199- ] English Literature

199- ] English Literature

 Poetry

Poetry in a sense settled down from the upheavals of the romantic era and much of the work of the time is seen as a bridge between this earlier era and the modernist poetry of the next century. Alfred Lord Tennyson held the poet laureateship for over 40 years and his verse became rather stale by the end but his early work is rightly praised. Some of the poetry highly regarded at the time such as Invictus and If—  are now seen as jingoistic and bombastic but Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade was a fierce criticism of a famous military blunder; a pillar of the establishment not failing to attack the establishment.

It seems wrong to classify Oscar Wilde as a Victorian writer as his plays and poems seem to belong to the later age of Edwardian literature, but as he died in 1900, he was most definitely Victorian. His plays stand apart from the many now forgotten plays of Victorian times and have a much closer relationship to those of George Bernard Shaw's, many of whose most important works were written in the twentieth century.

The husband and wife poetry team of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning conducted their love affair through verse and produced many tender and passionate poems. Both Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote poems which sit somewhere in between the exultation of nature of the romantic Poetry and the Georgian Poetry of the early twentieth century. Arnold's works harks forward to some of the themes of these later poets while Hopkins drew for inspiration on verse forms from Old English poetry such as Beowulf.

The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian literature with an interest in both classical literature but also the medieval literature of England. The Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behavior and impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire. The best example of this is Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King which blended the stories of King Arthur, particularly those by Thomas Malory, with contemporary concerns and ideas. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also drew on myth and folklore for their art with Dante Gabriel Rossetti contemperaneously regarded as the chief poet amongst them, although his sister Christina is now held by scholars to be a stronger poet.

Victorian Poetry:

It produced three great poets- Tennyson, Browning and Arnold. Tennyson is the most representative poet of the age. He represents Victorian conflict and compromise.He is a great lyric poet. His lyricism is deep rooted and dominates all of his poems. It makes his poetry sweet and smooth. His lyric can be divided into many parts like personal, dramatic, patriotic and musical lyrics or songs. Among Tennyson’s personal lyric “ In Memorium” is very important. It is a collection of lyrics composed on the death of his bosom friend Arthur Hallam. Tennyson’s dramatic lyrics are in the form of dramatic monologues. Tennyson is admired as a pictorial artist. His description of the nature is highly sensuous. Robert Browning is known for his dramatic monologues and philosophy of hope. Browning is the greatest writer of dramatic monologues. All of his monologues deal with different aspects of love. Mathew Arnold is regarded as the greatest elegiac poet of Victorian age. He contributes a number of elegies but the following five are of great merit:

(i) Thyrsis

(ii) Rugby Chapel

(iii)The Scholar Gipsy

(iv)A Southern Night

(v) West Minister Abbey

Robert Browning (1812–1889) and Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) were notable poets in Victorian England. Thomas Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, but did not publish a collection until 1898 . The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was published posthumously in 1918. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) is also considered an important literary figure of the period, especially his poems and critical writings. Early poetry of W. B. Yeats was also published in Victoria's reign. It was not until the last decades of the 19th century that any significant theatrical works were produced, beginning with Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas of the 1870s, George Bernard Shaw's (1856–1950) plays of the 1890s, and Oscar Wilde's (1854–1900) The Importance of Being Earnest.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning became acquainted first by reading each other's poetry and both produced poems inspired by their relationship. Both Matthew Arnold and Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote poems that sit somewhere in between the exultation of nature of the romantic Poetry and the Georgian Poetry of the early 20th century. However, Hopkins's poetry was not published until 1918. Arnold's works anticipate some of the themes of these later poets, while Hopkins drew inspiration from verse forms of Old English poetry such as Beowulf.

The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian literature with an interest in both classical literature and also medieval literature of England. This movement can be traced back to Letitia Elizabeth Landon, especially her poetry collections, such as  The Troubadour , and  The Golden Violet with its Tales of Romance and Chivalry. The Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behavior and impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire. The best example of this is Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King, which blended the stories of King Arthur, particularly those by Thomas Malory, with contemporary concerns and ideas. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also drew on myth and folklore for their art, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti contemporaneously regarded as the chief poet amongst them, although his sister Christina is now held by scholars to be a stronger poet.

Pre-Raphaelite poetry Or Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood: The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood is also known as the Ore-Raphaelites. It was a group of English painters, poets and critics, founded in 1848 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who reacted against the artificiality of the art of the period. They wanted to return to the purity and simplicity of the Italian art of the 13th and 14th century (before Raphael). There were seven members in this “brotherhood”. The PreRaphaelite defined themselves as a reform-movement. They were influenced by the ideas of the art critic John Ruskin, who considered art as a way to react to the ugliness of modern, urban life. The main characteristics were: fidelity to nature, sensuality, use of non-industrial materials, re-evaluation of medieval religion and legends. The main representatives were:

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones . William Morris created the Arts and Crafts Movement, which designed and manufactured a great variety of objects for interiors (stained glass, wallpapers, tapestries, rugs etc…). They used handicraft and simple decoration in reaction to industrial machinery. The Pre-Raphaelite movement

influenced the Aesthetic Movement. It originated in France, following the ideas of The Ophelia Gautier; it was a reaction against the materialism and the strict moral code of the bourgeoisie. Aesthetes were not interested in political and social matters but isolated themselves in a world of beauty and art. Their motto was “art for art’s sake”, which means that art doesn’t have any moral aim but it’s an end in itself. The followers of Aesthetics led

an unconventional life, full of sensations and excess (they wanted to be different from the working masses and they also rejected the Victorian moral values). The main representative in Britain was Oscar Wilde.

Naughty Nineties: The last decade of the nineteenth century is characterized by “naughtiness”. “Victorianism” is a complex collection of several values, and the revolt of the nineties against Victorianism is also quite complex. This revolt has three points. First, it repeats the old revolutionary formula of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, in a new setting. Secondly, it worships power than beauty. And thirdly, it challenges the older values of art and

life. In the literature of the nineties two distinct tendencies are exposed: the pessimistic tendency and Continental tendency. In the poetry of the nineties, we consider Robert Bridges and Hardy as representatives poets. The most prominent novelist of the period is Thomas Hardy. The last years of 19th century witnessed a dramatic revival. The most vigorous drama of the age was concerned with social and domestic problems and was considerably influenced

by Ibsen. Oscar Wilde’s plays have the tone of social criticism. Shaw is doubtlessly , the greatest of all the dramatists of this period.

