Victorianism: Faith and Doubt - Detailed Notes

Victorianism: Faith and Doubt

Victorian Era

The Victorian Age, named after Queen Victoria (1837-1901), was a period of significant change and development in English life and human experience.
It is misleading to view the era as monochrome, as it was a time of extraordinary variety.
Queen Victoria's personal convictions were not fully representative of the age.
The Victorian Period is often dated from 1832 (the first Reform Bill) or 1837 (Victoria's accession) to 1901 (Victoria's death).
The period 1850-1900 is frequently regarded as the Victorian Period, also known as the Age of Compromise and the Age of Peace and Prosperity.

Characteristics of the Victorian Age

English literature seemed to enter a lean period when Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, with the Romantic poets having passed away.
Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning emerged to fill the void.
Key characteristics:
- Progress of democracy.
- Peace and prosperity.
- Self-satisfaction due to increased wealth.
- Abolition of slavery.
- Industrial Revolution.
- Industrial and scientific development.
- Spread of education.
- Improved morality.
- Proper behavior (and a lack of humor).
- Acceptance of authority.
- Social unrest.
- Humanistic approach.
- Age of compromise.
The era was marked by freedom from wars and internal strife, fostering a love for tradition.
Science advanced, challenging old values and the Christian way of life.
Assurances regarding redemption and salvation were questioned.
Commerce and trade progressed due to the Industrial Revolution, leading to social and economic revolution and class division.
Factory owners gained unprecedented wealth, while workers faced exploitation.

The Age of Compromise

The Victorian Period is known as the Age of Compromise due to the tension between religion and science.
In the 18th century, religion was central, with strict rules and powerful church authority.
During the Victorian Period, science developed, challenging religious beliefs.
Galileo's proof that the Earth revolves around the sun conflicted with religious teachings.
Science challenged the old order of life, Christian values, and assurances of redemption, leading to doubt.
The Age of Compromise represents the struggle between religion and science.

Division of the Victorian Period

The year 1870 is often used to divide the Victorian Period into early and late phases.
Literature reflected social, economic, and intellectual problems, such as:
- The Industrial Revolution's effects on the economic and social structure.
- Rapid urbanization and the deterioration of rural England.
- Poverty, class tension, and pressure for political and social reform.
- The impact of the theory of evolution on philosophy and religious fundamentalism.
The Victorian Age was a time of immense and self-critical literary activity, with these issues reflected in the literature.

Characteristics of Victorian Literature

Victorian literature fused romance with realism.
The age was remarkable for its prose and poetry.
Scientific discoveries influenced the literature.
General characteristics:
- Closer to daily life, reflecting practical problems and interests.
- Served as a powerful instrument for human progress.
- Focused on social and economic issues like industrialism and reform movements.
Moral Purpose:
- Deviated from "art for art's sake" and asserted a moral purpose.
- Writers like Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, and Ruskin were moral teachers with a faith in their message.
Idealism:
- Often considered an age of doubt and pessimism due to science's influence.
- Explored man's relation to the universe and the idea of evolution.
Despite practicality and materialism, writers exalted an ideal life.
- Emphasized ideals like truth, justice, love, and brotherhood.

Victorian Poetry

Victorian poetry developed in the context of the novel.
Poets sought new ways of telling stories in verse, like Tennyson's Maud and Browning's The Ring and the Book.
Poets and critics debated appropriate subjects for long narrative poems.
Some favored heroic materials from the past, while others wanted to represent their age.
Poets experimented with character and perspective, such as in Amours de Voyage and The Ring and the Book.
Victorian poetry developed in the shadow of Romanticism.
Major Romantic poets had died young, but their influence remained strong.
Victorian poets were influenced by the Romantics but lacked their confidence in the imagination.
They often rewrote Romantic poems with a sense of belatedness and distance.
Arnold's "Resignation" and Tennyson's representations of the muse reflect this.
Browning's poems portrayed imagination-embracing speakers as madmen.
Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush" contrasts with Keats's nightingale.
Some poets, like Rossetti and Swinburne, embraced an attenuated Romanticism.
Arnold sought an objective basis for poetic emotion, giving up poetry when he felt the age lacked the necessary culture.
Browning turned to dramatic monologues, creating poems in the voices of imaginary persons.
Tennyson developed a more lyric form of the dramatic monologue.
Creating a lyric poem in the voice of a speaker distinct from the poet was a great achievement of Victorian poetry.
The modernist poet Randall Jarrell acknowledged the dramatic monologue's influence.
Victorian poetry experimented with narrative and perspective.
It tended to be pictorial, using detail to construct visual images.
Arthur Henry Hallam defined this poetry as picturesque, combining visual impressions to create a dominant emotion.
Contemporary artists illustrated Victorian poems, and poems often presented paintings.
Victorian poetry used sound in a distinctive way:
- Tennyson and Swinburne emphasized cadences, alliteration, and vowel sounds.
- Browning and Hopkins adopted roughness in reaction to Tennyson.
The sound of Victorian poetry reflected an attempt to use poetry as a medium with presence independent of sense.
The style could become syntactically elaborate and easy to parody.
Poets used sound to convey meaning, with tone becoming the sign of feeling.
Victorian poets sought to represent psychology in a different way.
Their distinctive achievement was a poetry of mood and character.
They had an uneasy relationship with the public expectation that poets be sages.
Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold showed discomfort with this role.
Poets in the second half of the century distanced themselves from the public by embracing bohemian identities.
Women poets faced difficulties in developing their poetic voice.
Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh addressed prejudices against women in art.
Women poets viewed their vocation in the context of constraints upon their sex.
Their poems were less complicated by experiments in perspective than those of their male counterparts.

