Development of Novel in Victorian Age  
         Prepared by: Richa Pandya
           M.A. English Semester – 2
                 Roll no- 28
Enrolment No: – 206910842019003
Email id: richapandya163@gmail.com
Batch: 2018- 20
Submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Paper no- 6 The Victorian Literature
Topic: Development of Novel in Victorian age

Introduction

When the Victoria became queen in 1837, English Literature seemed to have entered to have entered upon a period of lean years, in marked contrast with the poetic fruitfulness of the romantic age which we just studied. Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Scott passed away and it seemed as if there were no writers in England to fill there places. Elizabeth Barrett had been writing since 1820 but not till twenty years later did her poems became deservedly popular; and Browning had published hisPauline in 1833. It is an age of democracy; it is an age of education of religious tolerance of growing brotherhood and profound social unrest. It is an age of comparative peace. Victorian age is especially remarkable because of its rapid progress in all the arts and science.

Historical Summary
Democracy
Amid the multitude of social and political forces of this great age, four things stand out clearly. First the long struggle of the Anglo-saxons for personal liberty id definitely settled and democracy becomes the established order of the day. The king, who appeared in an age of popular weakness and ignorance, and the peers who came with the Normans in triumph, are both stripped of their power and left as figureheads of a past civilization.
Social Unrest 
Second because it is an age of democracy , it is an age of popular education, of religion tolerance, of growing brotherhood  and of profound social unrest. The salves had been freed in 1833 but in the middle of the century England awoke to the fact that slaves are not necessarily negroes, stolen in Africa to be sold like cattle in the market place, but that multitude of men, women, and little children in the mines and factories were victims of s more terrible industrial and society slavery.
The Ideal of Peace

Third, because it is an age of democracy and education, it is an age of comparative peace. England begins to think less of the pomp and false glitter of fighting  and more of its moral evils as the nation realizes that it is the common people who bear but=rden and the sorrow and the poverty of war, while the privileged classes reap most of the financial and political rewards.
Arts and Science   
Fourth the Victorian age is especially remarkable because its rapid  progress in all the arts and science in mechanical inventions. A glance at any record of the industrial achievements of the nineteenth century will show how vast are, and it is unnecessary to repeat here the list of education have their influence upon the life of a people and it is inevitable that they should react upon its prose and poetry.

Characteristics of The Age
An Age of Prose
The Victorian age is known as the age of prose. Though the age ha produced many poets (Tennyson and Browning) who deserves to rank among the greatest. This is emphatically an age of prose. John Ruskin, Carlyle, Macaulay, Matthew Arnold etc. were almost prose writers of this age.

Moral Purpose
Moral purpose is keynote of Victorian literature. The literature of this age both prose and poetry seems to depart from the purely artistic standard of ‘ Art for art sake’ and to be actuated by definite moral purpose Tennyson. Browning Carlyle not only masters of literature but also teachers of England. Perhaps for this reason Victorian age is known as age of realism rather than romance.
Idealism
It is some what customary to speak of this age as this age is age of doubt and pessimism following the new concept of man and of universe which formulated by science under the name of evolution. It is spoken about this age that this age is lacked in great ideas. Both these criticism seem to be judging a large thing that may be challenged when we closely study this .We may not agree with above judgments.
New Education
The education acts, making a certain measure of education compulsory, rapidly produced an enormous reading public. The cheapening of printing and proper increased the demand for books as a result from of literature was novel and the novelists with a will much of their works was a higher standard. A large number of reading people waiting for new novels.
An Era of Peace
 It is an age of comparative peace. England began to think less of the pomp and false glitter of fighting and more of its moral evils Tennyson who came when the great reform bill occupied attention expresses the ideas of the liberals of his day who proposed to spread the gospel of peace.

Novelist of Victorian Era
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens is the most popular novelist of the Victorian era, he has written most of his works as a series in magazines, and he also worked on the post of manager in editor’s office.  The narration of Dickens is most of the times in first person narration. His novels have always a perfect narratives and the most important part is his general plan of writing he uses lots of humor in his novels, as per him the best way of telling the factual things is in humorous way. Dickens connects the element of humor with pathos. Dickens serves both imagination and sensitivity very well in his novels. his  famous novel
Olive twist
The Old Curiosity Shop

George Eliot; Mary Ann Evans

The young Evans was a voracious reader and obviously intelligent. Because she was not considered physically beautiful, Evans was not thought to have much chance of marriage, and this, coupled with her intelligence, led her father to invest in an education not often afforded women. Through this society Evans was introduced to more liberal and agnostic theologies and to writers such as David Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach, who cast doubt on the literal truth of Biblical stories. Throughout her career, Eliot wrote with a politically astute pen. Elements from these works show up in her fiction, much of which is written with her trademark sense of agnostic humanism. She had taken particular notice of Feuerbach’s conception of Christianity, positing that our understanding of the nature of the divine was to be found ultimately in the nature of humanity projected onto a divine figure. Her famous work;
Adam Bede
MiddleMarch
The Mill on the Floss
Silas Marner
Romola
Felix Holt, the Radical
Daniel Deronda,
Thomas Hardy
 He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex. Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England, and criticises those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused unhappiness. Such unhappiness, and the suffering it brings, is seen by poet Philip Larkin as central in Hardy's works:
His famous work;

The Poor Man and the Lady
Under the Greenwood Tree
Far from the Madding Crowd
The Return of the Native
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Woodlanders
Wessex Tales
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Life's Little Ironies
Jude the Obscure
Conclusion

Victorian period was the most fertile and creative period for English novel. It spread the popularity of novel to every corner of the society