Victorian Compromise in Tennyson

Victorian compromise is a combination of the positive and negative aspects of the contemporary issues of Victorian era. The Victorian era is well-known for its enrichment of knowledge in science, expansion of empire and growth of economy, conflict between the science and religion, conflict between aristocracy and democracy etc. All Victorian writers, in some way or other, give expression to this conflicts and consequents. Some of the Victorians clung to the old faith and condemned the ‘new-fangled opinions’, others went over to the side of science, and still some others tried to draw some sort of compromise between the two conflicting forces. Tennyson can be classed with the third group, the one which stood for what is often called “The Victorian Compromise”. The problems of the day are wonderfully depicted in the writing of the poets of this era. Poets like Arnold of nineteenth century started to hold a very pessimistic view about the Victorian crisis; he seems to express only a negative attitude toward his contemporary age. But we see a quite dissimilar attitude in Alfred Lord Tennyson. Unlike Arnold, he expressed a

compromising attitude to his age and its intricate problems. We find in his Ulysses, The Lotos Eaters, The Charge of the Light Brigade, holds such a sort

of view which is supposed to find a middle ground. He is neither too melancholic like Arnold nor too optimistic like Robert Browning. He tries to portray in his poems a real and clear picture of the problems of contemporary age in an implicit way. In fact the poem , “The Charge of the Light Brigade” which is based upon the Crimean war describes the marvelous courage of the British soldiers and pays homage to them. In his political opinions Tennyson shared the views of an average Victorian who believed in the golden mean, a compromise between democracy and aristocracy. He believed in slow progress and shunned revolution.In the field of sex, The Victorians permitted indulgence in sex but restricted its sphere to happy married life. Tennyson reflects this spirit of the age in his love poems by pointing out that true love can be found only in married life. In Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shallot” we are

introduced to ‘two young lovers’ walking together in the moonlight, but we are at once reassured by the statement that these two lovers were ‘lately wed’

In the Victorian age, there was a huge conflict occurred especially because of Darwin’s theory between science and religion. Darwin suggested that humans are actually originated from the apes. This struck the Orthodox, and moved the faith of people in religion what was contemporarily coming forward by the writings of then thinker. But Tennyson himself was too greatly affected by the development of science to remain an orthodox Christian yet still was not so much affected as to turn an unqualified agnostic. Because of the quality to look for a middle ground, Tennyson is considered as a compromising craftsman who does neither yield to the crisis of his age nor possess a carefree attitude towards the problems, rather keeps compromising and finding a solution.

  

198- ] English Literature

198 - ] English Literature

The Victorian Age Novelists 

 Charles Dickens exemplifies the Victorian novelist better than any other writer. Extraordinarily popular in his day with his characters taking on a life of their own beyond the page, Dickens is still the most popular and read author of the time. The nineteenth century saw the rise of numerous literary journals that carried serial installments that were eagerly anticipated and widely read. His first real novel, The Pickwick Papers, written when he was only 25, was an overnight success, and all his subsequent works sold extremely well. He was in effect a self-made man who worked diligently and prolifically to produce exactly what the public wanted; often reacting to the public taste and changing the plot direction of his stories between monthly installments. The comedy of his first novel has a satirical edge which pervades his writings. These deal with the plight of the poor and oppressed and end with a ghost story cut short by his death. The slow trend in his fiction towards darker themes is mirrored in much of the writing of the century, and literature after his death in 1870 is notably different from that at the start of the era.

William Makepeace Thackeray was Dickens' great rival at the time. With a similar style but a slightly more detached, acerbic and barbed satirical view of his characters, he also tended to depict situations of a more middle class flavor than Dickens. He is best known for his novel Vanity Fair, subtitled A Novel without a Hero, which is also an example of a form popular in Victorian literature: the historical novel, in which very recent history is depicted. Anthony Trollope tended to write about a slightly different part of the structure, namely the landowning and professional classes.

Away from the big cities and the literary society, Haworth in West Yorkshire was the site of some of the era's most important novel writing: the home of the Brontë family. Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë had time in their short lives to produce masterpieces of fiction although these were not immediately appreciated by Victorian critics. Wuthering Heights, Emily's only work, in particular has violence, passion, the supernatural, heightened emotion, and emotional distance, an unusual mix for any novel but particularly at this time. It is a prime example of Gothic Romanticism from a woman's point of view during this period of time, examining class, myth, and gender. Another important writer of the period was George Eliot, a pseudonym which concealed a woman, Mary Ann Evans, who wished to write novels which would be taken seriously rather than the silly romances which all women of the time were supposed to write.

Charles Dickens: A Popular Victorian Author

In the same year that Queen Victoria ascended the throne, Charles Dickens published the first parts of his novel Oliver Twist, a story of an orphan and his struggle with poverty in the early part of the century. As the Industrial Revolution surged on, the class difference between the traditional aristocracy and the middle class was gradually getting reduced and with the passing of the Reform Act, the middle class got the right to vote and be politically engaged in the affairs of the nation. While the aristocracy criticized the work that the bourgeoisie had to do in the factories and the industries, to maintain the supremacy that they had the privilege of, the middle class in response promoted work as virtue. The result of this led to a further marginalization of those struck by poverty and were part of neither groups . The Poor Law that was passed made public assistance available to the economically downtrodden only through workhouses where they had to live and work. The conditions of these workhouses were deliberately made to be unbearable so as to avoid the poor from becoming totally dependent on assistance from outside. Families were split, food was inedible, and the circumstances were made inhospitable to urge the poor to work and fight a way through poverty. However, these ultimately became a web difficult to transgress and people chose living in the streets rather than seeking help from a workhouse. Dickens was aware of these concerns as a journalist and his own life and autobiographical experiences entered the novel through Oliver Twist. His novel enters the world of the workhouses, the dens of thieves and the streets and highlights that while there was economic prosperity on one side, there was poverty on the other and while morality, virtue were championed, hypocrisy was equally a part of society. His social commentary entered the world of his fiction.

