6. 19th Century English Language Literature

6.1　Romanticism

Major political and social changes at the end of the 18th century, particularly the French Revolution, prompted a new breed of writing known as Romanticism. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge began the trend for bringing emotionalism and introspection to English literature, with a new concentration on the individual and the common man. The reaction to urbanism and industrialisation prompted poets to explore nature, for example the Lake Poets. The third major Lake poet, Robert Southey, enjoys lasting popularity, although perhaps his most enduring contribution to literary history is the immortal children’s classic, The Story of the Three Bears , the basis of the original Goldilocks story.

Around the same period, the iconoclastic printer William Blake, largely disconnected from the major streams of elite literature of the time, was constructing his own highly idiosyncratic poetic creations, while the Scottish nationalist poet Robert Burns was collecting and adapting the folk songs of Scotland into a body of national poetry for his homeland.

The major “second generation” Romantic poets included George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. They flouted social convention and often used poetry as a political voice. Amongst Lord Byron’s best-known works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty and So, We’ll Go No More a Roving , in addition to narrative poems Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan . Another key poet of the Romantic movement was John Keats, whose poems such as Ode to a Nightingale expound on his aesthetic theory of negative capability, and remain among the most celebrated by any author of the period. To Autumn is the final work in a collection of poems known as “Keats’s 1819 Odes”. Percy Shelley, famous for his association with Keats and Byron, was the third major romantic poet of the second generation. Critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language, Shelley is most famous for such widely anthologised verse works as Ozymandias , and long visionary poems which include Prometheus Unbound . Shelley’s groundbreaking poem The Masque of Anarchy calls for nonviolence in protest and political action. It is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent protest. Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance was influenced and inspired by Shelley’s verse, and Gandhi would often quote the poem to vast audiences.

6.2　The 19th Century Novel

At the same time, Jane Austen was writing highly polished novels about the life of the landed gentry, seen from a woman’s point of view, and wryly focused on practical social issues, especially marriage and money. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice 1813, is often considered the epitome of the romance genre, and some of her other most notable works include Sense and Sensibility , Mansfield Park , Persuasion and Emma .

Walter Scott’s novel-writing career was launched in 1814 with Waverley , often called the first historical novel, and was followed by Ivanhoe . His popularity in England and further abroad did much to form the modern stereotype of Scottish culture. Other novels by Scott which contributed to the image of him as a Scottish patriot include Rob Roy . Scott was the highest earning and most popular author up to that time.

Mary Shelley is best known for her novel Frankenstein¹⁰ 1818, infusing elements of the Gothic novel and Romantic movement. Frankenstein’s chilling tale suggests modern organ transplants, tissue regeneration, that remind readers of the moral issues raised by today’s medicine. Shelley’s 1826 novel The Last Man is often identified as the first work of modern apocalyptic fiction.

John William Polidori wrote The Vampyre 1819, creating the literary vampire genre. His short story was inspired by the life of Lord Byron and his poem The Giaour . Another major influence on vampire fiction is Varney the Vampire 1845, where many standard vampire features originated—Varney has fangs, leaves two puncture wounds on the neck of his victims, has hypnotic powers, superhuman strength, and was also the first example of the “sympatheticvampire”, who loathes his condition but is a slave to it.

From the mid-1820s until the 1840s, fashionable novels depicting the lives of the upper class in an indiscreet manner, identifying the real people whom the characters were based on, dominated the market. It was in the Victorian era （1837–1901） that the novel became the leading form of literature in English. Most writers were now more concerned to meet the tastes of a large middle-class reading public than to please aristocratic patrons. The 1830s saw a resurgence of the social novel, where sensationalised accounts and stories of the working class poor were directed toward middle class audiences to incite sympathy and action towards pushing for legal and moral change. Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South contrasts the lifestyle in the industrial north of England with the wealthier south.

Sir John Barrow’s descriptive 1831 account of the Mutiny on the Bounty immortalised the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty and her people. The legend of Dick Turpin was popularised when the 18th century English highwayman’s exploits appeared in the novel Rookwood in 1834.

Charles Dickens¹¹emerged on the literary scene in the 1830s, confirming the trend for serial publication. Dickens wrote vividly about London life and struggles of the poor, often, as in Oliver Twist , employing a popular style which would prove accessible to readers of all classes. The festive tale A Christmas Carol is called his “little Christmas book”. Great Expectations is a quest for maturity. A Tale of Two Cities is set in London and Paris. Dickens’early works are masterpieces of comedy, such as The Pickwick Papers . Later his works became darker, without losing his genius for caricature.

The emotionally powerful works of the Brontë sisters: Charlotte’s Jane Eyre , Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey were released in 1847 after their search to secure publishers. William Makepeace Thackeray’s satirised British society in Vanity Fair 1847, while Anthony Trollope’s novels portrayed the lives of the landowning and professional classes of early Victorian England.

Although pre-dated by John Ruskin’s The King of the Golden River in 1841, the history of the modern fantasy genre is generally said to begin with George MacDonald, influential author of The Princess and the Goblin and Phantastes 1858. William Morris was a popular English poet who wrote several fantasy novels during the latter part of the 19th century.

6.3　Lewis Carroll

Literature for children was published during the Victorian period, some of which hasbecome globally well-known, such as the works of Lewis Carroll, notably Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , while Anna Sewell wrote the classic animal novel Black Beauty .

Wilkie Collins epistolary novel The Moonstone 1868, is often considered the first detective novel in the English language. The Woman in White is regarded as one of the finest sensation novels.

