Early Victorian Period Prose writers l Prose writers of later Victorian Period l Victorian Prose Writers In English Literature

 Early Victorian Period Prose

The early victorian prose is consistent with the energy of the times. The whole period is characterised by the expansion of energy, which appears as freely in literature as in science, geography and the velocity of economic change. That vigorous atmosphere provides the prose-writers of the time with their ingenuity and fertility and explains the liveliness of so many of their works. The French Revolution, Ruskin's Modern Painters and Arnold's Critical Essays are not modest and lighthearted creations but represent the aesthetic equivalent of self-assertion and an ardent resolve to survive, typical of the early Victorian peoples. Their prose is usually not perfect in diction and rhythm or readily connected to a central standard of accuracy or polished to a uniform high finish, but it is a prose that is powerful, complex and extensive, more aware of vocabulary and imagery than of rhythm and balance. The prevailing feeling of zesty and manufactured prose.

Since the number of prose writers is fairly considerable throughout the period, there is a higher range of styles than at any other time. Without any well-defined prose writing tradition, each writer cares for his quirks and characteristics and is not prepared to compromise his peculiarities in accordance with the tradition he has received. The 'Doing As One Likes,' a victorian individuality that Matthew Arnold censors, has reverberated in a writing style.

We can claim that, if we take victorian literature as a whole, it is romantic prose. Although Romanticism gave English poetry a new direction between 1780 and 1830, its full effect on prose was postponed until the 1980s when all the main Romance poets were either dead or died. Therefore, early victorian prose is rightly romantic prose, and Carlyle is a romantic prose artist's best example. It was indeed the romantic features — unevenness, the gravity of tone, concreteness and speciality — which formed the basis of the prose in the early Victorian era. These are the features common to all the major prose authors of the period - Carlyle, Ruskin, Macaulay and Matthew Arnold.

Carlyle Thomas (1795-1881)

Carlyle was the dominant Victorian figure. In every sector of victorian life, he made his presence felt. He was undoubtedly the biggest personality and one of the largest moral powers in his generic literary writing. In his childhood, he had misgivings that attacked him over his many sad years in the 'wilderness of unfaithfulness,' trying in vain to recover his lost faith in God. Then suddenly a moment of mystical enlightenment or 'spiritual new birth' happened to bring him back to the mindset of courage and faith. In Sartor Restartus' second book, which is his best literary creation and one of the most amazing and significant books of the English speaking, the chronicle of these years of struggle and war and the ultimate triumph of his soul is written with great power. He is a French Revolution (1837); he gives Heroes and Heroes; Past and Present (1843); Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speaks (1845); Late-day Pamphlets (1850), John Sterling's life (1851); Frederick the Great's history (1851); (1858-65).

In essence, Carlyle was a Puritan, and his last major exponent was the ardent, uncompromising spirit of 17th century Puritanism. He could not accept any moral weakness or social illness always vehemently and unfailingly in temper. He desired true individuals and loathed traditions and unrealities. He sought reality in the fields of religion, society and politics and criticised every shame and deceit. History was a revelation of God's righteous interactions with people and he taught them from the past to the present. He had no democratic trust. He believed in the 'hero' whose leadership and leadership the masses can be glorified. This is the subject of his lectures on heroes and heroes. He proclaimed to a generation that had begun to worship the "mud-gods of modern civilization." In Past and Present, he opposed scientific materialism and utilitarianism. He advocated very forcefully to his contemporaries that spiritual freedom was the only reality that gives life. Carlyle could not reverse his age's currents, but he had an immense effect.

The style of Carlyle reflects his personality. In truth, personal and literary personalities are more closely and passionately mixed in almost no English writer. He turns the language according to his needs. To do this, he uses bizarre 'tricks'—the use of initials of capital, the removal of conjunctions, pronouns, verbs, the pitiful conversion of any noun into a verb, free usage of foreign terms or literal translations of foreign languages. His language, therefore, is like a mercenary army of mismatched and exotic components of all sorts. Sometimes his personifications and abstractions get unpleasant and even tired. Sometimes it willfully disregards simplicity, directness, proportion and form. He is actually English writers' most irregular and eccentric. But despite all these defects, without the feeling of passion it is hard to read him at his finest. He is unique in his grasp of vivid and telling phraseology, and his description and characterization powers are exceptional. His style is unique in the English prose language and is without doubt one of the best literary performers in the English language, with his vast richness of vocabulary, curiously built words, breaks, sudden twists, apostrophes and exclamations.

Ruskin John John (1819-1900)

Ruskin is ranked next to Carlyle in the broad prose literature of the early Victorian period. He addressed himself most voluminously among all the Victorian writers mindful of the defeats in current life. As one of the greatest masters of English, he grew interested in art and written five volumes of Modern Painters (1843-1860) to confirm Turner's place as a great artist. He could not separate Beauty from religion by being a man of a genuinely devout and religious temperament and sought to demonstrate that 'all great art is praise.' A study of the principles of art led Ruskin progressively to the study of social ethics. He observed that architecture showed the state of a nation's health more than painting. In his The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851-53) he tried to demonstrate that only those times which are morally higher can develop the best style of architecture.

It marks a tremendous change in him the year 1860 when Ruskin released Unto this Last. From that point on he wrote little about art and dedicated himself to talking about the problems of society. In this book, he criticised the prevailing political economics and demonstrated the law of 'Devil-take-the-hindmost,' as Ruskin termed it, against the unrestricted competition. Ruskin established himself as a popular educator, lucid in argument and wonderfully illustrated in his later novels, Sesame and Lilies (1865) and The Crown of Wild Olives (1866). His last piece, a preterite autobiography, is full of interesting memories.