In 1836, before Oliver Twist, his serials of Pickwick Papers were published which led him to instant recognition and popularity. It started the famous Victorian mode of serial novels which dominated the age till the end of the century. It not only made the reader anxious for the next serial to come and spread the popularity of the book itself, but also gave the writer a chance to alter his work according to the mood and expectation of his audience. His works enjoyed continuous popularity and acceptance and Dickens as a writer became famous for his wit, satire, social commentary and his in depth characters.

Bleak House, A Christmas Carroll, David Copperfield, Great Expectations are some of his other great works.

William Makepeace Thackeray: English Victorian Writer

Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India and was also an important writer but one who expressed his age very differently from Dickens and other writers. He is most noted for his satirical work Vanity Fair that portrays the many myriads of English society. Although he was seen as equally talented as Dickens, but his views were deemed old-fashioned which hindered his popularity  . He did not readily accept the changing values of the age. His work is seen almost as a reactionary voice. Vanity Fair for example has the subtitle ‘A novel without a Hero’ and in a period where other writers usually embarked on a portrayal of the coming of age of a hero, Thackeray himself very deliberately opposes it. While the protagonist of Dickens’ David Copperfield invites the reader to identify with him, Thackeray’s Becky Sharp is the conniving, cynical and clever. Even his novel Pendennis, is a complete opposite of the novel David Copperfield, although both were published the same year. Thackeray did not identify with the middle class because hence his novels lack a middle class hero. When novels were catering to reassure middle class self-worth, Thackeray denied to give that assurance. Even, Dobbin, a middle class character in Vanity Fair, is not completely granted hero status and a tone of criticism lingers on the character throughout the work.

In The History of Henry Esmond, Thackeray deals with questions of not only of the concerns of society at large but also of individual identity. While most writers supported the idea of innate goodness in the individual human self, Thackeray differed. For example the character of Henry Esmond is also not a completely positive character and the negatives of his self, is perhaps Thackeray’s critique of Victorian emphasis on the individual. An individualism that focused on personal virtue and morality is seen as Thackeray to at the risk of selfishness bordering on narcissism and self-absorption. His discontent with his age became more vocal in later works like Phillip and The New Comes. While the former is injected with autobiographical accounts and is goes back to the satirical tone of Vanity Fair, the latter is a harsh critique of the material greed of the age and a critique of the contemporary culture of the age.

As a result of his strong opinions of his society and its issues, and a critical rejection of the dominant concerns found in works of other writers of the same age, Thackeray stands in isolation as an outsider to this circle due his skepticism of the changing Victorian society. His stand did not change with time and lends to a social criticism and commentary of a very different sort in his works. Catherine, A Shabby Genteel Story, The Book of Snobs are some of his other works.

Women Novelists of the Victorian Era

The era saw a proliferation of women writers. The novel as a genre was initially seen as feminine literature and as the literacy rate among women increased, a new need for women writers catering to this segment was answered by these writers.

Mrs. Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell, popularly called Mrs. Gaskell wrote short stories and novels that dealt with presenting a social picture of her society in the 1850s. While it was a time when doubts about material progress reaching the actual lives of the ordinary man were starting to be raised, Gaskell mostly gave an optimistic view of the time. Gaskell’s North and South for example, seeks to present an answer to division and difference by presenting a form of a social reconciliation. There is an attempt at reconciliation of many divergent streams in the novel.

Mary Barton was her first novel, published in 1848 with a subtitle, ‘A Tale of Manchester Life’ and sticks to the Victorian concern of presenting the daily life of the middle class. Cranford came next in the form of a serial and was edited by Dickens for the magazine called Household Words. It was received positively and Gaskell gained immediate popularity for it. It centered on women characters like Mary Smith, Miss Deborah and the others. However the book was also critiqued for its lack of a significant story line. She was also famous for her gothic style in some of her works and this made Gaskell slightly different from other novelist of her time. Ruth, Sylvia’s Lovers, Wives and Daughters were other significant works by her.

George Eliot

Perhaps the one most famous women writers , George Eliot still maintains a canonical status. Her real name was Mary Ann Evans or Marian Evans and she adopted the pseudonym George Eliot to escape the stereotype attached with women writers and successfully entered the domain of ‘serious’ writing. She had a controversial personal life and there too was not hesitant to break the norms of societal feminine boundaries. Adam Bede was her first novel, published 1859, set in a rural landscape and deals with a love rectangle. It received critical appreciation for its psychological descriptions of the characters and a realistic description of rural life.

Mill on the Floss, 1860, revolves around the life of Tom and Maggie Tulliver and traces their life as they grow up near the River Floss. Historical, political references to those of the Napoleonic Wars and the Reform Bill of 1832 inform the novel and lend it a more intellectual and serious strain. Autobiographical elements also form a part of the novel as George Eliot fuses herself partly with Maggie, the protagonist of the book. After Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1863), Felix Holt the Radical, (1866) came Eliot’s most popular novel Middlemarch in the year 1871. The novel revolves around the life of complex characters and the Reform Bill of 1832. Subtitled ‘A Study of Provincial Life’ the plot is based in the fictitious town of Midlands. The greatness of the novel was because of the vast portraiture of country and urban life that it depicts, its complex plots and characters, and its stark realistic projection of the time its set in. The role of education , the women question, politics, social commentary , idealism are other complicated strands of the novel.

