English Literature: Its History And Its Significance For The Life Of The English-Speaking World
by William J. Long (adapted excerpt)
The Victorian Age (1850-1900)
When Victoria became queen, in 1837, English literature seemed to have entered upon a period of lean years, in marked contrast with the poetic
fruitfulness of the Romantic Age. Because the Victorian age was an age of democracy and education, it was an age of comparative peace. England
began to think less of the pomp and false glitter of fighting, and more of its moral evils, as the nation realized that it is the common people who bear
the burden and the sorrow of poverty, while the privileged classes reap most of the financial and political rewards. Moreover, with the growth of
trade and of friendly foreign relations, it became evident that the social equality for which England was contending at home belonged to the whole
race of men; that brotherhood is universal, not insular, that a question of justice is never settled by fighting wars.
The romantic revival had done its work, and England entered upon a new free period, in which every form of literature, from pure romance to gross
realism, struggled for expression. First, though the age produced many poets, this was emphatically an age of prose. And since the number of
readers had increased a thousandfold with the spread of popular education, it was the age of the newspaper, the magazine, and the modern novel-
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