Victorian Poets

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, English Literature seemed to have entered a period of lean years.
Only sweet memories of the Romantic Poets remained.
Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning filled the void.
Prominent Victorian poets:
- Lord Alfred Tennyson (1808-1892).
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861).
- Robert Browning (1812-1889).
- Matthew Arnold (1822-1883).
- Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861).
- Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1888).
- Christina Rossetti (1830-1894).
- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889).

Conclusion

Literature and society changed during Queen Victoria's reign.
Major themes included the role of women, the treatment of the poor, the search for inner peace, the role of the Church, and the growth of Empire.
Queen Victoria's death in 1902 marked the end of an era.
People looked forward to a better future.
World War I shattered these hopes.

Outline of the Victorian Age (1830-1901)

England underwent dramatic changes.
Reached its height as a world imperial power.
London's population boomed.
Industrial production techniques impacted all aspects of life.
Unregulated industrialization created prosperity for a few and misery for many.
Victorian-era writers had mixed reactions to industrialization.
Some celebrated the new age, while others challenged its benefits.

Queen Victoria and the Victorian Temper

The age reflected Queen Victoria's values: moral responsibility and domestic propriety.
There was evidence of social dissolution and moral impropriety.
Queen Victoria became visually synonymous with the country.
Victorian writers noted rapid transition and change.
The Victorian period is hard to characterize due to its length and great change.
Scholars refer to three distinct phases:
- Early (1830-1848).
- Mid (1848-1870).
- Late (1870-1901).
The 1890s were a transitional period between the Victorian era and Modernism.

The Early Period (1830-1848): A Time of Troubles

Marked by:
- Expansion of public railways.
- The Reform Bill of 1832.
The Reform Bill marked a new age of political power.
The 1830s and 1840s were known as the "Time of Troubles" due to industrialization.
Working conditions were deplorable.
The Chartists fought for workers' rights.
The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was important.
Literature focused on the plight of the poor.
Commented on the two Englands: wealthy minority and poor majority.

The Mid-Victorian Period (1848-1870): Economic Prosperity, the Growth of Empire, and Religious Controversy

Less tumultuous than the early period.
Relationship between industry and government began to work itself out.
Time of poverty for many even as England enjoyed prosperity.
Parliament curbed abuses of laissez-faire industry.
The 1850s were a time of optimism.
England was proud of its science and technology.
The Crystal Palace showcased English progress.
The British Empire expanded.
Debates about religion grew.
The Church of England evolved into three factions: Low, Broad, and High Church.
Rationalist thought destabilized religious beliefs.
The utilitarian "Benthamites" saw traditional religion as outmoded superstition.
New discoveries in the sciences lead to a new mode of reading the Bible: Higher Criticism approached the Bible as an historically produced set of documents.
Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871) challenged thinking about creation.
Darwin's theories suggested man was just one of many creatures.
The forces of progress and the emptiness of beliefs came to a head during the final decades of the Victorian era.

The Late Period (1870-1901): Decay of Victorian Values

The late-Victorian period was an extension of affluence.
It became a time to question assumptions and practices.
England was held accountable for wealth generated for few on the backs of many.
Home-rule for Ireland became controversial.
A second Reform Bill passed in 1867.
The writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels empowered the working class.

The Nineties

Marked a high point of English industry and imperial control.
Marked challenges to that industry and imperialism.
Many saw the beginning of the end of the era.
Trust in Victorian propriety and morality waned.
Many struck a "fin de siècle" pose.
The 1890s were a transitional phase between the Victorian period and Modernism.