Bronte Sisters

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte were the three famous novelist daughters of Patrick Bronte, a well-educated man and a writer himself; and Maria Bronte. The family together went through a series of tragedies where Maria Bronte died very early and none of the three sisters could reach the age of 40. Charlotte died at the age of just 39, Emily at 30 and Anne at 29. All three were educated by their father at home and all of them were fond of storytelling since childhood. Charlotte Bronte is famous for her novel Jane Eyre, published in 1847. The titular protagonist of the book, Jane Eyre, and her struggles in life and love for Mr. Rochester along with the process of her mental and spiritual growth are traced. The novel is believed to have a feminist tone to it and the famous ‘woman in the attic’ character of Bertha Mason raises several gender and feminist issues. Emily Bronte, the second of the trio, became famous for her novel Wuthering Heights, published in the year 1847 and the only book written by her. Like George Eliot, Emily wrote under the pseudonym of Ellis Bell but after her death Charlotte published the novel with her sister’s real name. The novel is the love story of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Anne Bronte, the last of the three, wrote two novels: Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) . The former was an autobiographical work and the latter is about a woman named  Helen Graham who transgresses marital and social boundaries to assert her freedom. It is seen a substantial piece of feminist writing .

All three sisters hence larger societal questions through mostly women characters and the plot focusses on their life with themes of love and passion . They hence enjoyed a large female readership and have achieved status as classics of literature.

Late Victorian Novelists

Thomas Hardy was the most important writer in the later part of the Victorian Era. He was influenced by both the romanticism of the earlier era and the social commentary of Dickens. He is famous for the conception of the fictional town of Wessex. Far from the Madding Crowd published in 1874, The Mayor of Casterbridge in 1886, Tess of the d’Urbervilles in 1891, and Jude the Obscure in 1895 are his famous novels but Hardy was also known for his poetry. The late part of the period also saw the rise of the ‘sensational’ novels by writers like Wilkie Collins and they too were based on the life of the middle class. The Woman in White (1860) and The Moonstone (1868) are Collins famous sensational novels. Anthony Trollope, another writer in the second half of the era, was himself from a middle class background and wrote the Phineas Finn (1869) and The Way we Live (1874). It was the time when Lewis Carroll wrote his famous Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland published in 1865 and stood very different from other because of the child fiction genre it became a classic of the Carroll’s different dreamy world that stood in direct contrast with the realistic tone of novels that was at its peak . George Gissing, George Moore, Samuel Butler, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson were other novels of the era. Rudyard Kipling and his short stories based in India pointed to the larger historical process of colonialism happening at the time. It was in 1877 that Queen Victoria became the Empress of India. Then also came George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, another two most famous writers of the time. 

The style of the Victorian novel

Virginia Woolf in her series of essays The Common Reader called George Eliot's Middlemarch "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." This criticism, although rather broadly covering as it does all English literature, is rather a fair comment on much of the fiction of the Victorian Era. Influenced as they were by the large sprawling novels of sensibility of the preceding age they tended to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and wrong-doers are suitably punished. They tended to be of an improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart, informing the reader how to be a good Victorian. This formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction but as the century progressed the tone grew darker.

Eliot in particular strove for realism in her fiction and tried to banish the picturesque and the burlesque from her work. Another woman writer Elizabeth Gaskell wrote even grimmer, grittier books about the poor in the north of England but even these usually had happy endings. After the death of Dickens in 1870 happy endings became less common . Such a major literary figure as Charles Dickens tended to dictate the direction of all literature of the era, not least because he edited All the Year Round a literary journal of the time. His fondness for a happy ending with all the loose ends neatly tied up is clear and although he is well known for writing about the lives of the poor they are sentimentalized portraits, made acceptable for people of character to read; to be shocked but not disgusted. The more unpleasant underworld of Victorian city life was revealed by Henry Mayhew in his articles and book London Labour and the London Poor.

This change in style in Victorian fiction was slow coming but clear by the end of the century, with the books in the 1880s and 1890s having a more realistic and often grimmer cast. Even writers of the high Victorian age were censured for their plots attacking the conventions of the day; Adam Bede was called "the vile outpourings of a lewd woman's mind" and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall "utterly unfit to be put into the hands of girls." The disgust of the reading audience perhaps reached a peak with Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure which was reportedly burnt by an outraged Bishop of Wakefield. The cause of such fury was Hardy's frank treatment of sex, religion and his disregard for the subject of marriage; a subject close to the Victorians' heart. The prevailing plot of the Victorian novel is sometimes described as a search for a correct marriage.

Hardy had started his career as seemingly a rather safe novelist writing bucolic scenes of rural life but his disaffection with some of the institutions of Victorian Britain was present as well as an underlying sorrow for the changing nature of the English countryside. He responded to the hostile reception to Jude in 1895 by giving up his novel writing, but he continued writing poetry into the mid 1920s. Other authors such as Samuel Butler and George Gissing confronted their antipathies to certain aspects of marriage, religion or Victorian morality and peppered their fiction with controversial anti-heros. Butler's Erewhon, for one, is a utopian novel satirizing many aspects of Victorian society with Butler's particular dislike of the religious hypocrisy the focus of his greatest scorn in the depiction of "Musical Banks."

While many great writers were at work at the time, the large numbers of voracious but uncritical readers meant that poor writers, producing salacious and lurid novels or accounts, found eager audiences. Many of the faults common to much better writers were used abundantly by writers now mostly forgotten: over-sentimentality, unrealistic plots and moralizing that obscured the story. Although immensely popular in his day, Edward Bulwer-Lytton is now held up as an example of the very worst of Victorian literature with his sensationalist story-lines and his over-boiled style of prose. Other writers popular at the time but largely forgotten now are: Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Charles Kingsley, R. D. Blackmore, and even Benjamin Disraeli, a future Prime Minister.

197- ] English Literature

197- ] English Literature

Victorian Literature

 Victorian literature is the body of poetry, fiction, essays, and letters produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901) and during the era which bears her name. It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the modernist literature of the twentieth century. The 19th century is considered by some to be the Golden Age of English Literature, especially for British novels. It was in the Victorian era that the novel became the leading literary genre in English. English writing from this era reflects the major transformations in most aspects of English life, from scientific, economic, and technological advances to changes in class structures and the role of religion in society. The number of new novels published each year increased from 100 at the start of the period to 1000 by the end of it.[3] Famous novelists from this period include Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, the three Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Rudyard Kipling.

