A Revolt against Victorianism:
The Victorian era or the Age of Tennyson covers the period from 1832 to 1887. The reign of Queen Victoria extends from 1837 to 1901 but literary movements rarely coincide with the exact year of a royal accession or death. During the last decade of the nineteenth century the ideals which were upheld by the Victorians or more precisely by their mouth-piece, Lord Alfred Tennyson, were put to the anvil. The last decade of the nineteenth century was characterized by a revolt against Victorianism, a wholesale condemnation of the ideals and values which had been cherished during the earlier decades of Queen Victoria's reign.
An Era of Progress and Advancement:
The Victorian age is one of the most remarkable periods in the history of England. It was an era of material affluence, political consciousness, democratic reforms, industrial and mechanical progress, scientific advancement, social unrest, educational expansion, empire building and religious uncertainty. There were a number of thinkers who were well satisfied with the progress made by the Victorians, while from a whole class of adverse critics could be heard a scathing criticism of the values held dear by the Victorians. While Macaulay trumpeted the progress that the Victorians had made, Ruskin and Carlyle, Arnold, Lytton Strachey and Trollope raised frowns of disfavour against the soul-killing materialism of the age. Carlyle, himself a hostile critic of the age, admired L. H, Myer's reference to 'the deep-seated spiritual vulgarity that lies at the heart of our civilization.' Symonds detected in the Victorian period, whatever may be its buoyancy and promise, elements of 'world fatigue,' which were quite alien to the Elizabethan age, with which the Victorian era is often compared. Whatever may be the defects of the Victorian way of life, it cannot be denied that it was in many ways a glorious epoch in the history of English literature and the advancement made in the field of poetry, prose and fiction was really commendable.
A Period of Peace and Prosperity for England:
The Victorian age was essentially a period of peace and prosperity for England. The few colonial wars that broke out during this period exercised little adverse effects on the national life. The Crimean War, of course, caused a stir in England, but its effects were soon forgotten and the people regained the normal tenor of their lives without feeling the aftermaths of war in their round of daily activities. In the earlier years of the age, the effect of the French Revolution was still felt, but by the middle of the century, it had almost completely dwindled and England felt safe from any revolutionary upsurge disturbing the placidity and peaceful existence of its life. On the whole, it was a comparatively peaceful reign when Englishmen, secure in their island base, could complete the transformation of all aspects of their industrial, commercial and social life without any risks of violent interruptions that gave quite a different quality to the history of continental nations. It was an era when the 'war drum throbb'd no longer and the people felt safe and secure in their island home.
Peace brought material advancement and industrial progress in the country. The Industrial Revolution during this age transformed the agrarian economy of England into an industrial economy. Mills and factories were established at important centers, and the whole of England hummed with the rattle of looms and booms of weaving machines.
Social Unrest and Economic Distress among the Masses:
The Industrial Revolution while creating the privileged class of capitalists and mill-owners, rolling in wealth and riches, also brought in its wake the semi-starved and ill-clad class of labourers and factory workers who were thoroughly dissatisfied with their miserable lot. National wealth increased but it was not equitably distributed. A new class of landed aristocracy and mill-owners sprang up. They looked with eyes of disdain and withering contempt on the lot of the ragged and miserable factory hands. Conditions of life held no charm for labourers and workers in the field, for they were required to dwell in slum areas with no amenities of life attending them at any stage of their miserable existence. There were scenes of horrid despair witnessed in the lives of the poor.
An age of Humanitarian Considerations and Social Uplift:
The woeful and deplorable conditions of labourers, miners, debtors, and prisoners soon caught the eyes of social reformers, and a stage was prepared for ameliorating the lot of the down- trodden and the under-dogs of an affluent society. The Victorian era, therefore, witnessed vigorous social reforms and a line of crusading humanitarian reformers who sought to do away with the festering sores and seething maladies of the Victorian age. The Victorian age is, therefore, an age of humanitarian considerations and social uplift for the masses.
Humanist Attitude to Life Among the Literary Men and Women:
In the course of the Victorian era there developed among the increasingly large number of literary men and women and philanthropic social reformers a humanist attitude to life which was not a matter of creed and dogmas, but a recognition of the love and loyalty that the better-sensed people had for their unfortunate brethren. In the works of Dickens, Mrs. Gaskell, Carlyle and Ruskin, we notice the crusading zeal of the literary artists to bring about salutary reforms in the social, political and economic life of the country.
