© John Peck and Martin Coyle 2002

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Contents
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
Preface ix
the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Acknowledgements xiii
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London W1T 4LP. I Old English Literature I
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this Beowulf 1
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claims for damages. The Seafarer' and The Wanderer' 7
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as Battle Poems and 'The Dream of the Rood' 10
the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Old English Language 12

First published 2002 by

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Sonnet: Sir Philip Sidney and William Shakespeare 42
Peck, John, 1947-
Edmund Spenser 48
A brief history of English literature / John Peck and Martin
Coyle. Shakespeare
4 53
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. Shakespeare in Context 53
ISBN 0-333-79176---2 (doth)- ISBN 0-333-79177--0 (pbk.)
1. English literature-History and criticism. I. Coyle, Martin. II.
Shakespeare's Comedies and Histories 55
Title. Shakespeare's Tragedies 62
PR83 .P43 2002 820.9-dc21 2001055701
Shakespeare's Late Plays 68
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 Renaissance and Restoration Drama
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llt:r
vi Contents Contents vii

Renaissance Drama and Christopher Marlowe 73 Charles Dickens 169

Elizabethan and Jacobean Revenge Tragedy 79 Charlotte and Emily Bronte 173
Ben Jonson and the Masque 83 William Makepeace Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell 179
Restoration Drama 87 Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Elizabeth
Barrett Browning 183
6 Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 91
II Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 188
John Donne 91
Victorian Thinkers 188
From Ben Jonson to John Bunyan and Andrew Marvell 96
George Eliot 191
John Milton 106
Wilkie Collins and the Sensation Novel 197
John Dryden 111 Anthony Trollope, Christina Rossetti 201

7 The Eighteenth Century 114 12 Victorian Literature, 1876-1901 206

Alexander Pope 114 Thomas Hardy 206
The Augustan Age 121 George Gissing, George Moore, Samuel Butler, Henry
Edward Gibbon, Samuel Johnson 126 James, Robert Louis Stevenson 212
Sensibility 129 Rudyard Kipling 217
George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Late Victorian
8 The Novel: The First Hundred Years 133 Poetry 219
Daniel Defoe 133
13 The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 224
Aphra Behn, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding,
Laurence Sterne, Tobias Smollett Joseph Conrad 224
137
Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, E. M. Forster, Katherine
From Eliza Haywood to Mary Shelley 143 Mansfield 230
Walter Scott and Jane Austen 147 D. H. Lawrence 234
Georgian Poetry, War Poetry, W. B. Yeats 238
9 The Romantic Period 151
The Age of Revolution 151 14 The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 246
William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor T. S. Eliot 246
Coleridge 154 James Joyce 251
Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats 161 Virginia Woolf 257
Radical Voices 165
The 1930s 261
IO Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 169
15 The Twentieth Century: The Second World War
viii Contents

to the End of the Millennium 267

Wartime and Post-War Britain 267
Drama 271 Preface
Novels 277
Poetry 282

16 Postscript 287
The Twenty-First Century 287 In planning this brief history ofEnglish literature, we had three prin-
cipal objectives in mind. First, and most importantly, we wanted to
Periods of English Literature and Language 293 write an account that a reader with a degree of stamina might wish to
read as a whole. It is sometimes the case that histories of literature,
Chronology 295
aiming for encyclopaedic inclusiveness, overwhelm the reader with
Further reading 333 detail; almost inevitably, it becomes impossible to see the shape or
Index 335 direction of the material being discussed. What we have sought to
present is a clear narrative, with a strong backbone of argument. Not
every reader, of course, will want to read the entire book, but we
hope that a sense of clarity, design and focus will be apparent to a
reader dipping into any of the individual chapters.
Our second objective was to produce a history of literature in
which poems, plays, novels and other forms of writing are seen as
functioning in history. There was a time when literary critics regard-
ed history as merely a background against which works of literature
operated. In the case of a writer such as Dickens, for example, it was
as if there was a reality of Victorian London and Dickens's works
were seen as reflecting that tangible world. In recent years, however,
literary critics have begun to emphasise a rather different view of
how literary texts play a role in the society that produced them, and
how they intervene in their culture, rather than just passively reflect-
ing values and ideas. Some histories ofliterature still continue to pro-
vide the reader with an outline of events that never really connects
with the discussion of the literary works produced in a period or with
the texts themselves. We have sought to offer a more dynamic analy-
sis of the interactions between texts and the era of their production.
In adopting this approach, we have been influenced by ways of
thinking that characterise literary studies in universities at the pre-
sent time. This leads us on to the third objective that we had in mind

ix
X Preface Preface xi

in writing this book. It is sometimes the case that histories of litera- the difficulties involved in such a project. These difficulties are appar-
ture, as works of assessment and reflection, embody the critical views ent in the three words 'history', 'English' and 'literature'.
of an earlier generation of scholars; they contain a great deal of 'History' might be regarded as a narrative that we impose on the
extremely useful information, but in terms of their informing past; if, as in the pages that follow, an attempt is made to construct a
assumptions they look to the past rather than to the present. In the clear and coherent narrative, then the story that is being told is,
pages that follow we have endeavoured to provide an account that inevitably, far too simple and often untrue. By 'English' we mean, for
reflects current thinking in the subject. It may be, therefore, that stu- the purposes of this book, works written in Britain rather than works
dents ofliterature, at school, college or university, will find this book written in English; 'English' is, therefore, stretched to include works
rather more directly relevant than some more traditional histories of written in Scotland, Wales and Ireland (as well as a number of texts
literature. But we also hope that general readers will have their inter- from America and the Commonwealth that have been influential in
est caught by the critical ideas that inform the volume. Britain). The inclusion of Irish authors might suggest colonial arro-
A sense of what one hoped to achieve in a book is, of course, gance in subsuming the works of another nation into Britain's cul-
always qualified by an awareness of the shortcomings of the finished tural heritage, but that leads us on to a more general problem. There
product. The major problem we had to face in every chapter was a was a time when historians ofliterature offered a kind of celebration
practical one: this is a brief history of English literature. Many authors of Englishness; at its best this was nostalgic and amiable, but at its
who might have been included were not included, simply because worst it could be insular and arrogant, fuelled by an assumption that
there was no room for them. But that is not the full explanation. At everyone shared a common inheritance and that everyone would
an early stage in thinking about the book, we decided that it was share a common view of that inheritance. In writing about English
going to prove a lot more useful to provide a reasonably full account literature today, however, we cannot avoid being aware of the many
of a few writers in a period rather than offering long lists of names, minefields involved in writing about concepts such as England,
or, at the best, a couple of sentences about dozens of writers. The Englishness and the English tradition.
authors discussed are those that most people would expect to feature 'Literature' is possibly an even more difficult term, and it is cer-
in a history of English literature, but also some of the lesser-known tainly in respect of literature that the practical and ideological diffi-
figures students are likely to encounter on a degree course. By the end culties confronted in writing this book have overlapped most. For
of a chapter in this book we might have failed to mention the partic- many years, 'literature' has implied a certain canon of books; these
ular writer a reader wants to know about, but the chapter should are the books that people considered worthy of study, whereas there
have provided a framework of understanding for other authors writ- are others that they ignored or dismissed. As times change, the canon
ing at that time. of approved texts changes; in recent years, for example, literary crit-
We can probably be forgiven for our failure to discuss a large num- ics have started to pay far more attention to women writers who
ber of writers; our omission of certain writers, however, may seem to have up until now remained unread and even unpublished. In writ-
some unforgivable. This takes us on to the ideological problems ing this book we have endeavoured to embrace such currents of
involved in writing a history of English literature. We have endeav- change without losing sight of or displacing the traditional canon of
oured to write a balanced account, but the account we have pro- authors. These are the writers that continue to be the most frequent-
duced inevitably reflects our individual preferences, our cultural ly taught in schools, colleges and universities; they are also the writ-
backgrounds and the structures of the system in which we work. ers that students are expected to know about and that more radical
There might have been a time when historians of literature felt they accounts of literary history define themselves against.
were offering a true and complete story, but today we are all aware of Some will judge our approach to be too conventional - a case
xii Preface

could be made, for example, for paying more attention to popular

forms ofliterature, such as crime fiction and children's books, as well
as scientific, historical and political texts, and far more attention to
authors from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Commonwealth- but
Acknowledgements
in order to complete the compact and useful book we set out to pro-
duce we have had to strike a balance between an infinite variety of
texts and possible approaches. We are aware, then, of the problems
that lie at the very heart of the conception and execution of this book.
At the same time, because a sense of these issues has been at the front The authors and publisher wish to thank the following for permis-
of our minds while we have been writing, we would like to believe sion to use copyright material:
that this has energised the narrative we have constructed and the
Anvil Press Poetry, for the extract from Warming Her Pearls' from
choices we have made. In brief, we hope that this book, both in terms
Selling Manhattan by Carol Anne Duffy (Anvil Press Poetry, 1987);
of the range of authors considered and in the way that these authors
reproduced by permission of Anvil Press Poetry.
are discussed, will strike the reader as a fresh and stimulating new his-
tory of English literature. Faber & Faber Ltd, for the extract from 'Cuba' from Why Brownlee Left
by Paul Muldoon; reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.
John Peck and Martin Coyle
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, for the extract from 'Cuba' from
Cardtff Universil)'
Collected Poems: 1968-1998 by Paul Muldoon, copyright © Paul
Muldoon 2001; reproduced by permission of Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, LLC.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright-holders, but if
any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased
to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

xiii
 1 Old English Literature

Beowulf
Sometime between the year 700 and the year 900 the epic poem
Beowulf was composed. It tells the story of Beowulf, a warrior prince
from Geatland in Sweden, who goes to Denmark and kills the mon-
ster Grendel that has been attacking the great hall ofHeorot, built by
Hrothgar, the Danish king. Grendel's mother, a water-monster, takes
revenge by carrying off one of the king's noblemen, but Beowulf
dives into the underwater lair in which she lives and kills her too.
Returning home, in due course Beowulf becomes king of the Geats.
The poem then moves forward about fifty years. Beowulfs kingdom
is ravaged by a fire-breathing dragon that burns the royal hall.
Beowulf, aided by a young warrior, Wiglaf, manages to kill the drag-
on, but is fatally wounded in the course of the fight. He pronounces
Wiglafhis successor. The poem ends with Beowulfs burial and a pre-
monition that the kingdom will be overthrown.
When we read a Shakespeare play, a poem by Wordsworth, a
novel by Dickens or most other works of literature, we usually
know something about the author, something about the period in
which the text was written, and, perhaps most importantly, a good
deal about the conventions of the genre that the writer has chosen
to employ. It is such knowledge that helps us arrive at conclusions
about the meaning and significance of a literary text. In the case of
Beowulf and other Old English texts, however, we have relatively lit-
tle information to work from . We know nothing about the author
of Beowulf, or who transcribed the poem (which exists in just one
fire-damaged manuscript copy). Nor do we know the exact date of
its composition. There are, too, other problems we face: not only is
the text historically remote from us, involving ideas that seem to

UNiVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Filo!ogia • Biblioteca
2 A Brief History of English Literature 0 ld English Literature 3

bear little resemblance to our own ways of thinking, but it is written foreign enemy, or an enemy within, such as the rebellious noblemen
in a form of English (sometimes called Anglo-Saxon) that displays in Shakespeare's history plays who challenge the authority of the
little similarity to English today: king. But the threat might be more insidious; for example, in a num-
ber of eighteenth-century works, there is a sense of chaos overtaking
-Da com of more under misthleopum
society, and the collapse of established standards of behaviour. Or
Grendel gongan. Godes yrre brer.
Mynte se manscaoa manna cynnes
there might be, as is the case in nineteenth- and twentieth-century
sumne besyrwan in sele pam hean. texts, a feeling that the world is moving so fast and changing so much
that all steady points of reference have been lost. In short, we can say
[Then from the moor under the misty slopes that the most common pattern in literature is one which sets the
Grendel came advancing. God's anger he bore. desire for order and coherence against an awareness of the inevitabil-
The evil ravager intended to ensnare one
ity of disorder, confusion and chaos.
Of the race of men in that lofty hall.]
This recurrent pattern is, as might be expected, felt and expressed
(Beowulf, II. 710-23)
in different ways as time passes, the world changes, and people face
Not surprisingly, most readers are initially going to feel at a loss in fresh problems. In the four or five hundred years before the Norman
trying to establish any kind of hold on Beowulf, even if they encounter Conquest of 1066, England was a sparsely populated country that
it in a modem translation. had experienced successive waves of invasion. The invaders includ-
As is often the case with a literary text, however, a good deal can ed, between the late fourth and seventh centuries, different groups of
I
actually be determined from a summary alone. Structurally, Beowulfis ' Germanic peoples whose descendants came to be known as Anglo-
built around three fights. Each of these involves a battle between Saxons. The history of this period is documented by the historian
those who live in the royal hall and a monster; the monsters, it is Bede (673-735), a monk whose Latin work Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
clear, are dangerous, unpredictable and incomprehensible forces that Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), completed in 731,
threaten the security and well-being of those in power and the way of provides us with much information about the era. Thanks to Bede
life they represent. When we have established this much, we have and a number of other sources, we know a surprising amount about
detected a pattern that is specific to the Anglo-Saxon period, but the government, administration and legal system of Anglo-Saxon
which also echoes down through the whole history of English litera- England. The impression is of sophisticated mechanisms of social
ture. Time and time again, literary texts deal with an idea, or perhaps organisation, primarily associated with the king. But the monasteries
just an ideal, of order. There is a sense of a well-run state or a settled were also important in this period, in particular as centres of learn-
social order, and, for the individual, a feeling of existing within a ing; the texts in Old English that survive from Anglo-Saxon England
secure framework; this might be the comfort provided by religious were all probably transcribed during the tenth century by monks,
faith, the certainty associated with marriage and economic security, who were both establishing and preserving a native literary culture.
or perhaps just the happiness associated with being in love. In Government, administration, a legal system and a literary culture: all
Beowulf, a sense of security is linked with the presence of the great hall these things suggest a regulated, well-ordered and peaceful society.
as a place of refuge and shared values; it is a place for feasting and cel- But this is only half of the story.
ebrations, providing warmth and protection against whatever might In 55 BC Julius Caesar landed in Ancient Britain. Colonisation and
be encountered in the darkness outside. Over and over again, how- Christianity followed as Britain became part of the Roman empire. In
ever, literary texts focus on threats to such a feeling of security and 407, however, the Roman legions were withdrawn to protect Rome.
confidence. There might be an external threat, such as a monster or a Meanwhile, Picts invaded Roman Britain from the north. The British
4 A Brief History of English Literature Old English Literature 5

king Vortigem, like Hrothgar in Beowulf. sent for help, but the Jutes a grand scale and deals with the deeds of warriors and heroes. As is
who came soon seized Kent. Other pagan Germanic tribes, the the case in Beowulf, while focusing on the deeds of one man, epic
Angles and the Saxons, followed, driving the Celtic inhabitants into poems also interlace the main narrative with myths, legends, folk
Wales, Cornwall and Scotland. The result was that a number of tales and past events; there is a composite effect, the entire culture of
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms emerged, and, almost inevitably, this led to a country cohering in the overall experience of the poem. Beowulf
military conflicts and shifts in power. During the sixth century, it is belongs to the category of oral, as opposed to literary, epic, in that it
important to note, a process of re-Christianization began, but in 793 was composed to be recited; it was only written down much later as
a further period of disruption was initiated, with Viking incursions the poem that exists today, possibly as late as the year 1000.
that led, amongst other things, to the sacking of monasteries. In epic poetry there are always threats and dangers that have to be
What becomes apparent from this brief summary is that in this confronted, but even more important is the sense of a hero who
period we are dealing with what is essentially a warrior society, a trib- embodies the qualities that are necessary in a leader in a hierarchical,
al community with people clustering together in forts and settle- masculine, warrior society; the text is concerned with the qualities
ments, fearing attack. The land is farmed, and there are centres of that constitute his greatness, the poem as a whole amounting to what
learning, but the overwhelming fact of life is invasion by outside we might regard as a debate about the nature of the society and its
forces. It should be becoming clear by now that Beowulf reflects and values. Central to those values is the idea of loyalty to one's lord: the
expresses the anxieties that would have dominated such a society, lord provides food and protection in return for service. He is the
but it also offers a sense of something positive. We know from his- 'giver of rings' and rewards, and the worst of crimes is betrayal. This
torical evidence that Anglo-Saxon kings such as Alfred (871-99), impression of a larger purpose in Beowulf is underlined by the inclu-
Athelstan (924-39) and Edgar (959-75) contributed to the forging of sion of decorous speeches and passages of moral reflection, and by
one people and one state. This is echoed in the way that Beowulf, as the inclusion of quasi-historical stories of feuds and wars that echo
a warrior, stands as a beacon, unselfishly going to the aid of the and support the main narrative. The fact that Beowulf exists within a
Danish king and then later, as king, facing the dragon in order to win literary tradition is also apparent in its use of the alliterative metre,
its treasure for his people. And although he dies without an heir, which is the most notable feature of Germanic prosody; in Beowulf, as
there is also something impressive in the way that the baton of com- in Old English verse generally, there are two or three alliterating
mand is passed on to his successor, Wiglaf. The period before the stressed syllables in each line, reflecting the pattern of speech and so
Norman Conquest used to be referred to as the Dark Ages; the term appropriate for oral performance. The effect is to link the two halves
clearly does less than justice to the achievements of this society, but, of the lines into rich interweaving patterns of vocabulary and idea.
if we do accept the description for a moment, we can see how a poem The convention may seem strange to the modem reader, but in its
such as Beowulf, with its ideas about leadership and loyalty, stands as distinctive way it serves, like rhyme, to reinforce the poem's theme of
a source of illumination in the darkness. the search for order in a chaotic world.
What we also need to recognise in our critical thinking about the In the end, however, it is not a simple opposition of the desire for
text, however, is that a poem like Beowulf. engaging as it does with order and the threat of disorder that makes Beowulf such an impres-
contemporary concerns, does not spring from nowhere. Beowulf sive poem. Indeed, if we talk about order versus disorder, the for-
belongs to a tradition of heroic or epic poetry; this tradition can, indi- mulation might suggest that literature can convey a static and
rectly, be traced back to Ancient Greece and Rome, and there is unchanging ideal of order. But this is never the case. A society is
something of a parallel tradition in Scandinavian culture. An epic is a always in a state of transformation. One thing that we know about
long narrative poem (there are 3,182 lines in Beowulf) that operates on the period in which Beowulf was produced, and which is apparent in

UN!VERSlOAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Fiiologia • Biblioteca
6 A Brief History of English Literature Old English Literature 7

the poem, is that pagan values were in conflict with, and gradually
'The Seafarer' and 'The Wanderer'
yielding to, Christian values. Values and ideas are constantly
changing, but the most interesting works of literature are those The validity of this last point should become clearer if we look more
produced at times when there is a dramatic shift between one way closely at the Anglo-Saxon period. At such a historical remove, our
of thinking about the world and a new way of thinking about the natural impulse is to think of a static, perhaps rather primitive soci-
world. The most obvious example of this is found in the works of ety. Beowulf might actually add to our misconceptions as, superficial-
Shakespeare, who was writing at a time when the medieval world ly, it conveys an impression of a society that is characterised
was becoming the modem world; part of Shakespeare's greatness, exclusively by violent fighting. We need to understand, however, that
many would argue, is explicable in terms of how his poems and the three monster fights in the poem conform to conventional story-
plays reflect this enormous historical shift. In the case of Beowulf, types, rather than being in any way a realistic expression of lived
we can sense a conflict between a way oflooking at the world that experience.We also need to understand that England at this time was
focuses on the heroic warrior and, on the other hand, a Christian certainly not a primitive society. As we noted above, the Anglo-
perspective that is not entirely at ease with some of the implica- Saxon period runs from the invasion of Celtic England by Angles,
tions of the warrior code. Saxons and Jutes in the first half of the fifth century up till the con-
Even from a non-Christian perspective, there are reservations quest by William of Normandy in 1066. Around the seventh century,
that might be voiced about the heroic life; for example, joy, youth there was a period of conversion to Christianity. Even today, we still
and life will inevitably give way to sorrow, age and death, leaving recollect saints from this period, such as Aidan, and monastic foun-
past glories behind. And there can seem something slightly absurd dations such as Lindisfame, Whitby and Ripon. The existence of reli-
about the quest for glory; even the greatest warriors might strike us gious orders, the architecture associated with the monasteries, and
as vainglorious, and as fighting for no real purpose. But the added the scholarship of these learned communities all provide an idea of
level of complication that can be sensed in Beowulf is the possibility the sophistication of the society at this time.
that there is a Christian critique of heroism implicit in the poem. In the reign of King Alfred, who lived from 849 to 899, we encounter
We may well feel that values in the poem that are remote from a leader who established the English navy, reformed the army, pro-
modem experience - things such as blood-feuds and the celebra- moted education and saved England from the Vikings. During Alfred's
tion of violence in what professes to be an elite society - combine reign and in the years that followed, England also developed a system
rather awkwardly with a story that might be regarded as a Christian of national and local government, law courts and mechanisms for tax-
allegory of salvation. In the same way, we may be struck by a gap collecting, all of which were amongst the most advanced in Europe. It
between the Christian elements in the poem and the stress on a is often pointed out that the Domesday Book (1086), a great survey of
pagan fate that determines human affairs. It is, however, just such England commissioned by William I, would have been impossible to
instability and indeterminacy in the poem that makes it an impor- ·produce without the Anglo-Saxons' flair for administration. The
tant work of literature, for this is how texts function in the period Domesday Book is one of our sources of information about this period.
of their production, expressing conflicting and contradictory Another is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a history of England from the
impulses in a culture. The kind of complication that characterises Roman invasion to 1154. It is, in fact, a series of chronicles written in
the best-known literary texts is a matter of how they not only Old English, and begun in the ninth century during the reign of Alfred.
reflect but are also the embodiment of a society caught up in a As with everything else that informs us about the period, the Anglo-
process of transformation and alteration, of collapse and forma- Saxon Chronicle conveys an impression of a complex society, a society
tion, and of old and new ideas. that was constantly changing, adjusting and evolving.
8 A Brief History of English Literature Old English Literature 9

It is not surprising, therefore, that a vigorous vernacular literary and fatigue; like The Seafarer', the poem employs sea imagery to
culture existed, although we will never know the precise extent of convey an idea of exile and loneliness, of a hostile universe where
this because so much has been lost or destroyed over the course of human beings are battered and tossed about aimlessly. In the second
time. In addition to Beowulf - and there were probably other epic part of The Wanderer', the poet moves from his personal experience
poems - there was a considerable body oflyric poetry. Most of this is to the general experience of humanity, how people suffer in a world
anonymous, although we do know the names of two poets, characterised by war and the ravages of time. As in 'The Seafarer',
Caedmon and Cynewulf (the former from the seventh, the latter from comfort can only be derived from the hope of heaven.
the early ninth century), both of whom focused on biblical and reli- Both poems are elegies dwelling on death, war and loss. By the
gious themes. Probably the most accomplished of the lyric poems is mid-seventeenth century the term elegy starts to acquire a more pre-
The Seafarer'. The poem falls into two halves, and features a speaker cise meaning, as a poem of mourning for an individual or a lament
who relates the hardship and isolation of a life at sea, at the same time over a specific tragic event. In The Seafarer', as in 'The Wanderer',
lamenting the life on shore he has known and of which he is no however, there is a more general perception of life as a struggle,
longer a part; there is, paradoxically, both nostalgia for the past and though one rooted in the poem's culture: the speaker is bereft of
a deep love of the sea despite its loneliness: friends, but also lordless and so forced to live alone in exile from the
comforts and protection of the mead-hall. As in The Wanderer', fate
}>a-r ic ne gehyrde butan hlimman sre,
and the elements seem to conspire against the solitary human figure.
iscaldne wreg. Hwilum ylfete song
Like Beowulf, 'The Seafarer' conveys a characteristic Anglo-Saxon
dyde ic me to gomene, ganetes hleopor,
J view of life. There is a sense of melancholy that suffuses the poem, a
ond huilpan sweg fore hleahtor wera;
mrew singende fore medodrince. sense of life as difficult and subject to suffering; and that, however
much one displays strength, courage and fortitude, time passes and
[There I heard nothing but the roar of the sea, one grows old. There is, too, a stoical resignation in the poem; the
the ice-cold wave. Sometimes, the song of the swan
kind of response, in fact, that one might expect to encounter in a
I had for entertainment, the cry of the gannet
hard, masculine culture. But the surprise is the delicacy and skill with
and the sound of the curlew in place of the laughter of men;
the seagull singing instead of mead-drinking.] which the poem reflects upon these matters. Such a poem can still
(The Seafarer', II. 18-22) communicate with us today because of the manner in which it artic-
ulates both the pain of existence and the search for comfort.
In the second half of the poem, however, the speaker moves in a fresh What'The Seafarer' offers by the end is the idea of religious consola-
direction, imposing a homiletic gloss upon his recollections. He pre- tion. It would, however, be a minor, and forgettable, poem if it just
sents the call to a life at sea as a call to the Christian path of self- offered a Christian answer. The subtlety of the poem lies in the manner
denial; life on earth is transient and insignificant in comparison with in which it is caught between its awareness, on the one hand, of the
the idea of heaven. pain oflife and, on the other, its awareness of the comfort provided by
Just as the tradition of epic poetry informs Beowulf, so The Seafarer' religion. But not just that: there is almost a sense in the poem that reli-
also draws upon a poetic tradition. Like the other notable Old gion is in some respects a self-consciously adopted literary and ethical
English poem 'The Wanderer', 'The Seafarer' is an elegy: a complaint frame that is imposed upon an intransigent reality. As with Beowulf, we
in the first-person on the hardships of separation and isolation. In see again how a substantial work ofliterature is always the product of
The Wanderer' the speaker is an exile seeking a new lord and the pro- a society in the throes of change. Indeed, the way in which 'The
tection of a new mead-hall. The poem conveys his sense of despair Seafarer' falls so clearly into two sections suggests two ways oflooking
10 A Brief History of English Literature Old English Literature 11

at the world that do not quite combine together. It is this ambivalence [I was reared as a cross. I raised up the powerful King,
of the poem, how it looks to both the past and the future as the poet the Lord of heaven; I did not dare to bend.
moves between an old, pagan, view of life as a perpetual battle and new They pierced me with dark nails; on me are the wounds to be seen,
values associated with Christianity, that gives it its resonance. the open wounds of malice. I did not dare injure any of them.
They mocked us both together. I was drenched with blood
poured out from that man's side after he had sent forth his spirit.]
Battle Poems and 'lhe Dream of the Rood' (The Dream of the Rood', II. 44-9)

Wherever we tum in Old English poetry we encounter two impulses: The poem ends with a religious homily in which the poet speaks of
on the one hand there is a sense of a harsh and unforgiving world, his contrition and hope for heaven. One impulse, after registering the
and on the other a sense of Christian explanation and consolation. ingenuity of the basic conceit of the text, might be to think that this
But there is always the impression that the message of religion is is an almost formulaic poem of Christian comfort. But what is so
being articulated by poets who are conscious of this as a new dis- powerful is the way in which the speaking Cross conveys a sense of
course, even a kind of novelty. There is also the point that our per- its humiliation and terror as it was chopped down and made into a
ception of the literature of the Anglo-Saxon period has been affected device for the punishment of Christ as criminal. This is, however,
by the fact that the poems that have survived were transcribed by more than compensated for by the pride the Cross now feels in the
monks, and therefore endorse the argument for Christianity. This is part it has played in the Christian story. This move from a negative to
less true of some poems than of others. There are, for example, battle a positive feeling is echoed in the poet's response at the end of the
pieces, commemorative historical poems, such as 'The Battle of poem; a life of torment and sin is transformed into a message of hope
Brunanburh', a poem relating how Athelstan defeated the invading for the future. But what matters in the poem just as much as this
forces of the Scots and Vikings. A poem such as this conceives of life vision of heavenly reward and triumph is the powerful immediacy of
as an armed struggle, and, although composed towards the end of the the sense of pain and the agony of death.
Anglo-Saxon period, clings on to the traditional values of strength The sophistication of the conceit in The Dream of the Rood',
and courage. Much the same is true of The Battle ofMaldon', which together with the assurance of the poet's craftsmanship, return us
deals with a heroic, yet disastrous, attempt to oppose Viking raiders. again to a fundamental contradiction of the Anglo-Saxon period: that
By contrast, other Old English poems are overtly Christian. The this was a harsh, military society, a society where survival to old age
Dream of the Rood' is a dream-vision poem in which the poet was rare, but also a society in which art and learning were valued, and
encounters a speaking Rood or Cross. The Cross tells us about the which had created complex systems of social organisation. In such a
Crucifixion, how it was buried, and then resurrected as a Christian culture, however, we are always going to be aware of the fragility of
symbol. It thus acts as both a witness to the Crucifixion and as a par- the hold of order over the potential for disaster in life. The sense of a
allel to Christ, who throughout the poem is compared to a heroic changing and unstable world is evident in the very language out of
warrior. which Old English literature was created. A language is a culture's
most precious possession, for it is the existence of a language that
Rod wres ic arrered. Ahof ic ricne Cyning,
heofona Hlaford; hyldan me ne dorste. enables a nation to express its own distinctive identity. If a country's
), urhdrifan hi me mid deorcan nreglum; on me syndon pa dolg gesiene, language is destroyed or suppressed, something of that nation has
opene inwidhlemmas; ne dorste ic hira nrenigum scd~6an. been lost forever. Old English is a language that was dominant in
Bysmeredon hie unc butu retgredere. Eall ic wres mid blode bestemed England for several hundred years, but it was also a language that was
begoten of pres guman sidan si66an he hrefde his gast onsended. imported, evolved and then, at least in its original form, died.
12 A Brief History of English Literature Old English Literature 13

in a form of English that, unlike the Germanic-influenced texts of the

Old English Language
Old English period, clearly has some continuity with the English we
Old English was spoken and written in various forms for eight cen- use today. In a word, Old English is itself replaced by Middle English.
turies, from the fifth to the twelfth century. It derived from several When we look at Old English literature in this broader time scale,
West German dialects that were brought to Britain by invaders. For we can see a degree of vulnerability in the language. Its strength and
literary and administrative purposes it always existed alongside success during the period of its ascendancy cannot be denied, but
Latin. None the less, by the eighth century it was spoken throughout there is always something that pulls in the opposite direction. In lit-
England, albeit existing in four distinguishable main forms. And it erary texts that deal repeatedly with wars, violence and incursions
never stood still; by the ninth century, for example, there was a con- there is perhaps an awareness that it is only wars, violence and incur-
siderable Danish impact upon the language. But even if it was an sions that have brought Old English as a language into existence in
imported and constantly changing language, it was also an extreme- the first place. In addition, the various dialects of Old English empha-
ly powerful and successful language. No other country in Europe at sise how the country remained divided. After the Norman Conquest,
this time could claim such a strong vernacular literary culture. From by contrast, there is a growing recognition of the English language,
our modem perspective, however, we cannot help but be aware of albeit a language that has evolved and changed considerably (with
the existence of the older Celtic languages that Old English drove out. Old English, French and Latin words integrated into it), as the native
Old English was, in this sense, the language of the usurper, the invad- tongue that can be asserted against the Norman French of the new
er and the interloper. invader. The sense, however faint, of Old English as the language that
And as we look at Old English in a longer time scale, we become has displaced the older Celtic languages contributes to the dominant
more and more aware of a curious combination of strength and vul- elegiac mood in Anglo-Saxon literature: that life is transient, that
nerability in it as a language. It displaced the Celtic languages, but time passes, and that all earthly things, including perhaps language
with the Norman Conquest the strongest vernacular written culture itself, are insubstantial and subject to change.
in Europe would be overwhelmed and absorbed by another lan-
guage, or, to be more precise, by two languages. After the Conquest,
English became subordinated to Latin as the language oflearning and
religion, while Norman French became the language of the court and
government. Old English continued to be used in some monastic
centres through to the twelfth century, but, existing in isolation, a
standard literary form of the language could not be sustained (Old
English, however, it should be noted, still underlies much of the
everyday vocabulary of modern English, for example in words such
as 'br~ad' for bread). After 1066, therefore, we enter a rather strange
period of hiatus in the history of English literature; for almost two
hundred years there is very little in the way of a vernacular literature.
When English texts begin to appear again, there is, for one thing, a
-' ·
shift from alliterative measure to rhymed metrical verse. From the
point of view of the modern reader, however, the more significant
development is that the new post-Conquest English texts are written

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 Middle English Literature 15

and excluded from military service. But there was always resistance
to the new system and its new laws. In 1215 the barons forced King
2 Middle English Literature John to sign the Magna Carta, the charter ensuring rights against
arbitrary imprisonment. And in 1381 there was the Peasants' Revolt, a
popular uprising. Interestingly, the revolt took place in the middle of
the period when English literature was flourishing again. Both the
rebellion and the revival of literary activity can be regarded as signs
of a new independence, of a throwing-off of shackles. The develop-
ments in the second half of the fourteenth century should not, how-
From the Norman Conquest to Chaucer
ever, be interpreted simply as a reaction against the Norman French;
Everyone has heard of the Norman Conquest of 1066, but why it is more a matter of old and new impulses (including new impulses
should this be so? Why do we know about this invasion, whereas we in the economic life of the country that developed in the years after
might have only a vague awareness that England had experienced the plague, referred to as the Black Death, that swept across Europe
earlier waves of invasion and settlement? Some historians argue that in the second half of the 1340s) intermingling, and in the process pro-
the event is not all that significant, that we remember it simply as the ducing something different. As is the case again and again in English
last of a series of conquests of lowland Britain, and that it did not literature, it is the clash of old and new, and how they spark together
have all that much impact on the country. It is true that England, to start a creative fire, that demands our attention.
both strategically and culturally, became much more closely This is evident not just in the literature of the Middle Ages but also
involved with France, but possibly the essential pattern oflife did not in the language out of which the literature was created. As a result of
change all that much because of the Battle of Hastings. Other histori- the Conquest, Norman French in official and literary contexts,
ans, however, would take a different line (in the process, dismissing although, obviously, not in the day-to-day life of the majority of the
the alternative view as a rather suspect form of English nationalism). population, drives out Old English. There is very little English liter-
They would argue that it is not the Norman invasion itself that is sig- ature produced at the highest levels in the period between 1066 and
nificant, but how it affected the country, a new political and civil cul- 1200. What exists reflects a small and insular literary culture in
ture emerging, not immediately, but over the course of two to three retreat, helpless in the face of a continental flowering of the arts that
hundred years. In terms of literature, we see the long-term conse- reveals a wide variety of forms and styles. The span from 1066 to as
quences of the Conquest in the years between 1350 and 1400, one of late as 1350 is, indeed, sometimes designated as the Anglo-Norman
the great periods of English literature, when Geoffrey Chaucer, period, because· the non-Latin literature of that period was written
William Langland, the Gawain poet and others were all writing. mainly in Anglo-Norman, the French dialect of the new ruling class
Initially, it is clear, the Conquest can be regarded as a military and in England. A confident vernacular literature only really re-emerges
political imposition upon England; indeed, until the accession of after 1350, when English increasingly became the language spoken
King John in 1199, England effectively became an extension of north- by those who had formerly used French. This fact was given official
ern France. The idea of Saxon subjection is embodied in a change that recognition in 1362, when English became a permitted language in
affected the status of the general mass of the English population; the law courts, and in 1385, when English became widely used in
Germanic concept of the 'churl', the ordinary free man, farming his schools. But it was a form of English markedly different from Old
land but owing personal military service to his lord or king, was English, with many lexical loans from French and the deletion of
replaced by the convention of the feudal villein, bound to the land many Germanic words. This reordering of the language once more

14
16 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 17

suggests how the thought processes of two cultures are likely to be Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Sir Gawain
found combining in the works of Chaucer and his contemporaries. and the Green Knight
A sense of activity and intermingling is very clear in the variety of
The evolution of something new is most apparent in some of the
Middle English literature. In broad terms, we can sum up Old English
developments in religious writing in Middle English literature. One
literature as belonging to a heroic age or heroic culture. 'Heroic'
immediate consequence of the Norman Conquest was a greater
means concerned with epic battles and legendary or mythic figures;
degree of control over the English Church. Under Lanfranc, appoint-
when applied to literature, it suggests a formal arid dignified poetry
ed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070, the church was reorganised,
dealing with grand concepts such as fate, honour, vengeance and
with greater unity and discipline; essentially, the English Church was
social duty. Its key theme is loyalty to one's lord, or to God. It is a good
integrated into the Norman mainstream. Those serving in the church
deal more difficult, however, to find one word that sums up Middle
naturally accepted this new dispensation, but in the second half of
English literature, because the voices we hear are extremely diverse.
the fourteenth century we start to hear some different voices. Julian
There are some courtly romances, that call upon continental influ-
of Norwich's prose work Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love describes her
ences, but there is also a flourishing strain of popular and domestic lit-
visionary experiences. The text exists in two versions, the latter pro-
erature. There are, in addition, religious dramas, prose narratives, lyric
duced after twenty years of meditation. The intervening years, from
poems, and, perhaps most intriguingly, a number of important works
1373 to 1393 (the exact dates are disputed), in which Julian was a
by women writers. Amidst such variety, however, it is consistently
recluse, were a period of strictly enforced religious orthodoxy across
clear that the English language itself is changing, and that a recognis-
the country. Possibly there was a feeling that the increasing use of
ably different kind of social order is coming into being:
English, in the law, education and literature, constituted a threat to
Ther was also a Nonne, a PRIORESSE, the established religious order which still used Latin for all its ser-
That ofhir smylyng was ful symple and coy; vices. In this context, we can point to the followers of John Wycliffe,
Hire gretteste ooth was but by Seinte Loy; who, defying authority, embarked upon a translation of the Bible
And she was cleped madame Eglentyne. [named] from Latin into English in the 1380s. In a not dissimilar fashion, one
Fu! wee! she soong the service dyvyne, [sang] of the most distinctive features of Julian's account of her visionary
Entuned in hir nose ful semely, [chanted] experiences is the way in which she conveys theological and, indeed,
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetishly, [elegantly] personal concerns in a direct manner to a lay readership through her
After the scale of Stratford atte Bowe. [school] use of imagery:
(General Prologue, 11. 118-25)
In this sodenly I saw the rede blade trekelyn downe fro under the gar-
These lines from Chaucer's General Prologue (c.1395) describe the lande, hote and freisly and ryth plenteously, as it were in the time of his
Prioress, one of the pilgrims journeying towards Canterbury to visit passion that the garlande of thomys was pressid on his blissid hede, ryte
the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket, who had been murdered by so both God and man, the same that sufferd thus for me. I conceived
Henry II. We still need to translate the lines, but many of the words treuly and mightily that it was himselfe shewed it me without ony mene.
(Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love, ch. 4)
are close to their modem form. Interestingly, the extract focuses on
the Prioress's voice, on how she sang and where she learned to speak There is, for the most part, nothing all that radical about what Julian
French. It is as if Chaucer is aware that, in a society in a state of flux, has to say, although her idea of Jesus as Mother is tantalising. What
it is the language that people use that provides possibly the clearest really matters in Revelations of Divine Love, however, is the manner in
indication of the nature of that society and how it is changing. which things are said, a manner that speaks to the public beyond the
 18 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 19

walls of the religious retreat and without the insistent mediation of a also demonstrates how literary texts are closely bound up with the
priest. changing history of the country.
Margery Kempe, another prose mystic writer, is a far more contro- One way in which this is particularly apparent in the Middle Ages is
versial figure. She was a married woman, with fourteen children, in the increasing diversity of literary texts, reflecting an increasingly
who, as she relates in the Book ofMargery Kempe (c.1432-8), had visions diverse world. Margery Kempe, we may well feel, writes from the side-
of meeting Christ, in effect claiming a kind of sacred link to God that lines. At the heart of educated culture, by contrast, is Sir Gawain and the
was not controlled or sanctioned by the church. The fact of her illit- Green Knight (c.1375). Even here, though, diversity is apparent. The
eracy (the book, in which she speaks about herself in the third per- Gawain poet (we do not know his identity, but it is generally assumed
son, was dictated to an amanuensis) is significant; it suggests how her that he wrote three other poems, Cleanness, Patience and Pearl) was writ-
autobiography is a work that speaks for those who have not previ- ing at the same time as Chaucer, that is the late fourteenth century, but
ously had a voice, and who are outside the recognised social and writes in the dialect of the Northwest Midlands, which is unlike, and
political boundaries: far less accessible to the modern reader than, Chaucer's English:
On pe next day sche was browt in-to pe Erchebishopys Chapel, & per pis kyng lay at Camylot vpon Krystmasse,
comyn many of pe Erchebischopys meny, despisyng hir, callyng hir With mony luflych Jorde, ledez ofpe best,
'looler' & 'heretyke', & sworyn many an horrybyl othe pat sche xulde be Rekenly ofpe Rounde Table alle po rich breper,
brent. With rych reuel oryzt and rechles merpes.
[On the next day she was brought into the Archbishop's Chapel, and [The king was at Camelot at Christmas
there came many of the Archbishop's meinie, despising her, calling her With many a handsome lord, the best of knights,
'loller' and 'heretic', and swore many a horrible oath that she should be fittingly all the noble brotherhood of the Round Table
burnt.] with appropriately splendid revels and carefree pleasures.]
(Book of Margery Kempe, ch. 52) (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Fitt 1, II. 37-40)
The fact that she is a woman and mother is also relevant; she speaks The existence of a confident vernacular poem in a distinctive region-
on behalf of those who have contributed a great deal, but who have al variation of English attests to the varied energy of English culture
received no recognition from the church. The book focuses on the at this time. But what is also clear about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
way she feels she has been on spiritual trial, separated from the is that it owes a very large debt to French literary culture. The poem
church which has persecuted her. What we see in the Book of Margery is a romance, a form that resembles epic in that it features a hero's
Kempe is something repeatedly encountered in English literature: sud- adventures, but at the heart of romance is the idea of the single hero
denly the voice of the disenfranchised is heard, speaking in a new on a quest. Perhaps the crucial difference between epic and romance,
way and from a new position. The appearance of such a voice repre- however, is that epic is concerned with tribal warfare (as in the
sents and conveys an idea of a broader change in the society of the Anglo-Saxon period), whereas romance stresses the importance of a
day. In the case of Margery Kempe, this woman's intervention is not chivalric code. It is a kind of mirror, albeit a distorting mirror, in
an isolated gesture, but symptomatic of how a whole range of new which a member of the court sees an exaggerated version of the trials
voices are beginning to be heard in English society starting in the sec- he might have to face in life, and is also presented with a model of
ond half of the fourteenth century, in particular as the oral culture how he should conduct himself.
intersects with the developing written culture. As such, the Book of Medieval romance developed as a narrative verse form in twelfth-
Margery Kempe, while interesting as an account of one woman's life, century France, and then spread to other parts of Europe. What we
20 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 21

are confronted with in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, therefore, is a later, seeking the Knight, Gawain stops at a lord's castle, and, during
poem that owes everything to the impact of French literary models a further test, embarks upon an amorous relationship with his host-
on England. At the same time, though, there is a contradictory ess. He then finds the Green Knight, who, after mocking Gawain,
impulse in the poem, provided in no small measure by its use of an delivers nothing more than a light blow on Gawain's neck. The Green
English setting and the English language. It also calls upon the myth Knight then reveals himself as the lord of the castle; he contrived the
and tradition of Arthur. Gawain is the most favoured knight at challenge and the amorous temptation to test Gawain's integrity as a
Arthur's court (this story, if not the poem, is from the period before knight. Gawain passed the test in every respect except one; he had
later writers introduced the character of Launcelot). Stories about kept silent about a gift of a magical green lace belt that he received
Arthur can be traced back as far as the ninth century. It is, however, from the lady.
Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain, written in There are various layers of meaning in Sir Gawain, but the major
Latin in the twelfth century, who turns Arthur into a romantic king issue is the testing of a knight; it is a double test, of Gawain's courage
aided by the magic of Merlin. The Round Table makes its first and honour. In Beowulf the hero is tested in conflict, but in Sir Gawain
appearance about 1154, in Wace's Roman de Brut. The Arthurian story and the Green Knight the hero is tested in respect of the entire manner
then continued to be developed in France; so much so that, when in which he conducts himself. There is a courtly and chivalric ideal
Thomas Malory wrote Morte D'Arthur in the fifteenth century, he that he must live up to. The tension in the story is provided by sex; it
worked mainly from French sources and French ideas. The appeal of is possible that Gawain will be tempted by and yield to his hostess.
the Arthur story in England was that it provided a focus for dis- And to a certain extent he is tempted. What the reader might reflect
cussing the state of the nation and expressing an emergent national- upon, however, is the gap between the courtly, and literary, ideal and
ism. At the time of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight this was still an the reality of physical desire. It is as if mundane reality challenges the
embryonic nationalism, as the dominant impulse, politically, cul- whole received structure of medieval culture. In the process, the
turally and in terms of religion, was still to see England as part of poem explores the nature and limitations of personal integrity, cul-
something larger that transcended the nation state - as part, that is, minating in the hero's acquisition of self-knowledge. In more gener-
of a knightly or chivalric code sworn to defend the Christian faith al terms, though, the experience of the poem might be described as a
and to restore Jerusalem (which had been recaptured by the contest between the roma,nce literary form, with its emphasis on
Saracens in n87) to Christian rule. In the violent background to elaborate courtly behaviour imported along with the French lan-
much English literature of the Middle Ages are the Crusades, for guage, and a vernacular voice that is consistently ill at ease with this
which the mythic legend of Arthur provided an exemplary model of imposed narrative structure. In this respect, the Gawain poet echoes
military conduct. what we have seen in the writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight begins at Camelot. On New Year's Kempe.
Day, a figure enters the king's hall; he is gigantic in stature and All three authors work within the fold of a received set of values -
green in colour. The Green Knight issues a challenge: a member of the framework of the church or the framework of the court- but all
the Round Table will be permitted to strike a blow with the massive three chafe against such authority. It is no doubt the case that French
axe the Green Knight carries, but in a year's time this challenger writers at this time also expressed their unease about the rigour and
must seek out the Green Knight and receive a blow in return. unreality of religious and courtly ideals, but in English writers the
Arthur accepts the challenge, but Gawain begs for the contest to be articulation of a different position naturally takes the form of assert-
his. He strikes his opponent's head off, but the Green Knight picks ing their own voice. Indeed, one of the simplest ways of thinking
up his severed head, reiterates his challenge and departs. A year about Middle English literature is to see it as an encounter between
22 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 23

received, continental forms and the language, and lives, of the Both poems belong to an established convention: the dream-
English people. Nowhere is this more clearly the case than in the vision. In a dream-vision, an extremely popular form during the
works of Chaucer. Middle Ages, the poet falls asleep, usually on a May morning. In his
dream he encounters either real people or personified abstractions;
the characters he engages with represent a broad, if simplified, sce-
Geoffrey Chaucer, William Dunbar, Robert Henryson
nario of life, in which human beings either act as they should or fail
We should not forget that, for the most part, literature in the Middle to do so. Dream-vision poetry can, as such, be seen as literature that
Ages remains the preserve of those in power. The intrusion of new reflects a courtly or chivalric ideal, the dream revealing an ideal
voices, however, starts to explain the way in which the literature of which should, but all too obviously does not, pertain to the real
the period responds to, but also helps create, currents of change. world. Chaucer calls upon the dream-vision convention in the two
These currents of change are reflected in the rise of English as a liter- poems mentioned so far, and also later in The Parlement of Foules
ary language, the vernacular tongue expressing a distinctive sense of (1372-86), The House of Fame (1379-80) and the prologue to The Legend
national identity, as opposed to Norman French or Latin and their of Good Women (1372-86). His liking for the form might suggest that
associations with the continent. This is an extreme version of a Chaucer was happy to work within the constraints of received liter-
process that repeats itself throughout English literature; new voices ary moulds and ideas, but most readers of these poems sense a degree
emerge that enable the country to redefine how it conceives and sees of complication that goes beyond what we might expect to
itself. There is often, but not always, a sense of these voices as coarse encounter. There is always a tension in dream poetry, because the
and colloquial: a language closer to the language of everyday life is form depends upon conveying the disparity between high ideals and
suddenly heard in contexts that previously excluded the ordinary, the human frailty. As we might expect, desire, both sexual desire and the
familiar. Of all English writers, none is more intriguingly a partici- desire for money, is the most common human weakness. But it is
pant in such a process than Chaucer. possible to argue that Chaucer's dream-vision poems have a more
Everything that we know about Chaucer's life suggests someone at complex psychological dimension, conveying a subtle sense of needs
the heart of the established order. When young, he served in the that focus in the unconscious. It might seem misguided to impose a
household of Prince Lionel, the son of the king, Edward III. modem concept such as psychology on Chaucer's poems, but they
Subsequently, he might have studied law, and he might have visited certainly convey an understanding of human diversity that subverts
Spain on a diplomatic mission, but we do know for certain that from any impression of a simple moral intention in the poems, something
1367 he was an esquire to the royal household. He was with the king's borne out by their self-consciousness about their own artifice and
army in France in 1359, and later, 1372-3, he was in Italy, where he language.
might have met the writer-scholars Petrarch and Boccaccio. He sat in As we start to look at Chaucer's works, therefore, what we see_are
parliament, and held various appointments under Richard II. The two impulses. On the one hand, there is the debt to a received tradi-
impression, clearly, is of a man at one with the status quo. Not sur- tion: he works within an established form that, to some extent,
prisingly, when Chaucer started to write, in what is regarded as his comes complete with an established way oflooking at the world. On
first phase as a writer, he leaned heavily on French sources and the other hand, there is a sense of new feelings, new impulses, and
French forms. This is evident in The Book ofthe Duchess (c.1369), a poem new ways of thinking about life that Chaucer adds to the existing
on the death of the wife of John of Gaunt, and again in a translation form. This is to a large extent a matter of language. It is perhaps easi-
of a French verse romance, The Romaunt of the Rose (possibly c.1360), est to grasp this idea in relation to The Romaunt of the Rose. It seems
some of which is attributed to Chaucer. likely that Chaucer translated the first 1,700 lines of this poem, but in