During the nineteenth century the novel become the leading form of literature in English. The works by pre-Victorian writers such as Jane Austen and Walter Scott had perfected both closely observed social satire and historical fiction. Serialized popular novels won unprecedented readership and led to increasing artistic sophistication. The nineteenth century is often regarded as a high point in European literature and Victorian literature, including the works of Emily and Charlotte Brontë), Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lewis Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, and Oscar Wilde remain widely popular and part of the core curricula in most universities and secondary schools.

While the Romantic period was a time of abstract expression and inward focus, essayists, poets, and novelists during the Victorian era began to direct their attention toward the social issues. Writers such as Thomas Carlyle called attention to the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution and what Carlyle called the "Mechanical Age". This awareness inspired the subject matter of other authors, like poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and novelists Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Barrett's works on child labor cemented her success in a male-dominated world where women writers often had to use masculine pseudonyms. Dickens employed humor and an approachable tone while addressing social problems such as wealth disparity. Hardy used his novels to question religion and social structures.

Poetry and theatre were also present during the Victorian era. Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson were Victorian England's most famous poets. With regard to the theatre it was not until the last decades of the 19th century that any significant works were produced. Notable playwrights of the time include Gilbert and Sullivan, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde.

This period was characterized by social, cultural, and technological changes, and Victorian literature reflected the diverse concerns and values of the time. It encompassed a wide range of genres, including novels, poetry, plays, essays, and non-fiction works.

Realism and Social Commentary:

Victorian literature often depicted the realities of everyday life, addressing social issues such as poverty, class divisions, industrialization, and the role of women. Writers aimed to provide a truthful representation of society and highlight the struggles and challenges faced by individuals.

Moral and Ethical Concerns: Victorian literature frequently explored moral and ethical dilemmas, emphasizing the importance of virtue, duty, and personal responsibility. Many works sought to teach and guide readers through moral lessons and present examples of proper behavior.

The Condition of Women: Victorian literature grappled with the changing role of women in society. It addressed the limitations imposed on women, their struggle for independence, and the societal expectations placed upon them. Writers like Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot portrayed strong female characters and advocated for women’s rights.

Gothic and Supernatural Elements: While Victorian literature was predominantly realistic, elements of the Gothic and the supernatural continued to be present. Writers such as Bram Stoker with “Dracula” and Oscar Wilde with “The Picture of Dorian Gray” incorporated elements of horror, the occult, and mystery into their works.

Social Satire and Comedy: Victorian literature often employed satire and humor to criticize societal norms, hypocrisy, and absurdities. Writers like Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde used wit and irony to expose societal flaws and provoke thought.

Expansion of the Novel: The Victorian era witnessed the rise of the novel as the dominant literary form. Serial publication became popular, allowing novels to reach a wider audience. The works of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and the Brontë sisters are celebrated examples of Victorian novels.

Scientific and Technological Progress: Victorian literature reflected the era’s fascination with science, exploration, and technological advancements. Writers like H.G. Wells explored scientific and speculative themes in their works, reflecting the growing interest in evolution, industrialization, and the impact of technology on society.

Prominent Victorian authors include Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Robert Browning, among others.

Overall, Victorian literature encompassed a broad range of themes and styles, reflecting the complexities and contradictions of the Victorian era. It addressed social, moral, and political concerns while exploring human emotions, relationships, and the individual’s place in a rapidly changing world. Victorian literature continues to be highly regarded for its depth, social commentary, and enduring storytelling.

In the year 1837, Queen Victoria ascended the throne of Great Britain and Ireland and succeeded William the IV. She served for a period of 64 years, till her death in 1901 and it is one of the longest reigns in the history of England. The period was marked by many important social and historical changes that altered the nation in many ways. The population nearly doubled, the British Empire expanded exponentially and technological and industrial progress helped Britain become the most powerful country in the world.

Victorian Prose:

Victorian age produced two great essayists like Carlyle and Stevenson. Carlyle’s major works include The French Revolution in 3vol. (1837), On Heroes, HeroWorship and the Heroic in History (1841). His prose style differs from other prose writers. He writes about people and events of the past. He has his own philosophy. He accounts great men as Hero. whereas Stevenson writes famous essays in this period A Night among the Pines, Walking Tours, An Apology for Idlers, A Plea for Gas lamps, El Dorado Familiar Studies of Men and Books and Crabbed Age and Youth. Stevenson’s essays are an attempt in the direction of Human welfare. He wishes to remove all that creates obstacle in human progress and happiness. For example in his famous essay An Apology for Idlers-he point out the importance of direct education based on selfobservation and self-learning. He puts stress on the quality of being happy for personal sake as well as social sake.

Prose fiction

Charles Dickens is the most famous Victorian novelist. With a focus on strong characterization, Dickens became extraordinarily popular in his day and remains one of the most popular and read authors of the world. Dickens began his literary career with Sketches by Boz (1833–1836) which were a collection of short stories published in various newspapers and other periodicals. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837) written when he was twenty-five, was an overnight success, and all his subsequent works sold extremely well. The comedy of his first novel has a satirical edge and this pervades his writing. While at the beginning of the 19th century most novels were published in three volumes, monthly serialization was revived with the publication of Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers in twenty parts between April 1836 and November 1837. Demand was high for each episode to introduce some new element, whether it was a plot twist or a new character, so as to maintain the readers' interest. Dickens worked diligently and prolifically to produce the entertaining writing that the public wanted, but also to offer commentary on social problems and the plight of the poor and oppressed. His most important works include Oliver Twist (1837–1839), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839), A Christmas Carol (1843), Dombey and Son (1846–1848), David Copperfield (1849–1850), Bleak House (1852–1853), Little Dorrit (1855–1857), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1860–1861). There is a gradual trend in his fiction towards darker themes which mirrors a tendency in much of the writing of the 19th century.

William Makepeace Thackeray was Dickens' great rival in the first half of Queen Victoria's reign. With a similar style but a slightly more detached, acerbic and barbed satirical view of his characters, he also tended to depict a more middle-class society than Dickens did. He is best known for his novels The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844) and Vanity Fair (1847–1848) which are examples of a popular form in Victorian literature: a historical novel in which recent history is depicted.