The novels of George Eliot, such as Middlemarch , were a milestone of literary realism, and combine high Victorian literary detail with an intellectual breadth that removes them from the narrow confines they often depict. Novels of Thomas Hardy and others, dealt with the changing social and economic situation of the countryside.

Penny dreadful publications were an alternative to mainstream works, and were aimed at working class adolescents, introducing the infamous Sweeney Todd. The premier ghost story writer of the 19th century was Sheridan Le Fanu. His works include the macabre mystery novel Uncle Silas 1865, and his Gothic novella Carmilla 1872, tells the story of a young woman’s susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire. Bram Stoker, author of seminal horror work Dracula , featured as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula, with the vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing his arch-enemy. Dracula has been attributed to a number of literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, gothic novel and invasion literature.

H. G. Wells, who, alongside Jules Verne, is referred to as “The Father of Science Fiction”, invented a number of themes that are now classic in the science fiction genre. The War of the Worlds 1898, describing an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry, is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. The Time Machine is generally credited with the popularisation of the concept of time travel using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively. The term “ time machine ” coined by Wells, is now universally used to refer to such a vehicle.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant London-based “consulting detective”, famous for his intellectual prowess, skilful use of astute observation, deductive reasoning and forensic skills to solve difficult cases. Holmes’ archenemy Professor Moriarty, is widely considered to be the first true example of a supervillain, while Sherlock Holmes has become a by-word for a detective. Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories featuring Holmes, from 1880 up to 1907, with a final case in 1914. All but four Conan Doyle stories are narrated by Holmes’ friend, assistant, and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson.

The Lost World literary genre was inspired by real stories of archaeological discoveries by imperial adventurers. H. Rider Haggard wrote one of the earliest examples, King Solomon’s Mines in 1885. Contemporary European politics and diplomatic manoeuvrings informed Anthony Hope’s swashbuckling Ruritanian adventure novels The Prisoner of Zenda 1894, and Rupert of Hentzau 1898.

F. Anstey’s comic novel Vice Versa 1882, sees a father and son magically switch bodies. Satirist Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat 1889, is a humorous account of a boating holiday on the river Thames. Grossmith brothers George ＆ Weedon’s Diary of a Nobody 1892, is also considered a classic work of humour.

In the latter years of the 19th century, precursors of the modern picture book were illustrated books of poems and short stories produced by English illustrators Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway. These had a larger proportion of pictures to words than earlier books, and many of their pictures were in colour. Some British artists made their living illustrating novels and children’s books, include Arthur Rackham, Cicely Mary Barker, W. Heath Robinson, Henry J. Ford, John Leech, and George Cruikshank. One of the earliest and most influential books with the format that modern picture books retain is Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit .

An important forerunner of modernist literature, Joseph Conrad wrote the novel Heart of Darkness 1899, a symbolic story within a story or frame narrative about an Englishman Marlow’s foreign assignment, that is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.

6.4　Victorian Poets

Leading poetic figures of Victorian era include Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Matthew Arnold, whilst multi-disciplinary talents such as John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were also famous for their poetry. The poetry of this period was heavily influenced by the Romantics, but also went off in its own directions. Particularly notable was the development of the dramatic monologue, a form used by many poets in this period, but perfected by Browning, most of his poems were in the form of dramatic monologues.

Nonsense verse, such as by Edward Lear, taken with the work of Lewis Carroll, is regarded as a precursor of surrealism. Writers of comic verse included W. S. Gilbert, who produced the Bab Ballads and the lyrics for the Savoy Operas.

Towards the end of the century, English poets began to take an interest in French Symbolism and Victorian poetry entered a decadent fin-de-siècle phase. Two groups of poets emerged, the Yellow Book poets who adhered to the tenets of Aestheticism, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Symons and the Rhymer’s club group that included Ernest Dowson, Lionel Johnson and William Butler Yeats. Poetry of A. E. Housman consisting of wistful evocation of doomed youth in the English countryside, grew in popularity in early 20th century.

6.5　Ireland

In the 19th century, the Irish playwright Dion Boucicault was an extremely popular writer of comedies. However, it was in the last decade of the century that the Irish theatre finally came of age with the emergence of George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde¹². All of these writers lived mainly in England and wrote in English, with the exception of some works in French by Wilde.

The Celtic Revival （c. 1890）, was begun by William Butler Yeats, Augusta, Lady Gregory, John Millington Synge, Seán O’Casey, James Joyce and others. The Revival stimulated new appreciation of traditional Irish literature. The movement also encouraged the creation of works written in the spirit of Irish culture, as distinct from British culture.

6.6　Wales

Anglo-Welsh literature is a term used to describe works written in the English language by Welsh writers, notably Dylan Thomas, especially if they either have subject matter relating to Wales or （as in the case of Anglo-Welsh poetry in particular） are influenced by the Welsh language in terms of patterns of usage or syntax. It has been recognised as a distinctive entity only since the 20th century. The need for a separate identity for this kind of writing arose because of the parallel development of modern Welsh literature, i.e., literature in the Welsh language.

6.7　Scotland

Scottish literature in the 19th century, following the example of Walter Scott, tended to produce novels that did not reflect the realities of life in that period.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s short novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1886, depicts the dual personality of a kind and intelligent physician who turns into a psychopathicmonster after imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality. His Kidnapped is a fast-paced historical novel set in the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite Rising, and Treasure Island 1883, is the classic pirate adventure.

The Kailyard school of Scottish writers presented an idealised version of society and brought elements of fantasy and folklore back into fashion. J. M. Barrie created Peter Pan , a boy who can fly, magically refuses to grow up in a never-ending childhood in Neverland, is one example of this mix of modernity and nostalgia.