Victorian Literature: Key Themes in Fiction and Poetry
The Gothic and Sensation Novel
The Victorian era was marked by the Gothic and Sensation Novel, which incorporated elements of mystery, horror, and transgression (e.g., Wuthering Heights and the later works of Wilkie Collins).
Typical Representatives vs. Exceptions
- Typical: Charles Dickens (social realism), Anthony Trollope (political and clerical life), and George Eliot (moral and philosophical realism).
- Exceptions: The Brontës (passionate, Gothic, and symbolic) and the late works of Thomas Hardy (pessimistic and tragic).
Historical and Social Background
To analyze these works, one must understand the impact of Industrialization (class tension and urban poverty), Utilitarianism, Darwinism (the crisis of faith), Gender Roles (the “Angel in the House” ideal), and Social Reform.
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
Bildungsroman Conventions
The novel follows the Bildungsroman tradition, tracing Pip’s growth from childhood to adulthood while focusing on his moral, social, and emotional education. His “expectations”—wealth, status, and Estella—serve as the primary vehicle for this journey.
Narration and Perspective
An older Pip narrates his younger self’s life with irony and hindsight, creating a sophisticated double perspective.
Parallels and Contrasts
- Satis House vs. The Forge: Decay and illusion versus honest labor.
- Magwitch vs. Miss Havisham: The coarse but loving criminal versus the wealthy, vengeful recluse.
- Biddy vs. Estella: Moral grounding versus cold indifference.
Gothic Elements and the Ending
Gothic elements include Miss Havisham’s decayed wedding feast, the haunting of Pip by his past, the atmospheric marsh settings, and the criminal underworld (Magwitch and Newgate). Regarding the conclusion, the original ending is melancholic and ambiguous, with Pip and Estella parting. The revised ending suggests a possible, though uncertain, future together. Readers must consider which better fits the novel’s themes of lost innocence and tempered expectations.
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights
Central Themes and Genre Fusion
The central theme is the destructive yet transcendent passion of Catherine and Heathcliff, which challenges social, religious, and metaphysical boundaries (nature vs. culture, storm vs. calm, soul vs. body). The work is a Gothic romance (supernatural, tyranny, and imprisonment) fused with a revenge tragedy featuring Heathcliff as the revenger.
Structure and Narration
The novel mirrors a classical tragedy in its five-act feel, with Lockwood serving as a chorus-like frame. The “Chinese-box” narration—where Lockwood recounts Nelly’s story, which in turn contains others’ accounts—creates layers of subjectivity, bias, and distance, making truth relative.
Departures from Realism
The intense, symbolic passions, the ghostly presence of Catherine, and the elemental, almost personified setting (the moors and the houses) move the narrative beyond strict realism.
Ideological Conflict
The wild, passionate, and anarchic world of Wuthering Heights (Heathcliff and the Earnshaws) is pitted against the civilized, refined, but stifling world of Thrushcross Grange (the Lintons). The second generation (Cathy Linton and Hareton) eventually achieves a tentative balance.
Realistic vs. Symbolic
The novel is both realistic in its detailed domestic and social observation and profoundly symbolic in its setting, characters (Heathcliff as a force of nature), and central love story, which transcends ordinary life.
Victorian Poetry
Alfred Tennyson: “Ulysses”
Form and Division
The poem shifts from a soliloquy (lines 1-32, where Ulysses reflects on his idle kingship) to a dramatic monologue (lines 33-70, where he addresses his mariners to urge them on a final voyage). The defining criterion is the presence of an explicit, silent audience.
Perspective and Symbolism
Tennyson presents Ulysses as restlessly heroic, defining life through striving and knowledge rather than passive rule. It is a Victorian celebration of the active, inquiring spirit, though tinged with melancholy. The voyage represents the unending human quest for experience and understanding.
Literary Echoes
The poem draws primarily from Dante’s Inferno (Canto 26), where Ulysses is a doomed adventurer, but Tennyson transforms him into a hero. It also echoes Byron’s heroic figures and Milton’s Satan.
Robert Browning: “My Last Duchess”
The Dramatic Monologue
The Duke of Ferrara speaks to the emissary of a Count, whose daughter he intends to marry. This is revealed through the final lines (“Notice Neptune, though…”) and his discussion of the Duchess’s portrait during a negotiation for a new wife.
Unconscious Self-Revelation
The Duke’s language reveals his arrogance, pride, possessiveness (“my last Duchess”), and cruelty (the chilling implication that he “gave commands” to stop her smiles). The silent listener’s reactions are implied by the Duke’s speech (e.g., “Sir, ’twas not / Her husband’s presence only…”).
Renaissance Italy Context
The Duke embodies the Machiavellian Renaissance prince: powerful, amoral, and treating people as art objects to be collected and controlled. The poem critiques the relationship between art, power, and gender.
Pre-Raphaelites: D.G. Rossetti’s “The Blessed Damozel”
The Pre-Raphaelite Program
Reacting against Victorian materialism and academic art conventions, the Pre-Raphaelites sought:
- In Painting: Vivid, jewel-like color, intense detail, naturalistic observation, and medieval or spiritual themes.
- In Poetry: Sensuous richness, pictorial detail, and a focus on medievalism and intense emotion.
Tension: Sensual vs. Mystic
The poem is the pinnacle of this movement. The damozel is in Heaven, yet described with palpable physicality. Heavenly love is expressed in deeply earthly, erotic terms, blurring the line between spiritual and physical longing.
Religious vs. Love Poem
It functions as both a religious vision of a soul in Heaven and a profoundly human, melancholic love poem about separation, made more poignant by the earthly lover’s interjections in parentheses.
Comparison with Gerard Manley Hopkins
Both are religious poets obsessed with sensory detail. However, Hopkins’s poetry (e.g., “Pied Beauty,” “The Windhover”) finds God in the physical world’s unique particularity (inscape), celebrating divine creation. Rossetti uses the physical to envision a separate spiritual realm, imbuing it with human, often melancholic, eroticism.