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë produced notable works of the period, although these were not immediately appreciated by Victorian critics. Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily's only work, is an example of Gothic Romanticism from a woman's point of view, which examines class, myth, and gender. Jane Eyre (1847), by her sister Charlotte, is another major 19th-century novel that has gothic themes. Anne's second novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), written in a realistic rather than romantic style, is mainly considered to be the first sustained feminist novel.

Elizabeth Gaskell produced some notable works during this period. Her most notable works include Mary Barton (1848), Cranford (1851–1853), North and South (1854–1855), and Wives and Daughters (1864–1866).

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) also produced some notable works during this period. Her most notable works include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Middlemarch (1871–1872), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Like the Brontës she published under a masculine pseudonym.

Later in this period, Thomas Hardy published Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Renowned for his cynical yet idyllic portrayal of pastoral life in the English countryside, Hardy's work pushed back against widespread urbanization that came to symbolize the Victorian age.

Other significant novelists of this era were Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), George Meredith (1828–1909), and George Gissing (1857–1903).

Victorian Novel:

It produced two great novelists like Charles Dickens and Hardy. The spirit of revolt is much more intense in the fiction than the poetry of this period. The most prominent novelists of the period are Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Dickens is the great novelist. He makes the minute study of the whole mankind. He presents lively picture of human society. Dickens, “David Copperfield” is a representative novel in the sense that it throws light on the prevailing conditions of Victorian society. It is a social document that brings to light miserable condition of boarding-houses, women education, child labor and social injustice. Dickens is a social thinker working in the line of a social reformer. Hardy’s best novel is Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy published this novel in 1891 with subtitle-a pure woman. Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a young girl, who is raped by Alec D’Urbervilles. She gets pregnant, but the baby dies. It raises a question how such a woman may be called a pure woman. But Hardy proves it. She later falls in love with Angel Clare, but he deserts her. Alec assures her that Angel would not come back. Her family starves and she becomes a mistress to Alec. But Angel comes back and Tess murders Alec and spends a few moments of love with Angel before she is arrested to be hanged.

Victorian Novels

Victorian Era is seen as the link between Romanticism of the 18th century and the realism of the 20th century. The novel as a genre rose to entertain the rising middle class and to depict the contemporary life in a changing society. Although the novel had been in development since the 18th century with the works of Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Samuel Richardson and the others, it was in this period that the novel got mass acceptance and readership. The growth of cities, a ready domestic market and one in the oversea colonies and an increase in printing and publishing houses facilitated the growth of the novel as a form. In the year 1870, an Education Act was passed which made education an easy access to the masses furthermore increasing literacy rates among the population. Certain jobs required a certain level of reading ability and simple novels catered to this by becoming a device to practice reading. Also the time of the daily commute to work for men and the time alone at home for women could be filled by reading which now became a leisure activity. As a response to the latter, the demand for fiction  , rose substantially.

The novels of the age mostly had a moral strain in them with a belief in the innate goodness of human nature. The characters were well rounded and the protagonist usually belonged to a middle class society who struggled to create a niche for himself in the industrial and mercantile world. The stress was on realism and an attempt to describe the daily struggles of ordinary men that the middle class reader could associate with. The moral tangents were perhaps an attempt to rescue the moral degradation prevalent in the society then and supplied the audience with hope and positivity. These moral angles allowed for inclusion of larger debates in fiction like the ones surrounding “the woman question”, marriage, progress, education, the Industrial Revolution. New roles for women were created because of the resultant economic market and their voice which was earlier not given cadence was now being spotted and recognized and novels became the means where the domestic confinement of women was questioned. Novels reflecting the larger questions surrounding women, like those of their roles and duties. In the latter half of the century, Married Women’s Property Acts was passed, the women suffrage became an important point of debate, and poverty and other economic reasons challenged the traditional roles of women. The novel as a form became the medium where such concerns were raised.  

196- ] English Literature

195- ] English Literature

THE VICTORIAN AGE 

Historical Perspective of the Victorian Period

Introduction: The Victorian Era is an age of British history spanning the 64-year reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). It is one of the longest reigns in the history of England. In the year 1837, Queen Victoria succeeded William the IV on the throne of Great Britain and Ireland. The period is marked by many mportant social and historical changes that altered the nation in many ways. The opulation got nearly doubled and the British Empireexpanded. The period saw the British Empire grow to become the first global industrial power, producing much of the world's coal, iron, steel and textiles. By this time the role of the monarch was to reign, rather than rule.Historical Perspective of the Victorian Period: The period is known for economic progress, poverty and exploitation. The gap between the rich and the poor grew wide and with drive for material and commercial success there appeared a kind of a moral decay in the society. The Victorian era saw a wild growth of industries and factories. One very important factor of the age was its stress on morality. A feminine code of conduct was imposed on them which described every aspect of their being from the proper apparels to how to converse, everything had rules. The role of the women was mostly that of being angels of the house and restricted to domestic confines. They were financially dependent on their husbands and fathers and it led to a commercialization of the institution of marriage.

Growth of Victorian Age: After the romantic revival , the literature of the Victorian age entered in a new period. The Literature of this period express the fusion of romanticism to realism. The Victorian age is rich in literature. It produced two great poets like Tennyson and Browning; dramatists like Shaw and Galsworthy; novelists like Charles Dickens and Hardy; and essayist like Carlyle and Stevenson. The age is remarkable for the excellence of its literature.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VICTORIANISM

Characteristics of the Victorianism: - The discoveries of science have particular effects upon the literature of the Victorian Age. It is simple to mark the following four general characteristics:

1. Realism: Literature of this age comes closer to daily life which reflects its practical problems and interests. It becomes a powerful instrument for human progress.

2. Moral Purpose: The Victorian literature seems to assert its moral purpose. Tennyson, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin-all were the teachers of England with the faith in their moral message to instruct the world.

3. Doubts or Contradictory faiths and philosophies: It is often considered as an age of doubt and contradictory faiths and philosophies. The influence of science is felt here. Browning the optimist and Hardy the pessimist are regarded as most popular writers of the age. There is realistic literature with Pre-Raphaelite poetry that believes in “art for art’s sake”.

4. Idealism: Though, the age is characterized as practical and materialistic, most of the writers suggest a purely ideal life. It is an idealistic age where the great ideals like truth, justice, love, brotherhood are emphasized by poets, essayists and novelists of the age.

