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Assignment 06- Major Novelist of the Victorian age

Assignment Topic - Major Novelist and of the Age
Name – Khasatiya Reena K.
Sem.- M.A. sem2 (2018)
Roll no.- 29
Paper no.6 – Victorian literature
Email id.- khasatiyamili21@gmail.com
Submitted To.- Department of English MKBU
Total words- 1,788
Plagiarism -
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• Introduction

The Victorian literature is a connection between the romantic period and the literature of the 20th
century. The Victorian era literature is distinguished by a strong sense of morality and is frequently
associated with subjugation. Victorian literature is also known for its efforts to merge imagination and
emotion for the convenience of art for ordinary people. The literature of the Victorian age (1837-1901)
entered a new period after the romantic revival. The literature of this era was preceded by romanticism
and was followed by modernism or realism. Hence, it can also be called a fusion of romantic and realist
style of writing. Though the Victorian Age produced two great poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert
Browning, the age is also remarkable for the excellence of its prose.
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. From long time education was not allowed for everyone . In
this era, education was not for all. New education came in existence and people were living with new
ideas. There were some moments which were the reason of social unrest.

• Common themes in Victorian literature
• Originality and individuality
• Growth of prose and novel
• Moral purpose
• Realism/ representation of social and political life
• Pessimism, doubt and despair
• Influence of science , psychology
• Started believe in Charles Darvin’s evolution theory

All the great writers of this period, will mark three general characteristics…
Firstly, literature in the Victorian age tended to come face to face with realism. This reflected more on
practical problems and interests. It becomes a powerful instrument for human progress.
Secondly, the Victorian literature seems to deviate from the strict principle of “art for art’s sake” and
asserts its moral purpose.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Ruskin Bond – all were the teachers of England with the faith in
their moral message to instruct the world.
Thirdly, this was more like the age of pessimism and confusion. The influence of science was strongly felt
here. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s some immature works seem to hold doubtful and despairing stains but his
In Memoriam comes out as a hope after despair. Although characterized as practical and materialistic,
the literature of the Victorian age portrays a completely ideal life. It was an idealistic age where the
great ideals like truth, justice, love, brotherhood were emphasized by poets, essayists and novelists of
the age.

• Novels in Victorian age
Novels were popular and novelist have presented the reality of society in their novels.
Dickens has presented sentiments with harsh truth, Ruskin has presented individual
viewpoints and condition of people, Arnold has presented the culture and criticism and
George Eliot has presented the psychology of human life. These were the reasons that
novel was so close to the hearts of people.
This was also an age of morality and truth . The imagination of Romantic age has been
vanished and the harsh reality of the society and human life had 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”

* Major Novelist of the Age

• Charles Dickens
• W.M.Thackery
• George Eliot
• Charles Reade
• Charlotte Bronte
• Thomas Hardy
• Life of Charles Dickens
Dickens was born in portsea, near Postmouth in 1812. His father John Dickens was a
clerk in Navy pay office, and transferred to Chatham on promotion when Dickens was
three year old.
Charles Dickens
Dickens’s boyhood was comfortable . He read a lot and visited the theatre . His
autobiographical notes reveal his dream: he desired a good education , wanted to live
amongst books and read the classics however , these dreams were shattered for his
father was arrested for debt in,1824.Dickens had to leave school , pawn his books , and
he joined Warren’s Blacking Factory. This was a humiliating and bitterly remembered
experience and turned out to be Dickens’ encounter with harsh reality ; he was like a
sensitive child who felt betrayed.
Leaving school at the age of 15th.Dickens became an office boy in a solicitor’s firm and
made himself extremely useful there.
He became a clerk but realized that this kind of work was unsuitable for creative
energies. He learnt shorthand writer. He learnt the intricacies of law and because of his
speed and accuracy in shorthand he became a Parliamentary reporter when he was just
twenty . He learnt much about men and Manners and studied life and its intricacies.