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24 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 25

a way it does not matter who translated it. The essential point to an often amusing reflection of the pilgrims' characters. The result is
grasp is that a translation is never a straightforward conversion from an extremely lively picture of the diverse range of people who lived
what is being said in one language to the same things being said in in England during the late Middle Ages. Less obvious to the casual
another language; the act of translation transforms the text, intro- reader are the conventional formal elements in Chaucer's conception
ducing, as in The Romaunt of the Rose, a whole way of thinking that is of the work as a whole, and in the design of each tale. Transcending
engrained in the English language, and which has no exact parallel in all else is the framework of the pilgrimage; this is a colourful cross-
the French language. Consequently, Chaucer, writing in English, section of the main English social classes (there were three 'estates' or
inevitably adapts, even as he adopts, foreign literary modes, changing groups - lords, priests and labourers, and Chaucer adds urban and
them in a way that reflects broader English cultural and historical professional people), but, however varied the figures may be, they are
concerns as well as more specific circumstances. united by their sense of a religious purpose in life. In terms of the sep-
We see this again in Chaucer's second phase as a writer, when he arate tales, each belongs to an established mode; for example,
began to look towards Italian literary influences. In the years between romance, exemplum, fabliau and sermon. But the stories are often
about 1372 and 1386 Chaucer wrote The Parlement of Foules, The House of told in such a vigorous manner, and so often focus on human weak-
Fame, Troilus and Criseyde and The Legende of Good Women. The received ness, that we are left with an overwhelming impression of the gap
stories and received forms that he calls upon enable him to explore between polite literary forms and the rude untidiness of everyday life.
fundamental questions about life. But, at the same time, working in This echoes the pattern in the conception of the work as a whole: the
his own language, Chaucer is adding something new. In Troilus and gap between the religious ideal of the pilgrimage and the all-too-
Criseyde (written in the 1380s), for example, we have a tale of courtly human reality of the pilgrims.
love, with the familiar complication that human sexual desire is at It might be argued that this is a disparity that could be identified at
odds with a noble ideal. But the freshness of Chaucer's poem is to a any point in history, but what interests us in The Canterbury Tales is the
large extent a consequence of the way in which he moves towards a fact that we are seeing the social and religious aspirations of four-
sense of Troilus and Criseyde as fully developed individuals, the teenth-century people, and seeing secular and religious failings that
poem as a whole articulating an idea about the psychological realities are distinctively characteristic of this society at this time. The text, as
oflove. Troilus and Criseyde, as such, by its rewriting of a familiar story, is the case with any text, cannot be detached from the period of its
contributes to a broader movement of cultural change; along with production; it is, rather, trying to understand the late fourteenth cen-
other texts and a mass of historical evidence, it suggests a shift tury by seeking to articulate the particular desires and weaknesses of
towards a new way of thinking about individual lives, a new way of this time in a certain set of circumstances. The colloquial vigour of
thinking that will acquire increasing importance in Western society the poem is highly significant in this respect; there is a kind of poly-
over the course of several hundred years. phonic babble, a range of different and competing voices from the -
It is in Chaucer's third, English phase that he can most clearly be characters that pulls against the sense of a purpose they share on the
seen to break the mould of what he inherits from earlier writers and pilgrimage. As pilgrims they should all speak with one voice, but as
to forge something new that resonates beyond its time. The premise people they fail to do so. The experience of each individual story sup-
of The Canterbury_Tales is that pilgrims on their way to Thomas a ports this impression; a complex, at times baffling, tale develops
Becket's tomb at Canterbury divert themselves with the telling of within the essentially simple received format so that even the crudest
tales; the twenty-four stories told constitute less than a fifth of the fabliau generates complex questions.
projected work. Each tale told is, however, a vivid exploration of the Chaucer is, indeed, so proficient at illustrating human and social
personality of the speaker, and the 'General Prologue' also provides diversity that it is tempting to sum him up simply as a writer who is
26 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 27

open to the diversity of life. There is seemingly a comic and tolerant is, however, entirely consistent with the kind of ironic stance which,
tone in The Canterbury Tales, as if Chaucer is only ever amused, and while appearing just to laugh at human absurdity, is in reality intol-
never outraged, by human conduct. This .stance seems compatible erant of difference. It is part of a kind of ideological sleight-of-hand
with Chaucer's religious beliefs: perfection is the exclusive preserve in The Canterbury Tales, in which Chaucer treats the values held by
of heaven, human weakness is inevitable, and the appropriate himself and the court as the values that everyone should share. In the
response is laughter. If this is Chaucer's position, then this also seems same area, a profound sense of the importance of hierarchy perme-
the right moment at which to remind ourselves that the second half ates the whole; the Knight, who tells the first story, is at the top of the
of the fourteenth century was characterised by increased religious social pyramid, and is treated with due deference. What, therefore,
policing on the part of the church authorities. While the church emerges in the poem overall is perhaps a rather reassuring and essen-
clamped down on waywardness, Chaucer was content to laugh. But tially positive picture of the late Middle Ages. This is aided by the fact
possibly a more complex stance is in evidence in The Canterbury Tales, that Chaucer excludes uncomfortable evidence that might unsettle
a poem which, despite its popular appeal. originates from a writer things. This was a bloody and violent period, in which no king could
who was a loyal servant of the royal court. Chaucer's laughter is ever feel safe or established on the throne, but the poem offers no real
warm and generous, but actually a fairly harsh laughter is directed at sense of unrest in England (the Peasants' Revolt is barely mentioned;
anybody (for example, the Summoner) who might be judged to be a Richard II was deposed in 1399, leading to the long period of civil war
threat to the established order. What permeates the poem is an that we refer to as the Wars of the Roses). On the contrary, The
assumption that, although people have failings, all reasonable peo- Canterbury Tales does not just endorse but actually helps establish an
ple, including the reader, share the same fundamental values as the idea of a certain kind of ordered England, a world that we might nos-
poet. talgically, but incorrectly, assume once existed.
This is perhaps most evident in his attitude towards the Wife of All of this might, of course, seem to constitute a series of reserva-
Bath, a strong, independent woman who is not afraid to speak for tions about Chaucer, but this is not the case. Indeed, much of
herself, setting her own experience, gained in marriage, against Chaucer's power as a writer exists in the way that he seeks to achieve
biblical authority: a synthesis. This chapter has dealt with how new voices can pose a
threat to the established order. What is so extraordinary in Chaucer
Experience, though noon auctoritee [authority] is that new voices are given far more exposure and prominence than
Were in this world, is right ynogh for me
in any other writer of the period, yet they are all brought within the
To speke of wo that is in mariage;
orbit of Chaucer's masterly control. In particular, Chaucer allows
For, lordynges, sith I twelve yeer was of age, [since]
Thanked be God that is eterne on lyve, women far more space than the rigid boundaries of patriarchy per-
Housbondes at chirche dare I have had fyve. mitted, opening up areas of experience where they can articulate
(fhe Wife of Bath's Prologue, lines 1-6) their desires. But Chaucer also finds room for the aspirations of an
upwardly mobile figure such as the Franklin, as well as for the social
But the narrator's amused tone is not really tolerant laughter so pretensions of the Prioress and the humility of the Parson, together
much as laughter at the expense of a woman who dares to be differ- with stringent criticism of church corruption. In all of this, The
ent and who does not know her place. The narrator adopts self-dep- Canterbury Tales is a work that looks to the future, and also looks to the
recating manner, in which he affects to be the most incompetent past, and then, in negotiating between the two, creates a new voice,
story-teller on the pilgrimage; his first tale is cut short by the Host on that of poised conservatism, that will remain central in English liter-
the grounds of its exceptionally poor quality. Such self-deprecation ary culture for hundreds of years.
28 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 29

With such ideas in mind, it is interesting to consider the works of by Langland over a period of twenty-five years (from the 1360s to
a number of writers who, collectively, are often referred to as the 1386). The poet, in a poem that we recognise as a dream-vision, falls
'Scottish Chaucerians'. Gavin Douglas, William Dunbar and Robert asleep on a May morning and dreams of a crowd of people in a field,
Henryson are the main figures involved, all writing in the fifteenth a field that is bounded by a tower, the dwelling of Truth, and by a
century. The term 'Scottish Chaucerians', however, can mislead. dungeon, the house of Wrong:
Certainly there is an acknowledged debt to Chaucer in their work, as
in James I's poem The King's Quair (the King's Book) which draws on I seigh a toure on a toft trielich ymaked;
A depe dale binethe a dongeon pere-lnne,
The Knight's Tale, but it is more accurate to see these writers as part of
With depe dyches & derke and dredful of sight.
an independent tradition of Scottish poetic literature. What we see
A faire felde ful of folke fonde I there bytwene,
with Douglas, Dunbar and Henryson is the same kind of experiment Of alle maner of men pe mene and pe riche,
with form that is found in Chaucer, but one made more vigorous by Worchyng and wandryng as pe worlde asketh.
its use of the Scottish vernacular.
In Henryson's case, this is also a matter of mixing satire with a [I saw a tower on a hill-top, trimly built,
A deep dale beneath, a dungeon tower in it,
comic appreciation of human folly, as in his translation of Aesop's
With ditches deep and dark and dreadful to look at.
fables. Dunbar, however, is a far more courtly writer, producing reli-
A fair field full of folk I found between them,
gious lyrics but also official poems to celebrate James IV's marriage, Of human beings of all sorts, the high and the low,
as well as complaints about his lack of reward. It is perhaps, though, Working and wondering as the world requires.]
Douglas's translation of Virgil's Aeneid into 'Scottis' that tells us most (Jhe Prologue, 11. 14-19)
about cultural change during this period. It is not simply that authors
find room for other voices in their texts, but they also find ways of Every kind of person is in the field: honest, dishonest, generous,
incorporating diverse traditions into an increasingly powerful ver- mean-spirited, and so on. A beautiful woman, who represents the
nacular language, one that can reach both back into the past and Holy Church, explains certain things to the dreamer; for example, he
across Europe to absorb new influences. In this way the 'Scottish asks her what is Christ's will, and the woman tells him to love the
Chaucerians' do not merely follow or imitate Chaucer, but like him Lord, to do good works, and to be on guard against duplicity and
suggest the scale of change to come with the rediscovery of the clas- guile. The poem then moves on with illustrations of corruption. The
sics in the sixteenth century by writers such as Wyatt and Surrey. dreamer subsequently has another vision, of the Seven Deadly Sins,
but then, in his role as Everyman seeking salvation, he continues with
his pilgrimage to Truth. At the end of the poem he is preparing for
William Langland, Medieval Drama, Thomas Malory
the supr~me encounter, but it is at this moment that he awakens
Chaucer is so poised that we can remain all but unaware that there from his sleep, and realises, to his grief, that the world is as it ever has
are substantial political tensions behind his works. Other writers get been.
a lot more agitated about the changes that are taking place in Piers Plowman can be read simply as a religious allegory, but what
medieval society. William Langland, in particular, the author of Piers we really encounter in the poem is Langland's problems with an
Plowman, is likely to strike us as a writer who, working in a tradition- increasingly complex and corrupt society. It is essentially a deeply
al form, looks at the world around him and sees things that give him conservative poem; shocked by what he encounters, Langland wants
serious cause for concern. Piers Plowman, a religious allegory in allit- to reassert the value of traditional attitudes and the importance of a
erative verse, exists in three versions, the revisions being undertaken straightforward moral frame. But it is not the force of its religious
30 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 31

message that impresses the reader of Piers Plowman so much as the (male) members of trade guilds, each guild working on individual
sense of a tension that is conveyed: the quest for coherence in a world episodes. The plays entertained the public, provided religious
that no longer feels coherent. After 1350, as the Anglo-Norman hold instruction, and boosted civic pride and trade. The tradition was in
over England slackens, there is an increasing sense of a gap between the end suppressed by the Protestant hierarchy around the 1570s, but
an idea of order, including religious order, and the actual state of the had been in decline since the Reformation (announced by Henry
country; it is as if, in the three elements that constitute the nation - VIII's declaration in 1534 of independence from papal authority).
the church, the court and the people - the last of these, the people, Some of the best-known surviving texts come from York, Chester
are becoming more and more visible and assertive. Piers Plowman and Wakefield. If we remember that church services at this time were
offers us a dismayed vision of the diversity of English life at this time, in Latin, and that the Bible would not be translated into English until
of a loss of moral and social direction, but also, paradoxically, by 1526 (there was an earlier translation, the Lollard Bible, associated
virtue of its mixture of dream-vision and social protest, biblical nar- with John Wycliffe, in the late fourteenth century), it is clear that
rative and poetic symbol, as well as its own vigorous use of English, medieval drama represents the people's sense of their possession, as
it actually adds to this sense of diversity. against the church's official possessi~n, of the word of God. Initially
The Gawain poet, Chaucer and Langland are all at work in the sec- the church encouraged these dramas, but by the fifteenth and six-
ond half of the fourteenth century. We might expect a national liter- teenth centuries the church's attitude was more hostile. The Second
ature to build immediately on this solid foundation. Curiously, Shepherds' Play, in the Wakefield cycle, with its parody of the infant
however, there is a distinct lack of major authors and significant texts Christ in the form of a lamb, illustrates the way in which the plays
in the fifteenth century. It is not really until after 1509, the year that were also becoming increasingly secularised. As is so often the case
Henry VIII becomes king, that English literature flourishes again. in the Middle Ages, the voice of the people is in evidence, and, albeit
Henry VIII was the instigator of the English Reformation, when the in a way that the modem reader might find it hard to identify as con-
English state and then Church broke free from Rome. We can antici- troversial, conflicts with the voice of authority.
pate, from this fact alone, that the era of Henry VIII and his successors That note of conflict is perhaps less easy to identify in the morali-
will be one of the really important periods in English culture, as it is ty plays of the fifteenth century. These were plays in which vices and
a period of fundamental change; one cultural formation is over- virtues fought for the soul of humankind. This is the pattern of The
whelmed by another, and a new way of thinking about the world Castle of Perseverance, the longest of the plays, and of Mankind (c.1464).
takes shape. By contrast, the fifteenth century in England, dominated The figures employed are a mixture of personified human qualities,
by civil wars, is possibly too chaotic to be conducive to the produc- such as Covetbusness, and devils - for example, Belia! - or Vice
tion of major texts. None the less, there was a great deal of literary clowns such as Nowadays and Nought in Mankind. As their name
activity in this century, partly because of the economic prosperity of suggests, the morality plays taught or offered a moral lesson, or, as
a number of towns. In particular, there was a proliferation of popu- with John Skelton's Magnyfycence (c.1500 - Skelton was 'poet laureate'
lar literature: songs, both secular and religious, ballads, and, perhaps and tutor to Henry VIII), political satire. In the case of the most
most interestingly of all, mystery plays, sometimes also called 'mira- famous play, Everyman, the lesson is one of repentance before death.
cle plays', 'Corpus Christi plays', or, more simply, 'Cycle Plays'. Everyman, the hero, is summoned by Death to the grave. As his last
These were dramatised versions of biblical stories, with a particu- hours go by he discovers that only his Good Deeds will accompany
lar emphasis on Christ's trial, death and resurrection. By the middle him to God's judgement. What, though, we remember most is the
of the fourteenth century they were being performed in the major grim figure of Death summoning Everyman away from his worldly
towns of England (as well as across Europe). They were acted by the goods. If the conflict in the miracle plays is between an increasingly
32 A Brief History of English Literature Middle English Literature 33

secular society and church authority, in the morality plays it is There is, therefore, a fascinating relationship in Morte D'Arthur
between an increasingly affluent society and the moral doctrines of between the discourse of chivalry and the discourse of everyday life.
the church. In this connection, we might also note that Morte D'Arthur was one of
What we see in the Middle Ages is literary forms and structures of the very first English-language books William Caxton, the first
belief coming into contact, and sometimes into conflict, with the English printer, printed in 1485; it was very much part of the vernac-
English language, with both language and literature changing in con- ular culture. But possibly the most telling aspect of Morte D'Arthur is
sequence. A final, particularly interesting, example of this cross-fer- that, particularly in comparison with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it
tilisation is Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur (1469-70). This is is a valedictory work. The adultery of Launcelot and Guinevere has
another treatment of the myth of Arthur, but, by a fascinating destroyed Camelot. Even the Round Table is destroyed, and Arthur's
process of cultural exchange, it is a new version of the British story as apparently dead body is carried to the Isle of Aval on. Morte D'Arthur
taken up by a number of French writers. Malory borrows much of his 1•
can be regarded as invoking a romantic ideal in a chaotic century (the
narrative from three French texts, but also calls upon a couple of Wars of the Roses', a sustained period of civil war, continued from
English works. The initial impression, however, might be that he is 1455 to 1485), but the death of Arthur is equatable with the death of
continuing, even as late as 1470, to write in the shadow of an alien chivalry. The values that the court in the Middle Ages aspired to, even
culture. At the heart of the story are the values of the court, the if there was always a huge gap between theory and practice, are, by
notion of chivalry, and the ideal of courtly love; it is as if Malory is the time of Morte D'Arthur, a thing of the past (although chivalry
striving to maintain the values of an aristocratic elite even while this remained an important concept in the Tudor court). But if one
elite was self-evidently in decline and England suffering military impulse is dying, with the English language now having developed
disasters abroad. into something like its modem form, there is, as we move on to the
But if the work looks to the past in these respects, what we also sixteenth century, a sense of being on the edge of further exciting
have to note is that it is written in prose, and prose that is fairly close developments.
to modem English:
So hyt myssefortuned sir Gawayne and all hys brethime were in kynge
Arthurs chambir, and than sir Aggravayne seyde thus opynly, and nat in
no counceyle, that many knyghtis myght here:
'I mervayle that we all be nat ashamed bothe to se and to know how sir
Launcelot lyeth dayly and nyghtly by the quene. And all we know well
that ht ys so, and hyt ys shamefully suffird of us all that we shulde suffir
so noble a kynge as kynge Arthur ys to be shamed.'
[So it misfortuned that Sir Gawain and all his brethren were in King
Arthur's chamber, and Sir Agravain said thus openly, and not in no
counsel, that many knights might hear: 'I marvel that we all be not
ashamed both to see and to know Sir Lancelot lieth daily and nightly by
the Queen. And we all know well that it is so, and it is shamefully suf-
fered of us all that we should suffer so noble a king as King Arthur is to
be shamed.']
(Morte D'Arthur, Book 20, ch. 1)

UNlVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Fiiologia • Biblioteca
 Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 35

unit and a six-line unit; the octave develops one thought, and there
is then a change of direction in the sestet. The form was widely used
3 Sixteenth-Century Poetry by Italian poets in the later Middle Ages, usually for love poems.
Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey introduced the convention into
and Prose England in the early sixteenth century; the form flourished, its pop-
ularity reaching a peak in the 1590s, with sequences - a series of
poems, usually dwelling on various aspects of one love affair - by Sir
Philip Sidney, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Lodge, Michael Drayton and
Edmund Spenser. The most celebrated sequence, published in 1609
Sir Thomas Wyatt but circulating in manuscript in the 1590s, is by Shakespeare. As in
The literary form most commonly associated with the sixteenth cen- the Middle Ages, English Renaissance writers, it seems, have to tum
tury is the sonnet. This example, 'Whoso list to hunt', is by Sir to the continent to find literary forms they can work with. But, and
Thomas Wyatt, who held a number of posts in Henry VIII's court, this is the second main point of interest, whereas writers in the
and was closely involved with Anne Boleyn, who became Henry's Middle Ages seem to be asserting the value of the English language
second wife: almost in defiance of the imported literary forms they were using, in
Wyatt's sonnet reproduced here - and the same is true generally in
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
the sixteenth century- there is an independent voice that expresses
But as for me, alas, I may no more.
itself confidently without any sense of the form providing a con-
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
straint. It is as if the language has come of age. This linguistic confi-
Yet may I, by no means, my wearied mind dence is synonymous with a developing national confidence, that
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore the poets feel they can hold their own with continental writers,
Fainting I follow. I leave off, therefore, rather than writing in their shadow. In tum, the nation itself comes
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. to be shaped through the language and to take on its distinctive
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, identity.
As well as I, may spend his time in vaine. This is implicit in Wyatt's sonnet. At face value, 'Whoso list to
And graven with diamonds in letters plain hunt' might seem a trifling poem. All it says is that the poet is too
There is written, her fair neck round about, weary to hunt any more, although he remains intrigued by the elu-
'Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, [Touch me not] sive deer; others may pursue her, but the fact is that she is another
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'
man's property, if, indeed, a man can possess such a wild creature.
The poem, written about 1526, is an adaptation of a sonnet by the One thing that adds interest to the poem is the sense of the !ife of an
fourteenth-century Italian writer Petrarch, but, when it refers to aristocrat that is conveyed. Hunting deer is the recreation of a
hunting a deer that belongs to Caesar, seems to play teasingly, or per- courtier; it calls upon the skills required in warfare, but these have
haps anxiously, with Wyatt's own, and now hopeless, pursuit of been adapted into the rituals of a leisurely pursuit. The reference to
Anne Boleyn. the diamond-studded collar underlines the point that this is a society
There are two points of immediate interest in Wyatt's poem. One is concerned with good style rather than mere utility. Writing the son-
the reliance upon an imported literary form. The sonnet is a poem of net adds to the overall impression; the complete Renaissance gentle-
fourteen lines, which in its Petrarchan form divides into an eight-line man will be proficient in all the arts, the art of writing just as much as
36 A Brief History of English Literature
I Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 37

the art of horsemanship. There is, however, another level of compli- education that became evident in England under the Tudors; the
cation evident in the poem. It lies in Wyatt's ability to write indirect- sonnet acknowledges a debt to Italian culture and to the classics,
ly, not just about his pursuit of Anne Boleyn but more generally but is also an independent illustration in English of how the intel-
about political intrigue; how, as a courtier, he must yield to the lect can impose a pattern of rational interpretation upon life.
power of the king, and that sexual desire might motivate men as Yet there is always another dimension to sonnets: the two halves
much as political ambition. There is perhaps always a sense of quarry of the poem do not exactly match, do not balance each other.
- a woman, a secure post- that will remain permanently elusive. And Consequently, built into the very structure of a sonnet, there is an
even the poem's tone is elusive. Is Wyatt just playing with an idea, or idea of life slipping beyond the poet's ability to control it. In terms of
does the poem, written by a man who was not only involved imagery, the poet speaks of trying to hold the wind in a net, of trying,
in intrigues but also arrested on a number of occasions, offer an that is, to capture something elusive and invisible; and at a simple,
unsettling sense of the precariousness of court life;and the complex but significant, level in this poem, as in many sixteenth-century love
link between private and public affairs? poems, the woman evades capture. Wyatt's writing, therefore, can be
What we can be sure of is the subtlety of Wyatt's performance. said to demonstrate his mastery of the intrigues of court and his mas-
Petrarch's sonnet provides him with a structure in which he pro- tery of the sonnet as a disciplined intellectual composition, but the
duces something that strikes us as entirely original. He takes, that poem, both in terms of its content and in terms of its intrinsic struc-
is, the conventions of the Petrarchan love sonnet, with its hapless ture, simultaneously challenges the ability to control and compre-
male lover and remote, idealised lady, and invests them with an hend experience. This could be said to be the central theme of
ambiguous resonance resulting in a kind of doubleness so that the sixteenth-century literature: there is a constant assertion of control,
poem is at once playful and darkly sinister in tone. What we might of order, but that control is always being undermined, challenged or
also note is that this poem, and the same is true of a great deal of doubted. This will become most evident in the 1590s, a decade which
poetry in the sixteenth century, is court-based. In the Middle Ages can be represented as the period of the great sonnet sequences, but
we often seem to hear the voice of the people, but in the Tudor which can also be viewed as almost anarchic in the diversity and
period there is an assertion of royal authority. Things are not excess of its literary and political activity.
allowed to get out of hand; the court asserts its dominance, and this
includes seizing the initiative in literary discourse. This perhaps
Sixteenth-Century Prose and the Reformation
begins to explain why the sonnet became established as the
favoured form in the sixteenth century. It is not enough to say there A new confidence in the English language is evident in the strength of
was a fashion for sonnets; there are always social factors that deter- vernacular prose writing during the sixteenth century. At the same
mine fashions. Wyatt's poem leads us towards an answer. There is time, the fact that one of the most important prose works of the cen-
a delight in control reflected in the idea of the poem's set form; life tury, Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516), was written in Latin reminds us
is complex, and the pressures in life are diverse, but the poet has that a variety of impulses were at work at the time. Thomas More was
asserted an authority over such complications. This matches the Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, but resigned in 1532 because he could
political situation of the sixteenth century. England had experi- not agree with the king's ecclesiastical policy and marriage to Anne
enced thirty years of civil war, the Wars of the Roses, between 1455 Boleyn; he was executed in 1535. Henry VIII was the second Tudor
and 1485, but the Tudor period, starting with Henry VII in 1485, sees monarch. His father, Henry VII, had become the king in 1485, when he
a move from the chaos of civil war to effective, if authoritarian, overthrew Richard III. Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509. In 1517,
government. The poem also reflects a new respect for learning and Martin Luther's protest against the principle of papal indulgences
38 A Brief History of English Literature Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 39

began the Reformation; this was essentially a protest of the individ- work such as More's Utopia there is a far more positive sense of the
ual conscience against the authority of the Catholic Church. human intellect and of human capability.
When, in 1534, Henry VIII was declared 'Supreme Head on Earth' of Yet at the same time, even with More's humanist scholarship, and
the English Church it was, on the surface, because he wished to a new interest in philosophy, literature, history and art, sixteenth-
obtain a divorce, but at a deeper level it was a matter of England century England was geographically and culturally on the fringe of
declaring its independence and separate identity. Henry died in 1547. continental Europe. For men such as More, the question of whether
He was succeeded by Edward VI (aged nine), by Lady Jane Grey (for to write in Latin or English was always a difficult one. More's choice
nine days}, by Mary (a devout Catholic), and, in 1558, by Elizabeth I. of Latin signals an awareness of being part of an intellectual commu-
Her first task was the Religious Settlement of 1559, which imposed nity that extends beyond England as well as a kind of political con-
the Protestant religion by law, though in such a way that most peo- servatism (he refused to recognise Henry's divorce and was executed
ple could be accommodated within its terms. The Settlement estab- by him). But the choice of Latin also, possibly, conveys a sense of
lished England as a prime mover in the Reformation cause. The English as still relatively unstable and unproven as a language. Roger
growing strength of England was made apparent in the defeat of the Ascham, the tutor to Elizabeth before she became queen, and one of
Spanish Armada in 1588. When Elizabeth died in 1603 it brought to the many interesting intellectual courtier figures in this period, felt he
an end over a hundred years of Tudor rule, a period which can be should write in English, even though he found it easier to write in
characterised as displaying an increasing sense of national confi- Latin or Greek; indeed, his book Toxophilus (1545), which is about
dence and independence. archery, includes a significant section on the importance of using
In the first 45 or so years of Tudor government, however, England English. Ascham's commitment to English was deeply intertwined
was still a Catholic country, and, as such, very much aware of its with his sense of his English Protestant identity. In this connection, it
European identity. This is the context in which we have to consider would be hard to exaggerate the importance of the English
Thomas More. More is a new kind of figure that appears in this peri- Reformation in promoting English as the inevitable choice for the
od. In the fifteenth century educated Englishmen began to catch a writer of prose; at a fundamental level, it is only possible to express
sense of the cultural and intellectual activity that was flourishing in one's separate and independent identity in one's own language.
the Italian city states. The energy of trade and the consequent afflu- The changes that came about in the sixteenth century are illustrat-
ence produced a new interest in recovering and studying texts from ed if we consider the issue of the translation of the Bible. Before the
classical antiquity, and a new enthusiasm for learning, perhaps best Reformation, the Bible had been translated, but William Tyndale,
summed up in the term 'humanism'. The poetry of Wyatt and the Earl whose New Testament translation appeared in 1526, was burned as a
of Surrey is one manifestation of such humanist activity and of how heretic in Belgium and his translation was suppressed in England. In
the Italian Renaissance affected England, but in More's Utopia we gain 1536, however, Henry VIII gave royal licence for an English Bible,
an impression of something rather more weighty. The book looks at which was essentially the Tyndale translation. In 1560, the so-called
European society, offering solutions for some of its ills; it does this Geneva Bible was presented to Elizabeth, and became the Bible in
primarily by citing, and proceeding to describe, Utopia, a perfect standard use for nearly a century; it is, interestingly, less lofty and less
island state. It is a work that reflects a new kind of concern with ques- Latinate than the King James Bible of 1611. The fact that the Bible was
tions of government and political and social organisation. If we were now available in English should be seen in conjunction with the fact
to make a very crude comparison with earlier texts, we might argue that books were now printed, rather than existing in manuscript, and
that, while Old English writings focus on loyalty as the key value in a that by as early as 1530, it has been suggested by some historians, over
corrupt and harsh world, with religion as the only consolation, in a 50 per cent of the population could read.
40 A Brief History of English Literature Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 41

Many would argue that it is economic activity as much as political but the order that is established is fragile, and forces beyond the tight
or religious factors that prompts social and cultural change. In this control of the royal court always threaten to disturb such harmony
respect, it is important to pay attention to the activities ofElizabethan as has been established.
adventurers and the expansion of maritime activity. Richard Hakluyt's This is evident in many different ways in the sixteenth century. The
The Prindpal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English dominant voice is that of the courtly aristocrat, as in the case of Sir
Nation was published in 1589, reappearing about ten years later in a Philip Sidney's prose romance, The Arcadia. Begun in 1577 and then
greatly enlarged edition. Hakluyt's work is a compilation of ships' revised in 1580, The Arcadia is set in an ancient pastoral world where
logs, salesmen's reports and economic intelligence; it tells the story of King Basilius has taken refuge to avoid the prophecy of an oracle, and
English exploration and voyages, including accounts of Cabot's dis- tells of the adventures of two princes, Musidorus and Pyrocles, who
covery of Hudson Bay and Drake's raid on Cadiz. The particular inter- fall in love with the king's daughters. The plot is full of intrigues,
pretative power Hakluyt holds is that he takes material as unshaped as while the text itself is punctuated by verse eclogues and songs. As in
a ship's log, but moulds it into a narrative of self-identity; in no small Shakespeare's late plays, The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, the effect is
measure, this involves telling a seafaring nation that it is, indeed, a sea- to heighten by contrast the themes of love and nature, but, as in all
faring nation destined to rule the world. Again and again Hakluyt's such works, the pastoral ideal is threatened from both within and
mariners venture forth into a world that is beset by storms and dan- without, its harmony disturbed by murder and attempted rape.
ger, but they always seem to receive their reward. It is a form of divine The Arcadia was first published in 1590, but then revised and added
providence, and perhaps particularly directed at the English who are to by Sidney's sister, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, in 1593.
suitable recipients of such bounty. She also continued his verse translation of the Psalms, while her
A sense of new horizons coupled with establishing control is evi- home acted as a literary circle for other writers and thinkers. What
dent in the career of Sir Walter Ralegh. Soldier, sailor, courtier, politi- may strike modem readers most about The Arcadia is its sheer elabo-
cian, poet and historian, Ralegh seems to embody the idea of rateness intended to convey courtly sophistication, but also a certain
Renaissance man as described in contemporary literature such as eliteness. In this it is at an opposite remove from a work such as
Castiglione's The Courtier (1528), combining intellectual and heroic Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), which can be seen as
attributes. Ralegh's unfinished The History of the World (1614) reveals an early example of the novel in England and which focuses on the
something central about the age. The book starts with the Creation adventures of an English page on the continent. Nashe creates a grim
and gets as far as the second century BC. This is an ambitious, proba- picture of a world that is almost anarchically untidy, a world in
bly impossibly ambitious, attempt to comprehend the past from the which the failings and excesses of the ruling class are too apparent.
perspective of an Englishman, and through the medium of English. It But Nashe was also a vigorous opponent of the growing power of the
is, as such, entirely consistent with the expansionist, colonial mission Puritans and their wish to control both the theatre and writing. In
of England in which figures such as Ralegh sought to wrest control of this he represents a dissident stream of literature, including such
Spanish colonies on behalf of Elizabeth. But the years between 1603 popular forms as rogue literature and 'coney-catching' pamphlets
and 1616, when Ralegh was imprisoned in the Tower of London for describing con-tricks played on innocent citizens. Here is a genuine
treason, together with his execution in 1618, suggest the frailty of the alternative voice to that of the court, a voice rooted in everyday life
concept of control in England during the Elizabethan and Jacobean with all its hazards, but also a voice that is akin to popular journalism
periods. Dissent, insurrection and rebellion were common during the and popular fiction. In many ways it is the voice of the future.
Tudor period, and were suppressed ruthlessly. As with the sonnet, the It is, though, in the area of religion that the vulnerability of the
initial impression might be of an orderliness under firm authority, order established by the Tudor monarchs is most apparent. A new
42 A Brief History of English Literature Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 43

Protestant dispensation naturally found itself in contention with - The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
Catholic orthodoxy, but it also proved insufficiently radical for many And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
in the country. Martin Marprelate was the name assumed by the For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb,
author of a series of pamphlets issued in 1558-9; these were extreme Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.
But clouds of joy untried do cloak aspiring minds,
Puritan attacks on bishops, who were regarded as symbols of the
Which tum to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.
Catholicism still infecting the new Protestant Church. It should be
The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,
noted again that it is as we enter the 1590s that more and more clif- And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.
ferent voices begin to be heard, asserting their presence in an ever- The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,
growing variety of literary forms. Significantly, the government Shall be unsealed but worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.
ordered counter-attacks on the Puritan pamphlets, and also intro- The daughter of debate that discord aye doth sow
duced censorship; such actions acknowledged the strength of the Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.
forces that threatened it politically, but also indicate the way in which No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;
works of literature open up and draw attention to the faultlines of Our realm brooks not seditious sects, let them elsewhere resort.
change. The Tudor period is characterised by strong central leader- My rusty sword through rest shall first his edge employ
ship, and this is echoed in a court-based literature that, as in the clev- To poll their tops that seek such change or gape for future joy.
erness of so many sonnets, revels in poise, authority and control. But The poem was apparently written in reply to a sonnet sent by
the very fact of strong government is also a recognition of the exis- Elizabeth's cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, asking to see her.
tence of disruptive forces in a changing country. It is a rejection of Mary's request and her attempts to deceive through
guile. What, however, is interesting about the poem is not simply its
author but its explicit concern with politics. We might, of course,
The Sonnet: Sir Philip Sidney and William Shakespeare
expect this in Elizabeth's case, but it does suggest the extent to which
There are many examples of popular culture - songs, ballads, some poetry was not merely a courtly pastime but a form charged with
prose fiction - that survive from the sixteenth century, and also texts political resonance. This is true both of poems such as Mary Sidney's
by writers from a diverse range of social backgrounds, but more than translations of the Psalms and Isabella Whitney's poems about the
in any other century it is necessary to pay attention to poetry as the changing structure of Tudor society. Unlike Mary Sidney, Isabella
preserve of the court, of people who wrote as a civilised recreation. Whitney came from the lower-middle class, and her writing in the
The major sonnet sequences of the century were not written for pub- 1570s points to the emergence of a more open literary culture. It is
lication, merely circulated in manuscript amongst a select circle. not, however, until the 1640s and 1650s, in a period of political
These sonnet sequences were, for the most part, written by men upheaval, that women's voices are heard to any great extent, along
whose lives were conducted on the public stage, as soldiers and with the voices of others who have previously been excluded and
politicians. A key figure here is Sir Philip Sidney, but Edmund kept silent. By and large, the earlier years belong to male writers.
Spenser, for example, was at the heart of the colonial administration Sidney's sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella, published in 1591, five
in Ireland. It was very much a male culture. years after Sidney died, was instrumental in inspiring the numerous
But poems by a number of women, including Mary Sidney, other sonnet sequences of the 1590s, including Shakespeare's. It con-
Aemelia Lanyer and Elizabeth herself, who translated and wrote a sists of 108 sonnets and u songs, and was written around 1582. The
great deal, do survive. One of the best-known poems by Elizabeth is poems are addressed by Astrophil (Greek for 'star-lover') to Stella, his
The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy': 'star' (derived from Latin). Another context for the poem is provided
44 A Brief History of English Literature Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 45

by Sidney's The Defence of Poesie (1579-80), which, with its claim of the his education in the classics should steady him, rather than make him
superiority of poetry to history and philosophy in questions of moral giddy. By birth, the poet is a man set for great things, but where will
virtue, reveals the extent to which Sidney was familiar with the clas- such foolishness lead? The poet then, however, in the closing words
sics and European discussions about the nature and function of art. of the poem, answers his friend: nothing in the world is as fair as
Though entitled a 'defence', the work exudes confidence in the way Stella. As is so often the case with a sonnet, this might appear to
that it reconciles a careful rhetorical structure with an engaging style. amount to very little. But it is possible to unwrap layer upon layer of
There is an impression of Sidney absorbing continental influences, complication in the poem's language. At a simple level, the poem
transferring them to an English context, and writing with an air of tells us a great deal about the education of a Renaissance gentleman.
independent authority. In a similar way, Astrophil and Stella as a This includes reading the classics, acquiring proficiency as a writer,
sequence takes everything it needs in terms of convention and form and generally experiencing a moral education that will prepare a
from Petrarch, but stands on its own as a major move forward in young man for public life. What we are also likely to notice immedi-
English poetry. It would be possible to consider the sequence as a ately is the cleverness with which the poem conveys its ideas. The
whole, which would demand attention to the dramatic coherence of most obvious technique is Sidney's play with metaphor, such as
the narrative that develops, and the manner in which the poems, when he compares his writing to bad servants; servants, and words,
cumulatively, create a sense of obsession, of being caught in a psy- should play their assigned role, rather than stepping out of line. But
chological impasse. It is probably more helpful here, however, to the poem itself is a witty demonstration of words not being kept in
consider the issues raised by one sonnet seen in isolation. check; indeed, it is characterised by just the kind of irresponsibility
In this sonnet the speaker addresses a friend who has rebuked him that his friend condemns.
for neglecting his studies in favour of Stella: At the end of the poem, in a clever reversal, he manages to turn the
tables on his friend. He is condemned for writing 'vain thoughts', but
Your words, my friend , right healthful caustics, blame
when his friend, in a rather hackneyed metaphor, advises him, 'your
My young mind marred, whom Love doth windlass so,
wisdom's golden mine / Dig deep with learning's spade', the poet wins
That mine own writings like bad servants show
My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame; the argument by the plainness of his closing statement. Again, how-
That Plato I read for nought, but ifhe tame ever, this returns us to the question of whether this is anything more
Such coltish gyres, that to my birth I owe than clever. The answer would seem to be that here, as in many son-
Nobler desires, least else that friendly foe, nets, questions are raised about the status of writing and its relation-
Great expectation, wear a train of shame. ship to meaning and truth. The wit that is such a feature of sonnets -
For since mad March great promise made of me, the kind of play with language that is apparent in the poem - becomes
If now the May of my years much decline, so self-conscious as to become suspect. The poet is aware that he is
What can be hoped my harvest time will be? constructing a kind of self-enclosed verbal world which seems to
Sure you say well; your wisdom's golden mine relate to the real world, but which is possibly just a form of ingenious
Dig deep with learning's spade; now tell me this,
pattern-making. This all has particular relevance in sixteenth-century
Hath this world ought so fair as Stella is?
England. Just as the court maintains power but is aware of the fragili-
(Astrophil and Stella, sonnet 21)
ty of the regulation that it maintains over the country, so Sidney's son-
The friend's words of advice are compared to a corrosive cure for the net seems to acknowledge the precarious nature of the control that
poet's mind, which has been pulled off its true course by love. What he the poet maintains. This is particularly an issue in a Protestant coun-
writes is characterised by vain thoughts rather than weighty matters; try. In a state that has rejected the authority of the Catholic Church,
UNIVERSiDAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. F1lo!ogia - Biblioteca
 ,.
46 A Brief History of English Literature Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 47

with what authority does the king or queen speak? Is there any sub- Some of these points are evident in the following sonnet:
stance to titles such as 'Supreme Head on Earth' of the English
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
Church, or is this a little like the spurious control evident in a sonnet,
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
merely a form of ingenious word play? When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
Can a love poem, however, really be described as having such far- And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
reaching implications as these? Not directly, of course. lbere is no When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
hidden political agenda in Sidney's poem: it is not about the Protestant Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
and Catholic churches or the position of Elizabeth I in relation to the And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Pope. But the gender issue in the poem does echo the larger issues Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
raised in the paragraph above. In a love poem, it is usually the case that When I have seen such interchange of state,
a male poet addresses a female subject; essentially, he strives to bring Or state itself confounded to decay,
her under his control. But the woman remains free and elusive (hence Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate:
the need to return to her in sonnet after sonnet). The issue of control That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
and the fragility, perhaps impossibility, of control is thus always well
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
to the fore in a love poem. It is this troubling problem that connects
(Sonnet 64)
to larger social and political questions outside the text.
The issues mentioned here are also central to Shakespeare's son- The poet places himself outside the normal span of life, imagining
nets, but Shakespeare takes everything a stage further. This is partly a the process of decay, of buildings razed to the ground, the ocean eat-
matter of ability, that Shakespeare can out-perform the verbal gym- ing into the shore, and state - in the sense of material existence, but
nastics of any of his contemporaries. But it is also a matter of also, as in 'state occasion', meaning worldly grandeur - decaying. He
Shakespeare writing in the 1590s, as the control maintained by then turns from these lofty themes to the subject of his love, and, in
Elizabeth became more and more strained, and also because a manner that echoes Sidney's sonnet, switches from verbal ingenu-
Shakespeare is outside the established order of the court and more ity to a plain statement about his loss. We could point again, there-
open to an idea of flux and instability. As an illustration of this, the fore, to the textuality of Shakespeare's sonnet, the way in which there
majority of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to a man; it is a char- is a kind of gap between the verbal game and the reality ofloss. And
acteristically clever move, for it immediately unsettles the usual con- just as in Sidney's sonnet, this raises questions about how we control
vention of a love poem, that the male controls the elusive woman. A and comprehend life.
conventional love poem may question the assumptions inherent in But a rather different picture of daily experience is offered in
such thinking, but many of Shakespeare's sonnets start by unsettling Shakespeare's sonnet, a picture that does not resemble the courtly
even our initial expectations and ways of thinking. At a straightfor- impression in a Sidney sonnet. There is a sense of a commercial soci-
ward level, Shakespeare's sonnets obviously have a great many ety: Shakespeare uses the words 'rich', and 'cost' as in finance; there
insightful things to say about the experience of being in love, and it is, with the sea references, an awareness of maritime activity; and
would be foolish to deny the way in which they communicate with 'store' and 'loss' seem to be as much business concepts as images of
many readers, but a history of English literature, rather than just the changing landscape. There is something deeply significant about
drawing attention to the timeless qualities in Shakespeare's writing, this. Over the course of the following centuries, Britain will increas-
should also be concerned with the way these sonnets function in ingly see itself as a business-based trading nation; just a few years in
their own time. the future, the Civil War can be interpreted as a confrontation
48 A Brief History of English Literature Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 49

between the court and the economic interests of a new class of men. Again, another pastoral poem, followed, then Four Hymns and
Shakespeare's sonnet can be said, therefore, to be moving towards Prothalamion, another marriage poem, in 1596. He then wrote a prose
articulating a sense of the new way in which people are beginning to dialogue, A View of the Present State of Ireland. His crowning achieve-
structure, think about and make sense of their lives. But the lack of ment, however, was The Faerie Queene, the first three books appearing
balance in a sonnet again works effectively; the complicated time in 1590, and the second three in 1596. The six completed books
shifts, the way in which, as soon as an image is offered, that image is together with the 'Mutability Cantos' appeared in 1609, ten years
destroyed, and the intrusion of personal concerns into the broader after Spenser's death.
concerns voiced in the poem, all serve to create a sense of disorder When a poet produces a work on the scale of The Faerie Queene
that makes the poem unsettling. It is this doubleness, this method of there is a temptation to see the writer's earlier works as merely prepa-
moving beyond the confines of the moment to larger issues of cul- ration for the great work. With Spenser, as is the case with John
tural change, and capturing that notion of change in the very form of Milton and Paradise Lost, there is some substance in such a view.
the text, which enables us to see why the speaker fears the workings Spenser is a serious and moral poet; even the poems in his sonnet
of time. Again and again Shakespeare surpasses his predecessors in sequence are never frivolous in the way that might be said of some
the sonnet, both in the way that he conveys a new stage in sixteenth- other sixteenth-century sonnet-writers. Consider, for example, his
century life, and in the amount of slippage and disturbance that he ode Epithalamion, which appears at the end of his sonnet sequence.
acknowledges in a poem. The poem celebrates Spenser's marriage to Elizabeth Boyle at Cork,
in Ireland, in 1594. Its 24 stanzas represent the hours of Midsummer's
Day. In this short extract, Spenser describes his bride:
Edmund Spenser
The sonnet might be the form that is most typical of the sixteenth Loe, where she comes along with portly pace
Lyke Phoebe from her chamber of the East,
century, but it is, of course, not the only form poets employed. If we
Arising forth to run her mighty race,
take the example of Edmund Spenser: born in 1552, in 1580 he Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best.
became secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, (II. 148-51)
and was given lands there. In 1588 he acted as one of the 'under-
takers' for the settlement of Munster, and was clearly part of the It is the delicate beauty of Spenser's writing that is most apparent. He
establishment of colonial rule in Ireland. It is this that provides seems to create a perfect world, a world where happiness is the domin-
the dark background to his work, especially The Faerie Queene, his ant emotion. There is little evidence of the darker aspects of expe-
unfinished epic. Committed to an idea of the public role of poetry as rience that we encounter in so many works of literature. Yet there is
a vehicle for developing a Protestant culture in England, his literary a slight sense of not facing up to the real world in Epithalamion; the
career started in 1569 with the translation of a number of texts, poem moves so slowly, and the preparations for the wedding are so
including sonnets by Petrarch and an anti-Catholic tract by a Dutch detailed, that it is as if Spenser wishes to delay the moment of com-
Calvinist. The Shepheardes Calender, a pastoral poem, looking back to mitment. After Midsummer's day, after the wedding, everything will
a lost golden age, followed in 1579; significantly, it includes a pane- be a little bit darker. In a related way, we might note how the female
gyric to Eliza (Elizabeth I), the queen of shepherds. In the same year, figure in Epithalamion is contained within the dominant masculine
on the death of Lady Howard, he wrote an imitation of Chaucer's code of writing; the woman is beautiful, but never troublesome, and
Book of the Duchess, and in 1595 he published Amoretti, a sonnet never given a voice, never allowed to speak.
sequence, and Epithalamion, a marriage poem. Colin Clout's Come Home It is a little surprising to realise that this poem was written in the
50 A Brief History of English Literature Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose 51

1590s, for what we also come across in this decade is a surge of com- One of the ways in which The Faerie Queene achieves this mythic
peting voices and different forms. Implicit in Epithalamion is an idea of glorification of the queen is by retreating to a world of medieval
holding the established order together, but Spenser is holding it romance where the principles and values of chivalry can be kept
together in a decade where we find evidence of instability, confusion alive. Indeed, as he relates stories about knights, Spenser is continu-
and change: almost 15,000 people died of the plague in London in ing the tradition of providing a model of conduct for a gentleman, in
1593, and there were twelve riots in the city in the one month ofJune this instance a Protestant English gentleman. The poem follows the
1595. Epithalamion seems to belong to a timeless world, but in the adventures of six knights who encounter threats to their honour and
1590s, with Elizabeth growing old, and the absence of a direct heir, it integrity, but, as we might expect, outwit, repel or fight off all such
is apparent that time is running out for the Tudors. The literary diver- threats. It is, although unfinished, a poem on a massive scale but
sity of the 1590s is apparent in Shakespeare's first highly productive employs a standard stanza pattern throughout, the so-called
decade (Shakespeare in context is the subject of the next chapter), Spenserian stanza:
and the first plays by Ben Jonson. In poetry, there are gloomy
Calvinistic religious poems by Fulke Greville, John Marston's satiric A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
diatribes, and early works of John Donne, which are mainly verse Y cladd in mightie armes and siluer shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,
satires. Epithalamion seeks to offer an impression of a timeless world,
The cruel] markes of many a bloudy fielde;
but much of the other activity, particularly satirical writing, that sur-
Yet armes till that time did he neuer wield:
vives from this decade conveys a sense of the furious upheaval of the His angry steede did chide his faming bitt,
1590s. As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
It is clear that Spenser is fully aware of the complexity of the world Full iolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
around him. Indeed, as a representative of the English crown in As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.
Ireland, and with the destruction of his house in Ireland in Tyrone's (The Faerie Queene, I, 1.1)
Rebellion of 1598, he could not have avoided the unrest of the 1590s.
But while a poem such as Epithalamion seeks to create a peaceful time- The consistent use of this stanza pattern creates an interesting effect;
lessness, The Faerie Queene attempts to hold together a unified vision the poem can flirt with danger, but repeatedly everything is made
of the world. As with any poem, it is open to question how to begin safe, in effect embraced in and subdued by the untroubled repetition
a critical discussion of it, but with The Faerie Queene it seems natural to of this soothing stanza pattern. Essentially, the Faerie Queene, aided
start with the fact that it is dedicated to Elizabeth I, who, in real life, by her loyal knights, can cope with and subdue every challenge, every
in the way she projected an image of herself, and in the manner of her hint of insurrection and every sign of danger. There is even a kind of
public statements, provided the coherence that held the country magic about the way in which the court can maintain such good
together. This was supported by numerous agents and servants of the order.
crown, all dedicated to supporting her authority, but overwhelming- But can such a poem still be interesting to read? There was a time
ly, and almost in the manner of the leaders of some of the former when critics used to focus almost exclusively on the peacefulness,
Communist countries of Eastern Europe, she sought to unite the coherence and confidence of The Faerie Queene. Critics today, how-
country through the force of her personality and even more through ever, concentrate more on the signs of strain in the poem, including,
the projection of an image of herself as semi-divine. Spenser's poem for example, the seductiveness of the idea of a knight abandoning his
is not only permeated with this sense of Elizabeth but is also very principles and commitment to moral virtue. Possibly the poem pays
actively contributing to and helping to create the myth. more attention to the threats, and takes them more seriously, than
52 A Brief History of English Literature

some critics would have registered in the past. There is evidence of a

lack of poise and control in the poem as threats are considered that,
in some way, echo or seem to relate to the Irish experiences of
Spenser, especially in Books V and VI where the text is constantly 4 Shakespeare
disrupted by violent images and an idea of violent forces. There are
people who are so far beyond the pale that the writer finds them
repellent; at such points, an anxious quality to Spenser's distaste
cannot be concealed.
The most telling point about The Faerie Queene, however, is simply
the fact that it is unfinished. It was Spenser's death that prevented the Shakespeare in Context
poem from progressing further, but it is perhaps just as valid to sug- Elizabeth I died unmarried and without a direct heir in 1603. It seems
gest that the kind of diversity and unrest that we witness by the 1590s more than a coincidence that William Shakespeare's most celebrated
cannot really be embraced within the unified vision of one poem, works, his major tragedies, were written around this time. Hamlet was
even a poem on the scale of The Faerie Queene. In that sense the poem, probably first performed in 1600 or 1601; then, after the death of
even as it looks back to Chaucer and the medieval romance tradition, Elizabeth, Othello (1604), King Lear (1605) and Macbeth (1605-6) were
oddly anticipates the modem world where it becomes increasingly staged in rapid succession. The reign of Elizabeth can be charac-
impossible to connect everything together. terised as a successful period in English history, with commercial and
military successes (most notably, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in
1588) contributing to a growing sense of national confidence. In addi-
tion, Elizabeth's Religious Settlement of 1559, enforcing the
Protestant religion by law, cemented a sense of the national identity.
But the very idea of imposing a uniform religious identity on people
does begin to draw attention to fundamental problems in the
Elizabethan period, problems that were to become more acute in the
latter years of the queen's reign.
Many people, both Catholics and Puritans, were less than happy
with Elizabeth's religious settlement. For Puritans, the official version
of Protestantism, with its bishops and retention of some aspects of
Catholic ritual, was incompatible with their vision of a much more
austere reformation of the church and its services. Such differences
of opinion were echoed in politics. Elizabeth, understandably,
wished to maintain a tight grip on power, and was notoriously reluc-
tant to summon Parliament. But Parliament during Elizabeth's reign
began to display its independence in an unprecedented manner.
What we see in both religion and politics is the presence, and grow-
ing assertiveness, of a variety of voices all demanding their say in
how the country conducted itself. It can, of course, be argued that we

