Brontes, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy.

In order to understand the works of the next English novelists, some words should be said about the Victorian Age. Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent, one of the sons of George III, succeeded her uncle, William IV, in 1837 when she was a girl of 18. She died in 1901 a fabulous old lady, having celebrated Jubilee in 1887 after 50 years on the throne, and then her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, after 60 years as a sovereign. Queen Victoria was extremely popular in the opening years of her reign and during her marriage to Prince – Consort, Albert, a minor German Prince. But after Albert’s early death, the Queen remained in morning for years, and virtually retired from public life. But the two Jubilees, her return to public life, and the great courage and character of the little old lady brought Victoria’s to a close in a blaze of popularity.

The Victorian Englishman felt himself to be “on the top of the world”. Compared with men of today, he was self-confident and very energetic. He was ready to sweep aside all obstacles, to understand anything anywhere. Wherever he went, he felt benefits must follow him. He never doubted that he was the representative of progress and civilization. Everything with Britain serving as a shining example, is surely, if slowly, getting better and better, the world had only to be sensible to assure itself forever of peace, prosperity and progress – this is the typical Victorian outlook, the Victorian spirit.

The chief Victorian Novelists were also social critics, and did not hesitate to show much of the contemporary society in a very unfavourable light.

Apart from the common protest against Victorian complacency and hypocracy, the major writers of the Victorian age have very little in common. We have seen how the 18^th century writers, especially in the early years of the century, famed a compact group which shared the same outlook and held the same values. And later, the Romantics, though by no means a compact group, were at least members of the same general literary movement. But now, in the Victorian Age, writers do not seem to be moving together in any particular direction. The major Victorian writers cannot be viewed as a literary group; they are only individualistic almost to the point of eccentricity. At the same time the Victorian reading public as a whole had certain tastes which writers respected on neglected according to their desire for popularity. The middle class Victorians, who made up the bulk of the reading public, had a very definite liking for what they called “family” literature. There was a good deal of reading aloud in the evenings, and even when the custom was not observed parents preferred books that could be read and enjoyed by all the family.

In this regard we should turn to Yorkshire where a girl, Charlotte Bronte was brought up in poor surroundings. As a result of a stay in Brussels, she wrote “The Professor” (written in 1846 and published in 1857), which describes events in the life of a schoolmaster in that city. Villette uses the same material; it reflects the personal experiences of the writer when she was in Brussels, without beauty or money, the heroine becomes a teacher and wins respect by her fine character.

Her finest novel “Jane Eyre” also describes the life of a poor and unbeautiful girl who is brought up by a cruel aunt and sent to a miserable school. After that she goes to teach the daughter of Mr. Rochester at Thornfield Hall. Although she is not beautiful, Rochester falls in love with her, but when she discovers that his mad wife is still alive, she runs away. Later the Hall is burnt down and the mad wife is killed. In trying to save her, Rochester is blinded and loses all hope of happiness. On hearing all this, Jane marries him and so is able to bring comfort into the remaining part of his life.

The book was very successful, although the heroine was neither beautiful nor rich. It is an honest description of strong feelings at a same time when some feelings expressed in books were shallow. The power of the writing made it sell fast, and in an few months two more editions were printed.

Charlotte’s sister, Emily Bronte, wrote one of the greatest of English novels, “Wuthering Height’s”. The passionate Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine Earnshaw, but he hears her say that she could never marry such a low sort of creature, and so he leaves the house. Three years later, when he returns, he finds that Catherine has merried Edgar Linton, a man of weak character. Yeathcliff then begins a life of cruelty and revenge. Catherine dies, and Heathcliff marries Edgar’s sister, and threats her very badly. The novel has been compared to Shakespear’s “King Lear”, chiefly because of its immense and uncontrollable passions. In the opinion of some critics, no woman couldn’t have written all the plays of Shakespeare!

Another woman novelist, known as George Eliot, writes books than this. her real name was Mary Ann Evans. She lived abroad in Europe from 1854-1878 and married J. W. Cross a short time before her death. Some of her early stories were collected under the title “Scenes from Clerical Life” and her first novel “Adam Bede” which was influenced by memories of her childhood. She showed at once that she could draw character and describe scenes with great skill, and that she had pity and humour. “Middlemarch” appeared in 1871-1872and “Daniel Deronda” in 1876. To say which is her finest novel is not easy, but probably it is “Adam Bede” or “Middlemarch”. This latter novel is set in a provincial town where Dorothea Brooke, a girl of noble qualities, marries old Mr. Casaubon, but the marriage is a failure. There is another plot, in which young Dr. Lydgate marries the beautiful but rather ordinary Rosamond Vincy.

