Literary Production of the 19th Century, Victorian Age

Literary Production in the 19th Century

The 19th century is widely considered to be the Golden Age of English Literature, especially for British novels. It was in the Victorian era that the novel became the leading literary genre in English. English writing from this era reflects the major transformations in most aspects of English life, from scientific, economic, and technological advances to changes in class structures and the role of religion in society. Famous novelists from this period include Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, the three Bronte sisters,. While the Romantic period was a time of abstract expression and inward focus, essayists, poets, and novelists during the Victorian era began to reflect on realities of the day, including the dangers of factory work, the plight of the lower class, and the treatment of women and children . Dickens, for example, employed humour and an approachable tone while addressing social problems such as wealth disparity. . The Victorian age is very complex and difficult to define. Because of the contradictions and revolutionary ideas of the period it became the ideal ground for the development of different.

• Late romanticism > a continuation of the previous movement, that still looked to the Middle Ages as a source of inspiration
• Realism -> which stated that art has to reproduce outer reality faithfully, without idealizing it (as the romantics had done)
• Naturalism -> which shared the same "realistic" conception of art but advocated total objectivity and a scientific approach to literature
• Aestheticism -> it rejected the view of the artist as a moral spokesman, and was opposed to the ugliness of the industrial age, avoiding the issues of the time, proposed a doctrine of "Art for Art's sake"

• Decadentism > which held that art is superior to nature and that the finest beauty was that of dying and decaying things -> the people should enjoy themselves until their inevitable degradation . For the sake of convenience Victorian Literature is divided in two stages (which are usually applied to prose and to fiction in particular):
• Early Victorians -> (1837-1870) grouping those writers who mostly identified themselves with their own age
• Later Victorians (from 1871) in whose works a sense of dissatisfaction and rebellion prevailed

Prose in the Victorian Age

prose . Prose is what best mirrors the spirit of the age. Better than poets and dramatists, prose writers embodied the manifold, contrasting views of the period and reflected the profound changes that characterized it . In a compromise between a sentimental approach and a realistic attitude, they exalted but also attacked their own times . They voiced the hopes and fears of a society aware of its own power, pleased with its condition, but gradually upset by the new theories. Deeply involved in social, political or religious problems, they became witnesses of.

Early Victorian Novelists and Societal Ideals

The early victorian novelists belong to that period of the Victorian Age which considered art, including fiction, as propaganda for the ideals of decorum and modesty typical of the victorian middle class. It was this class that, with its respectability imposed the moral tone pervading most works of these years . In keeping with the expectations of a society afraid of rebellious or revolutionary changes, the early writers, although denouncing the plights of the lower classes like Dickens or the hypocrisy of the higher ones (like Thackeray) contributed in general to keeping the status quo, by advocating a somewhat utopian improvement of society, where good was finally.

Evolution of Victorian Fiction

By the 1870's however together with the first symptoms of economic crisis, there began also to appear a reaction to these ideals, which by the end of the century would become more explicit and acute . The flourishing fiction in the victorian age was due to many reasons, including:

• - urbanization and better means of communication, making it easier to distribute reading material, often published serially
• - the invention of a new printing machinery, which made this material cheaper and within the reach of many people, thus increasing the number of readers.
• - the fact that prose fiction became the most suitable and appropriate vehicle not only to communicate and support the ideas of the age but also (later) to question and confute them . The fictional works of the time were so many and so different that it is impossible to generalize about their features and group all of them under the label "victorian novel" . This is why, for convenience victorian novelists are divided into "early victorians" and "later victorians". Most of the best known victorian novelists (with a few exceptions like Hardy and George Elliot) may be included in the first of these two categories.

Publication in Serial Instalments

Among the factors that helped shape the Early Victorian Novels one was publication in serial instalments (starting soon after 1820) . Before this novels were usually published in three volumes at a high price and could therefore only be bought by wealthy people or be borrowed from circulating libraries . After 1820 the experiment was tried of printing books into separate (normally monthly) instalments, at the very low price of a shilling each . Each number was 32 pages. The first number was generally published before the subsequent ones were written, and the publication went on. If a certain character pleased the readers, it was carried on, otherwise it was dropped and substituted with another . As for the story it was maintained and even expanded as long as it aroused the readers' interest, otherwise it was chopped short . This must be kept in mind to understand the character of some victorian novels -> such as those of Dickens and Thackeray. This method however proved very successful, and eventually tended to modify the actual structure of the novel, since:

• - it increased the number of readers among the lower classes.
• - it imposed an episodic structure to the plot
• - it led to the excessive length of the books the number of episodes being virtually unlimited
• - it created the "popular" appeal of some works, which anticipated the literary product defined as "mass literature"
• - while the traditional three-volume work allowed long pauses for comments and disquisitions, the serial method compelled the writer to speed up his rhythm and find devices and stratagems to catch and hold the readers' attention.

Sensation Novels and Detective Stories

One of these devices was the recourse to the "sensational" in order to create suspense and expectations, according to the formula suggested by Wilkie Collins " Make' em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait" . The sensation novel was thus born, a mixture of melodrama, mystery, complicated plot and coincidence, a little superficial, but immediate and dramatic . Its origin, on the other hand can be traced back to the "Tales of Terror" of Gothic fiction, although the social setting was now different the castles and mysterious forests were now replaced by foggy city streets, the villains were not high class but middle class criminals to be. These themes eventually lead to the birth of another branch -> the detective story . Among the writers that fostered "sensation novels" the best known are W. Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens -> who thought that sensationalism with its scheme of crimes,innocent victims and the final punishment of the culprits, would also help the reader to focus on the social issues of the novels . Sensation and Adventure were also the ingredients of Robert Louis Stevenson's novels, in some of which, however the author made an allegorical study of moral dichotomies