8/13/2019 The Victorian Novel (19th Century)
1/2
THE NOVEL OF VICTORIAN ORTHODOXY
Below are lilted same of the major reasons for the spectacular
success of the Victorianbourgeois novel.
(1) The English novel originated as a middle-class genre and it
was the logical reading matter for the triumphant
1!th-centur"bourgeoisie.
(#) $nburdened b" tradition or status the novel was fle%ible and
hence adaptable to the portra"al of the multitude of
changingsituations is Victorian life.
(&) Escapism had become a ps"chological necessit" to an era
bedeviled b" chaotic 'ndustrialism.
() ealism was the ostensible justification for the conscious
reader as
escapism was the actual satisfier of his unconscious needs. *ust
as +efoe had
earlier beguiled the middle-class readers with the pretense of
genuine
reportage so the Victorian novelists appealed to their audience
with the
semblance of the real world.
(,) The earnest Victorians sought and found in contemporar"
novels
instruction for living amid bewildering comple%it" and change.
ovelists
made sense out of the enormous variet" of choices and
e%periences.
(* The novel assumed for the 1!th centur" the mission fulfilled
in earlier eras b" the epic/ formulation of the 0m"th0 of the age.
There
was no penser or 2ilton to perform such a tas3 in verse for the
Victorian age. The most ambitious attempt to do this in verse
was
Tenn"son4s somewhat pallidIdylls of theKing, andan" casual novel
reader can name a score of Victorian novels of far greater
m"th-
ma3ing power.
The outstanding characteristics of the bourgeois novel were/
(1) cceptance of middle-class ethics and mores. The 0good0
characters conform to principles of bourgeois orthodo%" and
areproperl" rewarded.
(#) ocial orientation. The major human problem (rested b" the
bourgeois novelists is the adjustment of the 'ndividual to
hissociet".
&) Emphasis upon characters. The bourgeois novelists strove
to produce fascinating rounded characters who resembled people
theirreaders 3new or would li3e to 3now. 2ost characters were
middle class in middle-class settings and with the t"pical
middle-class
preoccupation even in 0historical0 novels. Their comple%it" was
almost wholl" emotional lower-class figures were subordinate
usuall" treated patroni5ingl". $pper-class personages were
viewed with a mhiure of env" and scorn.