In the novels of Thomas Gardy nature plays an important part; indeed Nature is herself a character. Hardy’s scenes are set in Wessex (the country of Dorset), among trees, farms, fields, and low hills. Hardy believed that the past has built up a mass of conditions which remain to influence people’s lives; and he also thought that being chance has a very important effect. The best way of life is therefore to accept calmly the blows of fate. His novels spread over the years 1870-96 are mostly pictures of human beings struggling against fate or chance.

Far from the Madding Crowd is the story of patient love on one side, and selfish passion on the other. Gabril Oak, a shepherd loves Bathsheba Everdene with a true heart and serves her faithfully for many years; but sergeant Try, an attractive but cruel soldier, marries her and treats her badly. He is murdered by an angry farmer, and after many troubles Bathsheba marries Oak. Another sad story affairs and jealousy is the Return of the Native. “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” is a tale of a poor girl, Tess Durbeyfield whose misfortunes are so great that in the end she murders a man and is hanged. Her poor father’s life is upset when he learns that he is descended from an ancient family, the D’Urbervilles. Tess is wrongly treated by Alec d’Urberville, whose family do not have a clear right to their name. Misfortune follows Tess through her life and she dies only when fate has lost interest in her.

Hardy’s last novel, “Jude the obscure” is extremely miserable. Jude is a poor stone-worker, who wants to educate himself; but though he has a fine spirit he has little control of his passions and he doesn’t learn much. Fate is against him. His marriage is a failure, and he falls in love with a clever teacher. Sorrow follows their life together; their children die; then Jude begins to drink and dies unhappy.

Charles Dickens.

He is generally considered to be one of the greatest English novelists. He was born near Portsea, where his father was a clerk in the Navy Pay office. Charles, the second of eight children was a delicate child, much of his boyhood was spent at home, where he read the novels of Smolett, Fielding and le Sage. The works of these writers were to influence his own novels very deeply.

At an early age he became very fond of the theatre, a fondness that remained with him all his life, and affected his novels to a great extent. In 1823 the Dickens family removed to London, where the father soon drew them into money difficulties. The schooling of Charles was temporarily suspended. The boy for a time worked in a factory while his father in the debtor’s prison. After a year or so financial matters improved; the education of Charles was resumed; then in 1827 he entered the office of an attorney, and in time began an expert shorthand writer.

He began with “Pickwick’s papers” which came out in parts and gave English literature some of its most charming and amusing characters. This novel which was first published by parts in a monthly magazine took London by storm. Everyone waited brearthlessly for the next monthly installment which would relate the adventures of the kindly, naïve Mr. Pickwick and his three friends who formed the Pickwick club. These three absurd gentlemen – Tupman, Snodgrass and Winkle – accompany their leader on a tour of “scientific” investigation and discovery through England. Each of the Pickwickians has his particular pride, as well as his particular folly. One more memorable character of the novel – Mr. Pickwick’s servant Sam Weller, whose broad Cockney dialect produces much of the humour of the stories. Sam Weller keeps Mr. Pickwick out of most of the trouble caused by his own kindness or comfort him with words of wisdom when the trouble has not been avoided.

“It’s over, and can’t be helped, and that’s one consolation as they always says in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man’s head off”.

Twice Dickens wrote historical novel, Barnaby Kudge and “A Tale of Two Cities, a story of the French Revolution and of events in London at the same time. Sometimes his novels were written partly with the purpose of improving social conditions.

“David Copperfield” is based on Dicken’s own life, which had a sad beginning. It is one of the most popular of his novels, but it cannot be called cheerful. Nickolas Nicklebey is a tall of a boy who is left poor on his father’s death. he is sent to work in a school, Dotheboys Hall, where the master, squeers treats forty miserable pupil cruelty, and teaches them nothing. Nicholas gives the reader a good deal of pleasure when he gives the criminal squeers a good beating, and then escapes.

All these novels are crowded with characters , either fully developed or drawn by a few quick but sure strokes of the great writer’s pen.

Dickens’s prose varies in quality but he is nearly always readable. In his different novels he describes and attacks many kinds of unpleasant people and places – bad schools, and schoolmasters, government departments, bad prisons, dirty houses. His characters include thieves, murderers, men in debt, stupid and unwashed men and women, hungry children, and those who do their best to deceive the honest. Although many of his scenes are terribly unpleasant, he usually keeps the worst descriptions out of his book; therefore the reader does not throw the book into the fire, but continues to read. Some of his gentler characters are very weak; some of the sad situations that he describes are too miserable to be true. He uses too much black paint. But he wanted to raise kindness and goodness in men’s hearts, and used tears and laughter to reach his aim.