One point of views is that his perception of life and people in the novels owes much to
his early experiences. At the age of twenty one his first book Sketches by Boz , was
published, Boz being his pen name.
With the publication of novel The Pickwick Papers as a serial in 1837, he shot to fame.
He was both famous and rich at the age of twenty four.
In 1836, he married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a fellow journalist. They had
tem children. However, they decided to separate in 1857. After Pickwick Papers , he
wrote almost without a break.
• His major works.
1) A Tale of Two City
2) Great Expectations
3) A Christmas Carol
4) Bleak House
5) Our Mutual Friends

• Thomas Hardy

Hardy attended a private school in Dorchester, England, where he learned Latin,
French, and German. In 1856 at the age of sixteen, Hardy became an apprentice (a
person who works for someone in order to gain experience in a trade) to John Hicks,
an architect in Dorchester. At this time he thought seriously of attending university
and entering the Church, but he did not do so. In 1862 he went to London, England,
to work. Also at this time, Hardy began writing poetry after being impressed by
Reverend William Barnes, a local poet.
In London Hardy continued to write poetry and began sending his poems to publishers, who
quickly returned them. He kept many of the poems and published them in 1898 and afterward.
in 1867 while working for Hicks, he wrote a novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, which he was
advised not to publish because it was too critical of Victorian society. Told to write a novel with a
plot, he turned out Desperate Remedies (1871), which was unsuccessful.

• on March 7, 1870, he met Emma Lavinia Gifford, with whom he fell in love. Hardy could
have kept on with architecture, but he was a "born bookworm," as he said, and in spite
of his lack of success with literature he decided to continue writing, hoping eventually to
make enough money so he could marry Gifford.
• For Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) he earned 30 pounds and the book was well
received. At the same time he was asked to write a novel for serialization (published in
parts) in a magazine.
• In September 1872 A Pair of Blue Eyes began to appear, even though only a few
chapters had been completed.
• Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), was published in magazines and was a success
both financially and critically. Finally making a living from literature, Hardy married
Gifford in September of 1874..
Hardy's novels seldom end happily, he was not, he stated, a pessimist (taking the least hopeful
view of a situation). He called himself a "meliorist," one who believed that man can live with
some happiness if he understands his place in the universe and accepts it. He ceased to be a
Christian, and he read the works of naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1892) and accepted the
idea of evolution, the theory that animals, including man, developed from earlier species.


* Geoge Eliot

Mary Ann Evans was born November 22, 1819, in Warwickshire, England, to Robert Evans, an
estate agent, or manager, and Christiana Pearson. She lived in a comfortable home, the
youngest of three children. When she was five years old, she and her sister were sent to
boarding school at Attleborough, Warwickshire, and when she was nine she was transferred to
a boarding school at Nuneaton. It was during these years that Mary discovered her passion for
reading
In 1851 Evans became an editor of the Westminster Review, a sensible and open-minded
journal. Here, she came into contact with a group known as the positivists. They were followers
of the doctrines of the French philosopher Auguste comte.
In 1857 she published a short story, "Amos Barton," and took the pen name "George Eliot" in
order to prevent the discrimination unfair treatment because of gender or race that women of
her era faced.

After collecting her short stories in Scenes of Clerical Life (2 vols., 1858), Eliot published her
first novel, Adam Bede 1859.
Her Major Works
1) Middlemarch
2) The mill on the floss
3) Romola
4) Scene of clerical life
5) Mr.Glifil’s love story

* Conclusion

The influence of the era has started from 1830 and stayed till 1900 . These were the
years of development… the romance and romantic age vanished, in this period there
was huge progress in sciences as well as Arts, and after the death of romantic poet
there were only two poet in Victorian era, Alfred Tennyson And Robert Browning. Thus,
it is obvious that prose work increase In compare of poetry so era known as an Age of
Prose. Novels were famous in Victorian age as Drama was in Elizabethan age.


Refrence.
Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Du-Fi/Eliot-George.html#ixzz5Bj7oxPNu

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