53
54 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 55

would encounter a variety of voices in any society at any time, but it the Puritans with his High Church views, and who also found himself
is particularly in the nature of an expansionist trading nation, the at odds with Parliament - that Shakespeare writes. His plays, in both
kind of nation England was developing into in the late sixteenth cen- a light-hearted and a serious way, repeatedly feature rebellious char-
tury, that it will be characterised by independent voices. The dynam- acters who challenge established authority. But they are also con-
ic energy displayed by the merchant class is no less present in cerned with leadership. A substantial number of the plays feature
religious, political and social life generally, with a similar energy and monarchs who, in unsettled times, have established a degree of sta-
potential for disruption. The overlapping of business and politics is bility, but just as many feature monarchs and other authority or
evident, for example, in 1601 in the way Elizabeth was forced to father figures who fail miserably in asserting control. Drama at any
retreat on the question of the crown's monopoly over granting man- time is the ideal medium for a debate about leadership, as a play's plot
ufacturing and trading licences. is built upon the premise of conflict and confrontation, but this was
As long as Elizabeth remained alive, however, she seemed able to especially the case in Elizabethan England. The new playhouses,
hold together conflicting interests in the nation, managing to control based in London, were close to the very heart of the political life of
or eliminate its dissident members. We can point, for example, to the the country, but also in touch with the new and dynamic forces in
failure of an attempted rebellion by the Earl of Essex in 1601, an society and its expanding business and intellectual environment.
abortive coup that led to his execution (his son, it is relevant to note, Such rapid shifts in a society - London's population soared during
was a leader of the Parliamentary army during the Civil War). The Shakespeare's lifetime and its growth outstripped every other city in
means by which the queen held the country together is an intriguing Europe - destabilise and question accepted structures, raising doubts
and complex subject, but one important aspect was the way in which about order and government. At the same time, it is important to
Elizabeth projected an image of herself as the embodiment of the recognise that a play is a performance, an illusion created on a stage,
nation. As we saw in the previous chapter, literature, especially a and that a play can self-consciously draw attention to the way in
work such as Spenser's The Faerie Queene, contributed to this image. which it is an illusion; in particular, it can draw attention to the man-
But the problem with an image is that it is nearly always at odds with, ner in which the illusion of order, and especially the authority of
or a covering over of, reality. In the 1590s, in particular, more and monarchical rule, is created. The various elements touched on here,
more discontented voices were heard in the country, fuelled by vari- including worries about what might happen following the death of
ous factors: bad harvests, the growing enclosure of commons, pover- the queen, all come together in Shakespeare's great tragedies at the
ty and oppression. Even within the court there was impatience with start of the seventeenth century. The point at which we have to start,
an elderly monarch, who procrastinated rather than accepting however, is when Shakespeare embarks upon his career as a drama-
change. But the most serious threat was the sense that the unity of the tist, in the ferment of new ideas, political activity and social unrest of
nation might fall apart with the death of the queen, particularly as the 1590s.
there was no direct heir. It had been agreed that James VI of Scotland
would succeed to the English throne, but when he did succeed, as
Shakespeare's Comedies and Histories
James I, many of his new subjects were intensely suspicious of his
intentions. After all, his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been a Shakespeare's career in the theatre begins with three plays about
Catholic - might he not seek to reimpose Catholicism upon the Henry VI, written between 1590 and 1592 (the dates for all of
country? Shakespeare's plays are conjectural). It is more illuminating, howev-
It is in this context - the closing years of the reign of Elizabeth and er, if we look at his first decade as a whole, dividing the plays into
the opening years of the reign of James I, who increasingly alienated three groups. There is a variety of early plays, plays which might be

UNiVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
\ Fae. Filo\ogia • Biblioteca
56 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 57

regarded as apprentice works in which Shakespeare is learning his popularity, becoming a favourite of the queen - The Merry Wives of
craft: The Two Gentlemen ofVerona, Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, Windsor was written at royal insistence. But, as a commercial play-
Love's Labours Lost, and Romeo and Juliet. Then, as the decade progress- wright, Shakespeare also occupied a position outside the culture of
es, two other groups of plays become distinct. There is a group of the court. This leads directly to one of the central questions about
English History plays written between 1592 and 1599: Richard III, Shakespeare's plays: did he write in defence of the established order,
Richard II, King John, 1 Henry N, 2 Henry N and Henry V. Julius Caesar, first or as a sceptical critic of its political values?
staged in 1599, is one of Shakespeare's Roman plays, but is considered It is a question that we can start to consider as we look at Much Ado
in this section as it is in many ways the logical culmination of the About Nothing. The play begins with the return from war of Don
English History plays, taking up their central concerns, though it Pedro and his retinue, who are to be entertained at Leonato's house.
considers them in a different context. During this decade, specifical- Claudio falls in love with Hero, Leonato's daughter, and asks Don
ly between 1594 and 1600 (or possibly as late as 1602), Shakespeare Pedro to woo her for him. Don John, the villain of the play, manages
also wrote his great comedies which, because of shared themes, also to trick Claudio into believing that Hero is unfaithful. In the mean-
demand to be seen as a group: A Midsummer Night's Dream, The time, the other characters contrive to make Beatrice and Benedick,
Merchant ofVenice, The Merry Wives ofWindsor, Much Ado About Nothing, who seem to despise each other, fall in love. Claudio, deceived by
As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Don John, rejects Hero at their wedding ceremony. By the end, of
Before turning to the plays themselves, however, we need to con- course, the problems are solved, and Claudio and Hero marry, as do
sider how such works, which seem to have very little in common Beatrice and Benedick. The play might seem to be just a piece of friv-
with the native English medieval mystery or miracle plays (discussed olous entertainment: love creates discord in society, but by the end,
in chapter 2) came into existence. The Renaissance revival of classical as always happens in a comedy, social order is restored. If we look a
learning and of classical texts prompted an interest in Roman drama little deeper, however, we can see a gap between public performance
which, in turn, provided a model that a number of English writers and how characters feel and think. At the wedding, for example,
began to imitate: a five-act structure, dramatic rules to be observed, Claudio plays the role required of him until the point where he
and established types of plot and character. The influence of these reveals his disdain for Hero. There is an issue here about the differ-
classical models can be seen in Shakespeare's first comedy, The ence between the parts people play in public and a seething discord
Comedy of Errors, which both formally and in terms of content is underneath. Indeed, just behind the good humour of the court, but
indebted to the works of the Roman comic poet and dramatist curiously part of it, is the malevolent villainy of Don John.
Plautus (c.254-184 BC). It was, however, the Roman playwright Seneca The pattern seen here is always in evidence in Shakespeare's come-
('-4 BC-AD 65) that English writers turned to for a model for tragedy. dies: there is always a gap between the attractive idea of social order,
By 1574, commercial acting companies were established in London, represented in the public face that characters present to the world,
and Senecan tragedy as it had developed in Renaissance Italy provid- and the more complex feelings and desires that motivate people. This
ed a form in which the stage could be littered with dead and dis- is perhaps easier to recognise in a dark comedy such as The Merchant
membered bodies. We can instance Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy ofVenice, in which Antonio borrows from Shylock, a Jewish money-
(c.1587), in which the revenge hero, whose son has been murdered, lender, who accepts as a bond, if the loan is not repaid in three
bites out his tongue on stage after killing the murderers, and months, the promise of a pound of Antonio's flesh. It is successfully
Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicus (1593-4), which features argued in court that the bond mentions only flesh, not blood, and
rape, mutilation and cannibalism. By the 1590s the London stage was Shylock is defeated; he is forced to give half his wealth to Antonio,
thriving, and Shakespeare's company was enjoying considerable and to become a Christian. Life in Venice is, on the surface, polished
58 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 59

and urbane, but below the surface are complicated questions about invades England and deposes Richard, ascending the throne as
the relationship between money, the law, race, justice and mercy. Henry IV. At the simplest level, an inadequate king has been
The play ends with order restored, but has exposed difficult areas of replaced by a man with more political right to be considered king of
conflict. In Much Ado About Nothing, the society represented is one England. But there is more involved than this, for Richard II is also a
characterised by male rule. This is the conventional order of life. play that looks at the past as a way of thinking about the present. At
But there is something distasteful about Claudio's attitude towards the close of the sixteenth century, as it became clear that the queen
women, illustrated in the way that he relies upon Don Pedro to would die without a direct heir, there was a troubled interest in
woo Hero for him. The woman seems little more than a chattel. questions of succession.
Indeed, when he is told that Hero is dead, Claudio is quite prepared Richard is quite unlike Elizabeth, who commanded respect and
to marry her cousin, even though he has never seen her (she turns loyalty. But what we can see is that, when Richard II focuses on the
out to be Hero in disguise). Much Ado About Nothing is, then, a play rhetoric and staging of authority, parallels start to emerge between
that celebrates the restoration of the conventional order at its con- Richard's performance as king and the kind of performance we
clusion, but which along the way has made some telling points associate with Elizabeth, though not in any direct or crude way.
about the assumptions inherent in the established order. This kind The parallels can be seen in the problems associated with the fact
of questioning is evident in all of Shakespeare's plays: over and that there might well be a gap between the impression and the real
over again he examines the foundations upon which social and substance of power. Elizabeth seems more solid and secure than
political life are constructed, identifying the forces that motivate Richard II, but she is growing old, and the country might be only a
and shape society. Indeed, central to his plays is the idea that much heartbeat away from civil disorder. Similarly, Richard certainly
of social life resembles a performance on a stage, in which people seems powerful. A single word from him causes the banishment of
play parts (including the roles associated with their different gen- Bolingbroke. As if to demonstrate his power, Richard then reduces
ders), but that this public performance is an illusion that is easily the sentence from ten to six years, seemingly in response to the
shattered. grief of Bolingbroke's father, John of Gaunt (he is also Richard's
A deconstruction of role-playing is implicit in Shakespeare's uncle):
comedies, but explicit in his histories. Shakespeare's principal histo-
ry plays deal with a line of English monarchs from Richard II through Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
to the defeat of Richard III by Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch. The
Hath from the number of his banish'd years
period covered is the century up to 1485, the last thirty years of which
Pluck'd four away. [To Bolingbroke] Six frozen winters spent,
were dominated by the Wars of the Roses. The traditional approach Return with welcome home from banishment.
to these plays is to suggest that they provided arguments that sup- (Richard II, I.iii.208-12)
ported the legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty. Just as Spenser's The
Faerie Queene endorsed Elizabeth, Shakespeare's history plays can be Generally, there is an impressive quality to Richard's language, some-
looked at in the same way: as texts that identify the dangerous thing that seems almost god-like. But the truth is that Richard's
motives of rebels, and which, by implication, endorse the manner in words do not carry all that much authority.
which the present monarch deals with troublemakers. This line of Indeed, in a later scene, when Gaunt makes a speech where he
argument can be applied with ease to a play such as Richard II. The plays with his name, punning on the idea of being physically gaunt,
play deals with Richard banishing Bolingbroke and then confiscating the status of words, and oflanguage, is not only questioned but also,
his lands to help finance a war in Ireland. Bolingbroke subsequently in effect, undermined:
60 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 61

0, how that name befits my composition! there are rebels (in this case, the conspirators against Caesar), and
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old. the hero himself is also fallible. Caesar returns to Rome after his mil-
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast; itary triumphs, but various figures are beginning to turn against
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt? him. A conspiracy develops, in which even Brutus, an old friend of
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Caesar's, becomes involved. The conspirators murder Caesar. Mark
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt.
Antony, who has not been involved, swears vengeance for Caesar's
(Richard II, 11.i. 73-8)
death, and is victorious in the subsequent battle at Philippi. Brutus
We become aware of the frailty of any order that is established kills himself.
through language. At this point, traditional criticism would start to Julius Caesar, as a Roman play, is, of course, at a remove from
discuss Richard's flaws as a human being, that he cannot rise to the English life, but deals in a very direct way with contending forces in
challenge of the position he occupies, preferring words to action, but society, and questions of power and resistance. As such, and the same
more recent critical discussions of Shakespeare would identify a can be said about all Shakespeare's plays, it deals with issues that
broader issue in the play. Rather than simply being interested in were of concern to the Elizabethans, but also engages with problems
Richard as a character, the play asks fundamental questions about that are still of concern to a modern audience. Questions about lead-
the construction and exercise of power in the running of a country. ership and challenges to leadership were of particular relevance as
In particular, Richard II looks at how the language of the king, togeth- Elizabeth grew older; it could perhaps be anticipated that, with the
er with the ritualised and stylised way in which he, like any monarch, accession of James I, there would be a far more unsettled state of
or indeed any political leader, presents himself, is crucial in his con- affairs, and that the working relationship between crown and coun-
trol of the state. But as Shakespeare looks at these things, there is a try that Elizabeth had established would fall apart. But as well as
sense of the constructed, and therefore fragile, nature of this hold on engaging with current anxieties, Julius Caesar, like the history plays,
power. and in a way that is not true of English plays before Shakespeare's,
This should become clearer if we think about the characters we seems to touch upon a political reality that is still relevant today. For
repeatedly encounter in Shakespeare's plays. His focus is nearly example, the play starts with the crowd, who have come out to cele-
always on rulers, specifically kings, or on father figures in positions brate Caesar's victory; increasingly, the presence of the people as a
of authority; this is true in the comedies just as much as in the whole - as volatile, dangerous and unpredictable as they may be - is
tragedies and histories. By contrast, Shakespeare's contemporary a factor that has to be considered in any political equation.
Ben Jonson often focuses on ordinary people in London, the kind of Nevertheless, the central issue in Julius Caesar is the gap between
people that, at a later stage in literary history, we might encounter in Caesar's claim to be above ordinary men, a being who is semi-divine
novels. In Jonson, a great many of the characters are commonplace like the stars, and challenges to that assumption of authority. What
rogues, selfishly pursuing their own private interests; in we have to recognise, however, is that the play does not offer a
Shakespeare the characters are, time and time again, people openly detached commentary on these political tensions; Shakespeare is not
or covertly challenging, subverting or simply mocking the authori- in possession of some kind of superior wisdom. On the contrary, the
ty of the leader. The kind of way in which Shakespeare is interested play is a product of the anxieties and uncertainties of the closing
in political questions is perhaps seen at its clearest in Julius Caesar. years of the Elizabethan period. In an almost instinctive way, as in
The play dramatises the assassination of Caesar when he is at the Richard II, Julius Caesar senses, teases out, and brings into definition,
height of his power both as a soldier and as ruler of Rome. As is the the undercurrents of thought and feeling that, in retrospect, we see as
case in the English history plays, order and stability seem elusive; characterising the period.
62 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 63

concerned the Elizabethans so much, specifically questions of suc-

Shakespeare's Tragedies
cession and political intrigue at court, but very clearly there is a
Plays are traditionally divided into comedies and tragedies. Tragedy good deal more going on in the play. In order to make sense of the
has its origins in Greek drama, specifically in the plays of the experience of the work, critics used to latch on to the character of
Athenian dramatists such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Hamlet, considering how he deals with the moral dilemma he
The central concept is that a major character is afflicted by some kind faces. Such an approach to the play had a great deal of theatrical
of suffering, but preserves his or her dignity in the face of this afflic- appeal, in that star actors were given an unrivalled opportunity to
tion. It is often pointed out that the tragic vision is incompatible with play the part of an introspective, deep, troubled and thoughtful
Christianity, in that Christianity offers the good their reward in heav- man. The problem with such an approach, however, is that it seems
en. In tragedy the hero faces the worst the world has to offer, but to reduce the significance of the play in that it makes it little more
there is no sense of compensation beyond the present. It is, further- than a character study.
more, often argued that the most impressive quality of a tragedy, par- In these circumstances it makes more sense to search for the
ticularly of a Shakespearean tragedy, is the way in which the main larger themes that are implicit in the play, regarding Hamlet him-
character articulates his sense of the situation he finds himself in. self as simply a device that helps bring these larger themes to life.
Shakespeare's four principal tragedies, Hamlet (1600), Othello (1604), These larger themes are, as suggested above, in part a matter of the
King Lear (1605) and Macbeth (1605-6), appear almost as a sequence in immediate political concerns of the Elizabethans, but what we can
the period before and after the death of Elizabeth. It would seem log- also see is the manner in which a corrupt political situation is cr·e-
ical to argue, therefore, that they are plays that are in a very direct way ated at the court, and, rather than acting in accordance with fami-
prompted by the political anxieties of this time. But if this is the case, ly or tribal loyalties, or (as, for example, was the case with Thomas
we might wonder why the plays can still so actively hold our interest More in the reign of Henry VIII) in line with the dictates of reli-
today. One argument is that these great plays are timeless, offering a gion, Hamlet as an individual has to make decisions and choices
particularly insightful vision of the human condition. It is, however, about his participation in the political process. There is a way in
perhaps more convincing to argue that, in the process of engaging which the burden is placed on the individual in an unprecedented
with contemporary political concerns, they also convey a sense of fashion. But there is even more involved than this: the very notion
fundamental tensions and movements in Western thinking, the lega- of the individual, a concept which from this point on will feature
cy of which still affects us today. more and more in Western thinking, is perhaps realised and given
This is most obvious in relation to Hamlet, and possibly explains substance for the first time in Hamlet. There is a shift from a world
why this is commonly regarded as Shakespeare's greatest play. view where everyone knows their place in a scheme of things to a
Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, has married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, world view where people are not defined in advance in this kind of
just a month after the death of her husband. In addition, Claudius way.
has claimed the throne, ignoring the rights of his nephew. Hamlet And with this shift there comes a new emphasis on the interiority
discovers that his father was murdered by Claudius. After a great of human beings, on their unknowable qualities as opposed to their
deal of procrastination Hamlet kills Claudius; he is himself killed known social position. Hamlet himself pretends to be mad, but the
by Polonius's son, Laertes, who, unlike Hamlet, is an uncomplicat- force of his acting is to throw into doubt any fixed conceptions about
ed young man who immediately seeks revenge against Hamlet for the differences between reason and madness. Suddenly, and in par-
causing the death of his father and, indirectly, the death of his sis- ticular in Hamlet's soliloquies, a new interior world is opened up, a
ter, Ophelia. We can see how the play deals with the issues that world which questions the old certainties of understanding:
64 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 65

To be, or not to be - that is the question; change the world or solve the problems of injustice and poverty the
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer play raises.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, On the surface, therefore, King Lear might appear to stand free of its
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, historical moment; the play is set in a pagan world, a remote past of
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep -
elemental storms, unnamed gods and dark landscape. But, as with
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
Julius Caesar, this removal of the play from seventeenth-century
That flesh is heir to. English society is only true from one angle. From another angle, its
(Hamlet, IIl.i.56-63) concern with the division of the kingdom and the disastrous conse-
quences of Lear's decision to abdicate his responsibilities seems to
And suddenly, too, the language of tragedy has changed, with echo the fears and anxieties that surrounded the death of Elizabeth
image following hard upon image, creating an effect of speech and the succession of James I; his actions and their consequences
confronting the edge of chaos, and of a speaker confounded by reflect the sense of uncertainty and trepidation about what would
contradictions, puzzles and uncertainties as well as pain, anger happen. By the date of King Lear James had already succeeded to the
and grief. throne, but the political worries about the government of the king-
Hamlet deals with a disrupted succession to the throne; an order dom and its unity remained. It is not a coincidence that the best-
that is desirable, of one generation following the previous generation known historical event from the period - the Gunpowder Plot of
in an untroubled way (a fact that would be underlined by Hamlet 1605, in which Guy Fawkes conspired with others to blow up the
inheriting the throne from his father who is also called Hamlet), is at House of Commons - comes at a moment of transition in the con-
odds with the actual state of affairs. King Lear also deals with a dis- stitutional history of the country, England having joined with
rupted succession; the king decides to abdicate in favour of his Scotland in 1603. Similarly, also locking the play into a specific time
daughters, but this immediately produces an internecine conflict frame is a concern with the gap between the idea of the king as a
between Goneril and Regan, Lear having banished their youngest sis- semi-divine figure able to command and the reality of his mortality
ter, Cordelia, for her refusal to flatter him. She returns with an army and weakness. It is as if the play is at once concerned that the king-
to rescue her mad father, who has been driven out of doors by the sis- dom will fall apart, but also intensely questioning of any pretensions
ters; Lear and Cordelia are taken prisoner. Cordelia is hanged and of kings to be above ordinary mortals. Here we might point to the
Lear dies over her body. Running parallel to this plot is a second plot way James I distanced himself from his English subjects by asserting
which sees the illegitimate Edmund deceive his father Gloucester his divine right to rule, commanding both their obedience and love.
into banishing his legitimate son Edgar; Edmund then betrays The play, we might argue, catches the contradictions of these various
Gloucester, who is punished by blinding for helping the mad Lear. contemporary aspects of monarchy and political government, and
Like Lear, Gloucester dies of a broken heart, though reunited with their complex interaction.
Edgar. Traditionally the play has been thought of as a kind of apoca- But, as with Hamlet, in engaging with immediate political anxi-
lyptic vision in which the two plots serve to reinforce each other, eties, the play also starts to grasp a sense of far more fundamental
with the characters acting as symbols of goodness and evil. There is changes in the nature of political and social life, changes that con-
evidence for this view in the play, which has elements in common tinue to have reverberations even today. Lear and his retinue seem
with both myth and parable: the mad Lear and the blind Gloucester to belong to an older kind of order, conforming to an established set
come to self-knowledge through suffering; the vicious cruelty of of convictions. But those who set themselves up in opposition to
Goneril and Regan leads to their destruction, but this does nothing to Lear and Gloucester are people of a new kind, with new ideas of
 T

66 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 67

political expediency, disdaining traditional loyalties in favour of per- Come on, come on; you are pictures out a-doors,
sonal advantage. There is, it can be argued, a kind of premonition of Bells in your parlours, wildcats in your kitchens,
the English Civil War of 1642-60 in King Lear in the way that the play Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,
recognises an inevitable conflict between those representing the Players in your huswifery, and huswives in your beds.
established order in society and characters who are the representa- (Othello, II.i.109-12)
tives and embodiment of new impulses within society. The world With the old checks gone, a kind of anarchic situation materialises,
changes, and the traditional ruling structures and conventions can symbolised in the play's great storm and the threat of the Turkish
never cope adequately with the new state of affairs or with the new invasion. There is a sense of a world that is changing, that is expand-
voices that insist on being heard. Time and time again, Shakespeare ing, and, with the disappearance of the old safeguards and safe hori-
returns in the tragedies to a recognition of a moment of deep cultur- zons, new, unstable and destructive forces are released and given the
al change, its profound effects registered in the language as meanings opportunity to wreak havoc.
accumulate, overloading each word. Some examples of this are stun- An anarchic, violent state of affairs is the very essence of Macbeth.
ningly clear: nothing is more powerful in King Lear than the way in Stirred on by his wife and tempted by the prophecies of the Witches
which the word 'nothing', repeated at key moments, comes to sum that he shall be king, Macbeth murders the king of Scotland, Duncan.
up both the negative state to which Lear is reduced and the positive Then, in order to make himself safe, he has the noble Banquo and his
value of Cordelia's love. son killed, and also Macduff's family. Duncan's son, Malcolm, how-
Othello is not a representative of the old or established order in ever, escapes the slaughter, and, with the help of Macduff, over-
society. On the contrary, he is a social outsider, a man who has won throws Macbeth's tyrannical rule and kills him. The plot is short,
his reputation, and achieved his position, by his resourcefulness as a brutal and violent, with Macbeth's manliness and ambition put to the
soldier. The way in which this is made most obvious is in the fact that test by his wife. As in Othello, the established order is broken; as in
he is an African, a Moorish outsider - some might suggest an inter- Hamlet and King Lear, the line of succession is also broken, as if to sig-
loper - in Venice. Othello secretly marries Desdemona, but her father nal a breaking-up of the old traditional structures as new, ambitious,
has him arrested and put on trial for stealing his daughter. The cou- self-regarding people come to the fore. It is the individual who will
ple are freed and Othello sent to Cyprus as general-in-chief to protect determine affairs from now on. There is a gender issue here as well;
the island against threats from the Turks. Iago deceives Othello into the world would be manageable if everyone kept to their assigned
believing Desdemona is having an affair with his lieutenant Cassio; role, but here is a woman who steps out of line, who refuses to con-
mad with jealousy, Othello strangles her before discovering the form to her assigned role. Corrupt, violent forces are unleashed, and
truth. Othello then kills himself. Iago's immediate motive is that again, as in Othello, it is a catastrophe that ensues.
Cassio has been promoted over his head; he is angered by this breach In all four of the major tragedies there is a sense of an established
of the conventions of hierarchy, favour and preference. But this new, order that has collapsed or is in the process of disintegrating. As sug-
and unsteady, situation, where an old set of rules has all but disap- gested, this seems to reflect a sense of unrest as James I became king,
peared, creates a state of affairs that is frightening, in that the most with the tragedies serving to signal a fear of the breakdown of order
extreme anti-social feelings - in particular, Iago's racism - are given a as the country comes under new, and indeed foreign, rule. But there
chance to rule. Raw appetite and twisted feelings of desire are both let is something else involved here as well, something that connects
loose, but also, in Iago's brutal devaluing of women and love, there is with, and in a sense announces for the first time, the principal thrust
a modem cynicism and irony. Here he is speaking to Desdemona of W estem experience from this point forward. Over the last four
about women: hundred years there has always been a sense of society changing, of
68 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 69

things defying comprehension and control as the world seemingly If we turn to Antony and Cleopatra first, we can identify something of
gets bigger and more complex. One of the things that can be said a difference from Shakespeare's earlier plays in the way that the
about Shakespeare's plays, particularly his tragedies, is that they not action shifts rapidly between Rome and Egypt, bringing the two into
only identify this new sense of the world running out of control, but collision. Mark Antony, the same Antony that avenged Caesar's
also manage to give expression to the perception, making it a central assassination, is co-ruler of Rome, but has fallen in love with
feature of the way in which the tragic heroes find the world bewil- Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and Caesar's former mistress. He abandons
dering. It is because of this that the tragedies still speak to us. It is not his wife and Rome, and crowns himself and Cleopatra joint rulers of
that we are like Hamlet or Lear or Othello or Macbeth, but that what the eastern part of the Roman empire. Octavius, Caesar's nephew,
they have to say about the way in which the world no longer holds defeats them in a sea battle. Antony blames Cleopatra; thinking she
together or makes sense echoes our own impression of a complicat- is dead, he commits suicide, but lives long enough to discover she is
ed society, and indeed a complicated world, that defies simple analy- alive. He dies in her arms. Cleopatra then kills herself; she dies as she
sis and explanation. Wonderfully, the tragedies articulate this succumbs to the poisonous bite of a snake. Thematically, what is at
bewildering sense of complexity, of things running out of control, of the heart of the play is a division between passion and duty.
everything teetering on the edge of chaos. The tragedies stand at this Shakespeare is continuing his exploration of the question of leader-
edge, looking into the abyss that lies just beyond language. ship and power, and how Antony is led away from his responsibili-
ties by a passion that destroys him. There is a danger here, as with the
tragedies generally, of turning the play into a character study and
Shakespeare's Late Plays
ignoring its larger ideas, the way in which, for example, the history of
Macbeth was followed by Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7), Timon ofAthens the Roman empire has to be seen as pertinent to the current history
(1607), Pericles (1608), Coriolanus (1608), Cymbeline (1610), The Winter's of Renaissance England, the country that can, even at this early stage
Tale (1610-11) and The Tempest (1611), and, rather less significantly, of imperial expansion, sense its potential for world domination. We
Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen (both 1612-13). There is perhaps must acknowledge, however, that there are others (including a broad
something a little surprising about the direction Shakespeare takes cross-section of general readers, drama critics and theatre audiences),
with these late plays; on the one hand, a group of plays about who would challenge the kind of academic, historical and contextu-
Ancient Rome, and, on the other, a group of plays that are most com- al approach to Shakespeare we are commending, arguing that this
monly referred to as romances. It is as if Shakespeare is deliberately kind of focus on themes and issues can only operate at the expense of
taking a step back both from his own time and from the abyss of the proper attention to the dramatic effectiveness of the plays, and, per-
tragedies to present plays that adopt a different perspective on the haps more particularly, proper attention to Shakespeare's language.
problem of change. With the Roman plays, it is a case of returning to But this is not necessarily the case; indeed, it can be argued that we
one of the issues at the heart of Julius Caesar. Shakespeare examines are only going to appreciate Shakespeare as a poetic dramatist if we
the reasons why the world's greatest civilisation and empire should recognise the resonances of his language. Consider the following
have collapsed and disappeared (Rome held a particular fascination lines from Antony and Cleopatra:
for Renaissance England, standing as a kind of model for its own Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
imperial ambitions and self-estimation). With the romances, there is Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.
a shift to the world of fairy tale and magic, to the distant, the remote Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
and the improbable, where children are lost and recovered, and time Feeds beasts as man. The nobleness of life
is overcome. Is to do thus, when such a mutual pair
70 A Brief History of English Literature Shakespeare 71

And such a twain can do't, in which I bind, This kind of self-consciousness about the play itself explains
On pain of punishment, the world to weet [know] why, at the end of his career, Shakespeare returns to comedy, reviv-
We stand up peerless. ing comic form in the late romances. In The Tempest, Prospero, the
(Antony and Cleopatra, I.i.33-40) Duke of Milan, has been deposed by his brother and now lives on
Antony says that love is much more noble than Rome, which, as far an island with his daughter, Miranda. He is served by a spirit, Ariel,
as he is concerned, can be destroyed. He speaks of Rome melting into and a monster, Caliban. Fate draws Prospero's brother, Antonio,
the river Tiber, as if it is something that could dissolve, and of the near to the island and Prospero conjures up a storm which lands
arch of its empire collapsing like a building. He then refers to Antonio and his party on the island. There Ferdinand, the son of
Cleopatra as his 'space', suggesting something grander, more free and the king of Naples, falls in love with Miranda. Their betrothal
unbounded than Rome. Image follows upon image. The point that masque, a supernatural dance of spirits dressed as deities, is dis-
needs to be made, however, is that we cannot look at the language of rupted by Caliban's plot to kill Prospero. Ariel persuades Prospero
a Shakespeare play in isolation. The aesthetic impression is stunning, to forgive both Caliban and Antonio; he does so, gives up his magic
but there is far more involved than just beauty, delicacy and ingenu- and returns as duke to Milan. To many Prospero has seemed a fig-
ity. The language is so effective because it gives expression to the ure like Shakespeare himself, who gave up his art at the end of his
complex themes at the heart of the play. In this particular instance, career. Others have seen The Tempest as essentially a piece of
for example, it is the aptness and the richness of Shakespeare's use of escapism. These responses, however, miss the way in which the
metaphor that enables him to present a sense not just of the immedi- play presents its emphasis on spectacle: how we arrange life into
ate dilemma facing the characters - Antony's defiance of Rome is patterns, giving it shape and form , but how, by doing so, we
hedged by suggestions of violence as if to underline the dangerous become, paradoxically, even more aware of the randomness of life,
path he is taking - but of a whole society in ferment. It is not just the its lack of pattern. Shakespeare, it can be argued, returns to come-
lovers who will be affected but the empire, the 'world', the earth and dy precisely because, more than tragedy, it allows us to glimpse the
its kingdoms. chaos oflife that we screen ourselves from. But this should not lead
What we also need to bear in mind - and this is something that us into thinking that Shakespeare has lost interest in the changing
becomes increasingly important during the course of Shakespeare's nature of the society of his day. Indeed, The Tempest not only deals
career as a playwright -is that he is always aware of the play as a play, with issues concerning the construction, deployment and excesses
as a spectacle on a stage. In Antony and Cleopatra there is a great deal of of power, but also deals with a society that is beginning to define
attention paid to staging, to the way in which Cleopatra in particular itself much more explicitly in terms of its identity as a trading
displays herself to the world; an image is projected, and it is the nation and a colonial power.
image that the world at large accepts. It is this kind of presentation of Shakespeare so effectively offers a sense of the deeper movements
a public face that makes life coherent and manageable, but what of change as the sixteenth century yields to the seventeenth that we
Shakespeare always manages to suggest simultaneously is the ele- might feel there is nothing left for others to say. Essentially, it might
ment of feigning involved, that we are constantly aware of the gap be argued that, in dealing with the immediate political anxieties of
between the ordered and organised performance we see on stage and the Elizabethans, his plays offer a sense of the moment at which the
life's more fundamental lack of order. In terms of a critical approach medieval world, which in retrospect can seem manageable and com-
to Shakespeare, an awareness of the theatrical qualities and effective- prehensible, yields to the baffling complexity of the modern world,
ness of his plays here coincides entirely with an awareness of how the with its new impulses and new priorities. But Shakespeare, in fact,
issues the plays confront are embodied in their dramatic form. offers just one perspective on this process of change. If we look more
UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
1
Fae. Fi!oiogia • Bibiioteca
72 A Brief History of English Literature

broadly at Elizabethan, Jacobean and, subsequently, Restoration

drama, we see that other playwrights all offer their own distinct sense
of a changing world; as is so often the case in English literature, it is
the variety of voices that can be heard at any one time that demands
5 Renaissance and Restoration
attention.
Drama

Renaissance Drama and Christopher Marlowe

Renaissance drama is a term that embraces Elizabethan drama,
Jacobean drama (works written during the reign of James I), and the
plays written during the reign of Charles I. It involves three main
kinds of theatre: public, private and court. The first public playhouse,
the Red Lion, was built at Whitechapel in 1567, in the courtyard of a
farmhouse. Regular playgoing in London, however, began in the
1570s.
The Red Lion provided a model for the building of other
Renaissance public theatres. It had a raised stage with a trapdoor;
above it or near it was a high turret, while around the stage, which
thrust into the audience, were scaffolds or galleries for other playgo-
ers. This design was followed for theatres both in Shoreditch, where
the Theatre, which replaced the Red Lion, opened in 1576, and in
Southwark, where the Globe, built out of the timbers from the
Theatre, opened in 1599. The Globe, a public playhouse able to hold
up to 3,000 spectators, is the theatre most commonly associated
with Shakespeare. Like the Red Lion, it was essentially an amphithe-
atre, with tiered galleries: those who paid a penny stood before the
stage ('the groundlings'), while the seats higher up cost more, the
audience, as such, being separated by wealth rather than by social sta-
tus. The growth of public theatres provides very clear evidence of an
expanding economy and the rapid growth of London as a modern
capital city to rival those in Europe.
There are, however, other considerations we need to take into
account in any discussion of the context of Renaissance drama.
Although commercial drama was essentially London-based, the the-
atres were closed by the authorities during times of plague, leaving

73
74 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 75

the actors without income; as a response, smaller touring companies point if we think about what drama is and does. Drama stages an
formed out of the main companies played in the provinces. At the action in which a number of people voice different views about the
other end of the scale, plays were put on at court for the reigning events taking place. It represents the imitation of an action but also,
monarch (the court also produced its own specific kind of drama, the and disturbingly for those in positions of authority, offers an analy-
masque). And there was another development: in 1596 a new roofed sis of that action. Whereas in poetry the invisible and unheard voice
theatre was built in the Blackfriars (originally a Dominican convent), that speaks the text is single, in drama the voices that we hear are
near St Paul'.s Cathedral. With benches for spectators and candles for always plural and in dispute. In this way drama comes to reflect ten-
lighting, it was intended to cater for a smaller audience than the sions and problems in the social order, but also intervenes in them,
Globe, but the residents of Blackfriars objected to its opening. In projecting them into the wider world of its audience. We can see this
1600 an acting company consisting of boys began using it, but in very clearly in the plays of Christopher Marlowe, the first great
1609 Shakespeare's company started playing there on a regular basis. dramatist of the Renaissance period.
By this time Elizabeth I had died, James I was on the throne, and there Marlowe was born in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare. The son
was a move towards hall-type playhouses which provided an oppor- of a shoemaker, he was educated at King's School in Canterbury and
tunity for new kinds of stage spectacle, including effects made possi- then Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, gaining his BA degree in
ble by candle lighting. But by 1642, the start of the English Civil War, 1584, and then his MA in 1587. This was the traditional route for a
drama was in decline. The theatres at that point were closed by the career in teaching, the church or the law, but Marlowe turned to writ-
authorities until 1660, when, with the restoration of the monarchy ing plays, producing no fewer than seven tragedies, as well as the nar-
under Charles II, they opened in very different circumstances. rative poem Hero and Leander (published 1598). He died violently in
Facts like these, about the physical and social context in which 1593, in a brawl in a tavern, receiving a dagger wound above the eye.
plays were staged, start to indicate how it would be misleading to At the time he had been due to appear before the courts on allega-
think of the Renaissance dramatic experience in monolithic terms as tions of atheism and treason, and after his death he was accused of
a single, stable entity. By its very nature, drama is something con- blasphemy and atheism by another playwright, Thomas Kyd.
stantly changing and being changed to suit the conditions of its per- Marlowe's death may have been an accident, a quarrel over a bill, or
formance and practice. Most Elizabethan plays were performed in the in some way connected with his homosexuality, but it is also possi-
afternoon, in daylight; scenery was minimal, though the costumes ble that he may have been murdered by government agents. Marlowe
may have been splendid. Realism was not something aimed for; had, a few years earlier, perhaps been involved in espionage on the
instead, the emphasis was on ideas, on debate, on problems. But other continent, and with other criminal activities; in 1589 he was in a street
conditions, too, influenced the drama. Plays were subject to licensing, fight in which a man was killed, and in 1592 he was deported from the
and the authorities were quick to close the theatres not only in times Netherlands for attempting to pass forged coins. It has often been
of plague but also following riots or other disorder. It was also the case noted that Marlowe's life is as extraordinary as his plays, both dis-
that Puritan opposition to the theatre meant that the companies had playing a similar pattern of turning away from traditional values.
to shelter more and more behind the protection of the court. If we are This is not to argue that his plays reflect his life, but to draw attention
really going to grasp why Renaissance drama found itself at the centre to the subversive character of both, and the ways in which they seem
of a struggle between different interest groups, however, we also need to echo each other in their themes of classical learning, violence and
to take into account something else. This is that, as the most promi- rejection of established limits and morals.
nent and most public form ofliterature, the drama at all times is at the Nothing could have prepared the Elizabethans for the arrival of
very heart of social and intellectual change. We can appreciate this Marlowe's first major play, Tamburlaine the Great (c.i587; as with all
76 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 77

Renaissance plays, we are unsure of the date of the first performance Mov'd me to manage arms against thy state.
and have only a date of publication. It is also worth noting that many What better precedent than mighty Jove?
plays exist in more than one version). There had been dramatists Nature, that fram'd us of four elements
before Marlowe, but this work was unlike anything that had been Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
seen previously. Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton had written
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
the first blank-verse tragedy, Gorboduc (1561), but the speeches in it are The wondrous architecture of the world,
stately, heavy and moralistic. It tells the story of the division of And measure every wandering planet's course,
Britain by the king, Gorboduc, between his two sons, an action that Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
leads to civil war and death. The play combines sensational events And always moving as the restless spheres,
with a serious moral purpose, and has some claim to be thought of as Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest,
seminal in the formation of English Renaissance drama, both in its Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
use of blank verse and in its use of Senecan revenge drama as a That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
model. But in the end there is little that is radical about either the con- The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.
tent or the form of Gorboduc; it offers some traditional advice about (famburlaine the Great, II.vii.12-29)
the rule of the kingdom and the dangers of division.
Tamburlaine argues that the attractions of kingship are so powerful
Tamburlaine offers something altogether different. It tells the story
that they caused even Jove, the eldest son of the heavens, to rebel
of a Scythian shepherd chieftain who overthrows the king of the
against his father Saturn, just as Tamburlaine is impelled by his aspir-
Persians and then overcomes the Turkish emperor before going on
ing nature. The speech is about the restlessness of ambition, but if we
to capture Damascus from the Sultan of Egypt. Essentially the action
are to grasp its full dramatic impact we need to take into account two
of the play consists of a series of conquests of the most powerful
things. One is the simple fact that Marlowe gives this speech, with its
armies on earth; Tamburlaine's ambition and cruelty carry all before classical references, the key indicator of civilised values, to a Scythian
him. The only feeling Tamburlaine seems to show is for Zenocrate,
shepherd, a figure more commonly associated with barbarism; it is a
the captive daughter of the Sultan, whom he marries. In Part II - the
deliberate reversal of traditional assumptions, as iflearning itself will
play is in two parts, the second part written to capitalise on the suc-
inspire men to greatness. The second aspect has to do with the actu-
cess of the first - Tamburlaine continues his conquests as far as
al language and rhythm of the speech. It is full of large-scale images
Babylon and is only finally defeated by death. In terms of plot, the
of the heavens and earth, so that it has a grandeur and resonance,
play offers little more than a sequence of brutal victories by
building to a crescendo in the last two lines. The language is on a
Tamburlaine over weak rulers who do not deserve to keep power.
scale that matches as well as expresses Tamburlaine's heroism.
Where the interest lies, and why the play made such an impact, is in
As is the case with all Marlowe's heroes, Tamburlaine can be seen
Marlowe's mighty blank-verse lines. Here, for example, Tamburlaine
as a figure of Renaissance man overthrowing the old order of religion
justifies his rebellion against Cosro, the king of Persia (Tamburlaine
and the law in order to achieve his full human potential. Closely con-
has previously assisted in overthrowing his brother):
nected with this is the idea of the overreacher: Marlowe's heroes
The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown, aspire to a kind of godhead, craving divine power, but overreach
That caus'd the eldest son of heavenly Ops themselves and, like Icarus in classical myth, who drove his father's
To thrust his doting father from his chair, chariots too near the sun and crashed into the sea, fall from the
And place himself in the imperial heaven, zenith of their achievements. Such a pattern gives the plays a tragic
78 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 79

structure of rise and fall, and also fits in with the epic nature of where human knowledge aspires to new heights, but also a sense of
Marlowe's plotting, which adds incident to incident rather than limits and boundaries. In that combination of elements Marlowe's
exploring one situation in detail. This, however, is less true of Doctor plays reflect the changing world of the early modern period. In 1543
Faustus (c.1592), Marlowe's most famous play. It tells the story of a Copernicus had expounded the belief that the sun, not the earth, was
man who sold his soul to the Devil for twenty-four years of power, the centre of the universe, and that the planets moved around it. In
knowledge and pleasure. At the start of the play Faustus, tired of tra- 1628 William Harvey was to announce his discovery of the circula-
ditional learning and science, turns to magic, calls up the devil tion of the blood. Both the heavenly and human bodies were no
Mephistophilis and makes a compact with him. In return for his soul, longer what they had once seemed. Marlowe, writing between these
Faustus will be given whatever he desires. The central section of the dates, and from a different discourse, articulates a similar sense of
play shows Faustus enjoying his power, but not gaining the kind of change, of a universe in which knowledge and power are shifting
knowledge of heaven and hell that he thirsts for. As time runs out - away from those who had previously possessed them. With that
the bargain is for no more than twenty-four years - and his eternal change comes a shift in how the world is conceived. What Marlowe's
damnation approaches, Faustus hovers between despair and belief. plays particularly illustrate is the force of language itself in shaping
The play consequently seems to teach a moral lesson in the fashion and altering the world, as he questions the fixed hierarchies of old
of the earlier morality plays, but also questions the limits placed on and opens up new perspectives. At the same time, however, his plays
human knowledge by an apparently vengeful God. This doubleness acknowledge the continuing power of the established regime:
of the play is evident both in its form, which employs Good and Bad Faustus is damned, Tamburlaine dies, and Edward II, in the play that
Angels to dramatise the divisions in Faustus's conscience, and in its bears his name, is tortured to death for permitting his homosexuali-
language, most famously in Faustus's final soliloquy: ty to conflict with the role that he is expected to play as king. In the
stress they place on death and violence, Marlowe's plays (the other
Ah, Faustus,
significant work we have not mentioned so far is The Jew ofMalta, per-
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually.
formed about 1592, but not published until 1633) expose the fear that
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, helped maintain the old order in power despite the subversive voices
That time may cease and midnight never come! that were raised against it.
Fair nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day. Or let this hour be but
Elizabethan and Jacobean Revenge Tragedy
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul. Nearly all Renaissance tragedies incorporate some element of
0 lente, lente, currite noctis equi. [0 slowly, slowly, you horses of the night] revenge, but the revenge play proper starts with Thomas Kyd, author
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike. of The Spanish Tragedy (c.1587). A friend of Marlowe, with whom he
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd. shared lodgings, Kyd was arrested and tortured in 1593, dying the
0, I'll leap up to my God; who pulls me down?
next year. He may have written a lost pre-Shakespearean play about
See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament.
One drop would save my soul, half a drop. Ah, my Christ!
Hamlet, but what is certain is that The Spanish Tragedy provided a
(Doctor Faustus,V.ii.143-57) model of both plotting and content for later revenge drama, influ-
encing both Shakespeare and other dramatists. On stage we see the
As in Tamburlaine, the language is cosmic, visual and spectacular. ghost of Don Andrea, a Spanish nobleman killed in battle. He is with
Throughout the plays there is a sense of new worlds being explored, the spirit of Revenge. They watch as the son of Hieronimo, the hero
80 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 81

of the play, is murdered. His body is found in his father's garden. violent rendering of the human subject. The best-known example of
Hieronimo, half mad with grief, seeks justice from the court after he this violent splitting of the human being is Shakespeare's character
discovers the identity of the murderers, but to no avail. Consequently Hamlet, but Hieronimo, too, suffers a kind of madness in grief. The
he takes his own revenge by means of a play in which the murderers, seismic shift in the Renaissance is towards this discovery that the
Lorenzo and Balthazar, participate and die. Hieronimo then bites out world inside human beings is just as complicated and just as chaotic
his tongue before killing himself. A central figure in the play is Bel- as the world outside.
imperia, Don Andrea's lover, who helps Hieronimo with his plot. She The Spanish Tragedy was enormously popular. As already noted, it
is, in fact, indirectly responsible for his son's murder by her brother influenced Hamlet, and also the other great revenge tragedies: The
Lorenzo, a Machiavellian villain who delights in intrigue. Revenger's Tragedy (1607) by Thomas Middleton (or possibly Cyril
The Spanish Tragedy provided a formula that other plays followed: Tourneur), The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess ofMalfl (1617) by John
there is a ghost, a play within the play, a Machiavellian villain, and a Webster, Women Beware Women (1621) and The Changeling (1622) , again
grieving, distracted hero who gives vent to his feelings in agonised by Middleton, and John Ford's Tis Pity She's A Whore (1633). These are
soliloquies. But these are simply matters of form and content. There the major revenge plays, but we can add Shakespeare's Titus
are other, deeper reasons for Kyd's success which have to do with the Andronicus to the list, together with Tourneur's The Atheist's Tragedy
play's central theme of the breakdown of justice. Justice is meant to and George Chapman's The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, both performed
flow from God through the king to his subjects, but in The Spanish around 1611. As the revenge formula was reworked, it changed, with
Tragedy this vertical system of justice has broken down. The political dramatists ready to exploit the new opportunities afforded by indoor
problem the play dramatises is the question of what Hieronimo staging to create macabre scenes of gothic darkness, as in The Duchess
should do after he discovers that the court is responsible for his son's of Ma!fi where the Duchess's brother Ferdinand hands her a dead
death. Should he take revenge or be patient and wait for God to pun- man's hand and shows her the bodies of her dead children and hus-
ish vice? Is revenge a duty or a sin? And who is to authorise such band made out of wax. The plays hover at the edge of the comic
bloody action? Essentially, these are questions of action, questions grotesque, sometimes deliberately overstepping the mark, as in The
about how human beings should act when faced by intolerable situ- Revenger's Tragedy where the revenger Vindice dresses the skull of his
ations. The Protestant Reformation had placed a new kind of respon- dead lover as a courtesan and puts poison on its lips before the Duke
sibility on the individual for making decisions about moral kisses it. Not content, Vindice forces the Duke to watch his bastard
behaviour; Protestantism focused on the conscience of the individ- son committing incest with his wife even as he dies. What begins to
ual, but conscience alone, Kyd seems to suggest, does not seem suffi- become apparent, and is perhaps apparent even as early as The
cient to cure the wrongs of the court which threaten the social body. Spanish Tragedy, is that the violence that marks these plays is only one
What Kyd devised in The Spanish Tragedy was a structure that per- aspect of their excess. Everything about the plays is extravagant, sen-
mitted the exploration of political and moral questions that seem to sational, and only just under control. At times the plots become
have no answer. In that sense the play dramatised a central crisis of the bewilderingly complicated, as in The Revenger's Tragedy where Vindice
Renaissance as the era shifted from the old certainties of the medieval is hired to kill himself, and where only he, in the final scene, can
world to the new priorities of the early modern world. But what the explain what has happened.
play also shows is the kind of violent cost there was in this process of What we particularly need to note, however, is that the violence of
change. There was, of course, violence in the medieval era, but the vio- the revenge plays links them very directly to events outside the the-
lence we witness in the revenge tragedies, inaugurated by The Spanish atre. There is a sense in which these works seem to be a kind of pre-
Tragedy, involves not only that directed against other people but also a monition of the Civil War to come, in which those outside the court
82 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 83