It is very likely that the reputation of dickens will be maintained chiefly as a humourist. His humour is broad, humane and creative. It gives us such real immortals as Mr. Pickwick, Mrs, Gamp, Mr. Micawber, Sam Weller – typical inhabitants of the Dickensian sphere. Dickens’s humour is not very subtle, but it goes deep, and in expression it is free and vivacious. His satire is apt to develop into mere burlesque, as it does when he deals with Mr. Stiggins and Bumble. as for his pathos in its day it had an appeal that appears amazing to a later generation, whom it strikes as cheap and maudlin. His devices are often third-rate as when they depend upon such themes as the death of little children, which he describes in detail.

Victorian poetry.

The name of a talented English poet, Robert Browning, stands along with those of great masters of English poetry. In the whole context of literary process of the XIX c. Browning represents the transit point from Romanticism to Realism. His ethetical principles are expressed in his manifesto “On the poet Objective and Subjunctive; on the Latter’s aim; On Shelley, the man and the Poet”. Browning speaks of two types of poetry – Subjunctive and Objective. The first is represented by Shelley, the second – by Shakespeare. Each of the two has its specific nature and has its own advantages. A “Subjunctive”poet sees the truth behind the concrete phenomena, but subjective poetry based on the individualistic conception is transitive. The Objective Poetry, not revealing a poet’s personality, creates the true picture of the world and that’s why it has longer life. Browning’s ideal is the combination of Subjective and Objective in poetry. His poetry is characterized with introspection, philosophical intensity of thoughts, deepen psycologism and interests in hero’s life conditions, attentions to details and historical colour.

In early works of Browning there predominates the interest in heroic personage and the theme of heroic deed. As it is in his poem “Paracelsus”. The protagonist is a scholar Paracelsus, he is moved by lust for knowledge; devoted to sciences he finds the sense of life in serving people. His belief in humanity and its abilities supports Paracelsus in his work, helps him to overcome the bitterness of offences and life difficulties.. His will and burning fire within him make him kin with Prometheus from Shelley’s poem.

One of his successful dramatic poem is “Pippa Passes”. In this a girl, Pippa, wanders through the town singing, and her song influences people who hear it. The naïve, kind, candid girl sings of happiness and justice. Her songs awake in all people (rich or poor), the wish for good, retain them from cruelty. Part of her songs is as cheerful as Browning himself:

The year’s at the spring

The day’s at the morn

Morning’s at seven

All’s right with the world.

The early poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson were much criticized, but in his later books he rewrote some and omitted others altogether. His poems, chiefly lyrical, and poems were an improvement, though they were still the work of a young man. The music is there already, but the though they were still the work of a young man. The music is there already, but the thought is not deep. The Lotos Easters, a poem on wanderings of Ulysses and his men gives a taste of the rhythm of which Tennyson was a master.

“Surely, surely slumber is more sweet that foil

The shore than labour on the deep Mediterranean ocean

Wind and wave and oar.

Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.”

Tennyson knew well that more thought was needed in great work, and in 1842 he published two books of poems which are serious and thoughtful as well as musical.

Tennyson had become a very careful artist, choosing each word and its exact place with close attention. In “Morte D’Arthur” he put Malory’s story into blank verse in which the magic voice may clearly be heard:

“So all day long the noise of battle rolled

Among the mountains by the winter sea,

Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,

Had fallen in Lyonesse about their lord

King Arthur”.

In “Idylls of the King” included this short poem and others on the same story: “Enid”, “Vivien”, “Claine” and Guinevere” appeared in 1859, and others in 1869, 1871-1872, and 1885. The “Passing of Arthur” describes at the end How Sir Bedivere places the wounded King in the ship which is carrying the queen. Sir Bedivere, in sorrow became of the end of the Round Table and death of the other Knights, asks what he can do now:

“And slowly answered Arthur from the barge

The old order changeth, yielding place to new

And God fulfils himself, in many ways

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world

Comfort thyself?What comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May he within himself make pure! But thou

If thou shouldst never see my fall again

Pray for my soul.”

Tennyson used many metres and made experiments with new ones. For example, he tried hexameters, and he was fond of four-line stanza rhyming abba:

“Yet waft from the harbour mouth

Wild wind I seek a warmer sky

And I will see before I die

The palms and temples of the south”

This is also the metre that he used for his long poem “In memoriam”, an elegy for his friend Hallam, who died in Vienna at the early age 22. Though the poem has its fine qualities, it is two long for a discussion of death alone, and the sorrow for the loss of a friend gradually changes into an expression of a wider love of God and man.

In general Tennyson’s shorter poems are better than the long ones. Ulysses expresses in fine lines the leader’s decision to “sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until I die”, “Princess contains finne lyrics; here is a verse of one which has been set to music”.

“Sweet and low, sweet and low

Wind of the Western sea

Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon and blow

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.”

Poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne differs from that of Tennyson. If the latter was enthusiastic at idyllic motives, of depicting simple feelings, Swinburne filled his poems with passions, stormy feelings. If Tennyson was faithful to patriarchal theme of Wordworth , Swinburne inherited the rebellious spirit of Shelley. He defied the Victorian conservatism, opposing the ideal of political and moral freedom to bourgeois vulgarity. Antivictorian rebellion predetermined his basic theme – the one of freedom, connected with his Republican and atheistic beliefs, and the theme of undisguised sensual love.