Overview of Victorian Period

The age hence was important for the rise of the novel as a genre and form which itself saw transformation within the period. From romanticism to realism, politics to passion, optimism to pessimism, the novel could successfully deal with the changing mood of the society. Class, gender, individualism , society all were given space in the novel. The period was known to have witnessed the massive change of Britain from an agrarian to industrial landscape. All concerns informed the novel and the novel was made into perhaps the most important genre of the age and the ones that would follow.

Chief Characteristics of Victorian Period

While the country saw economic progress, poverty and exploitation were also equally a part of it. The gap between the rich and the poor increased significantly and the drive for material and commercial success was seen to propagate a kind of a moral decay in the society itself. The changing landscape of the country was another concern. While the earlier phase of Romanticism saw a celebration of the country side and the rich landscape of the flora and fauna, the Victorian era saw a changing of the landscape to one of burgeoning industries and factories. While the poor were exploited for their labor, the period witnessed the rise of the bourgeoisie or the middle class due to increasing trade between Britain and its colonies and the Reform Bill of 1832 strengthen their hold. There was also a shift from the Romantic ideals of the previous age towards a more realistic acceptance and depiction of society.

One of the most important factors that defined the age was its stress on morality. Strict societal codes were enforced and certain activities were openly looked down upon. These codes were even harsher for women. A feminine code of conduct was levied on them which described every aspect of their being from the proper apparels to how to converse, everything had rules. The role of women was mostly that of being angels of the house and restricted to domestic confines. Professionally very few options were available to them as a woman could either become a governess or a teacher in rich households. Hence they were financially dependent on their husbands and fathers and it led to a commercialization of the institution of marriage.

  

195- ] English Literature

195- ] English Literature

Charlotte Bronte

The Life of Charlotte Brontë

Elizabeth Gaskell's biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857. It was an important step for a leading female novelist to write a biography of another, and Gaskell's approach was unusual in that, rather than analysing her subject's achievements, she concentrated on private details of Brontë's life, emphasising those aspects that countered the accusations of "coarseness" that had been levelled at her writing. The biography is frank in places, but omits details of Brontë's love for Héger, a married man, as being too much of an affront to contemporary morals and a likely source of distress to Brontë's father, widower, and friends. Mrs. Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Brontë, claiming that he did not allow his children to eat meat. This is refuted by one of Emily Brontë's diary papers, in which she describes preparing meat and potatoes for dinner at the parsonage. It has been argued that Gaskell's approach transferred the focus of attention away from the 'difficult' novels, not just Brontë's, but all the sisters', and began a process of sanctification of their private lives.

Nussey letters

Brontë held lifelong correspondence with her former schoolmate Ellen Nussey. 350 of the some 500 letters sent by Brontë to Nussey survive, whereas all of Nussey's letters to Brontë were burned at Nicholls's request. The surviving letters provide most of the information known on Charlotte Brontë's life and are the backbone of her autobiographies.

Brontë's letters to Nussey seem to have romantic undertones:

What shall I do without you? How long are we likely to be separated? Why are we to be denied each other's society- I long to be with you . Why are we to be divided? Surely, Ellen, it must be because we are in danger of loving each other too well-

Ellen, I wish I could live with you always. I begin to cling to you more fondly than ever I did. If we had but a cottage and a competency of our own, I do think we might live and love on till Death without being dependent on any third person for happiness...

how sorely my heart longs for you I need not say... Less than ever can I taste or know pleasure till this work is wound up. And yet I often sit up in bed at night, thinking of and wishing for you.]

Some scholars believe it is possible that Charlotte Brontë was in a romantic or sexual relationship with Ellen Nussey. Brontë would certainly have been aware of female same-sex attraction as she lived near Anne Lister.

Héger letters

On 29 July 1913 The Times of London printed four letters Brontë had written to Constantin Héger after leaving Brussels in 1844. Written in French except for one postscript in English, the letters broke the prevailing image of Brontë as an angelic martyr to Christian and female duties that had been constructed by many biographers, beginning with Gaskell. The letters, which formed part of a larger and somewhat one-sided correspondence in which Héger frequently appears not to have replied, reveal that she had been in love with a married man, although they are complex and have been interpreted in numerous ways, including as an example of literary self-dramatisation and an expression of gratitude from a former pupil.In 1980 a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, on the site of the Madam Heger's school, in honour of Charlotte and Emily.

Historical Significance

Following her death, Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, was published posthumously in 1857. The fragment of a new novel she had been writing in her last years has been twice completed by recent authors, the more famous version being Emma Brown: A Novel from the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Brontë by Clare Boylan in 2003.

A biography, The Life and Death Of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell, was published in 1857. This was somewhat revolutionary at the time, because it was an important step for a leading female novelist to write a biography of another.

Charlotte was not a successful poet in her own day, and today she is still rightfully known for her novels rather than for her poems. She has remained of huge historical significance since her death, with her works being read, analysed and enjoyed by readers across the globe. She has been recognised thanks to her progressive beliefs and for allowing the “modern woman” to be heard, particularly in a time when women were considered much less in comparison to men. By writing about her stifled ideas and lack of acceptance in society, she has spoken to generations of readers since her death.

Publications

Juvenilia , The Young Men's Magazine, Number 1 – 3 (August 1830) , A Book of Ryhmes (1829) , The Spell  , The Secret , Lily Hart , The Foundling , Albion and Marina  , Tales of the Islanders , Tales of Angria (written 1838–1839 – a collection of childhood and young adult writings including five short novels)

Mina Laury , Stancliffe's Hotel  , The Duke of Zamorna , Henry Hastings , Caroline Vernon , The Roe Head Journal Fragments:   , Farewell to Angria

The Green Dwarf, A Tale of the Perfect Tense was written in 1833 under the pseudonym Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley.[70] It shows the influence of Walter Scott, and Brontë's modifications to her earlier gothic style have led Christine Alexander to comment that, in the work, "it is clear that Brontë was becoming tired of the gothic mode per se".