The Role of Women

Women were not included in the Reform Bills of 1832 and 1867.
The Victorian period saw little progress for women's rights.
Women had limited access to education.
Could not vote or hold public office.
Could not own property until 1870.
Debates about women's rights were referred to as "The Woman Question."
In 1848, the first women's college was established.
The "Woman Question" primarily addressed women of the middle class.
Lower-class women worked in grueling industrial conditions.
The problem of prostitution gained visibility.
Prostitution grew due to demand and better conditions than factories.
Debates about gender did not necessarily fall down gendered lines.

Literacy, Publication, and Reading

As of 1837 roughly half of England's population was literate.
That figure continued to grow throughout the Victorian period.
Publishers could provide more texts to more people.
The Victorian period saw enormous growth in periodicals.
Novelists like Charles Dickens published in magazines.
Publishing in serial form had a direct impact on style.
The reading public became more and more fragmented.
Writers had to consider how their writing might appeal to niche audiences.

Short Fiction and the Novel

Short fiction thrived during the Victorian period.
The novel was the most prevalent genre.
Suited to authors who wanted to capture diversity and class conflict.
A common theme involves a protagonist trying to define themselves relative to class and social systems.

Poetry

Poetry retained its iconic status as "high literature."
Most readers expected poetry to teach a moral lesson.
Individuals could cultivate their greatest human potential through the writing and study of poetry.
Poets ranged widely in their subject matter.
Some revived mythic themes.
Others turned a critical eye on industrial abuses.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson - "The Lady of Shalott" (1842)

The poem tells the story of a woman who lives in a tower in Shalott. She weaves a tapestry of the landscape visible from her window.
She is under a curse forbidding her from looking directly out the window.
One day, Sir Lancelot rides by and sings. The woman goes to the window, triggering the curse.
She leaves the tower, finds a boat, writes "The Lady of Shalott" on it, and floats toward Camelot.
She dies before reaching Camelot; Lancelot remarks on her lovely face.
First published in 1832, it was attacked by critics due to its fantasy situations instead of realistic ones.
After Tennyson's best friend died, he published nothing for a long time.
In 1842, a new volume was published with a revised version of "The Lady of Shalott."
Tennyson was born August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.
He enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827.
There he met Arthur Hallam and later suffered a mental breakdown.

Poem Text

The text of the poem and its summary have been parsed above.

Topics For Further Study

Research the history of how mirrors are made and explain how that would affect what she saw.
Assume that the Lady of Shalott is not under a curse and report on treatments currently available for someone in her situation.

Themes

Deprivation: The Lady lives under a spell, accepting it as her fate.
Art and Artifice: Her view of reality depends on the reflection in her mirror, and she creates her version of reality.
Infatuation: The Lady dies of a broken heart, but Tennyson changed the setting from Astolat to Shalott.
Liberation: She leaves the tower, finds a boat, and writes the title on it before casting off.

Style

The Lady of Shalott is a ballad.
It is divided into four numbered sections.
Each section is broken down into stanzas.
The stanzas all contain the same basic structure: there are nine lines, with a rhyme scheme of aaaabcccb.
This strong emphasis on rhymes helps to give the poem the feeling of an ancient tale.
The lines of this poem are written in iambic tetrameter.

Historical Context

Arthurian Legend: The character Tennyson calls the Lady of Shalott is based on Elaine of Astolat from the legends of King Arthur.
Romanticism
- Emphasis on feeling as the source of creativity, a preference for subjectivity.
- An overall devotion to nature as a symbolic code for spiritual truth, and a desire to give voice to oppressed and rustic people.

Exercise

What is the significance of the shallop flitting away unhail'd?
In "The Lady of Shalott" by Lord Tennyson, who is imprisoned in Shalott? How do we know this?
How does the theme of isolation appear in "The Lady of Shalott"?
What is the plot of the poem "The Lady of Shalott"?
Why was the Lady of Shalott forbidden to look down on Camelot?
What does the room in the tower in "The Lady of Shallot" look like?
Why did the Lady of Shalott die?
What is setting of "The Lady of Shalott"?
How does the Lady of Shalott spend her time?

Christina Rossetti - "Remember" (1862)

"Remember" first appeared in "Goblin Market" and Other Poems in 1862.
Rossetti seems to have been obsessed with her own pending death.
The poem couples this persistent thought with an awkward love affair, one in which the speaker confesses that she may not be as passionately in love with her suitor as he is with her.
Antony H. Harrison discusses the poet's work and the "dominant tensions."
- They are between beauty and death.
- Between love of man and love of God.
- Between the ephemeral and the eternal.
- Between the sensory and the transcendent.
Christina Rossetti was born in London, England, in December 1830 and died in London in December 1894.
Dante Gabriel probably had the greatest influence on Rossetti's early work.
Her first book, Goblin Market and Other Poems, was a collection of both adult and children's verse published in 1862.

Poem Text

The text of the poem and summary have been parsed above.