will take arms against it. This is not to say that Hieronimo or Vin dice about state politics, but, in addition, they also testify to the way in
are symbols of parliamentary opposition to the king. Rather, it is to which domestic issues of love, marriage, children and the family
suggest, as critics have done recently, that the violence of the revenge were becoming issues of state politics. As such, they stand at a crucial
plays points forward, and that the plays, while not necessarily intersection of cultural change between older social formations and
approving of the revenge figures they show, see no obvious alterna- the modern world.
tives to their violent actions. If we ask what Hamlet or Hieronimo or
Vindice should do, how should they act, there appears to be no
Ben Jonson and the Masque
answer: in the end they are forced to kill the king. It is in this sense
that the revenge plays seem to embody the inevitability of political It is not easy to fit Ben Jonson into the pattern of Renaissance drama,
change by force. but it would be totally misleading to leave him out. Jonson was born
There is one element missing from this account so far, which is a in London, the son of a clergyman, and educated at Westminster
recognition of the prominence of women in Renaissance drama. In School, where he acquired a good knowledge of the classics. At first
Marlowe and Kyd women are type-cast: Zenocrate is beautiful, while he worked as a bricklayer, but subsequently, after military service in
Bel-imperia is fought over by men. Bel-imperia does, it is true, play a Flanders, became an actor and playwright. In 1598 he was involved in
part in Hieronimo's revenge, just as Lavinia does in Shakespeare's a duel with a fell ow actor whom he killed, but managed to escape
Titus Andronicus, but there seems little room in these plays for women hanging. His influence on English literature is in some ways greater
as distinct individuals. With the Jacobean tragedies of Webster and than that of Shakespeare. Jonson was the first unofficial poet laure-
Middleton, however, the focus shifts. In The Duchess of Ma!fi, it is the ate, being given a pension by James I in 1616. In the same year he pub-
Duchess who is the play's tragic centre and who articulates its main lished his collected Works, raising drama to the status of other literary
themes of desire and ambition. But in this case the ambition is not for texts. In addition to plays he wrote poetry, and (after his death) his
crowns or territory, as in Tamburlaine, but for a kind of domestic, pri- prose work Timber: or Discoveries, which discusses poetic and dramat-
vate space in which her family can live beyond the control of the ic principles, was published in 1640. Jonson is also known for his
state. In Middleton's The Changeling it is sexual desire that is central to influence over younger writers (the 'sons' or 'tribe' of Ben, including
Beatrice-Joanna's plight as she finds herself caught up in the nets of the poets Thomas Carew and Robert Herrick). In everything he wrote
male society. If The Spanish Tragedy raises the question of how to act in Jonson is likely to strike us as deeply conservative and yet also
a corrupt society, these later plays focus on the question of how remarkably innovative.
women are to survive in a world that restrains and restricts them. The Jonson's first major play was Everyman in His Humour (1598). By
plays look at marriage and love in a society governed by patriarchal humour Jonson meant the governing passions of human beings,
politics and economics. The tragic deaths of women in Jacobean such as greed, lust and ambition, passions which he exaggerates for
drama arise not from flaws in their characters, but from the material the purpose of satire. In Renaissance and medieval physiology, a
circumstances in which they are placed, where their desires are seen humour was a bodily fluid; excess of one particular fluid was felt to
as too threatening to be allowed to continue. And yet it is clear that unbalance the temperament of people, making them, for example,
the plays approve of these dangerous women and elicit sympathy for melancholic or sanguine. In Jonson's plays, set in the expanding
them. As such, the plays reflect a shift taking place in the Renaissance economy ofLondon and amongst its merchant class, avarice is near-
that involved new thinking about the family and the role of women. ly always the ruling passion that dominates, but folly, too, is found
Set for the most part in Italian courts, Jacobean revenge tragedies everywhere. At the centre of Everyman in His Humour is the deceitful
prove, paradoxically, to be just as much about domestic issues as servant Brainworm who exploits the jealousy of the merchant Kitely
84 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 85

and the credulity of his wife. Other figures include a cowardly boast- being cast in irons, while Mosca is sent to the galleys. In addition to
ing soldier, Bobadill. Kitely suspects that his brother-in-law, the main plot there is a subplot involving the foolish Sir Politic
W ellbred, and his friends have sexual designs on his wife and on his Would-be, an English traveller mocked for his absurd schemes and
sister Bridget. Brainworm tricks all the parties into meeting at the who is only brought to his senses when his friend pretends to have
house of a water-bearer where confusion and misunderstanding him arrested for treason. The play satirises the greedy folly of
reign until Justice Clement restores order. The play is a characteristic humankind, as does The Alchemist. Here the plot turns upon the
piece by Jonson, combining satire, knock-about farce and a kind of desires of the characters for instant wealth based on the pseudo-sci-
surreal comedy in which, for a while, the world is dominated by entific hope that base metal can be turned into gold. But in addition
ruling passions that threaten to reduce everything to chaos. to this, what we also see played out on the stage are the wild fantasies
On the surface, Jonson's seems to be a comic world that is of the characters tricked by Subtle and Face, and also by their own
informed in a very simple way by a recognition of humankind's gullibility and self-delusion. The action, like that ofVolpone, becomes
propensity for foolishness. Underlying the plays, however, is a dark- ever more complicated as the pace increases to a kind of frenzy until
er premise: that people are greedy, lustful and liars, and that society is all is resolved by the return of Lovewit, the owner of the house where
governed by vice rather than by virtue. It is this that makes Jonson a the action has taken place.
conservative playwright He is an advocate of tradition and tradition- What may strike us about Jonson's plays, as well as their caustic
al behaviour, and against the kind of radical change that was taking satire, is their sheer ingenuity, as if Jonson delights in showing off his
place, especially in London, where a rage for new building seemed to skill in a masterly exhibition of plotting and timing. On the page this
sum up a city in ferment. What Jonson favours is the restraint associ- can make the plays hard to follow, but on stage everything works
ated with ancient, and especially Roman, civilisation. This is evident perfectly. This is certainly the case with Bartholomew Fair, set at the
in the form of his plays, particularly his tragedies, such as Sejanus annual fair in Smithfield, London, where the public are duped or
(1603), which conform to the classical unities of time, place and dupe themselves, Puritans are exposed as hypocrites, wives turn into
action, restricting what can be shown so that it corresponds with prostitutes, and Justice Overdo, the overseer of law and order, is
what is probable. There is a distrust of the fancy and imagination in arrested as a criminal. On the surface the play is about the ridicu-
Jonson that allies him, rather oddly, with Puritan opposition to the lousness of vice, but its self-conscious artifice steers it towards a car-
theatre, the Puritans being equally distrustful of the power of the nivalesque celebration of idiosyncrasy. As such, and paradoxically,
stage to deceive. But Jonson also delights in the mad behaviour of Jonson's satire seems to celebrate behaviour that falls outside the
those on stage, as he manipulates everything towards impossible sit- scope of the social and the restrained; the result is a certain ambiva-
uations only to resolve them at the last moment. lence about the social order.
This is evident in his great comic dramas, Volpone (1605), The Jonson's delight in artifice and elaboration, so evident in his come-
Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614), which exploit to the full dies, presents us with a clue to the other aspect of his dramatic
the idea of people driven by humours. In Volpone, Volpone (the 'fox') achievement: the masque. Masques were fashionable at court, espe-
pretends to be near death. His would-be heirs and friends visit him, cially during the reign of James I. They were spectacular entertain-
hoping to gain from his will. Meanwhile, his servant Mosca (the 'fly'} ments combining verse, music, dancing, disguises and visual effects.
extracts costly gifts from them by suggesting that each is to be the They were performed indoors, often by professionals, while the mas-
sole heir. But Volpone overreaches himself. He leaves everything to quers were played by members of the court. The latter remained
Mosca and pretends to die, but Mosca then blackmails him. In the silent; only the actors spoke, thus preserving court decorum by sepa-
end Volpone goes before the court to confess all and is punished by rating ladies and gentlemen from common players. A masque nearly
86 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 87

always ended with dancing, with both spectators and the courtly court style which was to dominate, not the public arena theatre. The
masquers involved, but not the actors. The plot was usually symbol- court may have been deluded in its self-image, but it was Jonson and
ic, with virtue triumphing over vice. This is the case in Milton's Camus Jones's designs that were to hold sway rather than Shakespeare's
(1634) where the Lady resists the sexual temptations of the pagan god Globe with its open stage and minimal scenery.
Comus and preserves her virginity. Camus, however, has little of the
spectacle that normally accompanies the masque and so could also
Restoration Drama
be described as a pastoral drama, Comus disguising himself as a
shepherd, as do the Lady's brothers in their attempt to rescue her. In 1660 Charles II returned to England from France following the end
It was Jonson who established the masque as a definite form. He of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth and the re-establishment of the
liked to add an anti-masque at the beginning, a burlesque or parody monarchy. Charles I had been executed in 1649, and from that date
of the main masque. This fits in with the pattern of Jonson's comic until 1660 England had been a Commonwealth, with Cromwell as
writing, in that the purpose of the anti-masque was satiric while the Lord Protector. With the restoration of the king there came a change
main masque was educative and moral. For example, The Masque of in cultural direction. The returning court was heavily influenced by
Queens (1609) opens with a grotesque dance of witches before these French fashion and ideas, especially by a more secular view of the
are banished by the entrance of the queens of the title, parts taken by world. In addition, there were also other changes taking place outside
Queen Anne, the wife of James I, and her ladies. They represent the the court which gave a new tone to life. For example, the Great Plague
moral virtues as opposed to the witches who stand for the world of in London and then the Fire of London led to major rebuilding of the
evil. The transition in the masque is accomplished by the use of stage city, including Sir Christopher Wren's new churches, most notably St
machinery: the world of hell disappears on stage to be replaced by a Paul's Cathedral, finished in 1710 . The Royal Society for Science was
building representing the House of Fame. The machinery and build- founded in 1662; it advocated a plainer style of writing and thinking,
ing were designed by Inigo Jones, the architect, who was also the taking its inspiration from figures such as Francis Bacon.
most famous of the masque designers who worked (and quarrelled) When the theatres reopened after their official closure in 1642,
with Jonson. they were not the open-air arenas of the Renaissance, but indoor the-
It should be obvious that masques were expensive entertainments, atres with movable scenery. The audience was no longer the public at
elaborate and spectacular, but also oddly insular. They were intend- large, but mainly drawn from fashionable circles. The theatres were,
ed as entertainments for the court, but they were also meant to glori- in fact, shunned by respectable people, partly on religious grounds,
fy the court as ideal, orderly, and virtuous. The lack of dialogue partly on the grounds of the bawdiness of some of the plays, partly
between the common actors and the silent courtiers, however, seems because actresses were now on stage, but mainly, one suspects,
to symbolise the rift between the court and the common world out- because the theatres were seen as the preserve of the aristocracy and
side, a rift that, with the accession of James and then his son Charles, those in positions of authority. There were just two companies
was to develop into political confrontation. There is a way in which allowed, that of Davenant (who claimed to be a son of Shakespeare),
the masque as a form seems to have been designed almost in opposi- and that of Killigrew, and just two theatres. These retained a thrust
tion to the public drama, and while the public drama moved towards stage, but employed a proscenium arch, giving the familiar picture
a kind of realism, the court retreated into myth and illusion. The frame effect. The most famous theatregoer of the age who has left a
invention by Inigo Jones of movable scenery and the use of elaborate record of the plays he saw is Samuel Pepys.
machinery was, however, to have a lasting effect on drama. The theatrical menu consisted of three types of play: operas, hero-
Ironically, when the theatres reopened after the Civil War it was the ic tragedies and comedies. The first of these were fairly bombastic
88 A Brief History of English Literature Renaissance and Restoration Drama 89

pieces, but the second category merits attention. These tend to be sexuality of the play in places, and this together with other similar
plays showing a hero choosing between love and honour, and are set plays provoked a famous attack on the stage by Jeremy Collier in his
in faraway places associated with romance, such as Granada or Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698).
Venice. They usually generate wonder rather than offering any real We can see that the comedies of this period play with sexual innu-
intellectual probing of issues. This is not true of John Dryden's endo and focus on the physicality of sexual behaviour, but why
tragedies, however, especially All for Love (1677), a rewriting of should they have provoked such anger? One answer might be found
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Such rewriting of Shakespeare in a shift in culture marked by the Restoration. Restoration comedy
was common; the Restoration thought well of Shakespeare, but felt seems to revert to a libertine tradition that existed before the Civil
his language needed refining. In particular, his use of metaphors was War; its rakes and dandies seem to be throwbacks to the Caroline
frowned upon and replaced by plainer language. In addition, Dryden court. After 1660 society started to move towards a more ordered
cuts back the scope of Shakespeare's play, bringing the action within structure, with more rules and regulations, both written and unwrit-
the confines of neo-classical taste. This is symptomatic of an impor- ten. Polite social manners started to displace honesty about people's
tant change that takes place after the Restoration: whereas the sexual drives and appetites. What was taking place on the London
Renaissance seems to take the whole world as its canvas, with the stage seemed to be offered almost in open defiance of the values of an
restoration of the monarchy there comes about an urge to confine, emerging middle class, the people who felt they were the real gener-
limit and order life. This includes the ordering of sexual life, the main ators of business and wealth in the country. Restoration comedy puts
subject of Restoration comedy. immorality on public display, but the instinct of the middle classes is
The central male dramatists of this period are Etherege, Farquar, always towards privacy, secrecy and concealment.
Wycherley and Congreve, but in addition we need to take note of the To express that another way, we are, in the years between 1660 and
contribution of Aphra Behn, the first major woman dramatist in 1700, moving into the age of the novel, where the private reader is
England. Restoration comedies are sometimes referred to as comedies asked to consider matters of taste and judgement on his or her own,
of manners, and this gives us a clue as to their main area of debate: the away from the public world of the theatre. An impression of moving
manners and morals of fashionable society. They are town comedies, into a new world can be grasped from Congreve's play The Way of the
laughing at the expense of fops and country squires. The dominant World, written in 1700. This is a very different kind of play from
theme is sexual intrigue, but sometimes, as in Wycherley's The Country Wycherley's The Country Wife, although it is again concerned with hon-
Wife (1675) the tone is bawdy, cynical and voyeuristic. In The Country our and sexual betrayal. At the centre of the plays satire is Lady
Wife, the hero, Horner, pretends to be impotent in order to gain free Wishfor't, an old woman susceptible to the charms of both young and
access to women's bedrooms. His name alludes not only to giving old men. She controls the fate of her niece, Millament, loved by
married men horns, in other words cuckolding them, but is also a Mirabell, a rake figure who has previously seduced Mrs Marwood and
homophonic pun on the word 'honour', a euphemism for chastity. Mrs Fainall, Lady Wishfor't's daughter. In a complicated series of
The puns implicit in Homer's name sum up the action of the play and manoeuvres, Mirabell outwits his enemies to keep control of Mrs
its exposure of sexual hypocrisy. The Country Wife in the play is Fainall's property and so protect her and Lady Wishfor't from the
Margery, who is married to the cruel and vicious Pinchwife. Tempted blackmail of her husband. The context of the play is not just the rak-
by Horner, she falls in love with him, but is forced to return to her hus- ish codes of the court but the property world of the merchant classes,
band. Meanwhile, Pinchwife's sister escapes marriage to the fortune- with a focus on marriage where there no longer seems any room for
seeker Sparkish, and marries her true love Harcourt. The love. It is against this background that Mirabell and Millament draw
sentimentality of this second plot, however, cannot disguise the raw up a contract about how to behave in marriage, and how to preserve

UNi\/ERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Filoiogia - Biblioteca
90 A Brief History of English Literature

respect for one another. It is the existence of such a contract that indi-
cates the new way of the world that Congreve is dealing with. Before,
there was a world of romantic imagination and foolish desire, such as
in the comedies of Shakespeare, where marriage is the ending of a
6 Seventeenth-Century Poetry
love story. In Congreve's play love and marriage have become inte-
grated into the legal and financial structures of society.
and Prose
A changing social structure is also apparent in other ways in these
plays. First, there is the presence of actresses on stage. The parts given
to women may not seem very liberated, with stereotypes of fools,
John Donne
flirts, and man-eaters, but the stage gave women a chance to earn a
living in a profession, and also made them visible in society. In this John Donne, the poet who does so much to mould our impression of
context, we need to consider Aphra Behn. Praised by Virginia Woolf the first half of the seventeenth century, was born into a Catholic
as the first professional woman writer, Behn led a varied life, includ- family in 1572. His father was a prosperous London ironmonger and
ing spying for Charles II during the war against the Dutch. Her first his mother the daughter of a dramatist, John Heywood. He entered
play was The Forced Marriage (1670) but it is for The Rover (1677-81) that Lincoln's Inn, to train as a lawyer, in 1592, and in 1596 joined a naval
she is best known. The play takes place at carnival time and, in line expedition against Spain. On his return he became private secretary
with both Restoration and romantic comedy, involves the love to Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and was briefly the
affairs of a series of parallel couples. The action focuses on four cav- member of parliament for Brackley, but a clandestine marriage to a
aliers, followers of Charles II, and their meetings in Naples with vari- relative of Egerton's led to the termination of his employment. It was
ous English women. The Rover is Penniless Willmore, loved by in this decade that Donne probably wrote most of his love poems.
Hellena. He, however, desires the rich courtesan Angelica Bianca, Moving away from Catholicism, his attention, both in poetry and
seduces her and then leaves her to marry Hellena. Other couples pair prose, began to tum more and more towards religious concerns, and
off, apart from the foolish Blunt who is duped by a prostitute. in 1610 he published his most notable prose work, Pseudo-Martyr,
Seeking revenge for his injured manhood, he threatens to rape which argued that English Catholics should agree to the Oath of
Hellena's sister, Florinda, who is saved at the last minute by Valeria, Supremacy and swear allegiance to James I. It was around this time
Hellena's kinswoman. It is a cold moment in the play, and suggests that Donne wrote his 'holy sonnets', poems which reflect a dark
how Restoration comedy often lets slip the mask of the social world sense of despair. In 1615 he took orders in the Church of England, and
to reveal something more brutal. It is this as much as anything that almost immediately was made a royal chaplain by James I. In 1621 he
the Restoration period perhaps signals: that, in the world after the was appointed Dean of St Paul's, a position he held until his death in
Civil War, any kind of social order can only be a disguise or mask 1631; in this final decade he continued to write, especially sermons.
which cannot really hide the harsh realities that underlie the pretence The details of Donne's life help us grasp the way in which a writer
of social and political order. Restoration comedies, with their mix- at the start of the seventeenth century was also likely to be a partici-
ture of social types, offer us an impression of the changing nature of pant in the broader public life of the country. But the same could be
fashionable society, but they also reveal the fragility of the veneer of said of writers during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The
civilised behaviour. moment we look at Donne's poetry, however, it becomes apparent
that he is breaking away from the ways of writing that are character-
istic of the sixteenth century. This is why, even though they were

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92 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 93

mainly written in the 1590s, Donne's love poems are usually dis- The Sun Rising' starts abruptly, almost aggressively, and as soon
cussed in a seventeenth-century context. His originality is evident in as it starts there is a rapid sequence of images which accumulate so
a poem such as 'The Sun Rising': quickly that it is difficult to take them all in. Moreover, as Donne
introduces images he seems to tum them inside out, playing with
Busy old fool, unruly sun, them, creating a sense of a mobile and confusing world. The sun
Why dost thou thus, might traditionally suggest warmth and security, but when Donne's
Through windows, and through curtains call on us? mind gets to work on the image the result is restless and unnerving.
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
We can relate this impression to other qualities that are always in evi-
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
dence in Donne's poetry: there are sudden leaps in imagery, a twist-
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, ing of ideas, paradoxes and unexpected reversals. The result is to
Call country ants to harvest offices; suggest a giddy world, a world that we can barely get the measure of.
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Donne's tone, the fact that we are never quite sure whether he is
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. being serious or not, contributes to the feeling of uncertainty; noth-
ing seems secure, reliable or trustworthy. The words that best
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
describe the content of the poem are, in fact, the words that we might
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink.
use to talk about its form: formally The Sun Rising' is difficult, bewil-
But that I would not lose her sight so long; dering and even exhausting in its twists and turns of syntax and
If her eyes have not blinded thine, metre, but by being so it creates an impression of a difficult, bewil-
Look. and tomorrow late, tell me, dering and exhausting world.
Whether both th' Jndias of spice and mine Such playful complexity could be regarded as simply a reflection
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. of Donne's temperament, but something more general seems to be
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, implicit, which is a changing sense of the world at the start of the
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay. seventeenth century. This can be appreciated if we compare Donne
She's all states, and all princes, I, and the typical poets of the sixteenth century. Sixteenth-century
Nothing else is. poetry is both complex and varied, but the writers for the most part
Princes do but play us; compared to this, work within conventional lyric forms, whereas Donne and many
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy. other seventeenth-century poets favour unorthodox and person-
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, alised lyric forms. Donne did, admittedly, write sonnets, but the
In that the world's contracted thus. sonnet was losing its popularity. Changes in form could be seen as
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be merely a reaction against the poetic norms of a previous age, but,
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
more significantly, a change in form enables Donne to move from
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
the sonneteers' conventional sense of an idealised love to a sense of
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.
love as a mysterious and untidy complex of physical desire and
Essentially, Donne chides the sun for disturbing him and his partner spiritual impulse. It is as if the old tradition works with fixed ideas,
in bed in the morning. Donne's way of handling this theme, howev- but for Donne the notion of familiar patterns is a thing of the past.
er, suggests that the poem is more significant than its trivial subject The reasons for such a change are complicated. Something similar
matter might initially lead us to believe. was happening across Europe as the medieval world yielded to the

I
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94 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 95
modem world; the term Baroque (from the Italian word for 'rough' There I should see a Sun, by rising, set,
or 'unpolished' but also meaning 'extravagant'), which is used And by that setting endless day beget;
extensively in relation to seventeenth-century music and architec- But that Christ on this cross did rise and fall,
ture, can also be applied to Donne's poetry. More specifically in an Sin had eternally benighted all.
English context, however, we can point to a changing and expand- 01. 11-14)
ing sense of the world prompted to a great extent by the growth of Part of the attraction of religious faith is that, as here, it can embrace
trade; but there is also a new sense of the individual, a development contradictory aspects of experience. Christ reconciles opposites: he
that has to be seen as an aspect of the Protestant faith in a rises and falls, he dies and lives. Donne's response, however, is unex-
Protestant country. Suddenly, or so it seems, the world is not only pected:
bigger but also more puzzling, and the sense of being an individual
in this world is also more complex. Yet dare !'almost be glad I do not see
The issues involved are reflected in the concept of the 'conceit'. A That spectacle, of too much weight for me.
conceit is a far-fetched metaphor in which a very unlikely connection Who sees God's face, that is self-life, must die;
between two things is established. Donne employs them extensively What a death were it then to see God die?
in his poetry, as when, in 'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning', he 01. 15-18)
describes lovers' souls as being like the two legs of a pair of compass- He is discomfited, asking awkward questions about his own predica-
es. A sense of strain seems to be intended. Donne is trying to com- ment. At such moments, as Donne complicates and confuses his
prehend the early seventeenth century, a century that seems to position, language seems to be stretched as far as it will go before col-
contain a bewildering variety of impressions, and, as trade and sci- lapsing. There are parallels with what we see in Shakespeare's plays,
ence develop, there is more and more in the world that seems to in particular Hamlet, at the start of the seventeenth century: a new
demand consideration. Donne's conceits establish links between dis- sense of life's complexity is acknowledged that is so extreme that the
parate aspects of experience, but the links are precarious, as if con- language of literature is pushed to its limits. Indeed, what Charles
nections can only be made in a desperately fanciful way. One way of Lamb said about Shakespeare's works from this period can also be
thinking about conceits is to see them as the final expression of a applied to Donne: 'Shakespeare mingles everything, he runs line into
medieval view oflife, in which every aspect of experience is linked as line, embarrasses sentences and metaphors; before one idea has burst
part of a comprehensive religious pattern in existence. And this leads its shell, another is hatched out and clamorous for disclosure.'
us to what is perhaps the central paradox of Donne's poetry: he is the In 'Good Friday' there is a particularly provocative sense of the
most original writer of his generation, but he is also a traditional individual's relationship to God. The poem ends:
writer who would like to recover an old form of all-inclusiveness. He
might have become a Dean in the Anglican Church, but a Catholic 0 think me worth thine anger; punish me;
impulse towards the all-embracing vision survives in Donne's Bum off my rusts and my deformity;
poetry. Restore thine image so much, by thy grace,
That thou may'st know me, and I'll tum my face.
This is clearest in his religious poems, where he searches for truth
and is disturbed both by doubt and by the distractions of daily life. In 01. 39-42)
'Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward', for example, the poet is travel- This might seem to be Donne, piously dedicating his life to Christ,
ling towards the west, but is conscious that, in doing so, he has but, rather than Donne turning to Christ, Christ is more or less
turned his back on the east and, by implication, Christ: instructed to become aware of Donne. Nothing, we can see, is as it
 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 97
96

should be; nothing is clear-cut or straightforward any more. What experience. The security, such as it was, of the medieval world has
we are confronted with in this poem is true generally of Donne's been left behind, the poetry of the seventeenth century reflecting a
poetry, both in its secular and religious forms. The syntax of the world that has, in a variety of ways but perhaps most clearly with the
poems together with every image used enacts a sense of life as in a execution of King Charles I by Parliament, in 1649, been turned
bewildering state of disarray, with every steady point of reference upside down.
compromised. Such a stance, it should become clear, sets the tone for When we think about the intellectual, spiritual, political and social
much of the seventeenth century. ferment of the seventeenth century, it becomes apparent that the tra-
ditional picture of the literary landscape of the period can be
redrawn. The established canon of great writers represents a certain
From Ben Jonson to John Bunyan and Andrew Marvell view of cultural history, but if we wish to acknowledge untidiness
It is easy to construct a coherent overview of seventeenth-century rather than a clear pattern in the century we need to consider writers
poetry; whether such an overview has any validity, however, is open who used to be overlooked. We could, fo.r example, look at a woman
to question. Spenser, as the greatest non-dramatic poet of the six- writer such as Aemilia Lanyer, whose Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum (1611)
teenth century, continued to be an influence, but we have to wait combines religious meditation with courtly elegance:
until John Milton to see a poet as ambitious as Spenser. Milton, how-
Thy Mind so perfect by thy Maker fram'd
ever, has to be seen as rather detached from the poetic fashion of his No vaine delights can harbour in thy heart,
day, whereas Donne both typifies and dictates the fashion. The so- With his sweet love, thou are so much inflam'd,
called Metaphysical poets of the 1630s, 1640s and 1650s - George As of the world thou seem'st to have no part;
Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan and Andrew Marvell - all So, love him still, thou need'st not be asham'd,
work in a manner initiated by Donne. Ben Jonson, on the other hand, Tis He that made thee, what thou wert, and art:
favoured a more restrained form of social poetry. Amongst those Tis He that dries all teares from Orphans eies,
who fell under his influence were the 'Cavalier' poets: Richard And heares from heav'n the wofull widdows cries.
Lovelace, Sir John Suckling and Thomas Carew, as well as Robert 01. 41-8)
Herrick and Edmund Waller. Jonson would also, in the course of
time, prove a major influence on the neo-classical approach of John The effect of blending courtly language of love such as 'sweet' and
Dryden, the writer who, specifically in his satirical poems, seems to 'inflam'd' with biblical allusion and phrasing is to create an affinity
embody the spirit of the Restoration period. between God and woman. In particular, in Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum
What complicates the issue immediately is the fact that writers Lanyer suggests a deeper connection between Christ and women
who were influenced by, say, Jonson, were just as likely to have been and offers a feminised image of Christ who in turn reflects back a
influenced by Donne. The real problem in presenting an overview of mirror image of woman. As a result, the poem achieves a much
the century's poetry, however, is the fact that a summary creates an more intense questioning of religious and social hierarchies by its
impression of coherent change and development, whereas a more claim to a spiritual superiority for women. It is, however, the com-
accurate impression is of variety and confusion. Indeed, in poem bination of religious and courtly concerns that gives the poem its
after poem there is an emphasis on the perplexing nature of life, a vitality.
stance that is substantiated by the use of rhetorical devices such as Women poets in the period tend to lean in only one of these direc-
paradox and antithesis, conceit and hyperbole. These rhetorical tions - the religious or the courtly- depending to a great extent upon
devices convey a sense of the complex and contradictory nature of their allegiances in the Civil War. As we might expect, religious poetry
98 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 99

is often associated with radical Protestantism. Anne Bradstreet, who He did but kiss and clasp me round,
emigrated from England to America, is the best-known woman poet Whilst those his thoughts expressed:
And laid me gently on the ground;
in this tradition, but there are others of considerable interest, such as
Ah who can guess the rest?
An Collins, who, in her Divine Songs and Meditations (1653), conveys a
(11. 17-24)
sense of her poems as humble and personal:
Lascivious joy I prayse not, Behn was attacked for her immodesty and openness about sex, but
Neither do it allow, there is an undisguised mockery here of the courtly pretence that love
For where the same decayes not was merely a matter of verbal sport or that women were simply the vic-
No branch of peace can grow; tims of Witty seducers wihout desires and sexual knowledge of their
For why, it is sinister own. It might be argued that much of Behn's poetry and that of other
As is excessive Griefe, women writers is inferior in quality to the works of well-known male
And doth the Heart sequester poets, but that is precisely the point: the seventeenth century was, even
From all good: to be briefe, in the revolutionary years, a masculine culture in which a woman had
Vain Delight to struggle to be heard. A case in point is Mary Wroth, the first
Passeth quite
Engli_shwoman to write a long romance (The Countess of Montgomery's
The bounds of modesty,
And makes one apt to nothing
Urania, 1621) and also a sonnet sequence (Pamphilia to Amphilantus, 1621,
But sensuality. appended to Urania). She was the most prolific woman writer of the
('Another Song exciting to post-Elizabethan period, and, even though she came from a distin-
spirituall Mirth', 11. 66-78) guished literary family (her uncle was Sir Philip Sidney), she ran into
trouble because of her seeming criticism of the court of James I and its
The poem in form and language is restrained and almost prosaic in scandals. As a result, the Urania had to be withdrawn from sale.
its rejection of 'vain delight'. There is little room here for the kind of A parallel point could be made about the writings of the members
play with courtliness evident in Lanier's poem above. What is of the many obscure religious sects that flourished in the seventeenth
stressed, quite simply, is 'modesty'. A complication is that this same ce~tury, such as Mary Mollineux, a Quaker, whose poems Fruits of
sense of humility may symbolise the weakness of a woman's role, Retirement were first published in 1702 but date some twenty years
that the woman occupies a humble position which she has no alter- before that:
native other than to accept.
A rather similar sense of the woman's role in life is evident in the Thus Modesty, and Spotless Innocence,
courtly verse associated with the Royalists, for example in the work ls often to its self a sure Defence.
This is the Virgin's Ornament, whereby
of writers such as Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips and Anne Killigrew,
Beauty's adorned; for this doth Beautify,
although it is the case that Behn voices a powerful sense of woman's
Where fading Colours flourish not, and may
sexuality and desire, as, for example, in The Willing Mistress', a song Be term'd a Dow'r, whose Worth shall ne'er decay.
in her play The Dutch Lover: ('Of Modesty', lines 45-50)
His charming eyes no aid required
To tell their softening tale;
An author such as Mary Mollineux might lack something, indeed just
On her that was already fired, about everything, in terms of literary quality, but such voices need to
Twas easy to prevail. be listened to if we are to grasp the nature of this turbulent society.
100 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 101

The variety of seventeenth-century voices is more apparent in - particularly the fact that in under fifty years the country could
prose than in poetry. As with poetry, there is an established history move from the relative order of the court of Queen Elizabeth to the
of prose writing in the seventeenth century; this traces a movement execution of King Charles I - it is important to look at writing from
from texts such as Francis Bacon's Essays (1597), Robert Burton's The the period that conveys the turmoil of new thinking. An interesting
Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler (1653) insight into the temper of the age is provided in the writings of
and Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia (or Um Burial, 1658) through to Margaret Cavendish, who at the outbreak of the war, in 1642, found
stylistically far plainer texts at the end of the century. John Bunyan's herself, along with her sisters, under siege from the Parliamentarians
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) is one text that illustrates the new plain- at Welbeck Abbey; the sisters ran the estate until it was taken by the
ness in writing. Its manner is at a far remove from the fullness of opposition in 1644. The sisters' co-written play, The Concealed Fancies,
rhetorical expression that characterises works earlier in the century. deals with these events. This might seem to indicate that Cavendish
They reveal a habit of mind which can be described as all-inclusive, was very much a voice from the old order in society, but her account
whereas Bunyan, with his Puritan convictions, concentrates upon a of her life, A True Relation ofMy Birth, Breeding and Life, offers a provoca-
single example, his hero, Christian, on his journey through life. It is a tive sense of the problem women experience as a result of the fact
work that seems to foreshadow the development of the novel in the that their identity is defined through men. Her first volume of verse,
early eighteenth century as Bunyan dwells on the individual and the Poems and Fancies (1653), is also extremely interesting in that it displays
importance of personal experience. While a work such as Burton's her active interest in developments in chemistry and natural philos-
The Anatomy of Melancholy might seem to focus upon a state of mind, ophy, but also a self-consciousness about her writing:
in the end it is much more an all-embracing reflection upon life.
Reading my Verses, I like't them so well,
By contrast, Bunyan, within the framework of a general religious
Selfe-love did make my Judgement to rebel!.
allegory, focuses very much on his hero's state of mind.
Thinking them so good, I thought more to write;
While this is the broad pattern of movement in prose works during Considering not how others would them like.
the seventeenth century, the texts which are amongst the most inter- ('The Poetresses hasty Resolution', II. 1-4)
esting are those with a political dimension. Milton in The Reason of
Church Government (1642), for example, challenges the established Cavendish is by no means a radical writer, but in a distinctive way
church, and in the same year, after his wife deserted him to return to challenges an elite masculine culture by confronting its norms. A
her Royalist relations, wrote a number of pamphlets defending divorce writer such as Winstanley is angrily at odds with the inherited order,
on the grounds of incompatibility. His Areopagitica, published in 1644, but Cavendish provides evidence of just how many strands of new
is a plea for freedom of the press. As with all Milton's prose works, it thinking can emerge in a period of political and social upheaval.
challenges established beliefs and practices. In recent years, interest in As perhaps might be expected, some of the most powerful new
this kind of radical thinking has led to a lot of attention being paid to voices in prose come from religious groups and sects, such as the Fifth
the publications of extreme religious and political groups, such as the Monarchists, who believed that Christ's Second Coming was at hand
Ranters and Levellers, and, perhaps most interesting of all, Gerrard and that he would reign for a thousand years. A remarkable figure in
Winstanley's Digger tracts, published between 1648 and 1651, and his this context is Anna Trapnel who, in January 1654, fell into a trance.
final work, The Law of Freedom (1652), which puts forward a proposal for Her prophecies in the trance were published in verse as The Cry of a
a chillingly authoritarian communistic commonwealth. Stone in the same year. Also in 1654, her Report and Plea appeared, which
Winstanley never used to feature in the standard syllabus of an is an account of how she was called to Cornwall to preach and her
English literature course, but if we are to grasp the seventeenth century arrest and interrogation there on a charge of witchcraft:
102 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 103

After that day wherein I was thus carried forth to speak for Christ's inter- I struck the board and cried, 'No more;
est, the clergy, with all their might, rung their jangling bells against me, I will abroad!
and called to the Rulers to take me up. That I heard was the speech of Mr. What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
Welstead: and others said, The people would be drawn away, if the rulers My lines and life are free, free as the road,
did not take some course with me.' Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?'
The narrative continues with a dramatic account of Anna's cross-
01. 1-6)
examination by Justice Lobb and her witty defence. Anna is clearly
perceived as a threat, as someone whose apocalyptic language is dan- The poem arrives, in a way that seems predetermined, at a point
gerously radical, but also as a woman acting outside social and gen- where he makes his peace with God, but what dominates during the
der conventions by taking on a public role. Throughout the period, course of the poem is a sense of an inner spiritual state that is restless
women prophets were constructed as transgressive figures, and the and frustrated. There is, as in a great deal of seventeenth-century
Report and Plea itself is part of a subversive, transgressive literary tra- poetry, a dramatisation of individual feelings that are awkward and
dition which both opposes and ridicules authority. troubling, and a fear (even if somewhat glibly dismissed at the end of
Literature, of course, reflects social and intellectual upheaval, but it the poem) that the old framework of convictions no longer provides
all the answers.
also helps define and bring into existence new states of feeling and
new attitudes of mind. There is evidence of this, perhaps surprising- We can see the crumbling of secure convictions in a number of
ly, in the works of George Herbert, who, even though he employs the Ben Jonson's poems. 'On My First Son' deals with the death of a child:
devices of metaphysical verse, is likely to strike the reader, at least ini- Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
tially, as a reassuring, essentially traditional, poet. One of his 'Jordan' My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy:
poems begins: Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
Who says that fictions only and false hair 01. 1-4)
Become a verse? ls there in truth no beauty?
What is striking in Jonson's poem is the directness of the statement
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
of his pain and the absence of any consolatory religious message.
Not to a true, but painted chair? What, however, Jonson's poems start to put together as a replace-
('Jordan I', II. 1- 5) ment for old convictions is a secular scheme of values, something
that is most apparent in To Penshurst', a poem that celebrates bal-
These are the typical ingenious and paradoxical gestures of ance and proportion, moderation and restraint:
Metaphysical poetry, but what Herbert is actually doing is playing off
Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show,
thinking in this mould against a straightforward belief in God. It can Of touch or marble; nor canst boast a row
be argued that Herbert employs metaphysical images merely as a sort Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold;
of smokescreen; they do not represent a genuine state of perplexity, Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told,
but stand as illustrations of the false thinking of the age, and behind Or stair, or courts; but stand'st an ancient pile
their cover Herbert sneaks in a simple Christian message. This view is And, these grudged at, art reverenced the while.
less than fair to Herbert, however, as at times in his poems there is a 01. 1-6)
much more alarming sense that the old secure convictions are falling By the end of the century, and even more so in the eighteenth centu-
apart. In 'The Collar', for example, he writes: ry, the social code that Jonson promotes and defends here will be

..,_
104 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 105

central in English culture, but when Jonson shapes this code of mod- Mistress', we see tbe playful, casual and witty qualities that are, in fact,
eration it seems rather like a form of retreat from a period that leans in evidence in all his poems, but beneath the light subject matter -
towards enthusiasm, radical ideas and extreme beliefs. Possibly trying to seduce his woman friend - there is a darker tone as the
Jonson's conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism, a few years poem confronts human mortality and the remorseless destruction of
before Donne made the move in the opposite direction, suggests that time:
he needed a more absolute framework of values.
This sense of an uncertain and alarming world is widespread in the But at my back I always hear
Time·s winged chariot hurrying near;
works of the 'Cavalier' poets. At first sight many of their poems seem
And yonder all before us lie
mere trifles; for example, we might consider 'Delight in Disorder', by
Deserts of vast eternity.
Herrick (who is more accurately described as a follower of Jonson Thy beauty shall no more be found,
than as a Cavalier): Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
A sweet disorder in the dress My echoing song.
Kindles in clothes a wantonness. 01. 21-7)
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
This leads us towards the other quality evident in Marvell's poetry,
Into a fine distraction.
(II. 1-4) the desire to find new reference points in a fluid situation. This is per-
haps easiest to see in 'An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return
The poem as a whole adds little to what is conveyed here: that from Ireland', which initially appears to be a straightforward eulogy.
slightly disordered clothing is sexually alluring. Behind the poem, As we look more closely, however, we are likely to realise that
however, is an awareness of the increasingly restrictive character of Marvell's attitude is ambivalent, and that there are limits to his revo-
Puritan England in the 1630s and 1640s; it is a poem that defies the lutionary and nationalistic enthusiasm; possibly Cromwell has been
spirit of its time, both in terms of its theme, and by virtue of being too ruthless in his treatment of those who oppose him.
a playful poem about sexual desire. A poet who chooses not to Marvell's poem enables us to pull together some of the strands in
write about politics or other weighty matters can, in fact, be mak- this discussion of seventeenth-century poetry and prose. There is, in
ing a political statement simply by his refusal to be serious, his the century, a widespread sense of perplexity, reflected in and leading
refusal to do anything other than tinkering with trifles. Herrick's to disarray and upheaval in both religion and politics. But what also
poem, it is clear, could only have been written at one precise becomes apparent is that, if old convictions are faltering, there are
moment in English history. those who are only too eager to embrace new forms of discipline.
It would be wrong, however, to regard Puritan England as uni- Politically, during the revolution, there is a new authoritarianism;
formly grey and joy-denying. A tremendous variety of people were there are also many who are keen to put forward their views about
united in their support of the Parliamentary cause. Andrew Marvell, how society should be reorganised in accordance with their beliefs.
for example, who served as tutor to the daughter of the leader of the But what we also see in the century is the development of a new,
parliamentary army, and later as assistant to Milton, when Milton essentially secular, code of moderation. Just as Marvell is tactfully crit-
was Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth, is hard to identify as con- ical of Cromwell, on the restoration of the monarchy he becomes an
forming to any Puritan stereotype. He is equally hard to pin down as eloquent yet cautious critic of Charles II, in particular of his failure to
a poet, as he combines the inventiveness of Donne with the moral promote religious toleration. But it is too simple to describe Marvell as
seriousness of Jonson. In his most famous poem, To His Coy a moderate; it is a view that imposes the political vocabulary of the

I
___.__
106 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 107

modern world on the very different world of the seventeenth -~~~g of Milton's !ioees f.91 the~.!Y: Although it was not pub-
century. There are many aspects of Marvell's whole manner of lished until 1667, the poem began to be written sometime in the 1650s
thinking that are simply irretrievable today. For the sake of argu- as Milton started to realise that the religious and political revolution in
ment, however, if we do designate Marvell a moderate, it helps us England was an experiment that seemed doomed to fail. Old tyrannies
appreciate something of absolute importance about Milton, who had simply been replaced by new; the liberties of freedom and choice,
by any definition, both in poetry and politics, is an extremist. so fundamental to the Protestant faith, were, if anything, more rigor-
ously denied than in the past. There were also factional divisions:
Parliament and the army were perpetually in conflict, with Parliament,
John Milton
almost inevitably representing landed and vested interests, never prov-
One way of approaching Milton is to consider him as a writer at an ing radical enough for the army. Following the death of Cromwell in
opposite remove from Donne in terms of religious sensibility. Donne 1658, his son succeeded him as Lord Protector, but was unable to pro-
questions everything and refuses to untie the knots he creates, yet at vide the strong leadership the country needed. With tension continu-
the back of Donne's poetry is the remnant of a Catholic desire to ing between the army and Parliament, the House of Commons began
embrace all of experience in a comprehensive and traditional world negotiations for the restoration of Charles II. If we look at Milton in this
picture. Milton, by contrast, a Puritan, and indeed the most eloquent context, the first thing that is apparent is that he welcomes change, and
defender of Cromwell's regime, engages in fundamental religious that, in both his poetry and prose, he is concerned with questions
and political rethinking. Donne in a sense looks, almost longingly, about the governance of society. In the wake of the failure of England's
towards the past, whereas Milton is interested in the future and in religious and social experiment, however, Paradise Lost endeavours to
establishing a new order. make sense of the fact that the hoped-for new and better social order
Milton was born in London in 1608. His father was a scrivener (a had not come into existence in Puritan England.
copier oflegal documents), and, it is worth noting in the context of a The poetic form in which Milton confronts this problem is the
century where changes of religious allegiance seem widespread, a epic. Divided into twelve books, Paradise Lost tells the story of the fall
Catholic who joined the Church of England. In the course ofJ~me, of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. In
_Milton_himself would come to regard the Church of England as essence, it is a story of rebellion and punishment. Satan, having
. tyrannical as th--;;-Catholic Church. His early works inclucle~L'Alleg_r5)' rebelled against God, has been cast out of Heaven with his followers
and 'II Penseroso' (both 1631), two masques (Arcade.s,_16 , and Comus, into Hell. He determines to take revenge, and sets off for the new
~ 34), and a;clegy (Lycidas, 1637). In 1638-9 h; t~avelled abroad, main- world of Earth to find the creatures God has recently created there.
ly in Italy; his travels extended his intellectual and poetic interests, Disguised as a serpent, he finds Eve alone and persuades her that she
but also added to his hostility towards Catholicism. On his retiimto_ will not die by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, an act for-
_En_gl~I]d ~ilton began the second phase of his Wf!tgig_c~r~r. pro- bidden by God. After she has eaten, Eve takes more of the fruit to
_dqcing politi1=al prose against the monarchy and suppo.rtiQg the Adam who decides that he will also rebel against God's command
republican cause. Overall Milton wrote on a vast range of topics, but and share in her fall. Immediately their innocence vanishes; they
there is always one informing idea: that the English people are special have sex, and are then ashamed of their nakedness. The archangel
and elect, having been.chosen by God to create a new sta~e s~parate Michael tells Adam that they must leave Paradise, but that the Son of
from the past and based upon individual freedom and ch9ice. God will redeem humankind from the Fall, though Sin and Death
Paradise Lost has to be seen in this context. The major complicating have now entered the world.
factor, however, is that it is a poem that was written in res.P_onse to the A number of features stand out in the poem. Everything, as one
-- - -·-- - -
UNIVERSiDAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Filologia • Biblioteca
 108 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 109

might expect in an epic, is on a grand scale: the story encompasses rebellion against Go'd was inevitable. Heaven demanded obedience
the battle between Heaven, Earth and Hell, looking at the history of and servitude. The revolt may have failed, but it has left them their
the world from the Creation through to the final Flood which will freedom. Freedom here may seem heroic, defiant and attractive, but
destroy everything. Crucially, it is Milton's language that establishes it is clear that the fallen angels have also lost their former glory. In
the poem's stature. Part of this involves Milton's use of epic similes this way the poem begins to construct an analogy with the rebellion
and allusions drawn from earlier writers, including Homer and Virgil, of the Civil War and with Milton's own interrogation of established
which lend the poem resonance and richness. But the poem also calls authority. That interrogation deepens in Book IX, with the fall of
upon dramatic devices, such as the use of soliloquy, and visual spec- Adam and Eve. There seems little doubt that Milton blames Eve for
tacle, so that the reader is constantly surprised by new perspectives wanting to gain knowledge and equality with Adam, and blames
and new sights. We can see that Milton draws upon the whole tradi- Adam for taking the fruit and joining her in sin. Yet Milton knows
tion of Renaissance art, in which the visual interacts with the verbal that the Fall is also an act that leads to redemption by Christ, and that
to create a complex impression. Such complexity is seen again in the Adam and Eve act of their own free will, but within a framework of
way the poem combines classical learning with religious faith, so that history planned by God that makes their actions inevitable. Both
behind the poem lies the force of Christian humanism, the belief that freedom and choice seem fraught with contradictions that make sim-
classical teaching and Christianity were complementary. ple answers impossible to arrive at. Human acts cannot be separated
All of this might seem at a distance from questions of the gover- from the Divine Will, but they are not caused by it.
nance of society and the failure of Cromwell's experiment. What The divine and the human, politics and religion: these seem to be
makes Paradise Lost such a powerful poem, however, is precisely the the essential issues in Milton's poetry, and yet they do not account for
way in which the Biblical past is pulled into the present in an intrigu- the extraordinary impact the poem makes. For that we have to think
ing way. Behind the action lies the great central question that troubled about Milton's choice of verse form and his poetic technique. Paradise
all writers in the Renaissance as they confronted a world constantly in Lost is written in blank verse paragraphs. It begins:
flux: whether there really was a divine order governing events, a plan
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
that made sense of the endless twists and turns of history. The nature
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
of Milton's project should become somewhat clearer if we compare Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
Paradise Lost with Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Spenser's poem is a With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
romance epic. Its main figures are knights who are seduced from their Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
quests by temptresses, but who are then rescued. The action is alle- Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
gorical, so that we come to understand how each of the knights rep- Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
resents a virtue which is aided by true faith. The temptresses are That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
figures of the Catholic Church. The poem's point is that the true In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
church is that of Protestant Puritanism, and that this will overcome all Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
evil. Milton's poem does offer the ultimate hope of Christ, that Christ Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
will restore humankind to Paradise, but he is much more troubled
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
than Spenser by all the questions that surround God's will. That with no middle flight intends to soar
Running through Paradise Lost are the key political questions of free- Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
dom and choice. These begin in Book I when the fallen angels debate Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
what to do next. From the perspective of Satan and his followers, (Book I. IL 1-16)