"At the end of 1839, Brontë said goodbye to her fantasy world in a manuscript called Farewell to Angria. More and more, she was finding that she preferred to escape to her imagined worlds over remaining in reality – and she feared that she was going mad. So she said goodbye to her characters, scenes and subjects. [...] She wrote of the pain she felt at wrenching herself from her 'friends' and venturing into lands unknown".

Novels

Jane Eyre, published in 1847 , Shirley, published in 1849 , Villette, published in 1853 , The Professor, written before Jane Eyre, was first submitted together with Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë. Subsequently, The Professor was resubmitted separately, and rejected by many publishing houses. It was published posthumously in 1857

Emma, unfinished; Brontë wrote only 20 pages of the manuscript, published posthumously in 1860. In recent decades at least two continuations of this fragment have appeared:

Emma, by "Charlotte Brontë and Another Lady", published 1980; although this has been attributed to Elizabeth Goudge, the actual author was Constance Savery. , Emma Brown, by Clare Boylan, published 2003

Poetry

Bell, Currer; Bell , Ellis; Bell, Acton (1846) . Poems .

Selected Poems of the Brontës, Everyman Poetry (1997)

  

194- ] English Literature

194- ] English Literature

Charlotte Bronte 

In society

In view of the success of her novels, particularly Jane Eyre, Brontë was persuaded by her publisher to make occasional visits to London, where she revealed her true identity and began to move in more exalted social circles, becoming friends with Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Martineau whose sister Rachel had taught Gaskell's daughters. Brontë sent an early copy of Shirley to Martineau whose home at Ambleside she visited. The two friends shared an interest in racial relations and the abolitionist movement; recurrent themes in their writings. Brontë was also acquainted with William Makepeace Thackeray and G.H. Lewes. She never left Haworth for more than a few weeks at a time, as she did not want to leave her ageing father. Thackeray's daughter, writer Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, recalled a visit to her father by Brontë:

…two gentlemen come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, with fair straight hair and steady eyes. She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress with a pattern of faint green moss. She enters in mittens, in silence, in seriousness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This then is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all London talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father wrote the books – the wonderful books. …The moment is so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, genius though she may be, Miss Brontë can barely reach his elbow. My own personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern , specially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. …Everyone waited for the brilliant conversation which never began at all. Miss Brontë retired to the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then to our kind governess… the conversation grew dimmer and more dim, the ladies sat round still expectant, my father was too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to be able to cope with it at all… after Miss Brontë had left, I was surprised to see my father opening the front door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him… long afterwards… Mrs Procter asked me if I knew what had happened. …It was one of the dullest evenings [Mrs Procter] had ever spent in her life… the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club.

Brontë's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell, while not particularly close, was significant in that Gaskell wrote the first biography of Brontë after her death in 1855.

Villette

Brontë's third novel, the last published in her lifetime, was Villette, which appeared in 1853. Its main themes include isolation, how such a condition can be borne, and the internal conflict brought about by social repression of individual desire. This book was again written in first person, like Jane Eyre, and Charlotte used aspects of her own life as inspiration for fictional events. It was recognised as a sophisticated piece of writing although it was criticised for it’s “coarseness”.

Its main character, Lucy Snowe, travels abroad to teach in a boarding school in the fictional town of Villette, where she encounters a culture and religion different from her own and falls in love with a man (Paul Emanuel) whom she cannot marry. Her experiences result in a breakdown but eventually, she achieves independence and fulfilment through running her own school. A substantial amount of the novel's dialogue is in the French language. Villette marked Brontë's return to writing from a first-person perspective (that of Lucy Snowe), the technique she had used in Jane Eyre. Another similarity to Jane Eyre lies in the use of aspects of her own life as inspiration for fictional events, in particular her reworking of the time she spent at the pensionnat in Brussels. Villette was acknowledged by critics of the day as a potent and sophisticated piece of writing although it was criticised for "coarseness" and for not being suitably "feminine" in its portrayal of Lucy's desires.

Marriage

Before the publication of Villette, Brontë received an expected proposal of marriage from Irishman Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate, who had long been in love with her. She initially refused him and her father objected to the union at least partly because of Nicholls's poor financial status. Elizabeth Gaskell, who believed that marriage provided "clear and defined duties" that were beneficial for a woman, encouraged Brontë to consider the positive aspects of such a union and tried to use her contacts to engineer an improvement in Nicholls's finances. According to James Pope-Hennessy in The Flight of Youth, it was the generosity of Richard Monckton Milnes that made the marriage possible. Brontë, meanwhile, was increasingly attracted to Nicholls and by January 1854, she had accepted his proposal. They gained the approval of her father by April and married in June. Her father Patrick had intended to give Charlotte away, but at the last minute decided he could not, and Charlotte had to make her way to the church without him. The married couple took their honeymoon in Banagher, County Offaly, Ireland. By all accounts, her marriage was a success and Brontë found herself very happy in a way that was new to her.

Death

Brontë became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness". She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, three weeks before her 39th birthday. Her death certificate gives the cause of death as phthisis, but biographers including Claire Harman and others suggest that she died from dehydration and malnourishment due to vomiting caused by severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum. Brontë was buried in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.

The Professor, the first novel Brontë had written, was published posthumously in 1857. The fragment of a new novel she had been writing in her last years has been twice completed by recent authors, the more famous version being Emma Brown: A Novel from the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Brontë by Clare Boylan in 2003. Most of her writings about the imaginary country Angria have also been published since her death. In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her.

Religion

The daughter of an Irish Anglican clergyman, Brontë was herself an Anglican. In a letter to her publisher, she claims to "love the Church of England. Her Ministers indeed, I do not regard as infallible personages, I have seen too much of them for that – but to the Establishment, with all her faults – the profane Athanasian Creed excluded – I am sincerely attached."

In a letter to Ellen Nussey she wrote:

If I could always live with you, and daily read the bible with you, if your lips and mine could at the same time, drink the same draught from the same pure fountain of Mercy – I hope, I trust, I might one day become better, far better, than my evil wandering thoughts, my corrupt heart, cold to the spirit, and warm to the flesh will now permit me to be.