Victorian Prose ( Paper 8 - Assignment )

Victorian Prose.

The 60 years, 1830-1890 commonly included under the name of Victorian age present many dissimilar features. Victorian Prose , though chronologically related with and sometimes even overlapping the era of Romantic prose, marks a distinct break both thematically and stylistically. The change is less of conscious purpose than of the difference in temperament and intellectual interest. The familiar essay with its highly personal often whimsical flaunting of the writers taste prejudices and peculiarities, the hallmark of the romance gave way to a distinctively Victorian willingness to engage in moral and intellectual debate. Not only was it a period of ‘Gods plenty’ but also of amazing, the notice diversity and astonishing intellectual passion. Victorian prose was of such diversity as to include the critical writings of Ruskin and Arnold, the social and historical writings of Carlyle and Macaulay, the religious writings of Newman and the philosophical essays of Mill and Spencer.

For more than a generation, Thomas Carlyle ( 1795 - 1881 ) was revered ( respected ) as a teacher and a prophet. By his admirers he was called ‘The sage Of Chelsea’ and he maintained his reputation by means of books, letters, and conversation. He was much concerned with contemporary, social and political affairs as well as with the more personal concerns of religion and private morals. A later generation finds it somewhat difficult to accept Carlyle’s teachings. His writings abound in words and a rather confusing amount of good advice. By its influence Carlyle’s teaching did do an immense amount of good. His strong faith in himself and in the ultimate good of all things was like a tonic in a time of wavering faith and increasing pessimism. ‘Sartar Resartus’ ( 1833 ) a kind of autobiography of an imaginary German professor. ‘The French Revolution’ ( 1837 ) which gave fire and intensity to history, while political tracts of great insight and literary merit appeared in ‘Past and Present’ ( 1843 ) and ‘The Life of John Sterling’ ( 1851 ), The series of lectures he delivered in ( 1837 ) was published as On Heroes, Hero-Warship and the Heroic In History.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Macaulay offers a curious contrast to Carlyle. The later was the preacher, the idealist and the sage.  The former was the hard headed man of affairs, taking the world as it came and offering no remedies to cure its evils. In his prose we find no struggle, exhalation and despair such as we find in the prose of Carlyle. Instead, we observe a brisk confidence a clear, vivacious utterance and a selection of picturesque details, the copious vocabulary, the clever variations of the sentences of the sentences and the swiftly moving rhythm.

Before he left for India Macaulay had written 22 essay for “The Edinburgh Review”. He added 3 during his stay in India and finished 11 others after he returned to England. With the 5 biographies that he contributed to “The Encyclopaedia Britannica”, these include all his shorter prose works. His ‘History Of England’ ( 1849 ) was unfinished at his death. It had an enormous popular success which was due to his selection of telling incident, his clear and rapid narrative and clean cut assured manner of statement.

John Ruskin 

Ruskin was born of affluent parents, but his views on life were not in keeping with his social position in it. Early in his career he developed subversive opinions upon social questions of all kinds and took to expounding advanced forms of socialism. In art he was equally unconventional. Ruskin was an idealist far in advance of his time. He spent much of money and nearly all his life preaching to people who were largely indifferent to his efforts. He retains his position in literature chiefly as a prose stylist. Features of his prose style are enormous sentence, cunning use of semi colons, strong rhythm. He had another style for his numerous lectures. It had poetical effect but it is intensely simple. Frequently its diction ( words ) is suggestive of ‘The Bible’.

Works of John Ruskin.

His first and longest book ‘Modern Pointers’ ( 1843 - 1860 ) began in 1843 and completed in 1860. It expounded Ruskin’s ideas upon art and life in general. Shorter works on art were ‘The Seven Lamps of Architecture’ ( 1849 ) and ‘The Stones Of Venice’ ( 1851- 1858 ). Among his articles and lectures are ‘The Two Paths’ ( 1869 ), ‘The Crown Of Wild Olive’ ( 1864 ) and ‘Sesame and Lilies’ ( 1865 ).

Other prose writers of this age were :

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson ( 1803 - 82 )
2. John Addington Symonds ( 1840 - 93 )
3. Walter Moratio Pater ( 1839 - 94 )
4. James Anthony Fraud ( 1818 - 94 )
5. Oliver Wendell Holmes ( 1809 - 94 )