L
110 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 111

Milton asks heaven to inspire his attempt to tell the story of the Fall. spiritual crisis that marks all of Milton's writings. That crisis emerges
The first lines sum up the narrative, but they place the emphasis not from the historical moment of the Civil War, which seemed to
on God but on Man. It is as if Milton wishes to reorder the Biblical promise change but which ended with the monarchy being restored.
narrative, beginning not with the divine but with the human. But that Looking for the reasons for such reversals, Milton turned to the past
can only be done by invoking the heavenly muse. Already we start to to see if God's plan still held good, or whether some new under-
gain a sense of why the poem is problematic, and how its form works standing of the relationship between religion and politics was need-
to give expression to problematic ideas and concepts. The open form ed. His works possibly mark the end of this Renaissance quest for
of the blank verse allows Milton to bring elements together without such understanding.
the pressure of needing to find rhymes and so close meanings off.
Similarly, the long sentences work to include alternatives that open
up possibilities. In this way, Paradise Lost can concern itself not just John Dryden
with political questions of governance but with the whole question The monarchy, in the figure of Charles II, was restored in 1660 fol-
of human action and human identity. In eating from the Tree of lowing the failure of Cromwell's alternative republican regime.
Knowledge, Adam and Eve claim an autonomy for themselves based Politically the monarchy was now strengthened, with new treason
on choice and liberty, whatever the cost. In the same way, Milton laws, censorship and a purge of urban corporations. In religion, the
draws upon an enormous range of classical references and allusions, Clarendon Code re-established the Church of England and also, at
as well as the epic form, to search out a new understanding of human least theoretically, compelled the nation to conform; other legisla-
freedom. tion in the 1660s limited religious freedoms and clamped down on
Paradise Lost came out in 1667. It was followed in 1671 by Paradise dissent. As we might expect, these new political and religious restric-
Regained, in which Milton explores further the theme of temptation tions provoked anger, and such feelings became more extreme with
and fall; in this case, it is the tempting of Jesus by Satan to prove his the succession of James II in 1685, who advocated wars against the
godhead. Jesus refuses and refutes Satan's arguments. Initially the Dutch as a way of strengthening royal power, and who, choosing to
poem looks like a continuation of Paradise Lost, but it is a debate ignore the wishes of the majority of his subjects, appointed Catholics
rather than a dramatic epic, as Milton teases out the implications of to public office. There was a widespread assumption that, following
the contradiction of Christ's dual nature as man and God's son. As his eventual death, his Protestant daughter, Mary, married to William
with Paradise Lost, Milton confronts fundamental questions in order of Orange, would reverse her father's actions, but James's persistence
to arrive at a more open sense of the relationship between the divine with unpopular policies led to Whig and Tory leaders inviting
and the human. The same point might be made about Samson William to intervene. James fled to France in 1688, William becoming
Agonistes, a blank-verse tragedy published in 1671, but which may joint sovereign with Mary.
belong to the period 1647-53. The hero, Samson, has been captured It is clear, then, that religious and political disputes continued to
by the Philistines after being betrayed by his wife, Dalila (Delilah); his dominate English life even after the restoration of the monarchy;
hair, which gave him his strength from God, has been cut off, and he indeed, it is political and religious infighting that becomes the most
has been blinded. In prison he is visited by a series of figures who prominent subject in Restoration poetry. The leading poet of this
tempt him in various ways. The tragedy ends when, having recovered period is John Dryden, who was appointed Poet Laureate by Charles
his strength and faith in God, he goes to the fes tival of the pagan god II in 1668. He converted to Catholicism in 1686, and lost his court
Dagon and pulls down the temple on his enemies. The play seems to offices upon the accession of William and Mary. The first thing that
echo Milton's life, but a larger framework is provided by the idea of needs to be established about Dryden is that he is a very impersonal
112 A Brief History of English Literature Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose 113

poet; there is nothing in his works about his private feelings or state restoration of the king, and the final two Stuart kings, Charles II and
of mind. On the contrary, he is consistently and, as far as poetry is James II, might have asserted their independence of parliament, but
concerned, almost exclusively a commentator on matters of public the reality was, as the non-violent overthrow of James II illustrates, a
concern. This is apparent in Absalom and Achitophel, a verse satire deal- decisive shift of power towards parliamentary government. The cen-
ing with the political crisis of the last years of the reign of Charles IL tre of gravity in the country had, accordingly, shifted from the court
Charles had no son, and his heir, his brother James, a Catholic, was to the broader machinations of political life, and the poetry of the late
feared by many. The Whigs, led by Shaftesbury, attempted to exclude seventeenth century registers and reflects where the heart of the
James from the throne, substituting Charles's illegitimate son, the national debate is taking place. In the eighteenth century, as the novel
Duke of Monmouth. Dryden, using a biblical story with certain par- begins to establish itself, it can be argued that this becomes the genre
allels, attempted to influence the public against the Whigs, present- where the central national debate is taking place, although it is a
ing them as anarchic enemies of God's anointed king: debate to a large extent about the nature of middle-class existence,
and, as such, significantly different from the overt political focus of
Of these the false Achitophel was first, Restoration and Augustan poetry. It must also be pointed out that, in
A name to all succeeding ages cursed, the late seventeenth century, where trade and commercial consider-
For close designs, and crooked counsels fit, ations were of increasing importance, there had been a significant
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
move towards the modem social and economic order, and that one
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
aspect of this was the privileging of social and political concerns at
In power unpleased; impatient of disgrace.
(II. 150-5) the expense of religious issues. At the beginning of the seventeenth
I
century, Donne's primary concern was his relationship with God. By
In terms of literary fashion, Dryden's poetry in this mould, together the end of the seventeenth century, religion was still a fact of over-
with his criticism, had an enormous influence on shaping neo-classi- whelming importance in people's lives, but, as the literature of the
cal literature in the eighteenth century. Alexander Pope, in particular, period illustrates, there was now an entirely different kind of preoc-
as a verse satirist writing almost exclusively in heroic couplets, is the cupation with the construction and conduct of social and political
direct heir of Dryden. And Dryden, who was also a prolific dramatist, life. The shift to verse satire reflects this new orientation, this new
is, in addition, an important figure in the history of prose writing, central focus in people's lives.
helping to establish what might be regarded as the modem style of
prose, with its closeness to speech and an emphasis on plainness and
clarity.
But the main question that needs to be answered is why, after so
much innovation and variety in the first sixty years of the century,
poetry should have turned so decisively after the Restoration to the
forms of verse satire typified by the works of Dryden. There is no
simple answer. It would seem to have a lot to do with the fact that,
after the excesses of the earlier part of the century, there was an
acceptance by all parties that political and religious disputes needed
to be addressed within the established system and through the estab-
lished institutions. Parliament might have conceded defeat with the
 The Eighteenth Century 115

There is nothing new about launching such a satirical attack in a

poem. While comedy laughs at human weakness, satire is charac-
7 The Eighteenth Century terised by a lack of tolerance for human imperfection; it involves an
ideal, and condemns those who fail to live up to this ideal. The
informing principle can be described as reform through ridicule. The
history of satire can be traced back as far as Greek poets in the sev-
enth and sixth centuries sc, but it was Roman satirical poets, in par-
ticular Horace - an amused spectator of life's follies - and Juvenal -
Alexander Pope bitter, misanthropic and indignant - who had the most influence on
English literature. This influence begins to become apparent in the
In his poem 'An Epistle from Mr Pope, to Dr Arbuthnot', pub- late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, in, for example, the
lished in 1735, Alexander Pope attacks John, Lord Hervey, referring satires of John Donne and the satirical comedies of Ben Jonson. By
to him as Sporus, the castrated boy whom the Roman Emperor about the middle of the seventeenth century, poets writing satirical
Nero 'married': pieces - such as John Denham, Edmund Waller and Andrew Marvell
- began to favour the closed or heroic couplet, where, as in Pope's
Yet let me flap this Bug with gilded wings,
poem, there is a pattern of every two-line unit rhyming, with every
This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose Buzz the Witty and the Fair annoys. line having ten syllables. It is easy to see why this verse form appealed
Yet Wit ne'er tastes, and Beauty ne'er enjoys, to satirists: it is an ordered and strict rhyme scheme, and, as such,
So well-bred Spaniels civilly delight contrasts with the pageant of human folly that the writers are
In mumbling of the Game they dare not bite presenting.
Eternal Smiles his Emptiness betray, John Dryden, in the Restoration period, perfected the use of the
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. heroic couplet, but then, if it is possible to improve upon perfection,
Whether in florid Impotence he speaks, Pope proved even more resourceful in exploiting the possibilities of
And, as the Prompter breathes, the Puppet squeaks; the form. This is apparent in his 'Epistle to Arbuthnot'. The poem is a
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad, verse letter to Arbuthnot, a distinguished physician and celebrated
Half Froth, half Venom, spits himself abroad,
wit. Pope had been attacked in verse by Lady Mary W 01tley Montagu,
In Puns, or Politics, or Tales, or Lies,
with the assistance of her friend Hervey, and in an 'Epistle' written by
Or Spite, or Smut, or Rhymes, or Blasphemies.
(IL 309-22) Hervey alone. Accordingly, Pope embarks upon a savaging of his
detractors, together with a defence of his own character and career.
Hervey at this time was a close confidant of the prime minister, Sir During the course of the poem he creates a sense of frenetic move-
Robert Walpole, and of Queen Caroline, wife of George IL Pope ment and woeful disorder in the world at large. Hervey, in particular,
scathingly represents him as a creature in make-up (Hervey used cos- is represented as someone not only untrustworthy in character but
metics to conceal his pallor) who is always ready to speak for his also less than a man: he is a creature, a bug, and with his painted face
'Prompter', the cynical and corrupt Walpole, and who, in a manner and epicene beauty, sexually ambiguous. He has no controlling prin-
resembling Satan in the garden of Eden, is constantly 'at the ear' of ciples: when he speaks, he leaps alarmingly from subject to subject.
the queen. He is seen as an emblem of Walpole's court, and as a threat In the final two lines of the extract, we see Pope's technique at its best:
both to the nation and to Pope himself. everything is pulled together in the order of the couplet, but there is

114
116 A Brief History of English Literature
The Eighteenth Century 117
-
such a torrent of words that anarchy seems close to destroying the under Queen Anne, confirmed his allegiance to the Tories. An
very idea of order. This is how Pope's couplets work: a sense of chaos
i~portant fact to note about Pope is that he was one of a new gener-
is unleashed, and it is only his skill in restoring the rhyme scheme at10n of professional writers. Indeed, it was his translation of
that retrieves any sense of control. Sometimes, however, as in
Homer's_ Iliad int~ h_eroic couplets, appearing in 1720, that helped
this extract where 'Lies' and 'Blasphemies' do not quite rhyme, the secure _his financial mdependence. A translation of the Odyssey fol-
structure buckles. Significantly, it is when people are presented as
lowed m 1726, together with an edition of Shakespeare's Works in 172 .
ignoring the precepts of religion, when their words become blasphe- 5
Yet, although Pope was part of a new commercial economy, he was
mous, that all hope of order disintegrates. By such subtle touches, deeply at odds with the trade-based and, to Pope, unprincipled direc-
Pope conveys a sense of society losing all sense of true values. tion _in which Walpole (British prime minister from 1721 to 1742) was
Pope's skill in creating a sense of a society that has gone astray can- leadmg the country. The Dunciad (1728), another mock-epic poem,
not be doubted, but the modern reader might have reservations. Can laments the prevalence of dullness in contemporary literary culture
the squabbles between Pope and a small group of his contemporaries while ~ubj~cting it to scathing satire. It was revised and enlarged,
really be the basis of great poetry? There are those who might feel appeanng ma final revision in 1743, by which time Colley Cibber, the
that such verse is merely topical, and that Pope fails to engage with Poet Laureate, was the central figure, reigning over an empire of
issues of real substance. In order to challenge such a view we need tq, chaos. Other significant works are an Essay on Man (1733-4), and four
consider another question, which is why satire became the major Moral Essays, in 1731-5. What we see in all these poems is a concern,
preferred mode of poetic expression in the late seventeenth and first echoed in Pope's commitment to classical literature, with values in
half of the eighteenth centuries. Dryden set the fashion in the public life, a concern that finds an appropriate focus in verse satire.
Restoration period (with works such as Absalom and Achitophel, 1681, B~t ':'by is satire so much the preferred form of poetic expression
and MacFlecknoe, 1682), while Pope is at the heart of a literary culture at this time? One explanation frequently given is that the orientation
where satirical verse is dominant. Lyric poems, personal poems and of. people's minds had changed by the early eighteenth century.
love poems continued to be written by any number of writers, but in EVIdence to support this view is found in a poem by Matthew Prior, a
this period they have no spark of originality. What also goes out of ?oet and diplomat associated with William III, who had become king
fashion is the kind of narrative poem that deals with heroic events m 1688 alo~g with his wife Mary. They were succeeded by Mary's sis-
and heroes. What we have instead is 'mock-heroic', in which an ele- ter, Anne, m 1702. On the death of Anne in 1714, Prior returned to
vated approach is employed for a trivial subject. Pope's The Rape of the England from France, where he had been engaged in Franco-British
Lock, for example, deals with the estrangement between two families peace negotiations, and, under George I, was arrested and impris-
that resulted from Lord Petrie snipping off a lock of Miss Arabella oned. Carmen Seculare (1700) is a eulogy to King William:
Fermor's hair. The essence of such a poem is the disparity between
high, or heroic, ideals and the sordid and trivial nature of modern lif~. Let Him unite his Subjects Hearts,
It was poems such as this that Pope produced throughout his Planting Societies for peaceful Arts;
career. Born in 1688, the son of a Catholic linen-draper in London, his Some that in Nature shall true Knowledge found,
first major poem Essay on Criticism was published in 1711, and in the And by Experiment make Precept sound;
Some that to Morals shall recal the Age,
following year the first version of The Rape ofthe Lock appeared (it was
And purge from vitious Dross the sinking stage;
expanded in 1714). Initially associated with the Whigs, by 1713 Pope
Some that with Care true Eloquence shall teach,
was a member ofJonathan Swift's Tory literary coterie. Windsor Forest
And to just Idioms fix our doubtful speech . . .
(1713), a pastoral poem celebrating the political order established
Through various climes, and to each distant Pole
 A Brief History of English Literature The Eighteenth Century 119
118

In happy times let active Commerce row! .. . works produced during the first half of the eighteenth century. Nor
Nations yet wild by Precept to reclaim, does it acknowledge in any way an unbalanced, almost desperate,
And teach 'em Arms, and Arts, in W!LLIAM's Name. quality that is often present in Pope's allegedly rational verse. There
(Carmen Seculare, For the Year1700. To the King, was a time when historians used to refer to the 'Peace of the
IL 440-7, 470-1, 486-7) Augustans', as if in a quiet and orderly way a new kind of more rea-
Prior's vision is of a rational society, committed to scientific enquiry, sonable society was developing in the early eighteenth century. But
morally respectable literature, supervision of the language, and this is not how it would have seemed at the time. Indeed, for Pope the
under the guidance of a constitutional monarch in a world where world was changing in a way that induced both fear and panic. What
trade acts as a civilising force. It is as if the extremism, religious begins to explain the informing dynamic of Pope's verse is if we see
fanaticism and political absolutism of the seventeenth century is him as desperately trying to commentate upon and to resist, but in
now a thing of the past. In Britain, this new mood is often regarded as the end being confounded by, a changing social, political, economic
a reaction against the kind of excesses witnessed in the Civil War and cultural order.
period, but the fact is that other European nations were also com- Society is, of course, always engaged in a process of change.
mitted to a new kind of rational thinking at the start of the eighteenth Sometimes, as in the English Civil War or the French Revolution, the
process of change is dramatic and apparent. At other times, the
century. ,
The new spirit of the age is reflected in the terms that are com- process is less dramatic, but perhaps just as significant. This is the
monly associated with it. The label 'The Augustan Age' is applied to case in the eighteenth century. English society is becoming more
the period from approximately 1700 to 1745. The original Augustan competitive, with more emphasis on trade, and the emergence of
Age was the period of Virgil, Horace and Ovid under the Roman new interest groups. As discussed in the next chapter, the emergence
emperor Augustus (27 BC-AD 14). Writers such as Pope, Addison and of the novel in the early eighteenth century is both a product and
Swift not only admired the Roman Augustans but also drew parallels reflection of these changes. And this changing economic and social
between the two periods, imitating their literary forms, their empha- order was complemented by a changing political order. The rise of
sis on social concerns, and their ideals of moderation, decorum and Walpole as the first prime minister reflects a significant shift in
urbanity. The term Augustan Age overlaps with talk of the 'neo-clas- power from the monarch to parliament. The whole pattern of
sical period', which could be said to extend from 1660 to 1800. English life was being transformed. Pope himself, a writer living by
Characteristically, neo-classical writers were traditionalists, respect- his pen, is, however, not just a commentator on but also an embodi-
ing the Roman writers who were felt to have established the endur- ment of the new economic and cultural order which sees the growth
ing models. A lot is revealed in the manner in which Pope constantly of subcultures in London, such as that of 'Grub Street' hack writing
revised his own works. As against a conception of art that would see and journalism scorned by Pope in The Dunciad.
a poem as a moment of inspiration, Pope laboured over his poems. It is as a consequence of these kinds of changes that a satirical writer
He is always resistant to extremism and hostile to wilful individual- like Pope emerges, endeavouring to establish mythical points of refer-
ism; his emphasis is always on the need to submit to a restricted and ence, mythical ideals of stability, which are connected with ideas of
defined position in the order of life. He admires forms such as epic tranquillity, of rural withdrawal from the new political and economic
and tragedy, but is too modest to embark upon them; he can regime. It is this dimension of Pope's works that makes him far more
contribute most by mocking excess. than a chronicler of petty squabbles. His poems are trying to compre-
The problem with this description of Augustan principles, how- hend, while at the same time being a reflection of and embroiled in,
ever, is that it does not really begin to explain the power of the satirical the deep currents of change in the period of their production. It is this

l
120 A Brief History of English Literature The Eighteenth Century 121

that helps explain some of the more extreme features of Pope's writ- people who have lost any sense of proportion, but Pope constructs
ing. There is, for example, an almost rabid contempt for women in a himself as a still point, a point of reference. These elements, that are
number of his poems (though this can combine with sympathy for central in Pope, appear repeatedly in eighteenth-century literature
their position in a pretentious but also brutal society), which might and help us make sense of social, political, economic and cultural
be seen as a fear of otherness, a fear of everything and everybody that change. There is a sense of trying to comprehend, at times to define,
does not resemble himself. The form this misogyny often takes is an this changing society, and, increasingly so as the century advances, a
association of women with dirtiness and filth, Pope displaying an focus on the self as perhaps the only thing that can be relied upon in
almost obsessive desire for sanitised order that he can understand a bewildering and increasingly anarchic world.
and control. At the same time, another feature of Pope's poetry, and
which is characteristic of some conservative thinkers and writers, is
that, as much as he wants a world that will stand still, there is a desire The Augustan Age
for confrontation and violence, for some form of final struggle with A consideration of eighteenth-century literature must always return
the forces of anarchy and change. This might seem a dismissive view to the fact that the revolution of 1688, which resulted in William Ill
of Pope, but it is rather a recognition of how a writer is the product being declared King, is as important an event in British history as the
and reflection of all the contradictory forces of the period in which execution of Charles I in 1649, for it marked the introduction of con-
he or she is writing. Pope is a conservative writer, deeply offended by stitutional monarchy and a new political and social order, Britain
the world he describes, but at the same time he is the writer who establishing political arrangements that reflected its emerging char-
offers the sharpest sense of just how British society was altering in acter as a dynamic trading economy. The new political order, char-
the early eighteenth century. acterised by parliamentary antagonism between the Whigs and
In this respect it is particularly important to grasp that Pope is not Tories, is most clearly summed up in the figure of the Whig prime
entirely a reactionary figure, that in a very significant way his verse minister, Robert Walpole. For Walpole, the essence of politics was
reveals the new way in which people began to think about and see the pursuit of harmony within a propertied society; this meant tak-
themselves at this time. Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, at the ing measures to encourage trade and, as far as possible, limiting the
centre of Pope's poetry is Pope himself. In a traditional scheme of val- country's involvement in costly military disputes, while profiting
ues such as that found in the Middle Ages, the individual would have from any wars that did take place. But this grand vision combined in
an appropriate sense of their own insignificance in relation to God practice with a ruthless and cynical control of patronage in order to
and in the general scheme of things. But in the early eighteenth cen- maintain his own grip on power.
tury, as we see in the rise of the novel, there is a new emphasis upon The new confrontational politics of Whigs and Tories meant there
the individual as the focus or centre of his or her own world. In a were many who might, by birth, have expected to be at the heart of
rather similar way, and in a manner that we do not encounter before public life who found themselves excluded. Jonathan Swift, at odds
the eighteenth century, Pope places himself at the centre of his own with Walpole's leadership of the country, is such a figure. But more is
poetic narratives, controlling their pace, offering his balanced cou- involved than just a feeling of personal exclusion. For Swift, as for
plets as the epitome of good sense, honesty and civilised values. Pope, there is a sense of the nation changing in ways that are disqui-
Consequently, although Pope might appear to look entirely to the eting. It is the eighteenth-century novel that provides the fullest pic-
past, reproducing the pattern of received literary models, what he ture of an expanding, trade-based country, with new voices jostling
actually offers again and again is a new form of narrative reflecting a to be heard. In particular, the novel charts the coming into existence
new sense of the significance of the self. There is a giddy world full of of a new kind of middle-class person; indeed, the novel can be

_L
122 A Brief History of English Literature The Eighteenth Century 123

regarded as the genre in which such people write themselves into the Swift's core convictions are, in fact, very simple: he is a Christian
public record. But wherever we turn in the eighteenth century, for and an Englishman, and as a Christian aware of England's colonial
example in developments of journalism in Grub Street or in the responsibilities in Ireland. But the world he lives in has lost all touch
growth of the book trade, there is evidence of a society marked by with simple controlling values. The first two books of Gulliver's
novelty and innovation that is always connected with the developing Travels, where Gulliver visits Lilliput and Brobdingnag, reflect the
economic strength of the nation. Indeed, during the course of the kind of political infighting that characterises the early eighteenth
century, the wealth of the country increased dramatically, while a century. In the third book. contemporary scientists are held up to
series of successful wars, before the setback of the American War of ridicule. In the fourth book, set in the land of the Houyhnhnms, hors-
Independence (1775-83), saw a significant advance in Britain's status es are endowed with reason, unlike the depraved all-too-human
on the world stage. But even with military and material success, life Yahoos, but reason is clearly not the only thing that matters in life.
became more, rather than less, confusing. Perhaps the most significant difference between Swift and Pope is
A sense of the shifting social order of the early eighteenth century that, whereas Pope has a clear set of moral convictions, Swift as a
is apparent in the writings of Swift, who, like Pope, presents a society satirist offers no solutions and very little to hold on to. It is the same
that is beyond both his taste and comprehension. Swift, born and in his writings on Ireland. He adopts such a complex set of masks,
educated in Dublin, but who always insisted on his Englishness, deceiving and misleading the reader all the time, that there seems no
(
enjoyed political favour during the reign of Queen Anne, when he steady point of reference. This, however, seems an appropriate
was a prolific pamphleteer in the Tory cause. His reward for loyal ser- response to the political and social world he is engaging with.
vice was his appointment to the position of Dean of St Patrick's At the same time, it is important to note that Swift is not a
Cathedral in Dublin; initially he held the office as an absentee, but, detached ironist; much more is involved than merely undermining
when the Whigs came back into power, in 1714, Swift left England convictions and challenging the reasoning process. In all of Swift's
and took up his Deanery in Ireland. For some years he lapsed into writings there is a loathing of, and yet an obsession with, human
silence as a writer, but in the 1720s he began to write on Irish matters, physicality. There is a disgust at the physical grossness of humanity,
in particular denouncing the conduct of absentee English landlords. yet Swift can never resist describing this physical grossness. In this
Significant works from this period include a series of satiric pam- respect, he is very much like Pope. Indeed, both correspond to acer-
phlets, the Drapier's Letters (1724), and A Modest Proposal (1729), another tain pattern of right-wing thinking that incorporates contempt for
satiric pamphlet, which, ironically, recommends cannibalism (or women and a desire for confrontation and violence; revulsion leads
more accurately, the rearing of children by the poor for consumption to the wish that a tangibly corrupt society will consume itself. It fol-
by the rich) as the only solution to Ireland's economic problems. It lows that, although Pope and Swift are the two most celebrated writ-
was also in this period that Swift produced his most celebrated satir- ers of their period, they are also, oddly enough, unrepresentative, in
ical work, Gulliver's Travels (1726), in which Lemuel Gulliver recounts 1. that they are so much at odds with what was actually emerging in
journeys to imaginary locations. Swift, who wrote such a miscella- terms of a new, more polite society. They position themselves as crit-
neous range of works, many of them outside the established literary ics of the excesses of early eighteenth-century life, but display a
genres (Gulliver's Travels, for example, cannot be described as a novel, degree of excess in their own works that is inconsistent with devel-
even though it was influenced by Defoe's Robinson Crusoe), and who opments in British life, in particular developments in British middle-
repeatedly adopts an elusive ironic stance, is one of the most difficult class life. This becomes apparent the moment we tum our attention
authors to pin down. Yet the very elusiveness of Swift makes him an from the Tories Pope and Swift to the Whig Joseph Addison.
apt commentator on the early eighteenth century. Addison defended the Whigs in the weekly periodical the Examiner
124 A Brief History of English Literature The Eighteenth Century 125

(1710), contributed to Richard Steele's Tatler (1709-11), and collaborat- heard in the kind of way that would have been possible for a man.
ed with Steele on The Spectator (1711-12). Addison and Steele's essays Her letters, none the less, offer a sense of the increasingly complex
might strike the modem reader as inconsequential. for all they do in and varied life of an upper-class woman in the new century as well as
The Spectator, for example, which appeared on a daily basis for 555 of the growing diversity of literary production.
issues, is to present what purport to be the views of a small club of The impression of diversity would be borne out if we had space to
gentlemen from different walks of English life. The contemporary consider the works of a number of eighteenth-century women writ-
significance of these essays, however, is enormous: they are central in ers, women such as Ann Finch (Countess of Winchilsea), Elizabeth
the reformation and development of manners in providing ordinary Thomas, Elizabeth Tollett, Sarah Dixon and Mary Leapor. Even more
men and women with a guide to a life of virtue within a commercial than Montagu, these were writers on the fringes of the dominant
society. Pope and Swift looked at the society of their day and saw lit- male culture, but in many ways this is what makes their works inter-
tle to praise, but Addison, although a less substantial figure in literary esting as each so clearly represents another voice and another stance
history, is helping to formulate a new set of reference points for a within the Augustan period. The following lines, influenced by Pope
society that is increasingly determined to see itself as polite and but providing an altogether opposite perspective, are from Mary
respectable. As the critic Bonamy Dobree observed of Addison: 'He is Leapor's 'An Essay on Woman':
the perfect representative of what the age was trying to be, the man
Woman, a pleasing but a short-lived flower,
who more than anybody else helped society to go the way it wanted Too soft for business and too weak for power:
togo.' A wife in bondage, or neglected maid;
One aspect of social change in the early eighteenth century is the Despised if ugly; if she's fair, betrayed.
increasing visibility of women in literary life. If at one time the stuff
of literature had been heroic deeds and epic encounters, as we enter
the eighteenth century there is, particularly in the novel, a growing Leapor was encouraged and supported by Bridget Freemantle, but
emphasis on ordinary life. Attention shifts to those involved in day- died in poor health in 1746. Her poems were published after her
to-day commercial and political activities, with a complementary death. Like so many others, Leapor's was only a quiet voice com-
emphasis on domestic experience. It is in just such areas that women menting from the margins.
at this time can compete on equal terms with men. The writings of Montagu's letters were not published until 1763, the year after her
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu provide a vivid example. Her husband death. Consequently, they represent a retrospective comment on the
was the English ambassador to Constantinople, where the couple Augustan age, rather than making a direct contribution to that peri-
lived from 1716 to 1718. In a series ofletters home she describes life in od. As such, they can be contrasted with James Thomson's The
the Ottoman court, the letters constituting a fascinating example of Seasons (1726-30), four blank-verse poems which combine descrip-
how public and private life interconnect. Montagu also wrote verse tion of the natural scene with passages of philosophy and morality,
pictures of contemporary society, in Town Eclogues (1716) and Court and celebrations of British history, industry and commerce. They
Poems by a Lady of Quality (1716}, but she is best known for her letters, seem to be poems designed to appeal to the growing middle-class
in particular to her daughter, Lady Bute. It might, of course, seem odd audience, combining an appreciation of nature with a positive sense
to include Montagu's letters in a history of English literature, yet the of the country's destiny. It is easy to be dismissive about poems such
very fact that she is best known for her letters tells us a great deal as The Seasons, which clearly constitute an expression of popular taste
about the position of women in her day. Montagu was on the fringes and feelings, but if we are to come to terms with the eighteenth cen-
ofliterary life, but never quite at the centre, never able to get her voice tury we have to understand how writers such as Pope and Swift are a

UN!VERSIDAD DE SEVILLA

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126 A Brief History of English Literature The Eighteenth Century 127

product of the same dynamic, but also contradictory, social forces far as Derby. The country was also drawn into a series of wars (the
that produced Thomson. The difference is that, while Pope and Swift War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-14, the Seven Years' War,
see nothing but decay, Thomson sees the development of something 1756-63, war against the Americans between 1775 and 1783, and pro-
new and vital. tracted wars against revolutionary France which only finally came to
One aspect of a new eighteenth-century mood was patriotism. It an end in 1815). Military success did, however, lead to a growth in
was Thomson who wrote 'Rule Britannia', the poem appearing in his trade and a rapid expansion of the British empire.
masque A!fred in 1740. A developing sense of the importance of At home, rather than a new political order steadily emerging, there
national identity emerged during the course of the eighteenth centu- was a recurrent sense of crisis. This was particularly the case in the
ry, largely because of the country's growing economic and strategic second half of the century. Up until about 1757, there was a kind of
power. But what we also have to appreciate in a new age with new pact between George I and then George II and the Whigs. After 1757,
priorities is that new narratives - new ways of framing and shaping however, things began to fall apart. In particular, as we approach the
experience - appear. In the Tudor era, a sense of national pride found end of the eighteenth century, there is a far greater sense of con-
its focus in the figure of the monarch, but by the eighteenth century frontation between conservative and radical figures in politics.
it is the nation itself that increasingly provides people with a sense of Essentially, the country was changing at a rate that outpaced the abil-
who they are and their place in the general scheme of things. There is ity of political institutions to respond to and govern that sense of
an interesting contradiction, however, in this new sense of national ' change. What was happening in Britain was echoed on the interna-
identity, for what we really encounter in the eighteenth century is an tional stage, with the American colonies asserting their own identity
increasingly diverse range of voices and conflicting interests. Under to the point where they finally rebelled against British authority.
such circumstances, nationalism assumes importance as a uniting We have to wait until the Romantic period to see this spirit of chal-
concept, but it is one that will come under increasing strain in the lenge and rejection being openly expressed in literature. What we see
political conflicts of the late eighteenth century. before the Romantic period are seeds being sown, and the emergence
and development of new voices. But what we also see in the eigh-
Edward Gibbon, Samuel Johnson teenth century is a large number of writers trying to get hold of and
to comprehend the process of change. It is the novel as a genre that
A shift in power, from the monarch to parliament, is evident in the illustrates this most clearly, as writers construct new narratives for a
way that the names of a number of eighteenth-century politicians new century, but we can also point to works such as John Gay's The
still have a certain resonance even today. Wal pole has already been Beggar's Opera (1728), Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village (1770),
referred to. He was succeeded by Henry Pelham from 1743 to 1754. and the plays of Richard Sheridan, such as The School for Scandal (1777).
William Pitt the Elder, a Tory, was at the heart of British politics for These works seem to confront the teeming variety of eighteenth-cen-
much of the 1750s and 1760s, and Lord North, a Tory, was prime min- tury life, but there are other works that seem more intent on summa-
ister from 1770 to 1782. The century ends with William Pitt the tion and definition; essentially, works that strive to bring things
Younger, Tory prime minister from 1783 to 1801. Tracing a succession under control.
of well-known politicians, however, creates a misleading sense of For example, it might be assumed that Edward Gibbon's The Decline
continuity in what was actually a disputatious century. The Jaco bites, and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88) is a work that could have been
supporters of the House of Stuart, posed a potential threat, especial- produced at any time, but it is distinctively a product of the eighteenth
ly in 1715, and again in 1745 when an invasion of England from century, more specifically of the Enlightenment. This is a term used
Scotland, intended to enthrone 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', penetrated as for the movement throughout Europe in the eighteenth century
128 A Brief History of English Literature The Eighteenth Century 129

towards secular and rational views of humanity and society. There is, (1749) and Rasselas (1759). Initially, Johnson might appear to be an
for example, the appearance of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1768-71), a Augustan or neo-classical author, intent on promulgating general
product of the Scottish Enlightenment. In more general terms, how- truths about mankind; poetry, in this scheme of thinking, should
ever, the publication of such an ambitious work can be seen as part examine the species rather than the individual. But what complicates
of an impulse to define anew, to take command of all experience and the picture in Johnson -partly as a consequence of the publication of
interpret it in ways that are in keeping with the modern world. James Boswell's Life of]ohnson (1791) - is a strong sense of the complex
Gibbon's Decline and Fall shares the same impulse. It might appear to individual that keeps on intruding into the picture. There is a dark-
be a work that is exclusively concerned with the past, but what we ness, a sense of melancholy, that is always apparent just behind the
actually encounter here is historiography being reinvented. A new social fac;ade and the emphasis on common sense. This impression
narrative is being imposed, a new narrative that has to be called into that can be detected in Johnson overlaps with the rise of sensibility in
existence because the world has changed. One aspect of Gibbon's the second half of the eighteenth century.
work is his antagonism towards Christianity, which led him to view
history in a secular and philosophical manner. This includes his
Sensibility
account of the rise of Christianity within the Roman empire, which
he presents as explicable in political and social terms, rather than see- If we compare Britain in, say, 1720 with Britain in 1780, it is apparent
ing it as a matter of divine providence. that the country had modernised and advanced in all kinds of ways.
The impulse to provide new explanations for a new age is evident By 1780 Britain was a relatively liberal decentralised state; there was
again in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. Dryden, Defoe and Swift, no tendency towards democracy, but there was a parliament respon-
amongst others, called for the introduction of an Academy that sive to the requirements of the propertied public. Essentially, by the
could regulate the language, which was changing as rapidly as the 1780s Britain had a middle-class political culture. There was also a
world was changing. If the language could not be made to stand still, new national confidence and assertiveness, based upon a sense of
then it at least needed some stability and coherence; shared standards secure and balanced government and a sound economy. In short,
of correctness could then emerge. It is against this background that between 1720 and 1780 there had been a transformation of Britain in
we have to consider the appearance of Johnson's Dictionary, pub- social, cultural, religious and economic terms.
lished in 1755 after eight years' labour. Johnson's massive work of def- This change can be observed if we consider developments in
inition is an attempt to take control of, even if it cannot arrest, a women's poetry and writing. At the beginning of the eighteenth cen-
changing world. Other works by Johnson, although slight in com- tury there is just a small number of women poets getting their col-
parison with the Dictionary, have a rather similar aim. His Lives of the lections of verse into print; by the end of the century the figure has
English Poets (1779-81), for example, takes stock of the English literary risen to thirty. Initially there seems to have been a reaction against
tradition. It does so, moreover, in a way that differs from older habits women writing, partly because of the reputation of Aphra Behn,
of critical commentary; there is a manner of thinking in Johnson's lit- whose plays and poems from the 1680s, as well as her lifestyle,
erary criticism that has threads of continuity with the kind of critical offended middle-class notions of respectability. By the 1730s, howev-
thinking that is still in evidence today. er, different conditions, to a certain extent, started to prevail, with
Indeed, the more closely one looks at Johnson the more it becomes women such as Anna Seward and Mary Jones finding it easier to get
apparent that he has moved on from the world of the Augustans, published in the growing magazine trade and by subscription. As the
reflecting patterns of thought that are closer to those of our own century moved on, there seems, too, to have been a change of heart
world. This is evident in works such as The Vanity of Human Wishes by men in their attitude towards women writers, with authors such
130 A Brief History of English Literature The Eighteenth Century 131

as Samuel Richardson and Dr Johnson offering practical help and the poem is the coming into existence of a certain way of conceptu-
support, especially to Charlotte Lennox. Certainly, by the 1780s we alising private feeling; there is a privileging of personal thoughts,
can speak of women playing an active part in literary circles, with fig- which obviously endorses a strong sense of the individual. In a tradi-
ures such as Hannah More, Elizabeth Montagu and Fanny (Frances) tional elegy the poet works out his or her own position in relation to
Burney all prominent. Again, by the 1780s women were not only pro- an overwhelming sense of the existence of God, but in Gray's poem
ducers of fiction and poetry but also a major part of the reading pub- the religious dimension is rather less important than the sense of the
lic. Not all women, of course. There was still hostility to women authenticity of personal experience.
writers who did not come from the middle and upper classes, and A full discussion of sensibility would demand consideration of
who might represent a threat to the class structure of the new Britain Edward Young's Night Thoughts (1742-5), the poetry of Christopher
that was emerging out of the Augustan period. Smart, and William Cowper's poems, and, although they belong in a
One aspect of this new Britain was the cult of sensibility. rather different context, the sentimental lyrics and comic satires of
Sensibility originally meant nothing more than physical sensitivity, Robert Burns. We want to conclude this chapter, however, with
but by the middle of the century it suggested an emotional, one could William Collins (1721-59), whose small output of poetry combines
even say moral, faculty. As the idea caught favour, it came to suggest classical control with intense lyricism:
a capacity for feeling that included fellow-feeling. It is an attitude that
Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat,
we first encounter in novels, especially those of Samuel Richardson,
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
and this helps pin the sentiment down, for sensibility is specifically Or where the beetle winds
the growth of a certain kind of middle-class delicacy, a feeling associ- His small but sullen horn.
ated with women but extending to a domestic sensitivity that men, ('Ode to Evening', II. 9-12)
too, could understand and embrace. Sensibility also has to be seen as
a consequence of affluence, of the growth of a polite middle-class Poems such as 'Ode to Evening', and The Passion' are haunting in
culture. Indeed, in the 1760s, 1770s and 1780s, contrasts were often tone. It is very clear that Collins is struggling against Augustan liter-
drawn between the sensibility and respectability of the middle class- ary conventions to find a new form of expression. Collins died at the
es and the degeneracy of upper-class life. age of 38, the last nine years of his life blighted by mental illness. In
What is also apparent in the cult of sensibility is that, after the aus- all, he produced under 1,500 lines of verse.
terity of Augustan culture, there was a desire and a search for the sub- Despite the originality of some of his work, there is clearly some-
lime in literature, and perhaps in life generally. Something had been thing rather scrappy and incomplete about Collins's poetry. Nobody,
set in motion that was preparing the ground for Romantic literature, for example, would ever describe Collins as a major poet. But in a his-
although, in the Romantic period, a writer such as Mary tory of English literature it is important to note the presence of this
Wollstonecraft was dismissive of sensibility as a damaging female kind of marginal figure, for it is so often the marginal figures who are
stereotype. But this is anticipating the next step; what we need to chipping away at the established edifice, and who are preparing the
consider here is how sensibility was widely diffused in the culture of ground for something new. Collins is a writer on the outside, a dis-
the second half of the eighteenth century as writers began to explore turbed and alienated figure, but by touching upon dark and hidden
an alternate world to the public and rational world of the Augustans. areas of experience he anticipates at least one aspect of where English
It is appropriate to start with Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country literature will turn next. He also highlights a central paradox of sen-
Churchyard (1751). Gray muses upon life, upon human potential, and sibility: on the one hand, sensibility was a respectable middle-class
upon the unavoidable fact of human mortality. What we witness in feeling, to be cultivated and almost flaunted, but sensibility also
I
132 A Brief History of English Literature

begins to delve into the dark side of the mind. As we will see in the
next chapter, something similar is evident in the novel by the end of
the eighteenth century as the novel of sensibility was succeeded by
Gothic fiction; no sooner had the individual mind been put at the
8 The Novel:
centre of literature than writers were discovering the more alarming
and repressed aspects of that mind. But some of this is already implic-
The First Hundred Years
it in the poetry of Pope, who tries to establish his own character as a
still point in a turning world, but who in the process exposes the
more obsessive and disturbed aspects of his own mind. Daniel Defoe
The novel as most people think of it today first appeared in England
in the early eighteenth century with the publication of Daniel Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe (1719). By the time Samuel Richardson's Clarissa
(1747-8), Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and Laurence Sterne's
Tristram Shandy (1759-67) had been published, the genre was not only
well established but its distinctive features were also apparent. The
opening sentences of Robinson Crusoe illustrate a number of these
characteristics:
I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, tho'
not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who set-
tled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off
his trade lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my
mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in
that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but
by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called, nay,
call our selves, and write our name, Crusoe, and so my companions
always called me.

The qualities in evidence here might not be typical of all novels, but
can certainly be found in a great many.
For a start, there is Defoe's plain style. Other novelists might adopt
a different manner - Fielding, for example, exudes patrician authori-
ty - but the style of a novel always determines its content, and
Defoe's businesslike style serves his purpose in conveying a world of
commerce and middle-class life. This is important: the novel in
England by and large reports upon the experiences of middle-class
people who have to work for a living. Indeed, it can be argued that
the novel emerged in the early eighteenth century precisely because

133
134 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 135

a new kind of commercial society was taking shape at this time. The whole notion of identity, drawing attention to the way in which
novel serves as a mirror for this new middle-class audience, a mirror Crusoe becomes, in effect, a self-named person. There seems a kind
in which they can see, albeit with some exaggeration, the dilemmas of presumption about the way in which Crusoe selects his name, jet-
of their own lives reflected. Such novels tended to be realistic and sec- tisoning the religious association. Rather than simply offering a mir-
ular. Up to and including the seventeenth century, people organised ror to middle-class life in the early eighteenth century, therefore, it
their lives principally in relation to God. Defoe, like other eighteenth- could be argued that Defoe, as he foregrounds Crusoe's change of
century novelists, remains a devout Christian, but if we consider the name, reveals a broader anxiety about the loss of a religious dimen-
name Kreutznaer - it means 'the fool of the cross' - we can see that sion in life, and questions the new concept of the self coming into
the religious echo in the name disappears as he becomes Crusoe. The existence at that time, a concept of the self that will be at the centre of
change in name suggests a move towards secular experience, the future development of the genre.
towards assessing the world, as Defoe does here, in terms of class, A further aspect of the same issue is apparent in how Defoe han-
social mobility, family and possessions. In just a few sentences, there- dles the question of patriarchy. Crusoe shapes his life in the shadow
fore, the opening paragraph of Robinson Crusoe tells us an immense of, and in relation to, his father. It is a power relationship in which the
amount about the various cross-currents at work in society in the child will need to assert himself. But what it also involves is a direct
early eighteenth century. parallel to the way in which the individualistic, entrepreneurial mid-
In a good many novels, as in Robinson Crusoe, the story is of some- dle-class character in the eighteenth century asserts his independence
one making their way in the world. We can anticipate from the open- from God the father. As Robinson Crusoe continues, it is clear at every
ing of Robinson Crusoe that Defoe's hero will reject the secure life of his point that far more is at stake than just a realistic account of Crusoe's
father. Characteristically, the hero or heroine in a typical novel is not experiences. The story involves Defoe's character being shipwrecked
at ease with the established order, and sets out to create his or her on a desert island, fending for himself, gaining a companion in Man
own life. In this respect it might be noted that the life of Crusoe's Friday, and, eventually, as other people arrive on the island, estab-
father, in which he has established the parameters of his own exis- lishing a community and asserting his role as leader. A recurrent
tence rather than passively accepting the position in life he was born image in the earlier stages of Robinson Crusoe is a fear of being swal-
into, could constitute the plot of a novel. It has all the qualities asso- lowed up by the sea, an image that can be interpreted, broadly, as a
ciated with material advance on the basis of individual resourceful- fear of being overwhelmed by chaos, or, more specifically, as reflect-
ness that we find in Crusoe's story. If this is, however, a story told in ing guilt, sexual anxiety and fear of punishment. But as much as
novels over and over again, every separate telling of the story will fea- Crusoe might fear the sea, he is also drawn by it. He is restless, always
ture a number of concerns that are distinctively the product of a par- wishing to move on, this personality trait reflecting a new kind of
ticular historical moment. In the case of Robinson Crusoe, the novel restless energy that came along with the growth of trade, expansion
appears at a moment when the balance of the relationship between of horizons, and new possibilities at the start of the eighteenth cen-
human beings and God seems to be changing. Defoe is, quite possi- tury. Arriving on the island, Crusoe starts to assume control of his
bly, concerned about this. If we return to the opening paragraph, the environment; this is the novel's most direct expression of the new
passage might seem to suggest a turning away from religion, as if this economic resourcefulness of the early eighteenth century. Through
is inevitable over the course of time, but it is also quite possible that his strategic awareness and possession of the necessary technology,
Defoe is dealing with a worrying drift away from religion. Taking this Crusoe is able to establish a vibrant economy. This involves the man-
a step further, it could even be suggested that Defoe, on the basis of agement of resources, and also the management of men. The new-
how he handles the issue of names, displays scepticism about the comers on Crusoe's island include a sea captain and the men who
136 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 137

have mutinied against him; Crusoe, having established that the cap- great many novels that follow it. Time and time again, later English
tain is prepared to accept his authority, moves swiftly to shoot the novels focus on how a young woman finds a husband. Moll Flanders,
mutineers. It is a matter of social discipline, of asserting his com- however, follows a rather different course. Moll does marry, but she
mand through punishment. is, in her own unorthodox way, a businesswoman negotiating a role
For the modem reader, however, perhaps the most intriguing ele- for herself in a male-dominated society.
ment in Robinson Crusoe is the relationship with Man Friday. This Defoe is one of the most prolific writers in the eighteenth century;
could be regarded as simply the arrival of a companion, but the com- indeed, one of the most prolific writers in the entire history of
plicating factor - implicit in the fact that Crusoe names the newcom- English literature. In addition to Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, his
er, and then imposes his language and his religious beliefs upon him novels include Captain Singleton (1720), A Journal of the Plague Year
- is that this is a relationship of racial and colonial superiority. At this (1722), Colonel Jack (1722} and Roxana (1724). He also wrote poetry,
point, some readers will ask whether this is an aspect of the novel political pamphlets, economic commentaries, a family conduct
that Defoe is aware of; that is to say, is he deliberately drawing atten- book, works of history, and a guidebook to the whole of Britain.
tion to a questionable master and slave relationship, or is this a There is something extraordinary about this torrent of works. His
meaning that is only apparent to a modem audience? The question of publications provide the best evidence there is of a new class of peo-
Defoe's intention, however, is beside the point. We look at a text in ple, with new energy and new values, coming into existence at the
order to see how it expresses the complex cross-currents of the peri- start of the eighteenth century. But what his productivity also indi-
od of its production, rather than trying to pin down the stance of the cates is that this new class of people needed to be written into exis-
author. Consequently, if we look at the details in the Crusoe-Man tence. In a sense, they did not know who they were until they could
Friday relationship, the effect should be to make us appreciate even tum to Defoe for written confirmation of their social being. And in
more just how many-layered Robinson Crusoe is in reflecting the varied some ways this holds good for all the novelists who follow Defoe,
elements at work in English society as it took an economic leap for- that what the novel does is affirm the presence of a social group in
ward at the start of the eighteenth century. the larger canvas of society.
Defoe has, in fact, been called the poet laureate of the market sys-
tem, as he writes so enthusiastically about, and with such a commit-
ment to, the emergence of this new economy. But the really Aphra Behn, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding,
compelling level of interest in his works always lies in the way in Laurence Sterne, Tobias Smollett
which his novels also reveal the complications, contradictions and Defoe's novels appeared at the moment when a particular formation
limitations of this market economy. This is evident in Robinson Crusoe, of a mercantile and commercial culture was taking shape. So far-
and equally evident in Defoe's second novel, Moll Flanders (1722), reaching were the consequences of this change in the economic life
which deals with a young woman making her way in life. Beginning of the country that the novel after Defoe concerns itself almost exclu-
as a servant made pregnant by her employer's son, Moll then has to sively with how those in possession of new wealth and a new confi-
fend for herself even if this involves stealing and selling her body. By dence organise their private lives. It is the fact that Defoe's novels
the end of the novel she has adopted a pious religious tone as she coincide with such a distinct development in the economic and
looks back on the wicked life she has led, but there is a telling sense social life of the country that helps explain why he is usually
in Moll Flanders of a huge gap between moral and religious platitudes acknowledged as the first English novelist, and why so little is said
and the conduct that is necessary for survival in a commercial soci- about the writers of prose fiction that preceded him.
ety. In this respect, Moll Flanders is a good deal more radical than a The plain fact is that there were novels before Robinson Crusoe. This
138 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 139

chapter focuses on the hundred years from the appearance of Defoe's who establishes a range of concerns that will become central in the
novels to the publication ofJane Austen's works, but literary histori- subsequent history of the novel. Defoe tells a story to which all of his
ans have traced the novel genre back as far as the Ancient Egyptians readers can relate; Behn, by contrast, narrates an exotic story, and an
in the twelfth century BC. In England, we can point to Sir Philip exotic story that seems to fail to establish a tradition. In fact, how-
Sidney's pastoral romance Arcadia (first published 1590) as an impor- ever, this is not the case. Oroonoko belongs in the tradition of imperial
tant landmark in the evolution of the extended prose narrative, and romance, a genre that looks at the relationship between the English
there were a number of other significant works in the same decade, and other races. Robinson Crusoe, in the relationship between Crusoe
such as Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594). But the kind of steady and Man Friday, actually covers rather similar ground. Imperial
progress from the pastoral romance to the novel that we might romances always focus on the body, on the extent to which it is a
expect to encounter in the seventeenth century did not take place. commodity that can be bought and sold, and the attitude the mem-
John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678) is an allegory that, in a number bers of a so-called civilised society adopt, or should adopt, towards
of respects, begins to anticipate the concerns of novels, but there was abuse of the human body. Robinson Crusoe in this respect not only
very little else before 1713, when William Congreve (the Restoration touches upon slavery but also includes cannibalism, the most
dramatist) published Incognita; he not only referred to it as a novel but extreme transgression of any civilised social code, as a theme.
also offered his definition of a novel in the preface to the work. He Imperial romances reappear at various points in the history of the
argued that, unlike romances, novels 'are of a more familiar nature; novel, most notably at the end of the nineteenth century, with works
come near us, and represent to us Intrigues in Practice, delight us such as those of Rider Haggard. The dominant tradition in the
with Accidents and odd Events, but not such as are wholly unusual or English novel, however, is not foreign-based but domestic. And
unprecedented'. domestic in two ways: the events take place in Britain, and the story,
The exception to this generalisation about the lack of novels in the more often than not, centres on events within a family home.
seventeenth century is Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (c.1688), a work which, This is certainly the case in the works of the next significant novel-
quite justifiably, has in recent years commanded more and more ist after Defoe. Samuel Richardson, a master printer, wrote Pamela
attention. It is the story of Oroonoko, the grandson of an African (1740) when he was 51. It was followed by Clarissa (1747-8) and Sir
King, who is in love with Imoinda, the daughter of the King's gener- Charles Grandison (1753-4). Pamela concerns a servant girl who resists
al. The King commands that Imoinda be taken to his harem; when he the advances of her employer; eventually she becomes his wife.
finds out that she is in love with his grandson, he arranges for her to Clarissa is a far more complex novel. Pamela could be described as a
be sold into slavery; at the same time Oroonoko is captured by an comedy: danger threatens, but the story ends happily. Clarissa, on the
English slaver. He encourages his fellow slaves to escape, but they other hand, is a tragedy; the threat of sexual violence in Pamela is
surrender on the promise of a pardon. Oroonoko himself, however, realised in Richardson's second novel. Clarissa, a beautiful young
is flogged . Accepting that their situation is hopeless, Oroonoko kills woman, is encouraged by her family to marry a rich neighbour,
Imoinda, but before he can kill himself he is taken prisoner again, Solrnes, but is also being pursued by a notorious, if charming, rake
and executed in the most savage manner. Given the extraordinary called Lovelace. Clarissa eventually decides to run off with Lovelace.
quality of Aphra Behn's narrative, and given that she also wrote other She is imprisoned in a brothel, where Lovelace drugs and rapes her.
novels - The Fair Jilt and The Lucky Mistake appeared in the same She escapes, and seems to be regaining a sense of her integrity and
volume as Oroonoko - it might be thought odd that Defoe, rather than moral worth, but subsequently dies as she cannot come to terms with
Behn, is regarded as the first English novelist. what she has experienced. At the end of the novel, Lovelace dies in a
The reason would seem to be that it is Defoe, rather than Behn, duel with Clarissa's cousin, Colonel Morden. The differences between
140 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 141