The Rise of Democratic Consciousness:
The growing importance of the masses and the large number of factory hands gave a spurt to the Reform Bills, which heralded the birth of democratic consciousness among the Victorian people. The Victorian age witnessed a conflict between aristocracy and plutocracy on the one hand, and democracy and socialism on the other hand. The advance in the direction of democracy was well marked out, and in spite of the protests of Tennyson and Carlyle, its sweeping tide could not be stemmed. The long struggle of the Anglo-Saxons for personal liberty is definitely settled, and democracy becomes the established order of the day. The king and peers are both stripped of their power and left as figure-heads of a past civilization. The last vestige of personal government and the divine right of rulers disappear; the House of Commons becomes the ruling power in England and a series of new reform bills rapidly extend the suffrage until the whole body of English people choose for themselves the men who shall represent them.
Witnessing the Expansion in the Field of Education:
England witnessed expansion in the field of education. The passing of the Education Acts was a landmark in the history of education in the country. A large reading public was prepared to welcome the outpourings of novelists, poets and social reformers. The press also came into its own and became a potent force in awakening political consciousness among the people of this age.
An Unusual Growth of Population:
There was a phenomenal growth in population during the Victorian age. The population of Great Britain at the time of the first census in 1801 was about ten and a half millions. By 1901 it had grown to thirty-seven million, More and more of territorial expansion was needed for the habitation of this growing population and England during this age marched on the course of empire building and establishing its hegemony in countries where the light of civilization had not yet advanced.
Intellectual and Scientific Advancement:
There was an unprecedented intellectual and scientific advancement during the Victorian age. It was a period of intellectual ferment and scientific thinking. Science, once a sealed book save to an elect few, was democratized, and more and more scientific enthusiasts dedicated themselves to the popularization of scientific works like Darwin's Origin of Species. The man of science was regarded no more an academic recluse, but as a social figure exercising a deep and profound influence on the social and educational life of the age.
A Conflict between Religion and Science:
In spite of the advance of science and the various scientific discoveries the general tenor of life was still governed by religious and moral considerations. The Victorians were moralists at heart, and religion was the sheet anchor of their lives. There was a marked conflict between religion and science, between moralists and scientists, each outdoing the other, but the current of religious thought was not chilled. It was an age in which Prime-ministers raised echoes of a submerged religious vocabulary in their speeches and novels.
Parental Authority and the Lower Place of Women:
In domestic life the Victorians upheld the authority of parents over children. In the Barrets of Wimpole Street, we have a vivid picture of parental authority and the subjugation of children to the will of the head of the family. Emphasis was laid on authority and reverence for the elders. Women were relegated to a lower place. They were expected to cultivate domestic virtues, rear up children and look after the home and the hearth. Women were regarded as inferior to men and Mrs. Ellis in The Women of England outlined the role of the female sex as being of service to the male members of the family. "The first thing of importance," she said, "was to be inferior to men, inferior in mental power in the same proportion that you are inferior in strength." Education was a closed book for most of the women, and the idea of establishing women's colleges was ridiculed by Tennyson, the national poet, in The Princess.
Emphasizing on order, decorum and decency:
The Victorians laid emphasis on order, decorum and decency. To talk of duty, honour, the obligation of being a gentleman, the responsibilities of matrimony, and the sacredness of religious belief was to be Victorian. "The Victorians," we are told, "were a poor, blind, complacent people", yet they were torn by doubt, spiritually bewildered, lost in a troubled universe. They were cross materialists, wholly absorbed in the present quite unconcerned with abstract varieties and eternal values, but they were also excessively religious, lamentably idealistic, nostalgic for the past, and ready to forego present delights for a vision of a world beyond despite their slavish "conformity," their purblind respect for convention, they were, we learn, "rugged individualists," given to "doing as one likes," needless of culture, careless of a great tradition : they were iconoclasts, who worshipped the idols of authority. They were, besides, at once sentimental humanitarians and hard-boiled exponents of free enterprise.
Making A Compromise in the Field of Sex:
The sex problem was the most blatant and persistent. In this field their object was to discover some middle course between the unbridled licentiousness of previous ages and the complete negation of the functions and purposes of nature. The Victorians permitted indulgence in sex but restricted its sphere to conjugal felicity and happy married life. They disfavoured physical passion and illegal gratification of sex impulse. They could not contemplate the possibility of any relation between man and woman other than the conjugal. In Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott we are introduced to 'two young lovers' walking together in the moon- light, but we are at once reassured by the statement that these two lovers were 'lately wed.' The Victorian ideal was to achieve wedded bliss' rather than satisfaction of the sex urge by illegal and unauthorized methods.
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