English Literature Part 41

might be written across the whole Victorian era. We are still too near these writers to judge how far their work suffers artistically from their practical purpose; but this much is certain,--that whether or not they created immortal works, their books have made the present world a better and a happier place to live in. And that is perhaps the best that can be said of the work of any artist or artisan.

SUMMARY OF THE VICTORIAN AGE. The year 1830 is generally placed at the beginning of this period, but its limits are very indefinite. In general we may think of it as covering the reign of Victoria (1837-1901). Historically the age is remarkable for the growth of democracy following the Reform Bill of 1832; for the spread of education among all cla.s.ses; for the rapid development of the arts and sciences; for important mechanical inventions; and for the enormous extension of the bounds of human knowledge by the discoveries of science.

At the accession of Victoria the romantic movement had spent its force; Wordsworth had written his best work; the other romantic poets, Coleridge, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, and Byron, had pa.s.sed away; and for a time no new development was apparent in English poetry. Though the Victorian Age produced two great poets, Tennyson and Browning, the age, as a whole, is remarkable for the variety and excellence of its prose. A study of all the great writers of the period reveals four general characteristics: (1) Literature in this Age has come very close to daily life, reflecting its practical problems and interests, and is a powerful instrument of human progress. (2) The tendency of literature is strongly ethical; all the great poets, novelists, and essayists of the age are moral teachers. (3) Science in this age exercises an incalculable influence. On the one hand it emphasizes truth as the sole object of human endeavor; it has established the principle of law throughout the universe; and it has given us an entirely new view of life, as summed up in the word "evolution," that is, the principle of growth or development from simple to complex forms. On the other hand, its first effect seems to be to discourage works of the imagination. Though the age produced an incredible number of books, very few of them belong among the great creative works of literature. (4) Though the age is generally characterized as practical and materialistic, it is significant that nearly all the writers whom the nation delights to honor vigorously attack materialism, and exalt a purely ideal conception of life.

On the whole, we are inclined to call this an idealistic age fundamentally, since love, truth, justice, brotherhood--all great ideals--are emphasized as the chief ends of life, not only by its poets but also by its novelists and essayists.

In our study we have considered: (1) The Poets; the life and works of Tennyson and Browning; and the chief characteristics of the minor poets, Elizabeth Barrett (Mrs. Browning), Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. (2) The Novelists; the life and works of d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, and George Eliot; and the chief works of Charles Reade, Anthony Trollope, Charlotte Bronte, Bulwer-Lytton, Kingsley, Mrs. Gaskell, Blackmore, George Meredith, Hardy, and Stevenson. (3) The Essayists; the life and works of Macaulay, Matthew Arnold, Carlyle, Newman, and Ruskin. These were selected, from among many essayists and miscellaneous writers, as most typical of the Victorian Age.

The great scientists, like Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, Tyndall, and Spencer, hardly belong to our study of literature, though their works are of vast importance; and we omit the works of living writers who belong to the present rather than to the past century.

SELECTIONS FOR READING. Manly's English Poetry and Manly's English Prose (Ginn and Company) contain excellent selections from all authors of this period. Many other collections, like Ward's English Poets, Garnett's English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria, Page's British Poets of the Nineteenth Century, and Stedman's A Victorian Anthology, may be used to advantage. All important works may be found in the convenient and inexpensive school editions given below. (For full t.i.tles and publishers see the General Bibliography.)

_Tennyson_. Short poems, and selections from Idylls of the King, In Memoriam, Enoch Arden, and The Princess. These are found in various school editions, Standard English Cla.s.sics, Pocket Cla.s.sics, Riverside Literature Series, etc. Poems by Tennyson, selected and edited with notes by Henry Van d.y.k.e (Athenaeum Press Series), is an excellent little volume for beginners.

_Browning_. Selections, edited by R.M. Lovett, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. Other school editions in Everyman's Library, Belles Lettres Series, etc.

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_. Selections, edited by Elizabeth Lee, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. Selections also in Pocket Cla.s.sics, etc.

_Matthew Arnold_. Sohrab and Rustum, edited by Trent and Brewster, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. The same poem in Riverside Literature Series, etc. Selections in Golden Treasury Series, etc. Poems, students' edition (Crowell). Essays in Everyman's Library, etc. Prose selections (Holt, Allyn & Bacon, etc.).

_d.i.c.kens_. Tale of Two Cities, edited by J.W. Linn, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Pickwick Papers.