Richardson's two novels indicate how the potential of the novel reader takes for granted; in a sense, we still live in the tradition of
began to be fully appreciated in the course of the eighteenth century. novels such as Clarissa, accepting their stance as normative. But
Pamela is a fairly simple work. Like Defoe's novels, it is about some- Richardson's view of human behaviour is only an interpretative
one making her way in the world. Pamela, very much like Defoe's frame imposed upon people and events. In this respect, it is interest-
heroes and heroines, has to fend for herself. She is on her own, and to ing to see that some other writers in the eighteenth century resisted
a large extent, even with a predatory male as her employer, her fate is this way of looking at life; it was still possible at this time to believe
in her own hands. The eventual result, as it so often is in the English that there was no such thing as individual inward complexity. This is
novel, is financial prosperity and domestic security; the heroine is evident in the novels of Henry Fielding, a writer prompted to start
rewarded, the reward being accommodation within the circle of safe writing novels by his distaste for what he saw in Richardson's Pamela.
and civilised society through marriage. The novel is, as such, a rela- His first work, Shamela (17 41), was a parody of Pamela, featuring a
tively simple moral fable for its audience, about how the ordinary heroine who artfully manipulates her honour in order to secure a
person can thrive in the modem world. The sexual threat to Pamela husband. This suggests the essential difference between Richardson
gives the novel a slightly salacious edge, but it must also be acknowl- and Fielding: in Richardson's novels, the conflicting elements within
edged that there is a great deal of astuteness and delicacy in the way the mind demand careful consideration; in Fielding's novels, people
that Richardson recognises that a woman, without a career as a pos- can be judged instantly on the basis of generally agreed social or
sibility, has to trade upon her physical attributes while resisting the moral truths about human nature. The difference reflects the social
notion of herself as a commodity. Pamela, to this extent, hints at com- background of the two writers. Whereas Richardson was a business-
plex issues, but it does not prepare us in any way at all for the psy- man, and, as such, very much part of the new order, Fielding was a
chological depth and emotional intensity of Clarissa. gentleman and magistrate, and a defender of traditional views and
When the novel in England focuses upon the individual in a values. The gap between the two writers is apparent over and over
domestic setting, it usually considers either a young man making his again. For example, Richardson deals with sexual themes but is a
way in life or a young woman seeking a husband. Clarissa starts by puritanical writer, whereas Fielding takes a straightforward delight in
acknowledging the complexity of a woman's position in the mar- bawdiness.
riage market, but where it really excels is in its grasp of the nature of Tom Jones (1749) starts with Tom being found as a baby by Squire
the feelings of all those involved. Even Lovelace, for example, is a psy- Allworthy. As he grows up, he falls in love with Allworthy's niece,
chologically complex character, caught between the desire for seduc- Sophia West on, but his relationship with Molly Seagrim, a game-
tion and revulsion at his own moral corruption. What we see in keeper's daughter, leads to his expulsion from the squire's house. He
Clarissa can be described as an internalisation of problems. The sets out for London, where he drifts into an affair with Lady
church had always represented an external source of authority in Bellaston. After many complications, it is revealed that Tom is the
people's lives. The church remained an important influence upon son of Allworthy's sister, Bridget, and, therefore, heir to the estate. He
people's lives in the eighteenth century, but increasingly choices in is now in a position to marry Sophia. It is the revelation that Tom is
life were becoming a matter for the individual conscience. Clarissa the rightful heir that tells us most about Fielding's stance. In a Defoe
does justice to this growing sense of human experience as essentially novel, people are launched into the world and have to create their
private and inward. Yet it does more than this; Clarissa is not simply own identity and social role. Fielding challenges this model of mid-
reporting on a new attitude that emerged in the eighteenth century, dle-class individualism; Tom Jones ends with the main character
but also helping to write this new attitude into existence. assuming the place that is his by right in the traditional order of
A sense of psychological complexity is something that the modem things. In a rather similar way, the novel features a series of sexual
142 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 143

escapades, but these seem to have no psychological or even moral Humphrey Clinker (1771), novels that add an important extra dimension
implications for the characters involved. This is a traditional comic to our understanding i:>f the eighteenth century. Roderick Random
stance: people are bound to stray off course, but everything will sort qualifies as a surgeon's mate but lacks money for the bribe that could
itself out in the end. In a curious way, however, Fielding, just as much secure him a commission in the navy. He is seized by a press-gang and
as Defoe or Richardson, accepts that things are changing in the eigh- forced into service as a common sailor, but becomes the surgeon's
teenth century. Tom Jones acquires its energy from being a defence of mate on the ship. Returning to England, he is shipwrecked and then
a view oflife that Fielding knows is imperilled. robbed. Eventually, after a series of bizarre adventures, he meets up
The fact that new ways of thinking about human nature were with a wealthy trader, Don Roderigo, who turns out to be his father.
developing in the eighteenth century, together with an awareness of Roderick Random, like Robinson Crusoe, is obviously about a young man
how the novel as a genre has validated this new view of human setting out on a journey and making his way in life, but the ending,
nature, is at the heart of the most extraordinary novel from the cen- where he discovers his true father, makes the journey circular, as in
tury, Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67). By the middle of the Tom Jones, as if the voyage was not entirely necessary. Smollett's tradi-
century novels were telling one story over and over again: the narra- tional stance is also apparent in his use of the picaresque, a loose form
tive of a person's advance in life. The distinctive quality of Tristram of narrative in which the hero wanders along falling into a miscella-
Shandy is that it dissects the narrative conventions that are used in, neous mixture of traps and diversions. All this suggests that Smollett
and which have given validity to, this story. Sterne, though, unlike has no real interest in his hero's state of mind. But what we do get in
Fielding, is not a conservative writer; he is actually interested in the Smollett is an impression of the harsher aspects of the mercantile
new emphasis on human psychology. But he is also acutely aware of economy of the eighteenth century.
the role of the novel as a genre in constructing a new way of thinking Roderick Random offers an unblinking view of the brutality, inhu-
and feeling, something foregrounded through the novel's actual manity and rapaciousness of eighteenth-century life. When Roderick
style. is on the ship, life on board is harsh and extreme: authority is corrupt,
Tristram Shandy professes to be the autobiography ofTristram, but the living conditions are appalling, and the medical treatment is bru-
from the outset there is disruption of the linear and progressive pat- tal. Roderick Random was written in the same decade as 'Rule,
tern that we might expect. The story starts before Tristram's birth, as Britannia!', but Smollett focuses on less positive aspects of the
he describes his own conception, and from that point on he finds it nation's life; in particular, he focuses on tensions in the social con-
all but impossible to write a chapter without digressing. It actually struct rather than offering a sense of national unity. This becomes
takes the best part of three volumes before Tristram is born. Chapters most apparent in the volatility and violence of the language in the
are deliberately out of sequence, and Sterne also employs tactics such novel. There is an explosive rage that cannot be contained, the
as the use of a black page when a death occurs. The effect is a quite extreme language breaking through all the polite forms. This is
brilliant deconstruction of all the ways in which novels presume to accompanied by physical violence; in Smollett's novels the language
arrange and interpret people's lives. But Tristram Shandy can also be is always at the edge of spilling over into direct aggression and
associated with the eighteenth-century cult of sensibility, in that it assault.
focuses on delicate and sensitive emotions and their importance in
contributing towards a civilised society.
Alongside Richardson, Fielding and Sterne, the other notable mid- From Eliza Haywood to Mary Shelley
century novelist was Tobias Smollett, a Scotsman. His principal works The eighteenth century is a contradictory century. Behaviour was
are Roderick Random (1748), Peregrine Pickle (1751) and The Expedition of gross and physical in a way that is unimaginable today. Novels, such
144 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 145

as those of Fielding, Sterne and Smollett, are full of a coarse humour to fulfil herself, but at the same time she must maintain a ladylike
and brutality that even some of their contemporaries found unac- sense of decorum and passivity. Burney, like many eighteenth-centu-
ceptable. And a rapidly expanding commercial economy was quite ry novelists, can be seen as helping to construct a social code, a
complacent about exploiting people. Yet, at the same time, this was a framework of civilised values for a commercial society dominated by
society beginning to establish new standards in polite behaviour. The male values. It is at this point that a reader familiar with the works of
novels produced in the course of the century reflect the tension Jane Austen, which appeared between 1811 and 1818, will appreciate
between these two different images of Britain, but, as the century that the stance Austen adopts - of a concern for correct and moral
wore on, it was the new, refined standard of the emerging middle behaviour - is one that had been slowly taking shape over a consid-
class that gained the upper hand. erable period in what we might call the novel of social manners.
There is an anticipation of future developments, of the move One aspect of this was the cult of sensibility. In this new domestic
towards a new, more refined idea of human conduct, in, for example, order there was no place for traditional masculine aggression, and
the career of Eliza Haywood, who moved from picaresque, although during the second half of the eighteenth century the male personali-
never coarse, fictions - such as The Fortunate Foundlings (17 44) and Life's ty became softened and refined. The most extreme expression of this
Progress Through the Passions (1748) - to domestic narratives of upper- is in Henry Mackenzie's sentimental novel The Man of Feeling (1771).
middle-class life - such as The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751) and Harley, Mackenzie's hero, sets off to find his fortune. His good nature
The History ofJemmy and Jenny Jessamy (1753). What is perhaps most sur- makes him vulnerable, and, consequently, he is duped by scoundrels
prising in terms of the development of this new framework of mid- and cheats. But he is to be admired because of his gentleness and his
dle-class ideas is that Fielding, in Amelia (1751), began to reveal the intense sympathy for others. Samuel Richardson's third novel, Sir
influence of Richardson, shifting from the comic style of Tom Jones to Charles Grandison, operates in a similar area, with a hero whose actions
a form of domestic realism. Amelia and her husband, Captain Billy are always motivated by the intensity of his feelings and his instinct
Booth, find themselves threatened with financial and sexual ruin at for good conduct. Sterne's A Sentimental Journey (1768) simultaneously
the hands of an aristocratic villain. This is a repeated motif in the new mocks and celebrates just such a sentimental standard of behaviour.
fiction of the eighteenth century: the respectability of the middle The emphasis of these novels is on the cultivation of finer feelings.
class is defined by indicating how they differ from the villainous But The Man of Feeling is not a novel that many people today would
upper class. bother to read, while Sir Charles Grandison is a far less substantial novel
Other novelists that can be associated with the emergence of than Clarissa. The fact is that these novels retreat into the simplifica-
domestic realism and a new code of manners - a development that tions of a moral stance. In this respect they differ from the cluster of
begins to become apparent at roughly the mid-point of the century- major novels in the middle of the eighteenth century, which offer a
are Frances Sheridan (Memoirs of Mrs Sidney Biddulph, 1761), Charlotte complex engagement between an emerging idea of the self and the
Lennox ([he Female Quixote, 1752), and Fanny (Frances) Burney. In social reality of the period. The sentimental novel, by contrast, takes
Evelina (1778), Burney's heroine observes the London scene, but is its eye off the world as it really is. Much the same thing could be said
rather timid about becoming a participant. Cecilia (1782), her second about Gothic fiction, a type of novel very popular from the 1760s
novel, focuses more on the social and financial pressures that bear onwards until the 1820s. Typical plots hinge on mystery and sus-
down upon the heroine, who is brought to the edge of death by her pense; delving into the realm of the fantastic and the supernatural,
guardians. Essentially, in both novels the central figure is trying to many of the writers seem to revel in cruelty and terror. Works such
negotiate a position for herself in the dynamic, hectic, and often cruel as Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), Charlotte Smith's ,
society of the late eighteenth century. The heroine obviously wants Emmeline (1788), Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and
146 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 147

Matthew G. Lewis's The Monk (1796) seem to explore the unconscious

mind. Walter Scott and Jane Austen
But if these novels do not engage directly with the real world, it is The Romantic period, from about 1780 to 1820, is characterised by a
clear that some of them, albeit in an indirect way, engage with very great many dissenting voices, such as Mary Shelley's. She is one of
substantial, and very real, issues. The pattern of 'flight and pursuit', many authors who see themselves as outside or in opposition to the
for example, that is such a mainstay of Gothic fiction, can be taken as established realm of authority. A number of these writers are consid-
a reflection of the period of the French Revolution: a tyrannical ered at the end of the next chapter. It would be possible to construct
regime, oppressed victims, and punishment for transgression. There a history ofEnglish literature, especially from this point forward, that
are elements of this in Fanny Bumey's last novel, The Wanderer (1814), concentrated entirely on these subversive writers. For a more main-
and C.R. Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). Perhaps the most stream thread of the English novel in the opening decades of the
interesting of these novels, however, is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein nineteenth century, however, we have to tum to Sir Walter Scott and
(1818), which, like the works by Burney and Maturin, belongs very Jane Austen.
firmly in the Romantic period at the start of the nineteenth century. Scott was the most popular novelist of his day. Already established
It tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, who constructs a monster as a poet, in 1814 he started a second career as a novelist with the pub-
and endows it with life. The monster is benevolent, but is regarded lication of Waverley. It was followed by other novels, for example The
with loathing and fear; not surprisingly, its benevolence turns to Heart of Midlothian (1818), set in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
hatred, and it destroys its creator and his bride. It is possible to argue Scotland. With Ivanhoe (1819), he moved to England in the Middle
that there are two realms in the novel: one, the public realm, is dom- Ages. Scott's novels (which initiated a taste for historical fiction) usu-
inated by language and law; the other, private, realm, is secret, even ally deal with a time of change, when one social formation is giving
incommunicable. The latter is the realm of Frankenstein and his way to another.We can see how this corresponds with much of what
monster. It is a world that exists outside society and language, con- has been said in this book in general and in this chapter in particular
taining only the monster and his creator. about literature focusing upon periods of transition. As with other
As in Frankenstein, many Gothic novels, in particular the more novelists considered here, Scott considers the transition from an
politicised Gothic novels of the early nineteenth century, focus on aggressive masculine culture to a more restrained, rather feminised
characters who are excluded from or in a problematic relationship culture. In Waverley and a number of the other Scottish-based novels
with the dominant discourse of society. There is often a feminist he deals with how the presence of the English has forced changes in
dimension to such thinking: Frankenstein, for example, seems to the traditional, clan-based fighting life of the Scots.
reflect Mary Shelley's anxieties about her own role as someone creat- Jane Austen's novels appear at a time when the rougher manners
ing and living by language, yet conscious that language, along with of the eighteenth century are starting to be a distant memory, and
literary creation, is usually regarded as a masculine preserve. At the when a new social formation has been clearly established. She focus-
same time, the sheer power of the novel and its concern with suffer- es on the everyday play of relationships within a small group of peo-
ing mark it off as doing something different from run-of-the-mill ple in the property-owning middle class. There are six novels: Sense
tales as it examines society from a position outside the usual bound- and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma
aries. As ever, what distinguishes a novel is the way in which it (1816), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1818), which were pub-
stretches the set conventions. In the case of Frankenstein, it is a novel lished together the year after Austen died. Every new writer of note
that pushes the Gothic conventions to their limits, in the process cre- has, to a greater or lesser extent, his or her own new voice, but some
ating a challenging sense of the individual in conflict with society. are more recognisable than others. Certainly, most readers would be
 148 A Brief History of English Literature The Novel: The First Hundred Years 149

able to identify immediately the understated, ironic and totally dis- change. It can be pointed out, for example, that she is writing on the
tinctive voice of Austen. It is the polite voice of polite society, but eve of the Industrial Revolution, when the country-house-based
with nuances of wit and a teasing ironic inflection that consistently order of life she describes is about to fall apart. London is no more
make it far more than just the voice of polite society. than a presence in the background of Austen's novels; thirty years
In all Austen's novels there is a sense that she is a writer with a case later, when we arrive at Dickens and Thackeray, London is at the very
to present, and who presents her case professionally and with perfect centre of the novel in England. The period which Austen deals with
control. Emma, a novel focusing on the development and moral can, therefore, be seen as a period of imminent social change, where
growth of its heroine, offers plenty of evidence of this clarity of pur- the social formation that had evolved, and which she concentrates
pose. Emma lives with her father. Her governess leaves the house- on, was about to change shape again. These imminent changes in the
hold to marry a neighbour, Mr Weston, and Emma, who relishes economic and class arrangements of England will put an enormous
acting as a match-maker, makes a protegee of Harriet Smith, an ille- strain on the kind of families she features in her novels.
gitimate girl of no social standing. George Knightley, a friend of the In Emma, everyone has their place in the social hierarchy; nobody
family, disapproves of Emma's attempts to manipulate Harriet. moves up or down in society, and Emma and Knightley, who are
Emma half-believes that she is in love with Mr Weston's son by his snobs at the beginning of the novel, are snobs in exactly the same
first marriage, Frank Churchill, but eventually realises that, without way at the end. In short, Austen defends the position of people who
actively considering it, she has always assumed Knightley will marry not too long ago were social newcomers themselves against a fresh
her. This, together with the revelation that Frank is already engaged, wave of social newcomers. But there is also a way in which she
forces Emma to examine her conduct and resolve to behave better. knows that the little social enclave she is dealing with is caught in a
Knightley proposes to Emma, and is accepted. Emma, as is apparent rather unreal time warp. If we adopt this approach, taking the view
in this summary, matures: she changes from being vain, self-satisfied that a substantial work of literature is always about how one way of
and insensitive to the needs of others. Essentially, she has fallen in life is yielding to another, Austen's image alters. Rather than being
line with, and come to accept the wisdom and value of, the code of totally assured and self-confident, her works start to seem fraught,
conduct for personal behaviour that should operate in polite society. anxious and possibly a lot more substantial; rather than talking
The discussion could end there, with a sense of the moral develop- about the moral values of Austen, our attention turns to a more
ment of Emma, and a comment on how Jane Austen's style, in partic- ambitious project in which she illustrates how one social formation
ular the understated but devastating way in which she can demolish is under threat and yielding to another. Her novels might simply
the pretensions of those who think too well of themselves, reinforces involve a handful of characters in a rural setting, but behind the par-
her social message. The problem with such a response, however, is ticular example is a sense of a far broader process of social, political,
that it makes Austen appear to be a kind of static novelist, rather than economic and cultural transition.
a novelist responding to a changing world. It is as if the eighteenth This can perhaps best be seen in Mansfield Park. Mansfield Park is the
century starts with a new kind of character, but by the time we get to family seat of the Bertram family. Fanny Price, Lady Bertram's niece, is
Austen, exactly a century after Defoe, these characters have their own brought to live with the family. She is befriended by Edmund Bertram,
homes, and are totally in control. Superficially it might appear that, but his sisters Maria and Julia seek only to humiliate her. While Sir
whereas Defoe deals with a fluid society, in Austen everything has Thomas Bertram is off visiting his estates in the West Indies, Mansfield
become very fixed and secure. But this is not necessarily the case, and Park is visited by Henry and Mary Crawford from London. They tempt
Austen, in fact, starts to become a lot more interesting the moment we the sisters to throw off restraint, resulting in Maria entering into mar-
realise that she, too, is dealing with a society that is in the throes of riage with a Mr Rushworth, and then an adulterous elopement with
150 A Brief History of English Literature

Henry Crawford. Julia also elopes, while Edmund is tempted by Mary

Crawford to give up the idea of becoming a clergyman. Edmund
resists and finally marries Fanny. For all its tidiness, it is an uncom-
fortable ending to the novel in its perfunctoriness. There can be little 9 The Romantic Period
doubt that the old way of life symbolised by Mansfield Park is under
threat both from outside and inside, and the Bertram family clearly
lacks any real moral energy to sustain this way of life and to defend it
against the clever London socialites Henry and Mary Crawford. It is
no accident that Austen alerts us to the real-world economics of Sir
Thomas's plantation or to the equally real collapse of sexual restraint The Age of Revolution
in his own home. The forces of change are too powerful to be con- The Romantic period is also referred to as the 'Age of Revolution'.
trolled, even by Austen's irony.
This designates an era from the American Declaration of
Independence in 1776 through to Britain's Great Reform Act (which
gave many more people the vote) in 1832. At the heart of the period,
however, and at the heart of Romanticism, is the French Revolution,
with a great deal of the subsequent vocabulary of liberal politics,
right through to the present day, deriving from the French experi-
ence between 1789 and 1799. During the course of the eighteenth cen-
tury the French monarchy had made gestures towards reform, but by
the end of Louis XV's reign the country was weak, the monarch dis-
trusted, the nobility detested, and the church widely unpopular.
Initially, between 1789 and 1792, the Revolution established constitu-
tional monarchy, liberal freedoms, and major legislative reforms.
The overthrow of Louis XVI in 1792, however, and his execution in
1793, inaugurated a more radical phase, with authoritarian govern-
ment and repressive measures aimed at commanding obedience.
This is a period referred to as the 'Terror'. This phase of the French
Revolution, associated with the extremist leader Robespierre, came
to an end in 1794, when there was an attempt to revive more liberal
values. But the rule oflaw proved difficult to maintain in a turbulent
period, and in 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte engineered a military coup.
This effectively represented the end of the Revolution, although
Napoleon did stabilise the revolutionary changes.
The relevance of the French Revolution to English literature might
not be immediately apparent. Throughout this book, however, we
have stressed that society is constantly involved in a process of trans-
formation, and that literature is both a product and reflection of the

151
 152 A Brief History of English Literature The Romantic Period 153

change from one way of thinking to a new way of thinking, and an Hostility between France and Britain led to a protracted period of
intervention in that thinking. The most admired works of literature war between the two countries, beginning in 1793 and only con-
are those produced at a time when there are the most dramatic shifts cluding with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815. This was a major
from one way of looking at the world to another way of looking at military commitment over a period of more than twenty years that
the world. The French Revolution is just such a period. Indeed, the provoked political unrest in Britain. But the wars between the two
British historian Edmund Burke realised this immediately, as can be countries also, in the long run, fostered British trade and the British
seen in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790. A economy. The wars in addition, in a rather more elusive way,
conservative, troubled by the enthusiastic and, to his mind, irrespon- prompted the British to adjust, or perhaps to reinforce, their sense
sible English response to the Revolution, Burke argued that it consti- of their national identity. In rejecting the French experience, there
tuted a radical and dangerous break with the past and the overthrow was a convergence at home, a desire to pursue a middle course, that,
of the old order. His counter-revolutionary thesis produced numer- after the political repression of the war years and its immediate
ous rejoinders, including Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (1791) and aftermath, affected the development of democracy in nineteenth-
Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790; her A century Britain.
Vindication of the Rights of Woman appeared in 1792). But what sort of There was, then, it is clear, a ferment of new ideas and social trans-
change had taken place in France? The classic Marxist interpretation formation at the end of the century. If Pope, at the start of the eigh-
of the French Revolution is that it constituted a change from an old teenth century, sought stability after the turbulence of the previous
feudal order to a new capitalist order. In essence, it amounted to the century, there was, from 1770 onwards, a growing sense of having
triumph of the middle classes over the aristocracy. broken with the past and accepting a world in flux. This is apparent
Such a process of change had begun a lot earlier in Britain; in par- in the literature of the period. In every era of literary history we
ticular, following the establishment of constitutional monarchy in encounter new voices expressing themselves in new forms; people
1688, a new political culture had evolved during the course of the are, in effect, telling new stories about a new state of affairs. In the
eighteenth century. But, although the political and social conven- Romantic period, however, we encounter a quite unprecedented
tions of Britain and France altered at a somewhat different pace, what profusion of new voices, and new voices that display a breathtaking
we have to grasp is that, at a more fundamental level, towards the end ability to reject old literary conventions and find new forms of
of the eighteenth century economic developments were taking place expression.
that changed the social relations between people, and changed how The variety ofliterature at this time does, though, pose some prob-
people saw, and thought about, life. In both countries there was a lems in deciding how to organise a chapter about Romanticism.
change from a society in which people accepted their place in a fixed There are six major English Romantic poets: Blake, Wordsworth,
social hierarchy to a more dynamic economic order, in which people Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and Keats. But too great an emphasis on
began to see their own role, and contribution, much more positively. these writers creates a sense of solid coherence that is rather at odds
Indeed, one aspect of the French Revolution was a greater sense of with what was actually happening in literature at this time. The real
human agency: people no longer accepted their passive role, but character of the Romantic age is conveyed in the fact that it provided
seized the initiative. There was a new sense of the importance of the an opportunity for an extraordinarily diverse range of voices. In par-
immediate moment as against the authority of tradition. ticular, while at every point in the history of English literature there
Britain was at the heart of these currents of political, social and is increasing evidence of the existence of women writers, it is in the
cultural transformation at the end of the eighteenth century, but Romantic period that women become central in an unprecedented
Britain was also drawn into the French Revolution in a direct way. way. They are no longer writing from the fringes but are at the very
 154 A Brief History of English Literature The Romantic Period 155

heart of political and social turmoil. It is tempting to produce an How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
account of Romantic literature that focuses exclusively on such writ- Every black'ning Church appalls;
ers, but that would lead to the kind of radically revised narrative of And the hapless Soldier's sigh
the past that would be inappropriate in a history of literature. The Runs in blood down Palace walls.
way we have constructed this chapter, therefore, is with a look at the
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
major established poets in the two central sections, and then, in what How the youthful Harlot's curse
should be regarded as the climax of the chapter, rather than as an Blasts the newborn Infant's tear,
afterthought, we turn to a variety of Romantic authors. And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

William Blake, William Wordsworth, The pattern of 'London' is characteristic of Blake's shorter poems: a
Samuel Taylor Coleridge simple ideal is set against the knotted corruption of modem life. In
the final verse here, the child's life is tainted even as it is born. It is the
William Blake (1757-1827) was an engraver who also pursued the city that is at the heart of the problem, for the city both restricts and
careers of poet and painter. For a while, he was part of a radical group exploits people. This is a concept that is encountered again and again
of thinkers and writers that included Tom Paine, William Godwin in Romantic literature: an idea of the freedom associated with nature
and Mary Wollstonecraft. His best-known works are the Songs of is set against the mire of the city.
Innocence, published in 1789, and then, in 1794, the Songs of Experience As might be expected, Blake welcomed the French Revolution as
were added. Collections of apparently simple poems, they deal with an apocalyptic event that would sweep away old exploitative pat-
two contrary states: the state of innocence, in which the world is terns of social relations and old ways of thinking. Part of what Blake
unthreatening, there are no moral restrictions, and God is trusted opposed was the rationalism and moderation of eighteenth-century
implicitly, and the state of experience, which reflects a fallen world of Enlightenment thinking, which he saw as demeaning life: society had
repression and religious hypocrisy. Both books try to imagine life as become too narrowly committed to the idea of reason and a soul-
it might exist outside conventional habits of thinking, and, indeed, destroying pursuit of material progress. What Blake lamented was
see conventional attitudes as the prejudices that destroy and deny the absence of any sense of the spiritual dimension of experience. If
life.
we compare Blake's thinking with the kind of ideas encountered at
This is a typical stance in Romantic literature: that the writer the start of the eighteenth century, we can see that, as against a
detaches his or her self from received ideas and values. This can lead notion of shared values and a shared way of thinking, Blake develops
to fierce social indignation, a feeling that comes across forcefully in a private creed in which his imagination plays a vital role in redis-
'London', from the Songs of Experience: covering a sense of unity in experience. He consistently stresses the
I wander thro' each charter'd street, importance of freedom, as opposed to the tyranny that he feels to be
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow, characteristic of the government of his day, and attacks negative
And mark in every face I meet moralising, which he associates with the church, as opposed to a true
Marks of weakness, marks of woe. sense of religion. One aspect of all this, as seen in 'London', is the cor-
In every cry of every Man, ruption of sexuality, which has become debased and commodified.
In every Infant's cry of fear, Implicitly and explicitly in the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of
In every voice, in every ban, Experience, Blake plays with the alternative possibility of unrestricted
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear. sexuality and guilt-free desire.

UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Fi!ologia • Biblioteca
 - -

156 A Brief History of English Literature The Romantic Period 157

Blake developed his views in The Book ofThel (1789), The Marriage of What is of interest is the manner in which, in the first flush of revo-
Heaven and Hell (1790-3), Visions of the Daughters ofAlbion (1793), The Book lutionary enthusiasm, an English writer breaks away so dedsively
of Urizen (1794), The Four Zoas (1794-1804), Jerusalem (1804-20), and from received patterns of thinking and writing, in particular those of
Milton (1804-08). The title of this final poem prompts the observation the eighteenth century with its stress on reason and decorum.
that there are distinct parallels between Blake's thinking and ways of Turning from Blake to Wordsworth, we encounter a less radical
thinking encountered in the English Civil War period. In particular, writer. Or, possibly not. It can be argued that Wordsworth is actual-
there is a dose ideological resemblance between Blake and Milton, in ly the most radical of the Romantic poets, simply because he is the
that both are radical thinkers, both advocate freedom, and both are at most accomplished and subtle poet. Initially enthusiastic about
odds with established authority and established institutions. It is the French Revolution, the reign of 'Terror' in 1793 changed
equally important, however, to note the differences between seven- Wordsworth's view. The Lyrical Ballads of 1798, a joint collection of
teenth-century radicalism and Romantic radicalism. A central issue is poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge, marks a withdrawal from
the significance the Romantic generation attached to the imagination. public and political life, the poems, in a language that professes to be
Indeed, the transformation oflife through the subjective imagination dose to the language of everyday life, tending to focus on solitary or
can be regarded as the central concept in Romanticism. The mind of isolated figures. Whereas Pope and early eighteenth-century writers
the writer has become the focus and the centre. If, at one point in his- emphasised the general truths that should be at the heart of poetry,
tory, God was at the centre of everything, by the time we arrive at the Wordsworth focused on unique experiences and private insights; the
Romantics God has been displaced sufficiently to establish the indi- characters in the poems in Lyrical Ballads are, however, it is implied,
vidual mind as the organising centre oflife. also dose to a pattern of life evident in nature itself. The importance
That might seem to create the possibility of excessively idiosyn- of these poems might not be immediately apparent, particularly as
cratic texts, but thinking does not take place in a vacuum. A great there is none of the overt political and social thinking that we
many of Blake's ideas are consistent with the ways in which other encounter in Blake. But where the significance lies is in the notion of
people were beginning to think at the end of the eighteenth century. personal insight. Although Wordsworth is a Christian, life is not per-
If there is a difference, it is that Blake is far more of a visionary than ceived in terms of an inherited Christian code. Nor is life discussed in
most of his contemporaries: in castigating radicalism and authority, terms of a shared social philosophy. On the contrary, it is the subjec-
he calls prophetically for a new humanity based upon imagination, tive insight of the poet, aided by nature, that sees a pattern in life, in
instinct and creativity. Essentially, he writes visionary poetry which which meaning comes to reside in experience reflected upon in
envisages a different world. The mood of his early poems in particu- moments of tranquillity.
lar is dearly inspired by the spirit of the French Revolution and by a The issues in Wordsworth's poetry can be seen at their dearest in
feeling that the moment of apocalyptic judgement is at hand. Just a the poem 'Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tin tern Abbey', which
few years later, people had a far more jaundiced view of the belongs to his most productive period, between 1795 and 1807. The
Revolution. None the less, other Romantic writers do share Blake's poem opens with a description of a rural landscape; as is so often the
commitment to vision and the imagination, but they generally avoid case in Romantic poetry, the author turns to nature. But what is more
the kind of extreme quality that we encounter in his works. It is fre- important is that Wordsworth then writes about the effect of the
quently said that the problem with Blake is that he is too subjective, scene:
that, particularly in his long poems, he works too exclusively in ... the heavy and the weary weight
terms of a private symbolism that fails to communicate with the Of all this unintelligible world,
reader. This need not, however, be regarded as a limiting judgement. Is lightened ...
 -
158 A Brief History of English Literature The Romantic Period 159

. . . we are laid asleep This is clear in The Prelude, Wordsworth's longest poem, which was
In body, and become a living soul; published after his death in 1850. The poem, at epic length, draws
While with an eye made quiet by the power upon Wordsworth's life, recollecting his childhood in the Lake
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
District. But the poem then becomes a discussion, exploration and
We see into the life of things.
analysis of his response to his own childhood experiences. A helpful
(II. 39-41, 45-9)
way of considering The Prelude is to look at it in the tradition of epic
Truth and meaning are found in the natural world. In 'Tintern Abbey', and to think about how it differs from its predecessors. Whereas an
this is partly there in the natural world itself, but in equal measure it is epic poem such as Milton's Paradise Lost amounts to a kind of ency-
a consequence of what Wordsworth's own mind brings to the view. clopaedic synthesis of all experiences, The Prelude can only piece
Wordsworth's poetry is often admired on the basis of this sense of together a picture in terms of the author's personal experiences, and
harmony in nature that he half-perceives and half-creates; indeed, his personal interpretation of his experiences. Milton tries to make
even today many people would profess to experience a similar feeling. sense of the world in relation to his awareness of the existence of
But what distinguishes 'Tintern Abbey', and makes it a really com- God; Wordsworth, by contrast, is at the very centre of the world he
plex poem, is the fact that Wordsworth is sufficiently realistic to presents. In a sense, it is only the poet himself, and his own imagina-
acknowledge that the sense of harmony he detects might not exist, tion, that matters. But, as is the case in Wordsworth's shorter poems,
and that it might be simply an invention of his imagination. Indeed, the strength of The Prelude resides in the fact that, as well as conveying
the more closely one looks at the poem the more it becomes appar- the mood of his childhood, Wordsworth moves on to examine the
ent that Wordsworth is not just concerned to express his personal manner in which ways of thinking and seeing changed in the light of
vision but to discuss, analyse, and even question, his vision. Thus, the dawn of the French Revolution, specifically the new privileging
rather than simply being a poem in which Wordsworth is concerned of the individual. In The Prelude, it is the T that is the narrator who is
to present his insight into the 'life of things', 'Tintern Abbey' can be the principal subject of the narrative.
seen as a more ambiguous work that examines the subjective imagi- The Lyrical Ballads collection was a joint venture with Samuel
nation. Many of Wordsworth's finest poems follow this pattern. He Taylor Coleridge. These two writers, Wordsworth and Coleridge,
encounters something natural (a landscape or a character) on which have a great deal in common, but there is also much that separates
he imposes an interpretation, but then questions the activity he has them. Coleridge, as is the case with Wordsworth, can present a total-
engaged in. While impressing the reader as the most uplifting of the ising vision, in which he unites all the disparate elements of experi-
Romantic poets, Wordsworth consequently also comes across as a ence into one coherent picture. This is apparent in the most
hesitant, self-questioning Romantic. Why this is important is that, in extraordinary manner in 'Kub la Khan':
the midst of embracing the new ways of thinking that characterise
the late eighteenth century, Wordsworth examines the status and In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
validity of these new ways of thinking; his poems, consequently, not A stately pleasure-dome decree:
only provide evidence of how ways of thinking changed in the Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Romantic period, but also show him examining these new ways of
Down to a sunless sea.
thinking. IfBlake conveys the revolutionary fervour of Romanticism,
what makes Wordsworth a more complex poet is that, as well as
expressing the spirit of Romanticism, his works, in a philosophical Coleridge's imagination has created a make-believe, alternate world.
manner, analyse the nature of Romanticism. While Wordsworth limits himself to his own experiences and the
160 A Brief History of English Literature The Romantic Period 161

materials of everyday life, Coleridge leaps into a fantasy world. And as a prose writer, in particular as a philosopher and literary theorist.
powerfully so: there is something magical about Coleridge's vision, In his later years he worked on, but never completed, an ambitious
and the intense and exotic manner in which Xanadu is created. But project (the Biographia Literaria, 1817) in which he attempted to recon-
this is more than a poem of escape. Indeed, one reason why the poem cile German philosophical radicalism, Christian theology and a
works so well is that there is always a tension between the dream and Romantic vision. His inability to complete this work is significant. A
reality, with dark notes of sexual anxiety and military confrontation more superficial writer might have stitched together a glib synthesis,
intruding into the perfect vision. 'Kubla Khan' reaches after totality, but Coleridge, as much as he might wish to construct a new view, is
but we are also aware of the unreality, and even frightening quality, always aware of the difficulty of doing so. The problem lies in aban-
of Coleridge's vision. doning traditional forms of knowledge and knowing, and substitut-
Not all of Coleridge's poems are so exotic. As is the case with ing arguments that rely upon the subjective views of the individual.
Wordsworth, Coleridge often turns to nature, and writes of how In essence, what we see in Coleridge, and in a great deal of Romantic
imagination can perceive a sense of harmony in the natural scene. In writing, is a partial rejection of old habits of thinking, but also
his 'conversation poems', however, such as 'Frost at Midnight' (1802), tremendous uncertainty about the ideas that are taking their place.
Coleridge's most common theme is the inability of his imagination The consequence is that much of Coleridge's work is fragmentary
to sustain itself. There are lines in the poem where a vision of some- and incomplete; the old order has fallen apart, but it proves impossi-
thing that transcends the untidiness of daily life is offered to the read- ble to put together a coherent new order. In Coleridge's writings we
er, but the most emphatic stress is on how Coleridge cannot make are always aware of his anxiety, his despair, and a sense of mental
the move he craves from fragmented, and troubling, reality to a sterility. In verse, his inability to find a way forward makes him a kind
coherent vision. If Wordsworth's most consistent theme as a poet is of tragic figure within his own poems. In the end, however, it is not
a questioning of his own imagination, Coleridge's is the failure of his Coleridge as an individual that interests us so much as the more uni-
imagination. versal figure of the bereft individual in a complicated world, where
This is, in part, the theme of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, first old sources of comfort and reassurance no longer seem accessible.
published in the Lyrical Ballads. A mariner shoots down an albatross,
and his ship and its crew are punished by spirits. The crew die from Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats
thirst, while the mariner lives on, the albatross hung around his neck.
When he recognises the beauty of the world and prays for his sins, A new way of looking at both the individual and the world at large is
the albatross falls from his neck. In essence, it is a story of sin and also at the heart of the poetry ofByron, Shelley, and Keats, three writ-
penance as the mariner wanders the earth, unable to find rest in con- ers conventionally grouped together as the second generation of
ventional religion. The wedding guest to whom he tells his story is English Romantic poets. George Gordon, Lord Byron, was, in fact,
wrapt in both wonder and fear, afraid of the uncanny figure and his the most famous and popular poet in the Romantic era. He spent
strange narrative in which disturbing symbols mix with alarming much of his life in exile from England, dying in 1824, at the age of 36,
characters such as Life-in-Death. While, however, the poem drama- in Greece, where he was organising forces fighting against the Turks
tises Coleridge's sense of a world no longer redeemable by Christian for Greek independence. These biographical details are consistent
faith, its power testifies to the way in which poetry itself comes to with the character-type that always appears in Byron's poems: the
take on a new role in Romanticism, the way in which it can enable us Byronic hero is a solitary, somewhat misanthropic figure, defying
to look differently at the world and its meanings. nature, and cursed with guilty secrets, usually of a sexual nature,
In addition to poetry, Coleridge also has a considerable reputation from his past. But if this figure outside social convention seems to
 The Romantic Period 163
162 A Brief History of English Literature

have something in common with the solitary figures in Wordsworth Shelley's thinking, however, is the idea that there is an eternal, ratio-
and Coleridge's poetry, what must also be acknowledged is that nal order, a pattern for all our finest values: beauty, harmony, justice
Byron was scornful of the philosophical affectations of his contem- and love. Characteristically, his poems are cloudy and blurred, with
poraries, stressing wit and common sense as against imagination. images of indistinct, shadowy things, as he invokes an ideal that can
In addition, as against the emphasis on withdrawal from society be sensed but not described. As against these elusive ideals, there
that we find in Wordsworth's poetry, Byron is politically engaged, exist the rigid forms of organised religion, the political system, and
with a particular hatred of hypocrisy and tyranny. There is a consis- moral codes. Shelley, probably the most politically radical of the
tent stress in his poems on the importance of independence, an ideal Romantic poets, and, as such, the most optimistic, consistently nur-
that connects with ideas of sincerity and natural spontaneity. In his tures a belief that faithful adherence to ideal values will result in the
poetic dramas Manfred (1817) and Cain (1821), for example, Byron transformation of human society. But his poems also reveal an
reflects on the tension between the potentialities of the individual awareness that the forces of change can prove destructive.
and the restraints of the world in which the individual lives. There is Shelley's poem responding to the Peterloo Massacre serves as a
a desire to strike out a new path, surpassing conventional behaviour reminder that the world had moved on from the French Revolution.
and conventional morality, but at the same time the texts betray a In 1819, thirty years after the Revolution, British society was extreme-
sense of guilt, as well as nostalgia for the old order, in this lonely, iso- ly unsettled. The long series of wars against France had come to an
lated stance. Don Juan (1819-24) again features the typical Byronic end in 1815, and, with the release of 300,000 men from the army and
hero, but what is particularly apparent here is Byron's good- navy, there were people looking for work, political unrest, and
humoured ironic stance: he takes his hero seriously, but also treats almost unprecedented government repression. The demonstration
him dismissively. Don Juan is gallant, charming and reckless, and led by 100,000 people at Peterloo, together with its aftermath, repre-
by desire. Politically, this is fairly straightforward, in that Don Juan, as sents a moment of tension and confrontation that is symptomatic of
with Byron's other works, articulates the language of liberty, but a deep sense of malaise in Britain at this time. In addition, the
there are clearly complications when the hero is a sexual libertine. Industrial Revolution was now under way, accentuating class and
The political dimension of Romantic literature is even more social divisions. It might seem surprising at this point, therefore, to
apparent in the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Influenced by the turn to John Keats, who might appear the least political of poets. But
political radicalism of William Godwin, Shelley was expelled from there is a deeply subversive quality to Keats's verse.
Oxford for publishing a pamphlet 'The Necessity of Atheism' (1811). The most obvious thing about Keats is that he is an extremely dis-
Opposed to the tyranny of king, church and family, he decided at this tinctive new voice, something that was apparent when an early
time to devote his life to a vision of liberty. His first long poem, Queen reviewer referred to him as a member of the 'Cockney School'. What
Mab (1813), amounted to a forthright statement of his views. His rad- the modern reader is most likely to notice is the rich sensuality of
icalism is again evident in The Mask of Anarchy (1819), a poem that Keats's writing, but the fact that this has broader social implications
deals with the Peterloo Massacre of that year, an open-air meeting at might not be immediately obvious. The beautiful quality of Keats's
St Peter's Field in Manchester in support of parliamentary reform verse is apparent in 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci':
where the yeomanry and hussars charged the crowd, killing eleven I met a lady in the Meads,
and wounding five hundred. Of Shelley's shorter works, perhaps the Full beautiful - a faery's child,
most typical is 'Ode to the West Wind', a poem that bears a slight Her hair was long, her foot was light,
resemblance to the poems of Wordsworth and Coleridge in that it And her eyes were wild.
laments the loss of an original spontaneous vision. At the heart of (II. 13-16)
 -
164 A Brief History of English Literature The Romantic Period 165