Topics For Further Study

Read as much information as you can on Queen Victoria of Great Britain and then write an essay on some of the likely reasons that she was the longest reigning monarch in European history (besides Louis XIV).
What twentieth-century art movements have also been controversial and considered out of the mainstream? How have they been received by the general public and other artists?
What do you think was the most significant invention of the age and why?

Themes

Imperfect Love: It seems that the love of a man must seem second-rate, at best.
Balance and Contradiction:' "Remember" is an exercise in opposites-a poem made up of a back-and-forth shift between balance and contradiction.

Style

The Sonnet: There are two main types of sonnets-the Shakespearean (English) and the Petrarchan (Italian).

Historical Context

Queen Victoria was in the early years of her long reign over the country, lasting from 1837 until her death in 1901.
Rossetti's poetry was widely accepted and appreciated from the beginning.
More recent researchers began looking at female Victorian poets for hints of early feminist views, Rossetti's work was heralded as a voice secretly crying out for independence and freedom while remaining obediently within the strictures of the Victorian woman's place.

Gerard Manley Hopkins - "Pied Beauty" (1877)

Gerard Manley Hopkins is often described as an early modern poet.
Though “Pied Beauty” was written in 1877, it was first published 29 years after his death.
The poem appeared in the first collected edition of his poems, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, edited by Robert Bridges (1918).
“Pied Beauty” is one of the first poems that Hopkins wrote in the so-called sprung rhythm that he evolved, based on the rhythms of Anglo-Saxon and ancient Welsh poetry.
Thematically, the poem is a simple hymn of praise to God for the "dappled things" of creation.
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on July 28, 1844, in Stratford, Essex, England, to Manley Hopkins, a marine insurance adjuster, and Catherine (Smith) Hopkins.

Poem Text

The text of the poem and its summary have been parsed above.

Themes

Nature's Variety and God's Unity: The significance of these things lies in the union of contrasting or opposite qualities in one being or aspect of creation.
His use of the words "fickle" and "freckle` d” to describe these things is noteworthy, as these are both qualities that were neither admired nor appreciated in the Victorian age.

Style

Sprung Rhythm - Hopkins based his sprung rhythm on the metrical systems of Anglo-Saxon and traditional Welsh poetry, and he used this rhythm for much of his poetry. Sprung rhythm is based on the number of stressed syllables in a line and permits any number of unstressed syllables.
Compound Words - In his poetry, Hopkins uses an extraordinarily high number of compound words in order to convey meaning in a graphic and condensed form.
Alliteration - Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words.
Curtal Sonnet - "Pied Beauty" is one of Hopkins's three curtal or shortened sonnets, the others being "Peace" and "Ash Boughs."

Historical Context

The Industrial Revolution and Nature
- Hundreds of thousands of rural people migrated to the industrialized towns in search of work, including those in which Hopkins worked as a priest

Exercise

What is Hopkins praising in his poem "Pied Beauty?"
Describe the tone of religious devotion in the poem.
How did Hopkins portray nature in his poem "Pied Beauty".
Give examples of masculine and female rhymes in Hopkins' "Pied Beauty."
In "Pied Beauty," what is an example of onomatopoeia?
What is the significance of alliteration and rhyming scheme in "Pied Beauty"?
List and develop the ideas of beauty in the poem "Pied Beauty."

Thomas Hardy - "The Darkling Thrush" (1900)

Thomas Hardy's gloomy poem about the turn of the twentieth century, "The Darkling Thrush", remains one of his most popular and anthologized lyrics.
Like much of Hardy's writing, "The Darkling Thrush" embodies the writer's despair and pessimism.
Hardy was sixty years old when he penned the lyric, far past the life expectancy for a man of his time.

Poem Text

The text of the poem and its summary have been parsed above.

Themes

Search for Meaning: The speaker's despair echoes Hardy's own world-weariness and loss of hope for humanity's future.
Nature: "The Darkling Thrush" deromanticizes nature by taking even the capacity for renewal away: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth, / Was shrunken hard and dry."
Chaos and Order: The form of Hardy's poem is traditional in meter and rhyme and acts as a container of sorts for the chaos of the landscape he describes.

Style

Form - Composed in four octet, or eight-line, stanzas, with an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, “The Darkling Thrush” is written in iambic tetrameter.
Diction - Diction refers to an author's word choice.
Personification - Personification is a trope, one of the two major divisions of figures of speech.

Historical Context

When Hardy wrote "The Darkling Thrush" in 1900, the British Empire had expanded to include almost 4 million square miles.

Exercise

Explain the theme of hope in "The Darkling Thrush"
How did Hardy create feelings of sadness in the poem?
How did Hardy create the natural scene of the poem?
What are the characteristics of Victorian poetry as represented by Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush"?
What is the central metaphor of the poem?