Various good school editions of these novels in Everyman's Library, etc.

_Thackeray_. Henry Esmond, edited by H.B. Moore, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. The same novel, in Everyman's Library, Pocket Cla.s.sics, etc.

_George Eliot_. Silas Marner, edited by R. Adelaide Witham, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. The same novel, in Pocket Cla.s.sics, etc.

_Carlyle_. Essay on Burns, edited by C.L. Hanson, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, and Heroes and Hero Wors.h.i.+p, edited by A. MacMechan, in Athenaeum Press Series. Selections, edited by H.W. Boynton (Allyn & Bacon). Various other inexpensive editions, in Pocket Cla.s.sics, Eclectic English Cla.s.sics, etc.

_Ruskin_. Sesame and Lilies, edited by Lois G. Hufford, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. Other editions in Riverside Literature, Everyman's Library, etc.

Selected Essays and Letters, edited by Hufford, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. Selections, edited by Vida D. Scudder (Sibley); edited by C.B.

Tinker, in Riverside Literature.

_Macaulay_. Essays on Addison and Milton, edited by H.A. Smith, in Standard English Cla.s.sics. Same essays, in Ca.s.sell's National Library, Riverside Literature, etc. Lays of Ancient Rome, in Standard English Cla.s.sics, Pocket Cla.s.sics, etc.

_Newman_. Selections, with introduction by L.E. Gates (Holt); Selections from prose and poetry, in Riverside Literature. The Idea of a University, in Manly's English Prose.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. (note. For full t.i.tles and publishers of general reference books, see General Bibliography.) _HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp.

357-383; Cheyney, pp. 632-643. _General Works_. Gardiner, and Traill.

_Special Works_. McCarthy's History of Our Own Times; Bright's History of England, vols. 4-5; Lee's Queen Victoria; Bryce's Studies in Contemporary Biography.

_LITERATURE. General Works_. Garnett and Gosse, Taine. _Special Works_.

Harrison's Early Victorian Literature; Saintsbury's A History of Nineteenth Century Literature; Walker's The Age of Tennyson; same author's The Greater Victorian Poets; Morley's Literature of the Age of Victoria; Stedman's Victorian Poets; Mrs. Oliphant's Literary History of England in the Nineteenth Century; Beers's English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century; Dowden's Victorian Literature, in Transcripts and Studies; Brownell's Victorian Prose Masters.

_Tennyson_. Texts: Cabinet edition (London, 1897) is the standard. Various good editions, Globe, Cambridge Poets, etc. Selections in Athenaeum Press (Ginn and Company).

Life: Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Memoir by his son, is the standard; by Lyall (in English Men of Letters); by Horton; by Waugh. See also Anne T.

Ritchie's Tennyson and His Friends; Napier's The Homes and Haunts of Tennyson; Rawnsley's Memories of the Tennysons.

Criticism: Brooke's Tennyson, his Art and his Relation to Modern Life; A.

Lang's Alfred Tennyson; Van d.y.k.e's The Poetry of Tennyson; Sneath's The Mind of Tennyson; Gwynn's A Critical Study of Tennyson's Works; Luce's Handbook to Tennyson's Works; Dixon's A Tennyson Primer; Masterman's Tennyson as a Religious Teacher; Collins's The Early Poems of Tennyson; Macallum's Tennyson's Idylls of the King and the Arthurian Story; Bradley's Commentary on In Memoriam; Bagehot's Literary Studies, vol. 2; Brightwell's Concordance; Shepherd's Bibliography.

Essays: By F. Harrison, in Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates; by Stedman, in Victorian Poets; by Hutton, in Literary Essays; by Dowden, in Studies in Literature; by Gates, in Studies and Appreciations; by Forster, in Great Teachers; by Forman, in Our Living Poets. See also Myers's Science and a Future Life.

_Browning_. Texts: Cambridge and Globe editions, etc. Various editions of selections. (See Selections for Reading, above.)

Life: by W. Sharp (Great Writers); by Chesterton (English Men of Letters); Life and Letters, by Mrs. Sutherland Orr; by Waugh, in Westminster Biographies (Small & Maynard).

Criticism: Symons's An Introduction to the Study of Browning; same t.i.tle, by Corson; Mrs. Orr's Handbook to the Works of Browning; Nettles.h.i.+p's Robert Browning; Brooke's The Poetry of Robert Browning; Cooke's Browning Guide Book; Revell's Browning's Criticism of Life; Berdoe's Browning's Message to his Times; Berdoe's Browning Cyclopedia.