It is a work that explores sexual attraction and sexual frustration , poetic artifice, and, by implication, of inherited ways of both writing
becoming a poem about the intensity of desire and the intensity of its and thinking. But Keats, in the desire-driven excess of his verse,
defeat. The knight's sexual needs are conveyed, but also his fear of the reconceives how people see and think about themselves in an equal-
woman. What is so new about Keats's writing is the kind of attention ly radical manner. As we progress through the nineteenth century, it
he pays to, and the manner in which he evokes, a private psycholog- will be apparent that questions concerning the self, sex and desire are
ical state. If Romanticism put the individual imagination at the cen- at the heart of a great deal of literature, and in a way that is very dif-
tre of literature, Keats, in a way that is in part echoed in Gothic ferent from the kind of emphasis on sexual matters that we
fiction, begins to explore the darker side of the mind, in particular the encounter in, say, the poetry of John Donne, where God, social val-
sexual imagination. ues and the public world of morality are always there as points of ref-
Such a way of writing might seem to be something other than erence. The difference lies in the fact that in Keats, and in a great deal
political, but Keats can be regarded as searching for sources of value, of subsequent literature, it is something deeply internal, often con-
support and consolation that are different from those inscribed in cealed, and just as often dark and alarming, that is being explored.
the dominant religious and political systems of his day. In 'Ode to a The significance of Keats in the overall history of English literature is
Nightingale', one of a series of reflective odes which are Keats's most that he plays a central role in constructing this new kind of internal-
celebrated and well-loved poems, the poet revels in the bird's song, isation of experience.
indulging himself in feelings of excess. It is as if he escapes from the
real world, until the end of the poem where he re-establishes his
awareness of the everyday world. Traditionally the poem has been Radical Voices
praised for the poise with which it maintains a balance between the When we consider the Romantic period, it is important to acknowl-
ideal of escape and the necessity of the return to reality, but a sense of edge the range of new voices that become audible at this time. By its
poise in the poem seems less important than the extraordinary way very nature, a literary movement that challenges the past should pro-
in which a sense of excess is evoked. There is again a political dimen- voke a babble of new voices; they will have a family resemblance, in
sion to Keats's writing. It is not the pragmatic, overt politics ofByron that they are all the product of the same historical era, but we need to
or Shelley, but a more oblique refocusing of the relationship between be alert to the variety of these voices. And what we also need to be
the individual and society, in which, through a concentration on alert to, and prepared to admire, is writers whose works might seem
human emotional and physical needs and desires, a new kind of half-formulated or only half-completed, and writers who jolt from
resource is found in the self and private feeling. Not that such a clear one position to another, or from one literary form to another, as they
position is ever formulated in Keats's poetry; his works do not offer proceed from text to text. Romantic literature is, inevitably, work in
anything even remotely resembling a philosophy, and even in his progress. The attention that is routinely paid to the six best-known
very short poetic career, Keats dying at the age of 26, his ideas Romantic poets can rather obscure this fact. They are such well-
changed rapidly. known writers that, as we noted ealier in this chapter, a sense of over-
IfBlake, Wordsworth and Coleridge place the subjective imagina- all coherence is conveyed that is misleading. The vitality, variety, and
tion at the heart of literature, by the time we get to Keats there is a half-developed quality of Romantic writing become apparent, how-
sense of the self, a sense of desire and an awareness of sexuality that ever, the moment we turn to less well-known writers. They enable us
has a different qualitative value. This is apparent in the language of to get closer to the spirit of a period characterised by fragmentation
Keats's poems. Wordsworth's plain style, which aims to be close to the and diversity.
language of everyday life, represents a very self-conscious rejection of Mary Wollstonecraft, the figure who can be regarded as initiating
 The Romantic Period 167
166 A Brief History of English Literature

modern feminism, is probably the most significant of these other the Bible Society and charitable works. Her efforts on behalf of the
writers in the Romantic period. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman anti-slavery movement resulted in a work - The Black Man's Lament
(1792) argues that women must be educated for citizenship. This is (1826) - that illustrates vividly the extraordinary variety of literature
one of the works that Wollstonecraft wrote in immediate response to in the Romantic period.
the French Revolution, and it is interesting to see that the basis of her Elizabeth Inchbald, another friend of Godwin's, combined writing
argument is that, if women are ignored and trivialised, this will novels (A Simple Story, 1791) with a career as an actress and dramatist.
undermine the Revolution. Wollstonecraft afterwards lived in France There is, indeed, a thread that connects these authors, which is the
during 1792 and 1794, the period when the optimism of the early rev- fact that the novel was now proving more and more popular as a
olutionary period yielded to extremism and violence; her An genre, both for straightforward domestic narratives and_as a n:ieans
Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution of developing social and political ideas. Charlotte Smith enJoyed
(1795) is at heart a critique based upon Enlightenment cultural and considerable success as a novelist, with works such as Emmeline, or the
economic thinking. This was followed by Letters Written during a Short Orphan of the Castle (1788), but she also wrote children's stories, son-
Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796) in which, behind the nets and a number oflong poems. Mary Robinson, an actress, and for
label of'female philosopher', she presents herself as woman, intellec- a while the mistress of the Prince of Wales, wrote a number of novels
tual, lover, social critic, mother and revolutionised consciousness. which are essentially sentimental melodramas, but they are informed
After this she started to write a feminist novel Maria; Or, the Wrongs of by a note of social protest. This gained a more explicit form in a trea-
Woman. Her private life was complicated, with a number of suicide tise, Thoughts on the Condition of Women, and on the Injustice of ~ent~l
attempts, but in 1797 she married William Godwin; she died some six Insubordination (1798). Another writer who demands attention 1s
months later, following the birth of their child, Mary Wollstonecraft Felicia Hemans, who published fourteen volumes of verse, and
Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. whose poems characteristically explore the contradictions of her and
What we see in Wollstonecraft is an ability to combine political other women's lives. If this is a writer playing the kind of role that
an1 s?cial analysis with a revolutionary ideology of individual rights. might be expected of a woman author, the same cannot be said of
This 1s also true of her husband William Godwin, who, like Mary Catherine Macaulay, a Whig historian, political theorist and educa-
Wollstonecraft, turns to a variety of literary forms to work through tionalist. Her eight-volume political history of the seventeenth cen-
and develop his ideas. His Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) is tury was published over a period of twenty years, between 1763 and
probably the most extreme manifesto for restructuring the social and 1783, but she was active as a writer until the end of her life, challeng-
ing Edmund Burke on two occasions, and in Letters on Education w_ith
political order published in the Romantic period. A year later, in 1794,
his novel Caleb Williams involves a re-working of, and, as such, a fresh Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects (1790) she dealt with
twist to his social ideas. A one-time member of the Godwin- matters such as prison reform, capital punishment, slavery, and the
W ollst~necraft circle was Amelia Opie. Her novel Adeline Mowbray treatment of animals, as well as educational questions.
(1804) 1s based upon Wollstonecraft's life, but, when we look at It would be possible to keep on adding to this list of Romantic
Opie's own life as a whole, what is most striking is the way in which writers - the poet John Clare and Thomas De Quincey, best known
a writer at this time could respond to the new opportunities offered for his autobiography, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821), are
by moving in a very different direction. Essentially a moral writer, two other really notable figures, and this is also the time at which
Opie's The Father and Daughter (1801) was extremely successful. She Jane Austen was writing - but the essential point is that at no earlier
~!so published poetry (Poems, 1802, and The Woman's Return, 1808), but period in literary history do we encounter so many writers fr?m so
m 1825, after becoming a Quaker, she abandoned novel-writing for many backgrounds writing in such a variety of forms. What 1s also
 -
168 A Brief History of English Literature

evident is not just a new energy in political and social analysis, but
also a n~w sense of the self, including a sense of the interior self.
Para~oxically, throughout this time of political turmoil, George III
rem~me_d on the thr?ne, from 1760 to 1820, creating an illusion of 10 Victorian Literature,
c~ntm~ity a~d certain~, although, in a way that seems in keeping
With this penod, the king was afflicted with mental illness. He was 1837-1857
succeeded by George N and then, in 18 30 , William N became king
Keats, Shelley and Byron were all dead by this time. Coleridge died i~
1834. Only Wordsworth lived on into the Victorian era.
Charles Dickens
Queen Victoria succeeded her uncle, William IV, as sovereign of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1837. In the
same year, Charles Dickens published the first monthly instal-
ments of Oliver Twist, a novel that tells us a great deal about the
early Victorian period. The story concerns Oliver, an orphan child
of the workhouse, who is apprenticed to an undertaker, but then
runs away and encounters the Artful Dodger, who introduces him
to Fagin in the London slums. Fagin is the organiser of a set of
young thieves, and an associate of Bill Sikes, a violent criminal,
and Nancy, a prostitute. After a series of complications, Nancy
reveals that Fagin is being bribed, by the boy's half-brother Marks,
to corrupt Oliver. Nancy's betrayal is discovered, and Sikes mur-
ders her. In the pursuit that follows , he accidentally hangs himself.
Fagin is arrested, and Oliver is adopted by a benevolent Mr
Brownlow.
An obvious target of the novel was the New Poor Law of 1834,
which confined paupers to workhouses. A deeper issue, however, lies
behind the immediate issue of the Poor Law; this is the way in which
Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century was having to intro-
duce new legislation and new mechanisms of social regulation in
order to control an increasingly complex society. The period around
1837 was one of unprecedented change as an agricultural country was
transformed into an industrial one. The very appearance of the land-
scape was changed by the railways, a physical alteration that also
affected how people saw and related to each other. By 1851, well
before anywhere else in Europe, more people lived in towns than in
the countryside. These technological and demographic changes

169
 170 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 171

altered the fundamental rhythms of life. Old communal patterns of novels of ordinary life. Extremely popular were historical novels, as
existence vanished; in a large town, such as London, and also in the influenced by Walter Scott. But Dickens owes most to the Newgate
new large industrial towns in the north, such as Manchester, each novel, a form of fiction that dealt with the lives of criminals. A typi-
person encountered was not only a stranger but also potentially a cal Newgate novel, however, such as Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Paul
threat. As early as the 1830s, a new sense existed of being an individ- Clifford (1830) or Harrison Ainsworth's Rookwood (1834), is a loose and
ual, and having to fend for oneself in the urban world. In the past, episodic picaresque tale; Oliver Twist has altogether more focus. An
people knew precisely who they were, as they probably continued aspect of this is the way in which Dickens endorses emerging middle-
in the same occupations, and in the same homes, as their parents, class values. Oliver's salvation takes the form of being absorbed into
but in a town it became necessary to think about one's identity and a middle-class family. This is an important idea in the Victorian peri-
how one related to other people. It also became necessary for the od: domestic order acts as a refuge and sustaining structure in a
government to think about how to regulate this changing society; in changing world.
particular, the government had to think about how to deal with the What we can add to this is the way in which Dickens time and time
surplus elements in society, the incidental casualties of economic again deals with the progress of a male hero who, as with David in
progress. David Copperfield (1849-50) and Pip in Great Expectations (1860-1),
Dickens, in his characteristically populist way, challenges the comes to terms with the world as he embraces middle-class values.
inhumanity of aspects of the new social legislation. But Dickens also At the same time, however, Dickens's heroes often have uncomfort-
shares the anxieties of his time about potential disorder. The most able doubles: David Copperfield is shadowed by Uriah Heep and
alarming elements in Oliver Twist are Fagin and his gang, the violent Steerforth, both of whom reveal the kind of dark sexual urge that
Bill Sikes, and, although she has a heart of gold, the prostitute Nancy. David attempts to conceal or deny in his own life. It is as if, in
Dickens throughout his career was fascinated, and yet repelled, by embracing a new middle-class code, Dickens is equally aware of the
anarchic forces within society. It is a fear of criminality that is most precariousness or vulnerability of the new respectable social concep-
apparent, but Dickens also deals again and again with the transgres- tion of the self, of the buried life that is hidden beneath the veneer of
sive power of sexuality. What is also apparent, however, is a fear of polite manners.
the mob, of a threatening herd of working-class people such as the There are, too, other important aspects of Dickens's art. In all his
crowd that pursues the murderer Sikes. Oliver Twist, then, like novels, Dickens presents the teeming variety and abundance of the
Dickens's other novels, looks at the question of how to control an nineteenth century, but it is actually a carefully controlled vision. The
increasingly complex society, but in doing so - and this is one reason working-class characters are frequently eccentric, but, because they are
why his novels are so effective - offers a vivid sense of the dangerous so, they do not represent a threat. The lower classes, in effect, become
forces that threaten this society. a kind of carnival backdrop to the moral advance of the middle-class
There was, it is true, a precedent for the kind of plot Dickens heroes and heroines. The story that is usually told in a Dickens novel is
employs in Oliver Twist. In the years before 1837, the novel as a genre a story of social reconciliation and reconstitution. The characteristic
was characterised by novelists reworking old forms and developing hero or heroine is an orphan, who moves from a position of depriva-
new ones. There were novels of manners and sentiment, featuring life tion and oppression towards being inside a middle-class circle of kind-
among the upper class and middle-class aspirants; one variety of the ness and care. Success is associated with the bourgeois virtues of
novel of manners was the 'silver-fork' novel, preoccupied with fash- industriousness, honesty and charity, while time and time again the
ionable society. There were Gothic novels, and parodies of Gothic novels are concerned with the development and strengthening of indi-
novels (such as Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey), and, by contrast, vidual identity. The heroes often struggle with sexual desire, but by and
172 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 173

large they manage to control both their sexual needs and their moral The novel starts in fog, and we seem to be lost in a confusing fog. As
nature. We can see this in a character such as Arthur Clennam, in is increasingly the case with Dickens's novels, the story features
Little Dorrit (1855-7), who, in the face of adversity, including uncer- death, murder, madness, despair, suicide and hauntings. The charac-
tainty about his parentage and identity, tackles life manfully, and is ters are disturbed, alienated and lost. This is the disorder of society,
duly rewarded. But this is only towards the end of the story. There is and the disorder felt in individual lives. It is, above all else, the dan-
often play with characters' names in Dickens's novels, and it is often gerous force of sexual desire that haunts and undermines society,
only at the end of a novel that a character, as is the case with Esther something that is reflected in the presence of Esther as the illegiti-
in Bleak House, gets to know who he or she really is, and how he or she mate child of Lady Dedlock and Captain Hawdon, who is now
relates to other people. employed as a law-writer and who goes by the name of Nemo, or
A lot of this might seem to suggest that Dickens uses the novel Nobody. This is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Bleak House.
form to provide reassurance for his readers: it is as if the novels hold Even though the novel endorses Victorian values, steering Esther into
•·t
out answers, in terms of specific ideas about identity and social class, a rewarding relationship, it is a huge labyrinthine structure built
that offer hope in an increasingly complicated and mechanised around a missing centre, a dead father. Possibly why Dickens is the
urban world. The constructive element of what Dickens offers is cer- most celebrated Victorian novelist is that, to an extent that is not true
tainly important: a text such as David Coppeefield, in particular, pro- of any other writer, he is able to render the alarming complexity
vides a role model for an idea of the self. This is a central aspect of the of nineteenth-century Britain in its many dimensions even while
Victorian novel: it helped people in the nineteenth century make suggesting its essential middle-class nature.
sense of their lives, including guidance on how they could construct
themselves in a changing world. But this only works so well in Charlotte and Emily Bronte
Dickens's novels because, simultaneously, he provides a full impres-
sion of the complexity of this new age that prompted these new nar- A period of around eighteen months in 1847-8 is generally regarded
ratives of the self. as perhaps the most significant in the entire history of the English
We can see this in Bleak House (1852-3). Dickens's novels become novel. There were major novels by Dickens (Dombey and Son), William
darker and darker during the course of his career, a development that Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair) Elizabeth Gaskell (Mary Barton),
is initiated with Dombey and Son (1848), a disturbing tale of a father Charlote Bronte (Jane Eyre), and Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights). This
who has no love for his daughter. Bleak House concerns Esther, the huge wave of major novels is more than a coincidence. In the first
illegitimate daughter of Lady Dedlock, and her peripheral involve- half of the nineteenth century, Britain experienced unprecedented
ment in a court case about an inheritance, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, economic and social change, all the various forces seeming to build
that has dragged on for years. The novel might end happily, with to a climax around 1847-8. The novels that appeared at this time are
Esther marrying Dr Allan W oodcourt, but the reader is aware of a a response to these social developments. But more is involved than
gap between the bewildering narrative structure and the orderliness just a response. An old discourse, an old way of thinking about the
of the story's outcome. This is an impression that starts to be created world, is losing relevance, and the novel as a genre is actively
on the opening page of Bleak House: involved in creating a new discourse, including new ways of talking
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green airs and
about people, society and the individual. It is very clear at this time
meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of that social change was affecting at a fundamental level the way in
shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on which people saw themselves and how they felt about how they
the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. related to the world at large.
UNIVERSIDA.D DE SEVILLA
Fae. Fiiclogia • Biblioteca
174 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 175

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre might, initially, strike us as having very

little to do with the economic and social changes of the 1840s.
Indeed, the novel might appear to be a simple love story that could
have happened at any time in history, or no time at all. Jane Eyre is an
orphan who lives with her aunt, and then attends Lowood School.
After some years as a pupil and then as a teacher, she becomes a gov-
I to act with more caution. The book could thus be seen as a kind of
guide to the Victorians as to how they should behave. The problem
with such an approach is that it is too quick to dismiss troublesome
elements in the story. The people from the colonies, the working-
class characters, and women, in particular women such as Jane, are
all awkward figures, challenging the complacency of male middle-
erness at Thornfield Hall, looking after Adele, the ward of Edward class society, and all the more so as it was the people in the colonies,
Rochester. Jane agrees to marry Rochester, but at the wedding service the working class and women who contributed so much to the pros-
it is revealed that he already has a wife, Bertha, a lunatic who is con- perity of Victorian Britain. Quite simply, early Victorian Britain
fined upstairs in his home. Jane flees, is taken in by a clergyman, St might have been reconstructing and reconceiving itself as an ordered
John Rivers, and his family, and takes up a post as the local and morally respectable society, but there were those who remained
schoolmistress. St John proposes to Jane, but she rejects him and outside this new middle-class discourse.
returns to Thornfield Hall, Rochester's house, which is a blackened Accordingly, recent criticism of Jane Eyre, rather than focusing on
ruin. Bertha is dead, and Rochester maimed and blinded by the fire the containment of Jane's voice as she makes an accommodation
from which he sought to rescue Bertha. Jane and Rochester marry, with society, has looked at the extraordinary nature, and demands, of
and the novel ends with an account of marital bliss. that voice. Lowood School, imposing conformity and discipline,
Jane Eyre could be regarded as a Cinderella story, in which the poor may be taken as an illustration of a kind of regimentation that was
girl marries a prince. But, even though the story is set at a remove increasingly a feature of Victorian life. Jane, however, consistently
from urban and industrial Britain, there is a great deal of contempo- challenges the authority of the school and its director, Reverend
rary relevance in the way that it examines the position of women in Brocklehurst. Almost wilfully, Jane places herself in the position of I•

Victorian Britain and in the remarkable way that it presents the hero- social outsider. She has an opportunity to become an insider when
ine. In addition, although Jane Eyre might appear to lack the broad Rochester proposes to her, but what is most interesting in the novel
social awareness of a Dickens novel, this is not really the case at all. is the way in which, verbally, she duels with Rochester, asserting her
Towards the end it is revealed that Jane is heir to a fortune that her independence and refusing to yield. If a woman does not conform in
uncle has made in Madeira; Bertha, Rochester's wife, is of mixed race, Victorian society, however, she is punished, and the usual form this
a woman he married in the West Indies; and St John asks Jane to join takes is incarceration. Bertha, who is mad, but can also be seen as a
him in missionary work in India. In short, the novel shows a consis- woman who refused to conform to the expectations of respectable
tent awareness of the economic life of early Victorian Britain, in par- society, is locked away. If Jane will not conform, she, too, might be
ticular its colonial dimension. Once we become aware of the colonial locked away. The threat is all the more real because it is difficult for
issue in the novel, we begin to gain a sense of how Jane Eyre is situat- Jane to establish a conventional relationship with other people.
ed in the society of the day: it is aware of, and to a certain extent Indeed, the impression that comes across is that Jane is strong and
examining, the complex economic and social life of early Victorian independent, but also vulnerable and confused. What is significant
Britain. here is the kind of conception of the individual that Bronte offers. In
In acknowledging this, however, we need to recognise how ways Romantic literature, there is frequently a sense of the rebel or lonely
of looking at Victorian fiction have changed in recent years. There outsider at odds with society. By the time we get to Jane Eyre, there is
was a time when critics used to emphasise the moral development of a sense of how, in a society where people are increasingly separated
Jane: that she is a hot-headed young woman who matures, learning from their place of birth and their families, individuals are much
176 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 177

more exposed, much more on their own. This is one of the central which she creates a new discourse that can do justice to her heroines'
issues that Victorian texts return to. Socially, what we see in sexual feelings.
Victorian Britain is the emergence of a more regulated, more disci- Villette is the story of Lucy Snowe, a teacher in a girls' school in the
plined society; rapid social change demands a greater degree of social Belgian town of Villette. She gradually falls in love with Paul
control. But, at the personal level, rather than individuals just slotting Emmanuel, another teacher at the school. He is obliged to depart for
into this structure, there is a sense of the lonely and complicated the West Indies, but leaves Lucy in charge of her own school, and
position of the individual. Typically, therefore, we see two things in with a promise to return in three years. At the end, however, it is pos-
Victorian novels: a new sense of social order, which is increasingly a sible that he has died. In some ways this is the same story as Jane Eyre:
middle-class social order, and simultaneously, and paradoxically, a an isolated young woman who asserts herself, finds herself, and finds
developing sense of psychological complexity, of the problems that a partner. But in Villette everything is cast in more extreme terms, and
an individual experiences in such a society. a compromise with society is never really achieved. At the end, Lucy
Jane Eyre ends with social reconciliation and reconstitution: Jane is fantasising about a future that will probably never be realised. The
becomes part of the established order. But throughout the novel novel is astute in its grasp of how power is wielded in society; there
there are contradictory elements in her character. She sees herself as are extraordinary episodes, such as when Emmanuel is directing the
an outsider, but is always quick to judge others according to conven- school play, acting out all the parts and making the girls imitate his
tional values. In essence, she is at odds with, but also craves, middle- performance. He is, almost literally, putting words into the girls'
class respectability. This is a common contradiction in Victorian mouths. The complement of this awareness of male power in society
literature. Dickens, for example, is the most thorough-going sceptic is the sense of Lucy as someone who is deeply isolated.
about all the institutions of his day, but also a defender of middle- The manner is which Villette suggests Lucy's needs, anxieties and
class society. In the case of Charlotte Bronte, her heroines are rebels, desires is astonishing. Victorian society developed an ideology of
but very much middle-class rebels. What we need to appreciate, what was considered normal and respectable, with people deviating
however, is that, in 1847-8, rather than merely describing an existing from this shared standard being judged as aberrant or dangerous.
conception of middle-class individualism, Bronte is engaged in The other side of this, however, was the simultaneous development
actively constructing this notion of individualism. It follows that of a complex sense of the self, and this is what Villette conveys so well;
Victorian readers looked to the novel as the genre that could provide indeed, the novel is helping to formulate this new sense of self by
an understanding of, even a vocabulary for articulating, what it offering a language for it. This new notion of self did not actually
meant to be an individual in nineteenth-century Britain. conflict entirely with Victorian social morality; on the contrary, it is
The kind of psychological complexity that we experience in Jane a central element in the thinking of the Victorians and an important
Eyre is taken much further in Charlotte Bronte's Villette (1853), where a constitutive feature of the social formation. An advanced liberal cap-
central focus of concern is desire. The Victorians valued marriage in italist society not only proved flexible enough to accommodate a
a way that had never been the case previously; for the Victorians, new idea of the individual but actually sustained itself by nurturing
marriage was the central mechanism of social regulation and control, just such a sense of the individual. This is perhaps the principal rea-
tidying young people away into neat domestic units, and regulating son why it is this complicated, intricate relationship between the
the potentially dangerous force of sexuality. In Dickens's novels there individual self and society at large that Victorian novelists returned to
is always a sense of sexuality as the anarchic energy that can disrupt time and time again.
the smooth-running of society. In Bronte, sexuality is equally anar- What this also indicates, however, and perhaps rather surprising-
chic, but there is also something highly compelling about the way in ly, is something rather parochial and insular about the subject matter
178 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 179

of Victorian literary texts, and about the Victorian period generally.

The Victorians managed a vast empire but at no point saw them- William Makepeace Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell
selves as part of a broader European culture, as had been the case up In 1851, Britain held a Great Exhibition in a Crystal Palace in Hyde
until at least the seventeenth century. Their favoured form, the novel, Park in London. The social, industrial and political unrest that char-
focuses almost exclusively on domestic life. And the very term acterised the 1830s and 1840s was displaced by a spirit of burgeoning
Victorian, unlike, say, Romantic, which suggests a way of thinking confidence in the 1850s. In this context, the Great Exhibition can be
that transcends borders, implies an insular concern with British soci- seen as a triumphalist statement, an invitation to the whole world to
ety. For the modern reader, Victorian literary texts are amongst the reproduce itself in the image of the middle-class Englishman.
most compelling, but we should recognise that this is possibly Industry- the exhibition was a celebration of industrial productivity
because they address topics that are close to our own lives; we need - declared the existence of a world of identical and interchangeable
to retain an awareness that, in some respects at least, the horizons of parts; excess and instability were eliminated. The world's products
literature were reduced by the Victorians. were on display in the Crystal Palace; it was as if everything could be
Obviously, though, this does not reduce in any way the impact of collected, catalogued and controlled under the roof that the British
many nineteenth-century novels. Consider Emily Bronte's Wuthering had constructed.
Heights (1847), for example, which tells the story of the love between Victorian literature to a large extent embraces this sense of the
Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. It is a novel that seems to be nation's identity, but, as we might expect, literature also draws atten-
caught between an old way of life and the new world of the tion to stresses and strains in the nation's self-image. In William
Victorians. The house of Wuthering Heights is an open, communal Makepeace Thackeray's novels what we see is a refusal to become
space. It is set against The Grange, a house of private rooms and pri- enthusiastic about, and at times even to accept, the new values of the
vate spaces. The architectural change suggests how the Victorians, Victorian era. Perhaps most markedly, Thackeray appears to reject
increasingly, not only demanded their own private space, but also the new narratives of the Victorians. For example, in Victorian fiction
how, psychologically, they withdrew into themselves or detached the typical heroine, as in Jane Eyre, is frustrated by the lack of openings
themselves from other people. One of the many things that could be for her abilities within a gendered society but eventually settles down
said about the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff is that, in that society. In Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1847-8), by contrast, the
in seeing themselves, as the imagery stresses, as one person, the novel heroine, Becky Sharp, is conniving, cynical and nasty- a woman on
rises above the Victorian ideology of separate individuals and sepa- the make. It is as if Thackeray knows how women are now presented
rate lives. Wuthering Heights develops the idea of a passion that is so in literature, but refuses to endorse this new vision.
intense that it transcends individualism, but one reason why the There was a time when Thackeray was seen as the equal of his con-
novel can do this is because it has grasped how Victorian society is temporary Dickens. Even in his lifetime, however, reservations were
restructuring itself. A second generation emerges at the end of voiced. Some readers felt Thackeray was old-fashioned, and certain-
Wuthering Heights, the children of Catherine and Heathcliff, a genera- ly his works - with the exception of Vanity Fair - have sometimes
tion more moderate and disciplined in its behaviour. This, essential- proved less than compelling to modem readers. Yet it is possibly the
ly, is the direction in which the world is heading. But, in its old-fashioned qualities of Thackeray that make him interesting, for
representation of the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff his is an awkward, reactionary voice, resisting the new assumptions
themselves, Wuthering Heights confronts us with an extreme alterna- at the heart of a great deal of early Victorian fiction. Thackeray's rep-
tive to the new social discipline that characterises early Victorian utation was established with the publication of Vanity Fair, the sub-
Britain. title of which, 'A Novel without a Hero', begins to suggest his
 ..
180 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 181

scepticism about the kind of commitment to the complex, intro- Esmond is not necessarily a positive figure. He can be seen as totally
spective hero or heroine that we see in the works of s_everal of his self-absorbed, setting himself up as a kind of god at the centre of his
contemporaries. The reader is invited to share in the trials of Jane own world. In this reading, Henry Esmond exposes the shortcomings
Eyre or David Copperfield, but we are not required to have much of the new Victorian emphasis on the self. Thackeray's refusal to par-
sympathy for Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp. Thackeray's approach to ticipate in the kind of thinking we find in the novels of his contem-
characterisation is, essentially, comic and external. Vanity Fair as a poraries is often, as in Vanity Fair and The Newcomes (1855),
whole amounts to a satiric representation of a society consumed by accompanied by a devastating critique of materialism. By the end of
a new desire for material goods, most of the characters being moti- his career, in Philip (1862), Thackeray's disillusionment with contem-
vated by the simple lusts of greed and self-interest. porary culture had become a lot more bitter, but the harshness of
Setting his novel at the time of Waterloo (1815), Thackeray gives Philip (one of the most overtly racist Victorian novels) helps us appre-
himself an opportunity to reflect on the tremendous social changes ciate the subtlety of Thackeray's position in his earlier novels. There,
of the first half of the nineteenth century. At a time when novels were having lost confidence in the old order, Thackeray remains teasingly
playing a vital role in creating a new middle-class sense of self-worth, sceptical about the new values of Victorian Britain as reflected in, and
Thackeray fails to oblige. Rather than finding value in middle-class in part created by, the novels of his contemporaries.
experience, as many of his contemporaries did, he castigates it as self- Elizabeth Gaskell provides an example of the positive spirit that is
ish. Even Dobbin, the most honourable character in Vanity Fair, and encountered in a great deal of fiction in the 1850s. By the 1860s, a sense
the nearest we get to a middle-class hero, is viewed patronisingly. of failure was becoming widespread; there was an awareness that
Thackeray's lack of commitment to the middle-class subject and the material prosperity had not actually improved people's lives. In the
discourse of individualism, together with his lack of commitment to 1850s, however, particularly in social and industrial novels - such as
the associated values of marriage and family, establishes him as the those of Charles Kingsley (for example, Yeast, 1848, and Alton Locke,
awkward outsider in the early Victorian novel. His distance from the 1851) - there is an optimistic sense that society can heal its wounds and
norm is particularly apparent in The History of Pendennis (1849-50), advance decisively. This is evident in Gaskell's North and South (1854-5),
which appeared in the same year as David Copperfield. The two novels a novel, fundamentally, about social reconciliation and overcoming
feature similar stories, but whereas David Coppe,field is centrally con- hostility and division. It tells the story of Margaret Hale who, when her
cerned :vith the construction of a successful middle-class identity, father resigns his living as a clergyman in the south of England,
Pendenms concentrates on the hero's loss of a role and direction in his accompanies him to Milton-Northern (Manchester). There she finds
life. The leisurely pace of Pendennis, which can prove off-putting to herself in conflict with a mill-owner, John Thornton, trying to per-
modern readers, is possibly an important aspect of its achievement - suade him to take a sympathetic view of his workers' problems.
that the novel seems deliberately to stick with a rhythm that is at Eventually his attitude softens, and they marry at the end of the novel.
odds with and disrupts the new rhythm of Victorian life. There are some works of literature that seem to come complete with
It is in The History of Henry Esmond (1852) that Thackeray engages an interpretation, and North and South is one of them. It is admirable
most directly with new Victorian ideas about individual identity. Set that a novelist should engage with the new reality of industrial Britain,
in the reign of Queen Anne, the novel shows an old military order and the dynamic of this novel is conciliatory: it wants to heal rifts and
yielding to a new social structure in which the individual is at the cen- divisions within society, notably between employer and worker. But
tre, acting in accordance with the dictates of individual conscience. the novel also presents two distinct versions of middle-class ideology,
The novel might, therefore, be read as an articulation of a more sen- and attempts to reconcile them. One version is a liberal vision of
sitive set of values that is replacing a defunct code. But Henry moral responsibility for the general well-being of society and a sense
182 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 183

of obligation to the less fortunate; the other middle-class ideology is seems to edge out any possibility of an emotional side to life or lan-
that of business and profit. In uniting Margaret and Thornton, both guage. In this respect, we realise again what the Victorians denied or
sides learn from the other. The emphasis is conciliatory and healing; repressed in constructing their social morality. As with the novels of
as such, it is a novel with a moral prospectus for society. And, in this Charlotte Bronte, however, although this sense of Margaret's sexual
respect, it matches a mood of the 1850s, that, with rising affluence, identity might appear to be at odds with the social theme of the
solutions can be found to the country's problems. novel, the truth is that an acknowledgement of the complexity of the
One possible criticism of Gaskell's stance - a criticism that is often self - in particular, the complex depths of a female character, whose
levelled against Victorian novelists - is that she seeks a personal way of thinking will always differ from the dominant ways of think-
answer to a political problem, believing that a modification in the ing in a male-led society - is really part and parcel of how the
views of individuals can affect the whole nature of society. What is Victorians were rethinking their world. In all of Gaskell's novels -
also apparent in Gaskell's novels is her belief that, in the end, every- novels that include Ruth (1853), Mary Barton (1848), Sylvia's Lovers (1863)
one should share her vision of middle-class values; the workers are and Wives and Daughters (1864-6) - the impulse might be towards
assumed to have the same long-term interests as their employers, if social healing, but she is always aware of levels of contradiction. As
only they could see what is best for them. This is a form of ideologi- with other novelists of her era, she might be actively involved in the
cal thinking that becomes prevalent in the Victorian period: a tyran- creation of new middle-class values, but she is also sceptical, at times
ny of the respectable norm. North and South, in representing such a very sceptical, about these values.
way of thinking, can be seen as one of a number of novels that
attempt to rethink Britain in the decade of the Great Exhibition.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning,
In suggesting this, however, we also need to be aware of a level of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
complication and contradiction in Gaskell's work.
North and South seems totally committed to middle-class domestic It is clear that the novel in the Victorian period became the dominant
values, but the Hale family is unhappy and divided. The mother form. In a way that is perhaps unprecedented in literature, what we
regrets marrying Mr Hale, and Mr Hale is a weak father, who relies see is a literary genre that connected directly with very large numbers
upon his daughter to cope with difficult challenges. Their son, of people, helping them make sense of their lives. But if the novel
Frederick, has been involved in a naval mutiny, and, consequently, became the preferred literary form , what role did poetry serve in
cannot legally return to England. There is, it can be seen, a funda- these years? Poetry, in fact, continued to enjoy a cultural status that
mental contradiction at the heart of the text: the novel endorses mid- set it above the novel. But what is also the case is that, while the novel
dle-class values, but these values are also shown as suspect and occupied the middle ground, Victorian poetry tended to engage with
flawed. Superficially, love, marriage and family life might seem to some of the more marginal, extreme and unnerving dimensions of
provide an answer to life's problems, but the more closely one looks Victorian life.
at North and South the more it becomes apparent that Gaskell is only The leading poet was Alfred Lord Tennyson, a writer whose emo-
too aware of the problems associated with love, marriage and family tional and mental outlook was, as we might expect, very much at one
life. with the feelings of his audience. In Romantic poetry, the individual
One aspect of the novel that is particularly striking is a sense of stance, as a social outsider, is one that represents a new kind of ener-
sexual agitation that affects Margaret at various points. It is as if there gy. By the time we get to Tennyson, the sense of being on one's own is
is an irrational dimension to her character that has no place in a more haunted and lonely; we sense characters who, distressed by the
polite discourse; indeed, the social and moral discourse of the novel world, have withdrawn into themselves. This is apparent in poems
184 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 185

such as 'Mariana' (1830) and 'The Lady of Shallott' (1832). There is a feel- the way in which death has shaken his being. But the poem's very
ing of guilt, of not being able to muster any resolve. This feeling is simplicity implies a larger resonance: the loss of Hallam has echoes
underwritten by the sensuous, musical quality of Tennyson's style; it of the death of Christ. There is no consolation, however, no hope of
is a style that lends itself to the representation of enervated states. any kind of afterlife, and Tennyson himself is tormented by his guilt.
This extends to strange and disturbed states, and even a homo- The poem does not say Tennyson loved Hallam: there is clearly no
erotic quality that is at a remove from conventional desire. Time and room in Victorian culture for such homoerotic openness. But what
time again in Tennyson - and in Victorian poetry as a whole - there this individual poem, and In Memoriam as a whole, suggests is an
is a delving into the strange and dark depths of the mind. But, as is the almost totally disabling sense of loss and confusion. It might seem
case with the Victorian novel when it explores the unconscious odd, therefore, that In Memoriam itself was enormously popular with
mind, an alienated sense of the self can exist alongside a great deal Victorian readers. But what the poem as a whole manages to do is to
that is conventional in terms of moral uplift and positive in terms of confront the issues that caused so much anxiety at this time,
social resolve. This is evident in In Memoriam, published in 1850, a Tennyson expressing the profound doubt his contemporaries felt
work that Queen Victoria is said to have valued second only to the about how to reconcile religion and science, God and nature, and
Bible. In Memoriam, a long elegy, is dedicated to Tennyson's friend, possibly doubts about the entire domestic ideology they had con-
Arthur Henry Hallam, who died in 1833, aged 22. Composed over a structed. He craves the security of companionship and a familiar set-
number of years, it consists of a sequence of 130 poems in which ting, but the things that provide reassurance are so easily destroyed:
Tennyson reflects on the shifting flux of Victorian life while explor- the house is 'dark', the streets 'unlovely', and the day 'blank'.
ing the nature of loss and bereavement. Robert Browning is another poet who explores strange states of
What is likely to strike us immediately is the dark sense of despon- mind, plunging into the dark places of the human psyche. He does
dency created: this, most characteristically, in dramatic monologues, poems in
which an imaginary speaker addresses an audience. In 'My Last
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street, Duchess' there is an imagined speaker, the Duke, who addresses the
Doors, where my heart was used to beat representative of the girl he hopes to marry. He inadvertently reveals
So quickly, waiting for a hand. himself as a tyrant who could not tolerate his first wife's indepen-
dence; he is despotic, wishing to limit the freedom of another person.
A hand that can be clasped no more - This sets the pattern for Browning's dramatic monologues, although
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
they do become increasingly subtle. There is always a tension
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door. between the mind of the speaker and the world he or she occupies;
there is often a psychologically disturbed will to power that is at odds
He is not here; but far away with the values of any kind of rational or liberal society:
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly through the drizzling rain That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
On the bald street breaks the blank day. Looking as if she were alive. I call
(In Memoriam, VII) That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Tennyson now haunts the street and house where Hallam used to Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
live, remembering the feelings he used to have. Everyday life has 'Fra Pandolf' by design, for never read
ceased to have meaning for him, and the poem powerfully suggests Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
186 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1837-1857 187

The depth and passion of its earnest glance, social codes that sought to restrict women's writing, and by exten-
But to myself they turned (since none puts by sion women's ambitions, to the emotional, the domestic, and the
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I} slight. Indeed, it seeks to reverse the assumptions about gender that
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, contributed so much to underpinning the implicit assumptions of
How such a glance came there . ..
conventional writing and the conduct of conventional society.
QI. 1-12)
The feelings expressed in much of what Elizabeth Barrett
By the end of the poem it becomes clear that the Duke's obsessive Browning writes elsewhere, for example in Sonnets from the Portuguese,
jealousy has destroyed the Duchess, but that, curiously, the jealousy are odd; there is, repeatedly, an articulation of something alienated,
still lingers together with his discipline of fear. Hovering somewhere denied, hidden and repressed:
between confession and stream-of-consciousness, the poem takes us
I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
into the disturbed world of the mind, and away from the domestic
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
and the comfortable concerns that are often the desired goal in And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
Victorian literature. The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
If we put Browning and Tennyson together, we can start to gener- What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
alise about Victorian poetry. What is most apparent is the explo- And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
ration of strange and submerged feelings. It is as if poetry has become Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
the medium for dealing with the more awkward aspects of life that Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
the mainstream, and especially novelists, would prefer to neglect. Yet It might be well perhaps. But if instead
the popularity of both Browning and Tennyson says a great deal Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
about how their subject matter must have chimed with the fears and The grey dust up, .. . those laurels on thine head,
anxieties of the public at large. There is a similar exploration of the 0 my Beloved, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred
marginal in the poetry of Browning's wife, Elizabeth Barrett
The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! go.
Browning. Her best-known poems appear in Sonnets from the (Sonnets from the Portuguese, V)
Portuguese (1850), but her most important and revealing work is
Aurora Leigh (1857). A novel in verse, the poem charts the heroine's These are the kind of feelings that the Victorians were becoming
development as an artist. Refusing the love of her cousin, who wish- increasingly aware of, but which, paradoxically, in their respectable,
es her to renounce her writing and work on behalf of the poor, she middle-class culture, they also wished to contain and even deny. But
establishes herself as a poet in London. Later, in Europe, she meets up the contradiction is not as strange as it seems. Old values, including,
with her cousin again and both confess their love. Described in these to a certain extent, the security of religious values, might have gone
terms, Aurora Leigh seems to lack any real substance, but it actually in a new age of science, technology, and industrial progress. A new
played a central role in a debate about women, women's writing and framework of essentially middle-class social and moral values may
sexual difference in the Victorian period. Whereas the Brontes ques- have been constructed in their place, but these values lacked the ulti-
tion male values and examine the role of women in a middle-class mate authority and sanction of religious values. The new values
society built around marriage and the home, Barrett Browning, by helped the Victorians make sense of an increasingly bewildering
questioning the exclusion of women from 'true' poetry, confronts world, but there was, in the end, an awareness that the real focus of
some very fundamental questions about gendered identity. Aurora life, and the only thing that could really be known or even trusted,
Leigh explores the very language of Victorian verse, undermining the was oneself and one's own feelings.

L
 Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 189

works of sociological enquiry (such as Henry Mayhew's London

Labour and the London Poor, 1862) and social legislation (such as a vari-
11 Victorian Literature, ety of Factory Acts) that attempted to comprehend and then regulate
a society that had been transformed by economic changes. We could
1857-1876 also point to how the Victorians built sewage systems for cities, how
.they built vast hospitals and lunatic asylums and prisons, and how
they built schools. There had to be a huge physical infrastructure to
service and maintain their society. And we could point to the intro-
Victorian ntlnkers duction of a police force, and the emergence of the lawyer and the
doctor as central figures in society; the day-to-day functioning of life
Matthew Arnold's poem 'Dover Beach' deals with a central source of
had to be policed, legislated and nursed to an extent that had never
worry in Victorian life, the loss of religious faith:
been necessary in the past.
The Sea of Faith In addition to such practical measures, the Victorians also needed
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore intellectual explanations that could help them make sense of a world
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. that had changed and was changing so fast. Arnold, who by the 1860s
But now I only hear had stopped writing poetry, is a typical Victorian intellectual in the
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
way that, in his literary, political and educational writings, he
Retreating, to the breath
analysed the situation in which his age found itself. His most famous
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world. work, Culture and Anarchy (1869), recommends culture as 'the great
QI. 21-8) help out of present difficulties'. The title is itself significant: Arnold
sees no central authority to control the drift of civilisation towards
Arnold presents a world where everything is frightening and all anarchy, and so proposes culture as a source of value that will pro-
familiar points of reference have disappeared. In the poem as a vide a direction in human affairs. What we might say about Culture
whole, he clings on to love, but even love seems an illusion. At the and Anarchy is that, in essence, it constructs a new narrative as a sub-
heart of the poem is his loss of confidence in a religious explanation stitute for the old narratives that seem to have lost their relevance.
of experience, in the 'Sea of Faith' that once surrounded the earth. There are a number of Victorian writers who, like Arnold, helped
And yet we also associate the Victorians with a strong sense of reli- the Victorians make sense of their lives. Collectively, these writers -
gious conviction. Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold and John Ruskin
This apparent contradiction is not difficult to explain. As the are the leading names - are referred to as the Victorian Sages. They
world changed rapidly, people craved the security of sound beliefs, are writers who interpreted the age for the age, the historians of their
rules and fixed codes. There is, in fact, often an air of quiet despera- own time. The response of the modern reader to these writers is com-
tion to Victorian religion, of clinging on to what one can amidst the plicated; to an extent they are difficult to read, because they belong so
wreckage of change. The problem people at the time faced was that much to their own time. If we read them at all, it is with a certain
the old narratives, in particular that of religion, no longer seemed detachment, seeing how they function in a context. Ruskin is partic-
capable of making sense of their lives. The result was that they sought ularly interesting in this respect. He was an art critic and historian
new ways of ordering their world, both intellectually and in concrete who, from his aesthetic concerns, increasingly drew social and moral
terms. As evidence of this we could point to government enquiries, views; addressing himself more and more to political and economic

188
190 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 191

problems, he condemned laissez-faire economics, and extolled the Engels, and then, in 1867, of Marx's major treatise Das Kapital (Capital),
dignity oflabour and the moral and aesthetic value of craftsmanship. with its analysis of society in terms of its material base and its theory
In an age when the demands of work dominated people's lives as of a struggle between the different social classes for dominance. The
never before, Ruskin, and the same is also true of William Morris, a new understanding that Marx brought to the organisation and work-
poet, designer, writer and socialist, attempted to reintroduce the ing of society was to have a far-reaching effect on the whole of twen-
human dimension into a factory-based economy. tieth-century political and philosophical thinking. Freud's work on
The Victorian Sages provided new narratives that were of great psychoanalysis, including works such as Studies in Hysteria Qointly
importance to their contemporaries, but when we look at the published by Freud and Josef Breuer), and his ideas about the way in
Victorian period in retrospect we see the appearance of three new which sexual repression is reflected in dreams, jokes and language,
narratives that are of a different order altogether; narratives that are did not appear until the 1890s, but is consonant with the theories of
as all-embracing as the religious narrative they succeeded, and which Darwin and Marx in providing the Victorians, and the twentieth cen-
are still relevant to people's lives today. The three major European tury, with a new master narrative.
thinkers of the Victorian period are Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Darwin, Marx and Freud all influenced literature, particularly
Sigmund Freud. Darwin developed the theory of evolution, Marx was towards the end of the nineteenth century, but the main thing we see
the founder of international communism, and Freud was the founder in fiction from the 1850s onwards is the development of other new
of psychoanalysis. The new narratives of these three men offer, in forms of narrative, in particular the realistic novel. By the 1850s the
each case and collectively, a new means of making sense of all of life. term realism was associated not so much with what was being
One reads the world on a scientific basis, one in political terms, and observed as with a certain way oflooking and, perhaps just as impor-
one in terms of the importance of the individual mind. The writings tantly, a certain tone of voice, which is that of the middle-class nov-
of all three men are the astonishing products of an age of uncertain- elist. There is a kind of policing of the fictional world in line with
ty, and their ideas are still returned to and disputed. But they are also middle-class values; the assumptions of the middle-class observer are
characteristically Victorian ventures. Sometimes people make the taken to be universal standards of morality, propriety and conduct.
point that these new master narratives of the Victorian period can be Essentially a moral frame, a kind of secularised version of an old reli-
compared to Victorian colonialism: they are enterprises that reach gious code, is imposed upon life. This might seem to hold out the
out to command, control and explain everything, ignoring any awk- promise of nothing more than the most tedious moral tracts, but the
ward local differences that might challenge the dominant authority. best Victorian realistic novels habitually contradict, complicate and
If the Victorian period is marked by the arrival of these new master frustrate the overall scheme of values that they might seem to be
narratives, the twentieth century, as we will see, is the century when advancing, revealing an awareness of the tensions that lie just below
all narratives seem to fall apart. the surface of respectable life.
Darwin's The Origin of Species appeared in 1859. Its theory of the
'descent with modification' of the human species ran entirely counter
George Eliot
to religious belief and teaching, while his arguments about natural
selection and the survival of the fittest seemed to place human beings It is partly because the material wealth of Britain was transformed in
in an evolutionary chain that had little moral or spiritual purpose. a very few years that George Eliot seems to be writing about a differ-
Suddenly the world had changed; its history was no longer governed ent world from that of Charles Dickens. While the 1840s can be
by religion but by the natural sciences. No less revolutionary was the regarded as a decade of unrest, the period in which George Eliot was
publication in 1848 of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Friedrich writing - Adam Bede was published in 1859 and her final novel, Daniel
 - .....

