Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small]
[graphic]

SINCE 1830.

[graphic]

EWILDERING in its richness, extent and variety is the English literature of the nineteenth century. It is impossible for critics of the present day to decide accurately on the merit of the work of each author, or to estimate clearly the value of the whole. Yet it may be said that the great writers of this age have reached heights surpassed only by Shakespeare and Milton, while hundreds more are conspicuous by achievements worthy at least of local and temporary fame. A most striking characteristic of the reign of Queen Victoria has been the general diffusion of knowledge. One of the chief results of this diffusion has been to free the author from immediate dependence on royal or noble patrons and to enable him to appeal for recognition and approval directly to the people. These in turn have been instructed by the literary critics whose labor has been fostered by the periodical press. Quarterly reviews began with the Edinburgh Review in 1802; then came literary magazines and journals; and finally every newspaper of any pretensions gives its notices of new books. England, which at the opening of the century was ruled by an aristocracy, has become strongly democratic. The contemporary literature has strongly reflected these changes. Some of the greatest writers, as Wordsworth, Tennyson, Carlyle, have resisted or deprecated them, while others have encouraged, urged and supported them.

Another striking characteristic of the times has been the

43

vast improvement in the physical surroundings of the people, the facilities for quick and easy intercourse, and the marvelous progress of science. Local ignorance has been removed by the breaking down of the barriers which shut out knowledge of the outer world. But on the other hand the seclusion which fostered contemplation has been lost. In the swift movement of the world, in which all are compelled to take part, present temporal advantage becomes man's chief end, spiritual truth is overwhelmed and lost. Even in those who are subject to its sway, the incessant movement produces weariness and ennui. There follows complaint of the emptiness of all things, which is found not only in poets and philosophers, but even in popular novelists.

Victoria's reign has been blessed with a grand chorus of noble poets. Chief among them is Alfred Tennyson, who began modestly in 1830 with "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," and advanced from these musical dreamy fancies to the noble performances of his riper years, "In Memoriam" and "The Idylls of the King." In the same decade Robert Browning, with more rugged and independent genius, addressed the public, but by his obscurity and jerky style, failed to secure general audience. Gradually a select few gave this master of psychological insight their devotion, and later societies of cultivated people were formed to study the profound thought of his mysterious works. His wife had attained vogue as a poet before she won his love. She excelled him in musical performance, though taking many liberties with rhyme and metre. Matthew Arnold, both poet and prose-writer, represents the conflict between doubt and faith, yet inculcates selfreliance. His keen intellect demanded demonstration even in matters incapable of it. In essays and criticism his manner was always urbane, but his expression of opinion was severe and crushing. His poetry recalls the Greek classics, his prose the French essayists. Swinburne entered the arena as a pronounced pagan, rejecting the restraints of modern morality, yet displaying matchless powers of musical rendering. Though an aristocrat by birth, he was a sentimental radical in opinion. In his later works he became conservative, but his early effusions prevented his being made poet laureate on the death of Tennyson. Dante G. Rossetti was

a lyric poet of great sweetness and power, but his morbid life prevented him from accomplishing adequate works.

Three great prose-writers have adorned the century. Lord Macaulay was a typical man of letters, devoted to books and writing from childhood, gifted with a prodigious memory and wonderful power of language. His brilliant essays made history and literature familiar to the masses. His "History of England" was intended to be more fascinating than a novel, and for a time accomplished its purpose. In marked contrast with him is the rugged Scotch peasant, Thomas Carlyle, who became a prophet to his generation. Regarding life as tragically earnest, he was vehement in his denunciation of wrong, and his prediction of disasters. Usually scornful of his fellowmen, except a few select heroes whom he worshipped, he revealed at times a surprisingly tender heart. The "Sartor Resartus," a discourse on clothes, is an allegory of his own life. His "French Revolution," full of dithyrambic eloquence, is a vivid presentation of that great episode in the world's history. John Ruskin, a more attractive prose-poet, has been a prophet of art and lover of nature. His "Modern Painters" is an eloquent discourse on the fundamental principles of art. In other words he carried on his teaching, insisting that true appreciation of art depends on purity of heart and leads to the love of God. In later writings he urged in more subdued style social reforms and new principles of political economy.

But the most extensive field of modern literature is that of the novel, which has advanced from being a record of adventures or exhibition of scenes to an exposition of character developed in dialogue and action. In some hands it has become an engine of social reform. It has steadily extended its domain until it threatens to become the field of discussion of questions in science and religion, in fact to include all human action and thought as its province.

[graphic]

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was

the type of the English nineteenth century gentleman in literature, as was Fielding of the eighteenth. He was a British aristocrat, tempered by genius. He was born in Calcutta, British India, in 1811, and died in London at the age of fifty-two, the greatest English novelist, satirist and humorist of his time.

He was brought up to the use and expectation of wealth, but became poor during his twenties, and had to do something for a living. Trade was not to his taste; politics not within his capacities; but he had made little excursions in amateur art and letters, and so drifted into the use of pen and pencil as means of support. His work, at first, was hardly serious in purpose; in art he never got beyond a peculiar kind of caricature, though he wrote witty and telling artcriticism, and illustrated many of his own stories. In his early sketches and tales, he eschewed formality, and wrote as the educated and witty man-of-the-world of his time and nation talked. This style, and the sociable attitude towards the reader which he adopted, though it recalls the way of Fielding, whom he admired, was not the fruit of imitation, but of sympathy. No writer ever expressed his exact self in his compositions more thoroughly than Thackeray. He matured early, though to the last there was much boyishness in his complex nature, and his literary style from the first had almost the maturity of his latest work; it was easy, flexible, rich, various: it lent itself without effort to the precise shade of meaning which he might wish to convey; it was pure literature and pure naturalness-as natural as the unre

« ZurückWeiter »