Ruskin was a terrific and decent man who inspires himself more than his works. In the face of drudgery and poverty, he wrote: "I won't stand it any more quietly; but from now on, with a few or many who can help, I can do my best to alleviate this misery." It was with this purpose that he began to write about labour and justice, quitting the sphere of art criticism where he was the recognised leader. Although he is one of the masters of English writing, as a stylist he is usually not studied as a literary man but as a teacher of ethics, and every line he penned retains the mark of his sincerity. He is both a wonderful artist and a great professor of ethics. For his lavishly adorned style and his message to humanity, we admire him.

Ruskin's prose is rhythmic and lyrical, making it nearly comparable to poetry. Being very sensitive to all forms of beauty, it helps the reader see and enjoy the beauty of the world around us. In his economic essays his efforts were aimed at alleviating the evils of the competitive system; bringing employers into contact with one another in confidence and helpfulness; seeking beauty, truth and goodness as the principal ends of life. It is clear that in an era of rank materialism, utilitarianism and competition he was the prophet and pointed to the solution to the serious problems facing his own age.

Lord Macaulay Thomas Babington (1800-59)

Although Carlyle and Ruskin are now seen as great prose writers in the Victorian era, Macaulay was ranked first in contemporary opinion, who far exceeded them in terms of popularity. He was a voracious reader, and he recalled all that he read. He could repeat all the twelve books of Paradise Lost from memory. At the age of 25, he penned his essay on poetry in general and Milton as a poet, man and politician in particular, bringing immediate popularity to him like Byron's Childe Harold. Macaulay, like Carlyle, also published biographical and critical writings that earned him enormous reputation and popularity and the History of England. As early as 1828, he argued that 'a perfect historian must have an imagination powerful enough to render his tale picturesque and affect.' He acquired and exploited the capacity of imagination so brilliantly that his novel was purchased more eagerly than a romantic poem.

Macaulay was emblematic of the prevalent feelings and prejudices of the first part of the 19th century Englishman. But his fame was mostly built upon his mind's vigour and power and the eloquence with which he stimulated anything he wrote. With the richness and speed of his memory, his extensive knowledge, who was always at his command, he ascended to the highest position as the exponent of the history issue and as a critic of viewpoints.

The main characteristic that distinguishes Macaulay from other prose writers of this period is the variety and brilliance of details in his writings. The descriptions of his poems and novels from the new age distinguish between the more generalised and abstract works of his old school. Although his diversity of details may be more flamboyant and profuse than the 'dignity of history, this variation is always backed up by a structure of tremendous simplicity. The only issue in his style is that it is overly rhetorical at times and so sacrifices the consistency of his tale. His short phrases and descriptions of a particular interference with the flow of his storey are therefore not always secured for the cumulative effect of the storey. Apart from this style deficiency, Macaulay is currently ranked less than Carlyle, Ruskin and Arnold because of his lack of creativity and profundity as a thinker. But overall, he remains one of the most pleasant prose authors of all Victoria.

Arnold Matthew (1822-88)

In addition to being a poet, Matthew Arnold was a prominent writer. He was both a famous literary and social critic. He was a harsh critic of his age, like Carlyle and Ruskin. According to him, English people needed classical elements to achieve harmonic perfection of morality and literature. England could not seek education for the Hebrews or Germans (as Carlyle recommended) or the people of the Middle Ages (as Ruskin suggested), but for the Greeks or the people of recent times who intruded much of Hellenic culture, the French.

Arnold strives in literature to restore and spread the classical essence of his country. Britain could be proud of the literary splendour of the Elizabethan or of the romantic movement's glories, but, Arnold said, the "indispensable eighteenth century" had to long be reviled or disdained. Arnold wrote ceaselessly from 1855 to enhance his countrymen's intellectual and cultural levels. To this purpose, all his writing works are directed: In the book Translating Homer (1861), The Celtic Literature Study (1867), The Criticism Essays (1865 and 1888) and Culture and Anarchy (1869) he proclaimed that "culture is the minister of sweetness and light required to perfection." As a poet himself, he considered poetry to be "a criticism of life," and stressed his role in character building and instruction. He always lambasted the "Philistines," who represented the middle class averse to pure intellectual joys. In order to preserve his real spirit, Arnold strove to abolish the dogmatic part of Christianity and bring it into line with the scientific discoveries and the advancement of liberal thinking.

Contrary to Carlyle and Ruskin's beliefs, which attracted the masses, Arnold's teachings mostly appealed to the educated classes. As a prose writer, he is just amazing. His style is bright and shiny, with the virtues of silence and proportion, which we have no other English writer than Dryden to associate with. As his aim had been to make certain fundamental concepts of culture and intellectual life known to his compatriots, he used to repeat the same term and sentence with a kind of refrain effect. It was little wonder that first criticism and then the public was drawn to, offended, entertained or fascinated by his writings. A few unwitting detractors derided his strong appreciation for 'sweetness' and 'culture,' his complaint of the 'Philistine,' the 'barbarian,' etc. But appropriately, we see something of fairness in all that he has written and the stamp of his sincerity is on every syllable.

When Arnold returned from religion and politics to his natural literary field, his critique was admirably sound and his manner was always pleasing and distinctive. Despite its severe mannerism and the apparently evident techniques that mannerism is achieved, Arnold's style is not easy to mimic. With a clearness rather than English, it's virtually absolutely clear. It glows with wit, which rarely distracts or distracts attention. Such a style was particularly suitable for criticism. As an essay writer, he had no superior among the authors of his period, and perhaps in a mild satirical manner, he can never be overcome by someone who disapproves of the subject. He may not be considered one of the finest English prose-writers, but for his grace, elegance and sophisticated and deliberate charm he must always be well ranked in him.