular Victorian Novelist. As a satirist Thackeray was a rival of Charles Dickens. Hardy was one of the most important novelists of the Victorian Age. His novels are popularly known as wessex novels.

3. Prose during aged some of the well known prose writers of Victorian age are thomas carlyle, John Ruskin, Mathew Arnold R.L. Stevenson, A.G. Gardiner. Among the prose writers of the age, Thomas Carlyle was the greatest Carlyle was both satirist and prophet.

4. According to O’Elton “the great feature of the Victorian age was a balance ‘pure and applied literature. He defines ‘pure literature’, which includes verse, novel, prose, meditation and personal essays, as one which creates, exhibits, or simply muses and converses.

5. It does not strive or seek to convince or hurry us into good behaviour or give even the most valuable information or to swell the sum of knowledge or to make a system.”

6. W.H. Hudson remarks, “Wonderfully rich and varied in personal quality and its astonishing variety is one of its outstanding characteristics the literature of the Age of Tennyson at the same time everywhere embodies the spirit of Victorian England, and reflects the influences which combined to make the half Century in question an era of surprising change along many lines.”