Freedom –loving ideas are expressed in verses, devoted to the struggle of Italia for her independence. These are poems published in a “A song of Italy”, “Songs before Sunrise”. He bestows praise on fighters against tyranny, among them he names Madzini, Garibaldi.

13.2. The English novel of the 19^th century were written at a time of great confidence in British society, culture and political organization, and although different novelists present groups of characters from different levels of society and explore different themes, there is a sense of confidence in the basic structure of society, and the place of people in it, that underlies their work. The writers of the late 19^th century couldn’t share this confidence.

Robert Louis Stevenson represents neoromanticism in English literature. This is revealed in extremely dramatic situations, in an acute psycologism, fantastic elements and exotic scenery. The writer is interested in moral problems.

The problem of good and evil in the human nature is revealed in the tale “The strange cause of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. It is based on the theme of a person’s double, theme of double-faced existence of the protagonist. Dr. henry Jekyll from time to time turns into a cruel Mr. Hyde, who was the embodiment of all evil and mean. Mr. Hyde’s crimes resulted in horrible consequences; evil in Dr. Jekyll’s nature begins to force out good and this drew the main character to ruin. His suicide speaks that the human that still remained in his nature rebelled against the cruelty and evil.

Stevenson’s matter of adventure novels like well-known “Treasure Island”, “Kidnapped”, “Catriona”, “The Black Arrow”, “The Master of Balantral”. In this adventure books the author frequently uses the historic material, but he doesn’t give a wide description of historic events. History for him is just a background, in which he describes dramatic situations and characters of brave and courage men. Romantic deeds for good’s sake are opposed by the author to the dull prose of bourgeois life. In victorious finals of his novels the author ascertains the romantic dream of life, where high moral ideals and human dignity are victors.

Oscar Wilde came into the history of English literature as the leader of aestheticis as literary movement. He expressed his poetic credo in articles “Intentions”. He detached from the commonness of bourgeois society, where injustice reigns, and seeked for asylum in the abode of Beauty.

Proclaiming the cult of beauty as an antipode of bourgeois vulgarity, Wilde separates beauty from the morality and falls into hedonism, amorality and decadency.

Meanwhile, he reviews his ideas and writes things that detest and reject his previous viewing.

Such are his fairy tales for children, well-known by you “The happy prince”, “The devoted friend”, and his famous novel “The picture of Dorian Gray”.

The plot of his novel, including fantastic element, in series discredits the worship of Beauty, deprived of spirituality and morals. Created by an artist the picture of a handsome youth, Dorian Gray used to be, is a symbol of his conscience. The fantastic element is that Dorian Gray remains young and handsome, and his portrait, as if it were his double, reflects all the changes in the soul of real Dorian Gray and his getting old. Every new step in Dorian’s moral degradation is reflected in his portrait. The face, painted by the artist, got features of cruelty and hypocracy. The thought of the picture chases Dorian and he considers him to be the cause of all his misfortunes. His vicious life began to burden him, but he went too far and can’t turn off from this path. Hence his last step – he stabbed the portrait with a knife, but kills himself. Dorian and his portrait exchanged their places. Before the portrait lies an ugly old man with a knife in the chest, and in the portrait is depicted a handsome young man.

Dorian’s Gray story condemns individualism aesthetic heartlessness and hedonism.

Joseph Rudyard Kiplingrefers to newromantic literature which differs from that of R. L. Stevenson.

In contrast to weak-willed and anaemic decadent poetry Kipling creates literature of actions, and glorifies human activity, courage and firmness. One of the best Kipling’s poem is “If”.

The most famous Kipling’s book is “The Jungle Book”- where he explained the richest material of Indian folklore. In this book we can see Kipling’s ideas, who insists that absolute jungle laws are when the strongest survives. However, this idea are steps back before the element of lifelovingness and poetical glorifying of human energy and will.

Herbert Wells often took characters from a lower social level, but many of his characters are given a chance of happiness. “Kipps” and “the History of Mr. Polly” both deal with men working in shops who find that the things they thought would change their lives (money in the first case, running away in the second) do not bring them what they hoped for, but at the end of the novels they know better what they need to be happy. Wells also used modern scientific advances in his novel, in a new way: “The Time Machine” is about a machine that can travel in a new way; “The War of the Worlds” describes an attack on this world by men from Mars, who can conquer everything but Man’s diseases. “The First Man on the Moon” shows men flying to the moon about seventy years before this actually happened. He also wrote “Ann Veronica” - about a girl who wants to choose for herself what to do in life, which in many ways also looks ahead to the women’s movement much later this century.