Essays: by Hutton, Stedman, Dowden, Forster (for t.i.tles, see Tennyson, above); by Jacobs, in Literary Studies; by Chapman, in Emerson and Other Essays; by Cooke, in Poets and Problems; by Birrell, in Obiter Dicta.

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_. Texts: Globe and Cambridge editions, etc.; various editions of selections. Life: by J. H. Ingram; see also Bayne's Two Great Englishmen. Kenyon's Letters of E. B. Browning.

Criticism: Essays, by Stedman, in Victorian Poets; by Benson, in Essays.

_Matthew Arnold_. Texts: Poems, Globe edition, etc. See Selections for Reading, above. Life: by Russell; by Saintsbury; by Paul (English Men of Letters); Letters, by Russell.

Criticism: Essays by Woodberry, in Makers of Literature; by Gates, in Three Studies in Literature; by Hutton, in Modern Guides of English Thought; by Brownell, in Victorian Prose Masters; by F. Harrison (see Tennyson, above).

_d.i.c.kens_. Texts: numerous good editions of novels. Life: by J. Forster; by Marzials (Great Writers); by Ward (English Men of Letters); Langton's The Childhood and Youth of d.i.c.kens.

Criticism: Gissing's Charles d.i.c.kens; Chesterton's Charles d.i.c.kens; Kitten's The Novels of Charles d.i.c.kens; Fitzgerald's The History of Pickwick. Essays: by F. Harrison (see above); by Bagehot, in Literary Studies; by Lilly, in Four English Humorists; by A. Lang, in Gads.h.i.+ll edition of d.i.c.kens's works.

_Thackeray_. Texts: numerous good editions of novels and essays. Life: by Melville; by Merivale and Marzials (Great Writers); by A. Trollope (English Men of Letters); by L. Stephen, in Dictionary of National Biography. See also Crowe's Homes and Haunts of Thackeray; Wilson's Thackeray in the United States.

Criticism: Essays, by Lilly, in Four English Humorists; by Harrison, in Studies in Early Victorian Literature; by Scudder, in Social Ideals in English Letters; by Brownell, in Victorian Prose Masters.

_George Eliot_. Texts: numerous editions. Life: by L. Stephen (English Men of Letters); by O. Browning (Great Writers); by her husband, J.W. Cross.

Criticism: Cooke's George Eliot, a Critical Study of her Life and Writings.

Essays: by J. Jacobs, in Literary Studies; by H. James, in Partial Portraits; by Dowden, in Studies in Literature; by Hutton, Harrison, Brownell, Lilly (see above). See also Parkinson's Scenes from the George Eliot Country.

_Carlyle_. Texts: various editions of works. Heroes, and Sartor Resartus, in Athenaeum Press (Ginn and Company); Sartor, and Past and Present, 1 vol.

(Harper); Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, 1 vol. (Appleton); Letters and Reminiscences, edited by C. E. Norton, 6 vols. (Macmillan).

Life: by Garnett (Great Writers); by Nichol (English Men of Letters); by Froude, 2 vols. (very full, but not trustworthy). See also Carlyle's Reminiscences and Correspondence, and Craig's The Making of Carlyle.

Criticism: Ma.s.son's Carlyle Personally and in his Writings. Essays: by Lowell, in My Study Windows; by Harrison, Brownell, Hutton, Lilly (see above).

_Ruskin_. Texts: Brantwood edition, edited by C.E. Norton; various editions of separate works. Life: by Harrison (English Men of Letters); by Collingwood, 2 vols.; see also Ruskin's Praeterita.

Criticism: Mather's Ruskin, his Life and Teaching; Cooke's Studies in Ruskin; Waldstein's The Work of John Ruskin; Hobson's John Ruskin, Social Reformer; Mrs. Meynell's John Ruskin; Sizeranne's Ruskin and the Religion of Beauty, translated from the French; White's Principles of Art; W. M.

Rossetti's Ruskin, Rossetti, and Pre-Raphaelitism.

Essays: by Robertson, in Modern Humanists; by Saintsbury, in Corrected Impressions; by Brownell, Harrison, Forster (see above).

_Macaulay_. Texts: Complete works, edited by his sister, Lady Trevelyan (London, 1866); various editions of separate works (see Selections for Reading, above). Life: Life and Letters, by Trevelyan, 2 vols.; by Morrison (English Men of Letters).