192 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 193

Deronda, in 1874-6 -was an era of tremendous prosperity. Social con- the heroine's first name, is the correct form of address. George Eliot
flicts and divisions were no longer so apparent; for example, the kind would not, however, be a very interesting novelist if she merely pro-
of class division that is so evident in the Brontes and Dickens received vided reassurance for her audience, and recent criticism has focused
far less consideration. In a number of ways, George Eliot seems to be increasingly on elements of anxiety and uncertainty in Eliot's writing.
almost the complete embodiment of the mid-Victorian period. In particular, critics have looked at the way in which she is not entire-
This is apparent, first, in the way that her works always appear to ly sure of, and even undermines, the controlling discourse that she
be making a statement. All Victorian novelists focus on the relation- establishes in her novels. In endorsing the dominant values of the
ship between the individual and society, but George Eliot is the writer society of her time, Eliot is, in a variety of ways, endorsing values that
who, perhaps more than any other, spells out the duties and obliga- are male-centred, but what we also have to recognise is Eliot's femi-
tions of the individual. Her principal theme is egoism; her standard nism, the quiet anger that often informs her accounts of the situa-
plot is an educational one, in which the central character comes to tions in which women find themselves.
understand that he or she has been too self-absorbed, and starts to This is apparent in The Mill on the Floss (1860), a novel dealing with
think about his or her social commitment. What Eliot says in her Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom. Maggie is an intelligent girl in
novels cannot be separated from her manner of saying it: her chosen a community that has no time for unconventional young women,
mode was realism, which involves the close observation of ordinary and which offers no outlet for her intelligence. She becomes friends
life, but also involves a discourse that she has in common with her with Philip Wakem, who appreciates her qualities and sympathises
readers. It is a discourse that is characterised by a shared understand- with her interests, but Tom forces her to give up Philip's friendship.
ing of the world and shared values. Some of the elements involved in Subsequently, Maggie's reputation is compromised through the irre-
her narrative method are apparent in the opening sentence of her sponsible behaviour of Stephen Guest. Tom then turns her out of the
most ambitious novel, Middlemarch (1871-2): house, and she is ostracised by local society. Maggie and Tom are
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief finally, if briefly, reconciled when she attempts to save him from a
by poor dress. flood that threatens the family mill; but it is the briefest of reconcili-
ations, for they both drown. Traditionally, critics used to find fault
Eliot does very little in terms of actually describing Miss Brooke. with the ending of The Mill on the Floss. There was admiration for the
Instead, she calls upon ideas, in particular a shared apprehension that skill with which Eliot evokes rural and domestic life, and for the con-
she can identify in her readers. Essentially, it is a middle-class way of fident, sympathetic manner in which she enables us to understand
looking, disdaining vulgarity and show, and approving of modera- Maggie's frustrations and aspirations, but the ending was commonly
tion and economy. criticised as rushed and arbitrary. More recently, critics have had
This is the essence of Victorian realism: a shared way of perceiving nothing but good things to say about the ending of the novel. One
the world, in which the judgements offered are those of all reasonable point made is that it is an ending that undermines the dominant nar-
people. One aspect of this is the simple fact of naming the object. The rative method of the novel, that is to say, the realistic perspective.
novel starts with the words 'Miss Brooke'. By naming, in effect Eliot at the end switches to a more extreme and dramatic mode of
labelling, everybody and everything, the world is made both tangible presentation. This in turn serves to highlight the limitations of the
and comprehensible. Nothing eludes definition or understanding. But dominant narrative stance in the novel. Eliot's usual voice constitutes
the perspective is always the polite perspective of the middle classes. a reassuring means of presenting and processing experience, but the
In this instance, there is an implicit understanding, and accepted deco- ending to the novel suggests how it is possibly a rather limited view,
rum, that 'Miss Brooke', rather than the over-familiarity of 'Dorothea', with little room for strong feelings.
 t'"

194 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 195

Maggie's relationship with Stephen Guest is relevant here. Maggie had expected, although they come closer together when she learns
is drawn to him as a reckless, irresponsible figure. At this point the that he is terminally ill. But Casaubon extracts a promise from her
novel begins to touch upon a form of passionate waywardness or that, after his death, she will continue with his futile scholarly work;
strength of desire that, essentially, has no place in the cautious and moreover, he leaves a codicil to his will stating that Dorothea will be
respectable code of the mid-Victorians, and which is also, in a way, at disinherited if she ever marries a young relative of Casaubon's, Will
odds with Eliot's own moral, if compassionate, voice. There is, as Ladislaw. Just as Dorothea's marriage has proved a disappointment,
such, a contradictory impulse at the very heart of The Mill on the Floss. so has Lydgate's, whose wife, Rosamond, is extravagant and foolish.
Eliot writes from a middle-class perspective which, perhaps more Dorothea finds Rosamond and Will Ladislaw together. This is a deci-
than anything else, puts the needs of the community above the sive moment for both women. Rosamond acts unselfishly for once,
desires of the self. When she writes in this way, Eliot is both reflect- as she tells Dorothea that Dorothea herself is the woman Ladislaw
ing a moral and social discourse that was becomingly increasingly a loves, and, at the same point, Dorothea realises her love for Ladislaw.
feature of mid-Victorian thinking and helping to establish this way of This paves the way for their marriage.
thinking; that is, she reflects an existing discourse, yet is also adding What can we deduce from this summary? Middlemarch is clearly a
to the authority of this discourse. But the real level of complexity in novel that concerns itself with the ordinary dilemmas of life: with
the novel resides in the fact that, even as she constructs this way of marriages, mainly unhappy marriages, with people's working lives,
looking at life, she is also dissecting and deconstructing it. In the case and their relationships with their neighbours. When characters are at
of The Mill on the Floss, she is aware of the limitations, and ungenerous, odds with society, it is not so much a consequence of obvious ills in
unyielding spirit, of this view of life. the world but as a result of their own unrealistic expectations. If we
When we tum to Thomas Hardy in the next chapter, we will see an extract a moral from the novel - and there was a time when critics
author who is more overtly hostile to middle-class social and sexual were very interested in drawing attention to the sagacity of Eliot's
morality. In addition, he is an author who consistently and wilfully moral views - it resides in the way that characters become less self-
undermines the voice and conventions of realistic fiction . The force absorbed as the novel progresses; their egotism is curbed by a sense
of Hardy's reaction against realism and its associated moral values of social obligation. In this respect, if we interpret the novel this way,
does, however, help us grasp how central a role the voice of realism we can see again how Eliot acts as a kind of moral tutor to her audi-
played in mid-Victorian Britain. At the same time, what is also appar- ence, guiding them on the right kind of social morality. There is,
ent is that, even as they were being put together, realistic novels were much of the time, both confidence and reassurance in Eliot's narra-
always taking themselves apart. This is particularly clear in what is tive voice, as she explains the maturation of characters, and gener-
probably the finest English realistic novel, Middlemarch. The opening alises on the significance of their actions. She has the kind of
section of Middlemarch focuses on Dorothea Brooke, and shows how authority that we might associate with a teacher, a role that she
she comes to marry Edward Casaubon, a clergyman some thirty assumes for herself partly because of her own loss of religious faith,
years her senior. As this story develops, a number of other strands are and the need she felt to construct a secular social morality in its wake.
introduced. There is the story of Tertius Lydgate, a young doctor But there is, simultaneously, always a level of doubt in Eliot's work,
newly arrived in the area, and his courtship of, and marriage to, something perhaps not unconnected with her own position in soci-
Rosamond Viney. Another couple who eventually marry are Mary ety; she lived with a married man, George Henry Lewes, behaviour
Garth and Rosamond's brother, Fred Viney, but in the early stages of which at this time, if it had been more widely known about by the
the novel she refuses to marry him unless he mends his ways. For general public, would have scandalised people. But what we also see,
Dorothea, the reality of marriage to Casaubon is not at all what she in broader and rather more significant terms, is a difference between
196 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 197

Elizabeth Gaskell's generation and Eliot's. Gaskell, as in North and respectable mid-Victorian society, but which also sees the limitations
South (1855), is, essentially, an optimistic novelist; she is convinced of, and dissects, that discourse. Eliot is not alone in this. What we find
that employer and employee, north and south, and men and women in Middlemarch is echoed in other mid-Victorian novels. The realistic
can overcome their differences and work together. By 1870, despite novel is the form in which middle-class readers see the world being
the material advance of the country, realistic fiction generally is far made sense of in terms of their own convictions and values, but it is
more sombre and disillusioned; the idea of simple social remedies to also the form that takes the most critical look at these convictions
problems is no longer an option. One, almost trivial, scene in and values. This is particularly apparent in a variant of, almost a
Middlemarch features an auction. Scenes of auctions are fairly com- parody of, the realistic novel, namely sensation fiction.
mon in Victorian novels; what they signify, as the goods of a house-
hold are sold, is disintegration. A home, and perhaps a family, fall Wilkie Collins and the Sensation Novel
apart in a society where everything has become a commodity.
Middlemarch is infused with an idea of the fragility of the lives that Wilkie Collins's best-known works are The Woman in White (1860) and
people have constructed for themselves; there is an edifice of middle- The Moonstone (1868). The first of these novels established a vogue for
class respectability, but it is so often based upon trade that the threat the sensation novel, a form of fiction that, like the realistic novel,
of bankruptcy and ruin always stalks middle-class Victorians. There focuses on ordinary middle-class life, but which includes extravagant
is, however, a more fundamental sense than this in the novel of the and often horrible events. 'Sensation' has two applications: the
fragility of core institutions and values. Dorothea's marriage is events are sensational, but they also affect the senses of the reader,
unsuccessful, and probably unconsummated. We see her on her hon- instilling a spine-tingling fear. And this effect on the body is relevant
eymoon in Rome, sitting alone and crying. One thing that Dorothea to the novels in an additional way, for they are works of fiction that
has had to face up to in Rome is a world that exists beyond her own often deal with the abduction or abuse of people's bodies. This made
circumscribed English middle-class limits. She begins to sense a sex- a particular impact in mid-Victorian Britain: in the kind of morally
ual and emotional dimension to experience that, up until now, has respectable atmosphere where people preferred not to talk too
played no part in her respectable experience, and which will have no directly about various aspects oflife, the body makes its presence felt
presence in her marriage to Casaubon. In Casaubon, she has sought a in a rather alarming way.
kind of substitute father and the chance of intellectual fulfilment, but The Woman in White is, for the most part, narrated by Walter
there is, or should be, more to life than this. Hartright, a young drawing-master. One evening in London, he
What we experience in Middlemarch, therefore, is a representation of encounters a woman dressed in white who is in deep distress. He later
the moral codes and values of polite middle-class English society, val- learns that she has escaped from an asylum. Hartright then takes up a
ues that Eliot herself shares, and which permeate the entire texture of position in a house in Cumberland, where he finds that Laura Fairlie
her narrative voice. Yet, at the same time, she is aware of the narrow- bears an extraordinary resemblance to the woman in white, whose
ness of this position, in particular the ways in which such a stance is name is Anne Catherick. Hartright and Laura fall in love, but Laura has
incompatible with human needs, human desires and human weak- promised that she will marry Sir Percival Glyde. After their marriage,
nesses. Eliot is, however, not an overt critic, in the manner of Thomas Glyde and Laura return to his family estate in Hampshire, accompa-
Hardy. But in the margins of the text we sense the limitations, not only nied by Glyde's friend Count Fosco. Glyde, desperate to get his hands
of the moral code that has been established but also of social institu- on Laura's money, and Fosco then conspire to switch the identities of
tions such as marriage. The effect, overall, is a novel that colludes with, Laura and Anne Catherick; Anne dies of a heart attack and is buried as
and helps formulate, the dominant middle-class discourse of Laura, while Laura is drugged and placed in an asylum as Anne. With
198 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 199

the help of her devoted half-sister, Marian Halcombe, she escapes, secular age, relied upon: marriage, family and even a sense of one's
and they live quietly with Hartright, but they are determined to own identity are shown to be fragile concepts. The arch-villain of the
restore Laura's identity. Hartright discovers that Glyde has concealed novel is the Italian Count, Fosco, who, as an outsider, mocks all the
his illegitimacy, but Glyde is killed in a fire. It is Fosco that Hartright values that the English believe in; he is quite candid about his villainy,
then has to tum to in order to extract a written confession. Hartright but there is a sense in which nobody believes him because he is ques-
and Laura are married, with Laura's identity restored. tioning beliefs that people do not want to see questioned. The direc-
As is often the case, a summary of a work of fiction, particularly of tion in which the novel thus leads is towards undermining the very
something like a work of sensation fiction, can make it appear noth- foundations of middle-class life: everything is exposed as secrets and
ing more than a highly contrived story, but it is clear that The Woman lies. People play roles that disguise their true, and more sinister,
in White deals with a whole range of issues that were of central con- motives.
cern in mid-Victorian Britain. We can start with the manner of the There is, overall, an effective tension between the methodical and
narration. Walter Hartright constructs the story like a legal enquiry, orderly way in which, with his legal documents, Hartright con-
with statements from a range of witnesses who have been involved in structs an orderly and methodical investigation, and the sordid truth
the events. This reflects an age when people increasingly relied upon that is actually revealed. In this the novel reflects the need felt by the
the processes oflaw, and were ready to defer to the authority of facts Victorians to construct coherent narratives of explanation of their
and the cataloguing of facts. In a sense, the novel is attesting that it is lives, but in the process of doing so undermines all those things,
a work of realism, in that the events presented are tangible, true and such as marriage, family and individual identity, that they place their
verifiable. And this concern with things tangible and trustworthy is trust in. It is perhaps relevant to note that The Woman in White
also evident in the inherent assumptions in the novel. The Woman in appeared at almost exactly the same time as Darwin's The Origin of
White deals with families and marriage and work; in other words, the Species, another narrative that attempts, in a spirit of scientific
core institutions upon which the Victorians established their lives. enquiry, to look at the facts and arrive at an overall explanation, but
Even on the first page, we hear about Walter's father who, through which, in the process, and like The Woman in White, tells a story that
working hard and providing for the future, ensured the well-being of is worrying and disconcerting in that it is a story of disruption, of
his family after his death. In brief, he played the kind of role a man violence and mere chance. There is, however, another level of com-
was expected to play in this society. As such, he can, initially, be plication in The Woman in White, a level of complication that is ~i-
contrasted with his son, Walter, who has no energy, little sense of cally Victorian. Collins appears to be an author who questions
purpose or direction in life, and who, in his profession teaching everything. One of the cleverest touches is his conception of Marian
drawing to young women, is an oddly feminised hero, a kind of male Halcombe, a strong and capable woman who is frustrated at having
governess. to play a woman's role; at points like this, and the same thing is true
During the course of the novel, the nature of marriage, or at least of in all his novels, Collins is even prepared to question the concept of
the marriages presented in this work, is dissected. The marriage gender roles as a stabilising factor in society. But, during the course
between Glyde and Laura, like the marriage between Fosco and his of the novel, Hartright, who is initially a feminised hero, becomes
wife, is a form of tyranny, in which the man exploits and abuses his more and more assertive and confident, eventually taking entire
wife. What also happens during the course of the novel is that charac- control of the situation. This is the kind of contradiction that it is
ters are abducted and robbed of their identities. Essentially, and in a not at all surprising to find in a Victorian novel: Collins is ready to
spectacular fashion, the novel questions and undermines the institu- question middle-class values, but, as a member of that society, he
tions and things of value that the mid-Victorians, in an increasingly also embraces, and cannot avoid expressing his commitment to,
200 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 201

such values. It is as if, when he frightens himself too much, Collins which is contrasted with the integrity of the Indians, as reflected in
returns to the security of conventional beliefs. the conduct of the Brahmins.
The Moonstone is just as disconcerting as The Woman in White, and Other sensation novelists are rather less ambitious than Collins,
perhaps more so, as its range is so ambitious, including a questioning but the informing logic of their novels is always the same: they look
of the assumptions at the heart of British imperialism. The Moonstone at respectable society, viewing it with a set of respectable middle-
starts with the storming of Seringapatam in 1799, an event that left class convictions that they share with their readers, respectable mid-
the British as the masters of Southern India. It is the looting of the dle-class convictions that, to a large extent, have only evolved during
Sultan's palace that provides the foundation of Collins's novel. John the Victorian period. But they then expose these convictions as hyp-
Herncastle steals the Moonstone during the course of the siege, mur- ocritical, fragile and damaging. Some sensation novelists, however,
dering at least one of the three Brahmins guarding the diamond. Back are rather more conventional than others. Mrs Henry Wood's East
in England, the diamond is again stolen. It could be argued that the Lynne (1861) is the story of Lady Isabel Vane who marries Archibald
Indian episode is simply an enabling mechanism for the detective Carlyle but then deserts him to go abroad with Sir Francis Levison.
novel that follows, but the novel unavoidably raises larger questions. After he abandons her, she is disfigured in a train crash. She returns
The British soldier behaves 'like a madman' as he steals the diamond; to England, works, unrecognised, as a governess to her own children,
in a few words, Collins has reduced the imperial mission to frenzied and asks for her husband's forgiveness on her deathbed. This is a
plunder. The subsequent theft of the diamond in England is investi- novel that plays with adultery, and plays with a questioning of mar-
gated, but the original crime, a crime fraught with symbolic and reli- riage, but its core convictions are, it is clear, sentimentally moral.
gious significance, is left uninvestigated. The novel, as it proceeds, By contrast, Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862) is a
pays a great deal of attention to the question of the ways in which the radical text. Robert Audley, investigating the disappearance of
characters support or challenge the legal and domestic order of life in George Talboys, discovers that Lady Audley, the wife of his uncle, Sir
Britain. There are servants, such as Rosanna Spearman and Ezra Michael, is married to Talboys. She faked her death, and married Sir
Jennings, who, to judge by their appearance, would seem to be out- Michael bigamously. She tries to kill Robert, but he survives to hear
side the social compact, but who demonstrate their loyalty. By con- her confession that she pushed Talboys down a well. Declared
trast, some of the most respectable, and respectable-looking, insane, she is committed to an asylum. For a long time regarded as
characters are utter rogues. nothing more than an entertainment, in recent years Lady Audley's
As with The Woman in White, therefore, The Moonstone, albeit in Secret has commanded attention as a novel that looks sceptically and
the guise of an entertaining, almost trivial novel, questions some critically at the roles that are imposed upon women in Victorian soci-
core assumptions of the mid-Victorian period. The British presence ety, and at the complicated truths that might lie behind a fa<;ade of
in India is seen as exploitative and rapacious rather than as benefi- marriage and respectability.
cial. This is all the more evident because Britain, steeped as it is in
criminality, does not in reality possess a set of values that can be set
Anthony Trollope, Christina Rossetti
above the values of the east. Indeed, in order to get at the truth
about the Moonstone, one of the characters, Franklin Blake, has to A rather similar tension is evident everywhere in mid-Victorian fiction.
use opium; he has, that is, to rely upon the apparent irrationality of The novelists favour stories about middle-class life and ordinary domes-
the east, together with a morally suspect product from the east, to tic experience; the novels are then narrated in a tone of voice that clear-
sort out a mystery in the west. Overall, in The Moonstone, the focus ly identifies with the ruling social and moral principles of such a society.
becomes the extent of criminality and transgression in Britain, The novelists, it is important to note, are simultaneously constructing

UNIVERS!DAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Filologia - Biblioteca ,
202 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 203

and endorsing these values; the values might exist in society at large, the most part, career politicians. But the system is also limited and
but readers have to turn to fiction for written confirmation of the parochial in outlook. That parochial quality is underlined by the
existence of these values. But in the very process of putting such a presence oflrish members, in particular Phineas Finn, who is able to
picture together, and in fictionalising it, the novelists escape the lim- see issues from a position outside the narrow confines of a system
itations of the core institutions and the limitations of the moral and which cannot accept difference, a system which cannot really
social values of their era. To an extent, and perhaps not always con- acknowledge that Ireland and the Irish might have interests that dif-
sciously, they are able to stand outside those values and see their fer from the interests of the English. What is so good about the novel
shortcomings. is that it examines the political foundations of British life in the nine-
Anthony Trollope, who, initially, is likely to strike the reader as the teenth century and, in equal measure, sees both the strengths and
most resoundingly confident and reassuring of middle-class writers, weaknesses of the British way of doing things; its understanding and
provides a fascinating example of a novelist who is altogether less presentation of the nature ofBritish political life is incisive and com-
secure and complacent than he might initially appear. We can see manding in a way that remains relevant even today, but it also takes
this in Phineas Finn (1869), written around the time of the Second apart the system it celebrates.
Reform Bill of 1867, which extended the right to vote to working- Trollope is at his most gloomy and pessimistic in The Way We Live
class men in towns. The novel tells the story of Phineas Finn's rise to Now (1873-4). Augustus Melmotte is an apparently wealthy financier
parliamentary power through a series of romantic attachments. But involved in a scheme to promote the Central American railway. All
his life as a rising star ofBritish politics is short-lived. Dispirited after are eager to help him and he has no trouble being elected to
losing his government salary for voting in favour of the rights of Irish Parliament. The railway deal is a confidence trick, however, and
tenants, Phineas turns down the chance of power and money and Melmotte is exposed. He commits suicide. Meanwhile his daughter is
returns to his native Ireland to marry his sweetheart and to work on betrayed and duped by the dissipated aristocrats who pursue her for
behalf of the poor. This romantic narrative is the vehicle for an analy- her wealth. Everything in the novel is a sham, a deception, and built
sis of parliamentary society, an analysis that seems at first simply to on nothing, with widespread corruption and profligacy. Though the
celebrate the British political system; there is, Trollope seems to sug- novel has a conventional happy ending, in the form of a marriage,
gest, a kind of genius to this system, a reassuring quality in the fact there is a sense of living on borrowed time, and of everything being
that Britain possesses political institutions that are not only the envy about to fall apart, as, arguably, it will do in the last twenty years of
of the world but provide a framework that is flexible enough to the century, as the narrative form developed by the mid-Victorians,
accommodate unexpected developments and changes in fortune. their discourse of realism, starts to disintegrate. The Way We Live Now,
But there is also a self-evident self-congratulatory smugness about with its satiric picture of a decadent society ruined by gambling and
this system, with its parties and procedures, its pettiness and atmos- greed, seems to predict not simply the end of the Victorian era but
phere of a gentleman's club in which political opponents feel no the end of the Victorian narrative of middle-class progress and
rivalry outside the debating chamber. The thought that may occur to respectability.
the reader is that the parliamentary system is perhaps just a futile In some periods of English literature we are acutely aware of voic-
game, a pretence that is irrelevant to the true material state of the es from the margins - the excluded, the disaffected, those who are
nation and with few real connections to those it claims to represent. outside the mainstream - intervening and having something new to
Quite plainly, it is a system that excludes and wastes the talent of say in their own distinctive accents. Even an established poet such as
women, who can only act in a private capacity, supporting, or frus- John Keats occupies this kind of position; his is the voice of the
trating, the ambitions of their husbands, who, in this novel, are, for intruder. What is perhaps most apparent in mid-Victorian literature
204 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1857-1876 205

is that the critical and dissenting voices do not come from outside Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
the consensus. On the contrary, it is the mainstream authors, those Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
who seem to speak most authoritatively in the established voice of Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
literature, who are the critics. We could consider, for example, Eat me, drink me, love me ...
Margaret Oliphant, the author of many novels and also a prolific 01. 468-71)
reviewer and contributor to periodicals. As her career continued she Like Lewis Carroll, Rossetti had to find a literary form outside the
lapsed into producing increasingly undemanding accounts of dominant mode of the realistic novel in order to articulate a different
domestic life, but at her best, in a novel such as Miss Marjoribanks kind of understanding of what it might mean to be a human being,
(1866), there is an astute sharpness in her understanding of ordinary and a representation of the powerful sexual and emotional drives
lives and social conventions. Her best works add to the impression that surface even in the most simple circumstances.
that middle-class society and middle-class values are so well estab- Rossetti opens up the secrecy and silence that surrounded
lished at this time that, rather than being challenged from the out- women's sexuality in the nineteenth century, as did Algernon
side, they challenge themselves. But there are other voices in Swinburne, in works such as Poems and Ballads (1866) and Poems and
mid-Victorian literature, voices that, perhaps not surprisingly, tend Ballads: Second Series (1878), and a number of other poets. As the cen-
to make their presence felt more often in poetry than in prose. tury moves to its close, however, there will be far more marginal and
However, not always so. We could point, for example, to a vein of disaffected voices, as Victorian confidence, and self-confidence, dis-
fantasy in Victorian writing; the way in which a work such as Alice's integrates, partly at least under the weight of its own success. As the
Adventures in Wonderland (1865), by Lewis Carroll, plays with an alter- empire expands, so Britain becomes exposed to more and more ideas
native logic, calling upon the world of dreams. It is, of course, a chil- that will question its ideological base. Paradoxically, Karl Marx, the
dren's classic, but there is a great deal going on in Carroll's work in critic of modern capitalism and industrialism, had fled to London in
terms of how a different voice constructs a different narrative in the 1848, and was to die there in 1883. Britain in the nineteenth century
golden age of realistic fiction. had a tradition of admitting foreign political exiles and politically
Christina Rossetti's narrative poem Goblin Market (1862) is another subversive figures ; there was a kind of supreme confidence that the
work that purports to be for children but which explores, in a sur- British way of doing things was so resilient that the presence of polit-
prising, even odd, way, enclosed forms offemale subjectivity. Lizzie ical agitators would affect and change nothing. But, viewed from
and Laura are two sisters. The goblins try to get the sisters to eat their another angle, what becomes apparent is that Marx's voice is, to a
mouth-watering fruit. Laura does so, paying for the fruit with a lock certain extent, consistent with those other voices, both mainstream
of hair, but then falls into a decline when she cannot get more. Lizzie and marginal, that drew attention to strains in the system. Such
tries to buy fruit, but the goblins are angry that she will not eat it and voices were to become a lot more direct and strident in the last
pelt her with it. Laura is, however, able to lick the juices off Lizzie and twenty-five years of Victoria's reign.
so is saved by her sister's actions. The poem is at once a kind of fairy
tale and erotic fable in which female desire is mixed with sisterly self-
sacrifice. What is most remarkable about the poem, however, is the
nature and power of the longings expressed, and the extent to which
Rossetti gives voice to aspects of sexual needs and feelings that were
silenced, excluded or denied by the Victorians at large in their public
discourses:
 Victorian Literature, 1876-1901 207

with his wife, he disappears. He is assumed to have drowned.

Bathsheba is now pursued by a gentleman farmer, William
12 Victorian Literature, Boldwood. She promises Boldwood that, if in six years there is no
indication of her husband being alive, she will marry him, but Troy
reappears with the intention of reclaiming his wife. Boldwood mur-
1876-1901 ders his rival. As for Bathsheba, she finally marries Oak. The novel,
therefore, ends conventionally, with marriage and social renewal, but
Hardy's novels, including Far from the Madding Crowd, actually place far
more emphasis on the failure of relationships, the breakdown of
Thomas Hardy
marriages, and even divorce.
Thomas Hardy was the most significant novelist in the last quarter of The implication is that the conventions and institutions society
the nineteenth century. He achieved fame with Far from the Madding has established in order to promote the well-being of that society are
Crowd (1874), and went on to produce a series of novels, including The simply at odds with the reality of what people are like. It is an aware-
Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The ness that extends to the novel form itself: the novel as a genre relies
Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure upon a number of plot conventions, such as a movement towards
(1895). Prompted in part by the hostile reaction to the last of these marriage as a device for resolving and concluding the story, but
novels, Hardy then turned exclusively to poetry, which had always Hardy, characteristically, is likely to indicate a gap between the neat-
been his preferred medium. ness of a fictional convention and the untidiness of individual
Hardy's novels are set almost exclusively in a tract of Southwest actions. For example, at one point in Far from the Madding Crowd
England that he calls Wessex. The choice of location is significant. Bathsheba, as she starts to face up to the failure of her marriage, flees
George Eliot clearly has a finer and fairer mind than most of her read- from Troy and sleeps in the open air. The next morning, as she awak-
ers, but the overall impression in her novels is that she writes from ens, she sees a ploughboy on his way to work and a schoolboy on his
the centre of a social and cultural consensus. Hardy, by contrast, way to school. There is a similar moment in George Eliot's
making use of Wessex, writes from the margins; there is consistently Middlemarch as the heroine, Dorothea, after a sleepless night in which
a sense of standing outside and questioning established values. Other she examines her life, looks out of the window and sees people going
late Victorian authors adopt different approaches, but a similar effect about their daily business. It is a decisive moment in Dorothea's life:
is often achieved; there is a sense of disintegration, with a steady cen- she realises that she must accept her part in the general scheme of
tre falling apart. By the end of the century there is, again and again, an things rather than focusing, selfishly, upon herself. The scene in Far
impression of social institutions - such as the family and marriage - from the Madding Crowd could almost be described as a parody of this
crumbling, and of authors adopting a sceptical attitude towards moment. Bathsheba goes through the motions of the kind of charac-
conventional morality. ter-changing experience that heroines have in novels, but does not
In the case of Hardy, such scepticism is apparent as early as Far from change at all; she remains fickle, immature and self-absorbed. The
the Madding Crowd, which tells the story of Gabriel Oak and the woman basis of her attraction to Troy was emotional and sexual, and there is
he loves, Bathsheba Everdene. Bathsheba, however, marries the dash- no indication that she is now going to start acting in a different, more
ing Sergeant Troy, who has abandoned Fanny Robin, the only woman rational way.
he ever really loved; she dies, along with their new-born child, in the All of Hardy's major characters are romantic, impractical or sim-
workhouse. Troy is not a man to be constrained by marriage; at odds ply disorganised in the management of their lives in the same kind of

206
208 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876--1901 209

way as Bathsheba. A great many English novels focus on an individ- stance necessarily has implications for the manner in which Hardy
ual coming into collision with society. In an Eliot novel, even though narrates his novels. In distancing himself from the conventional
the narrative is complex and has contradictory strands, the hero or social order, he needs to stand outside the established discourse of
heroine tends to adjust his or her behaviour to achieve a working that social order; that is to say, certain ways of seeing and judging are
relationship with society. Even Wilkie Collins, author of The Woman implicit in the omniscient manner of narration that we witness in
in White, who adopts a more sceptical attitude than Eliot and most of many realistic novels, but Hardy, choosing to remove himself from a
his contemporaries, presents characters who by the end of the work standard social outlook, must also detach himself from a conven-
have usually established a secure, even conventional, niche in mid- tional narrative voice. There is, consequently, always a sense in a
dle-class society. The typical Hardy hero or heroine, by contrast, with Hardy novel that the narrator's voice is self-conscious, turning on
actions dominated by the heart rather than the head, cannot establish itself, drawing attention to itself and frequently drawing attention to
a working compromise with society. It might be felt that this is mere- the fallibility or partiality of its judgements.
ly an individual quirk on the part of Hardy, that he is a novelist drawn This combines with a story in which, most commonly, the charac-
to romantic, emotionally driven characters. But more is involved ters are not rebels by choice, but simply because their natures lead
than just the peculiar bias of Hardy's mind. Hardy's rejection of estab- them to be. Society, however, will not tolerate rebellion. As there is
lished patterns of social reconciliation in fiction is symptomatic of a no possibility of social reconciliation - no possibility, that is, of these
wider collapse of a consensus, and even the collapse of a confidence characters finding a quiet and complaisant role in the villages or
in rational debate, that becomes apparent at the end of the nine- towns where they live - Hardy's novels almost invariably end with
teenth century. There is a widespread feeling that society cannot hold the death of the major characters. Right through to the very end of
together; that larger, disruptive forces are at work that promote a the novels in which they feature, they are estranged from society and
fundamental instability. its dominant values. Far from the Madding Crowd, ending with a mar-
Some of the ways in which Hardy establishes a different, late-cen- riage, is the exception. But it is still a novel that breaks with tradition.
tury perspective involve nothing more than a minor adjustment of a The most obvious way in which it does this is in its emphasis on sex-
literary convention; the consequences, however, can be substantial. uality. The force of sexual desire is apparent everywhere in the novel,
For example, Middlemarch starts with the name of the main character, even, for example, in something as trifling as a description of the first
Miss Brooke. Hardy nearly always holds back the names of his char- day of June: 'Every green was young, every pore was open, and every
acters; before being named, they are identified simply as men or stalk was swollen with racing currents of juice.' It would be fair to say
women engaged in some form of activity. The effect is to suggest that that the most distinctive quality of Far from the Madding Crowd, and the
there is something elemental about people that is more fundamental thing that invests the novel with a joyous and exuberant energy, is
than their social identity; a basic quality exists before, and quite sepa- the way in which it rediscovers, and takes a delight in presenting,
rately from, the rather limiting social identity that is imposed upon aspects of sexual experience and feeling that the novel has, perhaps
them. In a rather similar way, Hardy frequently quibbles over the throughout the entire Victorian period up to this point, been deny-
naming of a place; often, as with Lower Longpuddle or Weatherbury, ing, sublimating or repressing. Sex in earlier Victorian novels is often
in Far from the Madding Crowd, he provides alternative place names. The a dark and guilty secret; sex in Far from the Madding Crowd is dangerous
effect is to distance himself from the conventional social order; soci- but exciting.
ety names people and places, but in doing so brings them under its The freshness of Far from the Madding Crowd is, however, a quality
command. In Hardy's novels, there is consistently a sense that some- that Hardy cannot maintain. As his career as a novelist continues he
thing more is in evidence than just the imposed order of society. This focuses in a far more critical way on the discipline and conformity
210 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876-1901 211

that society imposes upon people; there is always a price that must the law, and a lack of tolerance and understanding are all apparent as
be paid if characters overstep the mark or choose to defy society's significant strands in the novel; Tess is the victim, and it is the society
rules. The Mayor of Casterbridge is the story of Michael Henchard, a that she lives in, together with the people, especially the men, in that
poor man who, having sold his wife at a country fair at the start of the society who accept its conventional attitudes and morality that
novel, rises in the social hierarchy to become the mayor in his adopt- destroy her life. As against the heavy hand of those who pursue,
ed community. There is, though, an extravagant and ferocious abuse and condemn her, there is a consistent emphasis on Tess as a
dimension to Henchard's personality, something that becomes free and natural spirit. But if Hardy presents Tess's sexuality as, essen-
apparent when he resumes drinking after abstaining for many years. tially, innocent, he is also aware of a vicious side to human nature,
This dangerous side to Henchard puts him in conflict with all those something most apparent in the dark sexual instincts of Alec
around him, including his daughter. And, as there is no way back for D'Urberville.
him into the social order of Casterbridge, he dies, at the end of the By the time he wrote Jude the Obscure Hardy's outlook was very pes-
novel, an alienated and angry man. At one point, Hardy describes a simistic. In his other novels there is always an impression of the tra-
petty incident of vandalism: ditional order of farm life, but in Jude the Obscure the hero, Jude
Fawley, begins his working life on a farm with a soul-destroying job
The farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow and pitch a stone into as a human scarecrow. Jude wants to advance in life, but his ambition
the office-window of the town-clerk; reapers at work nodded to acquain- of attending university proves an impossible dream. He is trapped
tances standing on the pavement-comer; the red-robed judge, when he
into marriage by a farm-girl, Arabella, but then falls in love with his
condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that
cousin, Sue Bridehead, a married woman. She and Jude set up home
floated in at the window from the remainder of the flock, browsing hard
by; and at executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately together and have two children, but Jude's child by Arabella, Father
before the drop, out of which the cows had been temporarily driven to Time, murders his half-brother and half-sister, and then kills himself.
give the spectators room. Sue returns to her former husband, and Jude lives alone. The most
obvious aspect of Jude the Obscure is how the education system, class
The passage conveys a sense of the compactness of the town of barriers, religious and moral conventions and the divorce laws all
Casterbridge, and how the town and the surrounding countryside conspire against Jude.
merge, but what is also conveyed is an altogether more disturbing The characters to a certain extent, however, also create their own
idea: it is as if the vandal who throws the stone goes on to steal sheep, misfortunes. At the centre of the novel are the nervous and highly
and is finally executed. Such indiscipline seems natural, but the other strung Jude and Sue, characters who do not belong in any one place,
side of the coin is that society has instituted a system of law and order and who, when they move, do not embark on a journey with any
to regulate people, and this includes the ultimate sanction of taking kind of clear goal. On the contrary, they move aimlessly from place
the lives of those who step out of line. to place. This is a plot device - also used in Tess of the D'Urbervilles -
In Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure Hardy is far more that works very effectively to convey a sense of alienated and dislo-
indignant about the way in which social regulations and conventions cated people. It is an idea of character that Hardy uses to good effect
ruin people's lives. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is the story of a country girl in his poetry. Rather than focusing on a hero or heroine who can tum
who is raped by Alec D'Urberville, and then abandoned by Angel the course of events, Hardy, as in his novels, focuses upon powerless
Clare, the man she marries, when he discovers her sexual history. and defeated individuals in an enormous universe. In 'Drummer
Eventually Tess murders Alec, and the novel ends with her execution. Hodge', for example, a poem written in response to the Boer War,
The aggressive nature of a male-dominated society, the harshness of there is an effect of bafflement, with a small character encountering a
212 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876--1901 213

world that resists both control and comprehension. In many of idea of the nation, but jingoistic rallying cries could not conceal the
Hardy's poems, there are similar feelings of loss, confusion, uncer- evidence of a more divided and anxious country.
tainty and pain. What we see in the literature of the last twenty years of the nine-
But a far more disturbing and extreme quality is in evidence in Jude teenth century is a number of writers trying to engage with these
the Obscure. When Father Time kills the other children and himself, a changes, whereas others seem to opt for a variety of forms of escape.
sense of something dark and irrational is exposed; it is as if, in the The more engaged literature of this period was influenced to a sub-
wake of the kind of compromise that used to exist, something malig- stantial extent by the works of the French novelist Emile Zola. Zola
nantly destructive has appeared. This is more than an idiosyncratic was a 'naturalist', a novelist who reported on life in an exhaustively
perception on the part of Hardy. Generally in late nineteenth-centu- researched manner, producing works that bear a degree of resem-
ry literature there is a feeling of having moved beyond an old liberal blance to a sociological report. One of his most celebrated novels in
dispensation, and a fear of brutal, irrational forces that lie just below this mould is Germinal, set in the French coalfields. But any claim to
the surface becomes evident. Repeatedly, texts from this period offer scientific objectivity that we might be tempted to associate with 'nat-
an impression of probing into dark places, including the dark areas uralism' has no substance. Zola's works are informed by contempo-
of the mind. In brief, the sustaining fictions of an earlier generation rary ideas about the influence of the environment and genetics;
fail, and more troubling, disruptive ideas move in to take their place. whereas most novels focus on the development and progress of an
individual, Zola reports on an inevitable decline in people's lives.
There is always a downward spiral of disease, alcoholism, poverty or
George Gissing, George Moore, Samuel Butler, Henry James,
madness. Zola's social thinking has an obsessive dimension, but the
Robert Louis Stevenson
ideas in his novels overlap with widely held beliefs in the late nine-
In 1877 Queen Victoria was declared Empress of India. It is a moment teenth century, beliefs inspired to a large extent by the writings of
that might stand as the high point of British imperial self-confidence. Charles Darwin. Supporters of imperialism could claim that Britain's
But just two years later, in 1879, William Ewart Gladstone, the former colonial successes confirmed the views of Darwin: that the stronger
prime minister, denounced the imperial policy of the Conservative race would defeat the weaker, and that this was an inexorable law of
government. In imperialism there is always a sense of power being nature. Such Social Darwinism, however, went hand in hand with
abused, of the language of the conqueror silencing all other voices. At fears about degeneration, with anxieties about the triumph of brute
the same time, the rise of a politics of empire, race and nation in the force. Consequently, by the late nineteenth century, an interest in
late Victorian period can be seen as a sign of weakness: that in a chang- evolution, progress and reform went hand in hand with pessimistic
ing world, there was a desire for simple answers and forceful action. fears about regression, atavism and decline.
By the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, Britain's economic The novels of George Gissing provide evidence of late Victorian
lead over all other nations was beginning to fade. And not only was social pessimism (evidence that is also present in medical, sociologi-
there increasing economic competition, there was also a growing cal, historical and political texts from the period). In novels such as
sense of political, and even military, tension between European coun- Workers in the Dawn (1880), The Unclassed (1884), Demos (1886), Thyrza
tries. In addition, at home there was a mounting awareness of social (1887) and The Nether World (1889), Gissing considers London working-
problems and class hostility. For much of the Victorian period people class life. Unlike Elizabeth Gaskell, who, when she deals with urban
could focus rather narrowly on their own domestic concerns in a poverty, writes positively, with a conviction that class relations and
secure environment, but by the end of the century this was becoming individual lives can be improved, Gissing despairs, regarding many of
more difficult. As old convictions collapsed, many united behind the the people he presents as little better than savages. In his best-known
 ......

214 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876-1901 215

novel, New Grub Street (1891), his negative social vision connects with a In a period when novels, as is the case with Hardy's and Gissing's,
sense of a culture that has been coarsened by commercialism; his hero increasingly end with the defeat and even death of the main charac-
is Edwin Reardon, a delicate novelist who cannot survive in the kind ters, we might wonder what had happened to novels in the David
of vulgar environment where only the most crass or cynical taste suc- Copperfield tradition, about young people making their way in the
cess. The impression in Gissing's novels is of a society that has lost world and establishing a position in middle-class society. Such nov-
direction because it has lost sight of traditional principles in politics, els flourish at the start of the twentieth century (the Edwardian real-
religion and morality. His fears focus most clearly, however, on the ists Arnold Bennett and H.G. Wells tell a version of this story over
idea of the working-class mob. It is an anxiety that he shares with and over again), but are uncommon in the 1880s and 1890s. There
many of his middle-class contemporaries, an anxiety that the forces of seems to have been a loss of faith in the goals traditionally pursued
darkness and irrationality are preparing to take over. by the middle-class hero and heroine, an impression backed up by
There are some writers of 'slum novels' in this period who offer a the evidence of Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh (published in 1903,
more positive vision. Walter Besant's All Sorts and Conditions of Men but written between 1874 and 1884). This amounts to a denunciation
(1882), which deals with the setting up of a People's Palace in Stepney, ofVictorian values; in particular, it offers a denunciation of Victorian
is the kind of novel in which middle-class characters commit them- family life. Ernest Pontifex is tyrannised by his father. He is bullied
selves to good works in working-class areas, making a tangible into ordination as clergyman, even though he has lost his faith. In
change in people's lives. In real life Besant actually opened an institu- London, he is cheated out of his inheritance, and then imprisoned for
tion resembling the People's Palace, but the idea fails to carry convic- six months for sexual assault. He marries one of his family's former
tion in a work of fiction. It would seem that the kind of socially servants, but she turns out to be a drunkard. Ernest is relieved to dis-
restorative story that Gaskell could construct without too much of a cover that her marriage to him was bigamous, and that he can
sense of strain is no longer viable by the 1880s. An impression of an become a happy recluse, free from all family and marital commit- .,.;I

out-of-date narrative stance is also, and perhaps rather surprisingly, ments. What is most obvious in The Way of All Flesh is that everything
evident in George Moore's Esther Waters (1894). Moore, influenced by we associate with a certain tradition in Victorian fiction is reversed:
the example of Zola, was intent on producing shockingly direct nov- the family, marriage, a sound career and religious faith are all shown
els. In Esther Waters, the heroine is seduced by a fellow servant, as having nothing to offer.
William Latch. She is dismissed by her employer, and the novel then In a period when writers started to show unprecedented scepti-
charts her life as a new mother. She is about to join a religious sect cism about the institution of marriage, it is not at all surprising to
when Latch reappears. They marry and set up a public house in Soho, find authors focusing on women who have not married, sometimes
but his ventures into book-making lead to ruin. He dies, leaving by choice. The most notorious novel in the latter mould was Grant
Esther destitute. Esther Waters is a tremendously assured novel that Allen's The Woman Who Did (1895), about Herminia Barton, who
caused a sensation on its first appearance because of the frankness of refuses to marry on ethical principles, preferring to live with a man.
its sexual content. Its originality, however, is rather superficial. The The most substantial novel about single women, however, is
novel is shocking rather than substantial, with a narrative stance that Gissing's The Odd Women (1893), which deals with the wretched lives
is essentially liberal and traditional. Gissing's stance in relation to his of the three Madden sisters. The least fortunate is Monica, the only
material is more awkward than Moore's, but the consequence is that one of the three to marry; her husband is neurotically jealous, and
Gissing seems to be engaging with real problems, whereas Moore, she dies in childbirth. Her sisters, Alice and Virginia, dedicate their
with his sentimental emphasis on the moral resistance of Esther, lives to caring for the child. Henry James, an American writer domi-
imposes too coherent a pattern. ciled in Britain, is another novelist who frequently focuses upon the
216 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876-1901 217

lives of unmarried heroines, sometimes venturing into the unhappi- including sexual indiscipline, that is at odds with the requirements of
ness of his heroines who do marry. In works such as The Portrait of a social convention. For the most part, Hardy directs his anger at soci-
Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), What Maisie Knew (1897) and The ety and its rules, but in Jude the Obscure, specifically in the killings car-
Awkward Age (1899), together with The Wings ofthe Dove (1902) and The ried out by Father Time, there is a sense of something negative and
Golden Bowl (1904) at the start of the new century, he presents hero- destructive that has developed, or is developing, in the human tem-
ines caught up in a web of sexual corruption. They are disturbing perament. In contrast to Hardy, a number of other novelists offer a
novels, examining, in an extremely sensitive way, manipulative, more overtly political, and rather distasteful, picture of working-class
bullying and power-obsessed forms of sexual desire. James's novels people, other races in the colonies, and women as a threat to the
are unusual and distinctive, but what he has in common with other established order of society. But, in addition, and establishing a psy-
late nineteenth-century novelists is a sense of disturbing and chological emphasis for the coming century, in some novels, the
irrational forces that lie just below the surface of family life. most obvious example of which is Stevenson's Doctor Jekyll and
As against novelists who engage directly with social and sexual Mr Hyde (1886), there is an idea of irrational, concealed or repressed
tensions, there are other writers at this time who seem to choose the elements within the individual mind that are fundamentally at odds
option of escape. In 1883, with the publication of Robert Louis with a sense of humanity's rational identity.
Stevenson's Treasure Island, a vogue for romance develops: stories in
which the hero retreats from Britain in order to embark upon a series
Rudyard Kipling
of vivid, and often violent, adventures. Apart from Stevenson, the
most successful of the new writers of romance was Rider Haggard, In the last twenty years of the nineteenth century a great many estab-
the author of King Solomon's Mines (1885), She (1887), and Allan lished values and conventions seem to fall apart. Everywhere we turn
Quatermain (1887). The impression that these novels offer of embrac- there is a sense of disruptive forces that threaten the very idea of a
ing an idea of escape is, however, rather misleading, for the story they regulated and ordered society. It is in this context that we need to
tell over and over again involves the hero encountering dark and consider the extraordinary literary debut of Rudyard Kipling. The
dangerous powers. In Treasure Island, for example, the hero, Jim achievement of Kipling in the 1890s, and perhaps the source of his
Hawkins, is up against Long John Silver and his blood-thirsty fellow popularity, is that he seems to transcend such uncertainty, present-
pirates. The 'enemy' in these novels always represents a threat to the ing a coherent and positive vision. For a brief moment, and even
well-being, and even the life, of the hero. This assumes its most aston- though there were hostile critics, Kipling, in a series of short stories
ishing form in She, where the hero, Leo Vincey, has to confront an set for the most part in India, seemed to speak for the nation. This,
African queen, Ayesha, who threatens both his masculinity and his however, was an illusion, for by the 1890s any sense of a coherent
English identity. national culture was irretrievably splintered. But for a short period at
It seems reasonable to suggest that this kind of imperial romance the start of the decade Kipling appeared to offer a new consensus of
finds an external substitute for the kind of internal threat that is pre- shared values that could stand as a replacement for the old, now
sent in the novels of a writer such as Gissing; there are other races exhausted, liberal consensus.
encountered by the imperial adventurer that echo Gissing's sense of At the heart of Kipling's early stories - the tales that first appeared
the working-class mob as an alien race. Indeed, wherever we turn in in England towards the end of the 1880s - is his reinvention of an
late nineteenth-century literature there is the idea of something dan- aristocratic military code for a democratic age. Essentially, he takes
gerous and irrational that will destabilise society. In Hardy's novels the aristocratic code, puts it in the mouths of working-class soldiers,
there is, principally, an idea of a natural indiscipline in people, and sells the illusion to a middle-class audience. There has never been
218 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876--1901 219

a clearer case of the right author with the right material at the right illusion. The military values that Kipling endorsed in these very spe-
time. The pattern can be seen in 'His Private Honour', from Kipling's cialised stories about soldiers had little, if any, relevance to life as a
fourth collection, Many Inventions (1893). Ortheris, an ordinary soldier, whole at the end of the nineteenth century. We can appreciate this
is unjustly struck on parade by a young officer, Ouless. Ortheris point if we consider the difficulty Kipling experienced in making the
broods over his lost honour as a soldier. The problem is resolved leap from writing short stories to writing a novel. His only genuine
when Ouless suggests that, out of the public eye, they settle the mat- attempt at a mainstream novel for adults, The Light that Failed (1891), is
ter with a fist fight. The point of the story is that social differences dis- disappointing. The small canvas of a short story permitted an extra-
appear, or are of no consequence, when men agree to abide by the ordinary degree of authorial control; opposed positions could be
same set of rules. The implicit idea in all these early stories is essen- expressed, but ultimately everything was part of a rigidly controlled
tially the same as in 'His Private Honour': there is a set of values that pattern. In The Light that Failed Kipling cannot impose the same tight
is relevant to all ranks. This code operates in the army but, by impli- control. Consequently, the deep divisions within late nineteenth-cen-
cation, can be regarded as a straightforward code that applies to all tury life disrupt his work; it is likely to strike the reader as untidy and
areas of civilian life. confused.
Kipling's social thinking might strike us as simplistic, but his sto- What is also the case, however, is that even in his short stories
ries clearly struck a chord with the society of his day. There was a Kipling found it increasingly hard to maintain the degree of control
resurgent spirit of conservatism in late Victorian Britain, based large- evident in his first publications. In the years leading up to the Boer
ly upon a perceived sense of threat; this was both an external threat, War it became more and more difficult for him to produce a short
from competing nations and colonial subjects, and an internal threat, story that really convinces. The Boer War helps explain the problem.
from an expanding working class. Part of the achievement of This was a colonial conflict, lasting from 1899 to 1902, in which, for
Kipling's soldier stories was to calm such fears , particularly fears the first time since the Crimean War, the British were fighting people
about disturbance from below. The shrewdest, and politically most of European origin (Dutch settlers in South Africa), and, moreover,
significant, move Kipling makes is that he presents three potentially fighting an enemy that they found extremely difficult to defeat. The
awkward characters in his stories - the three soldiers at the centre of problem with Kipling's works as a whole is that, although for a brief
the tales are an Irishman, a Cockney and a northerner - and then moment he offered a vision in which the military virtues are equal to,
makes them the spokesmen for a shared set of national values. These and can overcome, all threats to good order, in the end a complex
values, rather than being imposed from above, seem to be a matter of world consistently refused to arrange itself in accordance with his
enlightened self-interest. The impact of the stories was extremely simplistic vision.
powerful- Kipling proved to be a literary sensation in a way that had
never been experienced before - and it seems reasonable to suggest
George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Late Victorian Poetry
that this was because the stories seemed to provide an alternative to
a feeling of disillusion that was widespread by the 1890s. There were, Th~ mo~~ts in literary history when the th~ tre renews itself;
from the beginning, dissenting voices - people who deplored suddenly, as if from nowhere, a new kind of play appears on the
Kipling's crassness and coarse tone - but the overwhelming impres- stage. More often than not, these are times when an old set of yal
sion at the start of the nineties was that Kipling was saying something is falling a art. The theatre seems to present the best forum for the
that his first audience desperately wanted to hear. ensuing debate about the state of the nation. Uie,.late--Victe-Fian-peri-
The problem was that, although the early stories offered a seduc- ~aracte ·sed by just thjs_kirulo£...reriyal of drama. The most
tively neat impression of coherence, this was nothing more than an notable figure is George Bernard Shaw. His early works included Mrs
220 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876-1901 221

Warren's Profession (1893), a play about a prostitute that was banned for a baby at Victoria Station by the nurse Miss Prism. Happily, he can
many years, Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1897), The Devil's Disciple now marry Gwendolen since his financial future as well as his identi-
(1897), The Man of Destiny (1897), You Never Can Tell (1899) and Captain ty are both assured.
Brassbound's Conversion (1900). Shaw's career as a playwright then con- The plot of Wilde's play will probably strike most readers as both
tinued well into the twentieth century. His approach to drama was improbable and thin. How can Gwendolen possibly be in love with
heavily influenced by the Norwegian writer Henrik Ibsen. It might be the name 'Ernest'? How do you misplace a baby in a handbag at a rail-
more accurate, however, to say that his works were influenced by the way station? Isn't there something absurd about Jack calling himself
image of Ibsen that Shaw chose to extract from the plays; this was 'Ernest' when that actually is his name? Such improbabilities are
Ibsen as social crusader and political analyst. deliberate; they are intended 10 draw attention to thewselY.es,..as.
Shaw's plays, particularly at the start of his theatrical career, were \gl£E~le,3s lacking i~ s~~S!an.£._e. In this they are at one with the
exposes of social hypocrisy. But what must also be acknowledged in dialogue of the play as it dances along on the surface of life, render-
Shaw's works from the 1890s is a new kind of social analysis that ing all serious subjects trivial and all trivial subjects serious. Wilde
reflects his commitment to socialism. This is an important aspect of has often been praised for his witty, epigrammatic style, his inver-
the decade. There was a sense of old discourses losing their relevance; sions, parodies and satire, but, unlike eighteenth-century satirists
what we see in their place is a variety of new forms of social analysis. such as Swift and Pope, Wilde has no intention of reforming the
Those who were committed to the new assertive imperialism and world. Rather, what is important about his style is that it is just for the
nationalism of the late century play a part in this proliferation of moment and has no purpose beyond itself. Such a style ties in with
fresh views, but there was also ;i resur ent socialism, a n«w feminist the plays central metaphor of pretence. Both Jack and Algy invent
voice associated with the movement for votes for women, an , rom characters they can use, but everything in this society is fake in a
t ose opposed to the Boer War, a fresh expression ofliberal values. rather similar way; it is only a pretence that names signify any kind of
Consequently, although literature from the late nineteenth century dense reality. What this all amounts to in The Im ortance o Bein
conveys a feeling of a loss of direction and confusion, there was no Earnest is a play that offers a comic vi~wf )Jfe which can be described
shortage of voices ready to offer their vision of the path to the future. as' in.w ·ch-everythi~g-is ridiculous and without substance
Alongside Shaw, the other really notable playwright at the end of ~ d~pth. The whole of life is merely an elaborate charade, in which
the nineteenth century was Qscar Wilde. His plays - such as Lady language serves to cover the lack of anything solid beneath the sur-
Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893) and The face. If the mid-Victorians had solid moral and social convictions,
Importance of Being Earnest (1895) - fI!~P-Pear fai:..more.tradit.iooal Wilde, as a late Victorian, seems to draw attention to the vacuous
than Shav(s, but in fact they express a radical, and thoroughly di.§- emptiness of everything; consequently, although The Importance of
con~erting, vision of society. This is most sharply evident in The Being Earnest might appear to be nothing more than a witty and
Importance of Being Earnest, a romantic comedy about polite society. superficial comedy, it in fact offers us a disconcerting new vision of
Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, cousin of his friend Algy, who life. It would be possible to trace back a great many traits of twenti-
will only marry a man with the name 'Ernest'. Meanwhile Algy is pur- eth-century literature to The Importance of Being Earnest, and to argue
suing Cecily Cardew, Jack's ward. In London Jack calls himselfErnest, that it is the principal work ofliterature that introduces a certain way
the name of his supposed brother, while Algy has invented a sick o f ~ the world.
friend, Bunbury, to visit as a cover for his absences. At the end of the ~ilde;cannot be discussed simply as a dramatist; he demands to be
play it turns out that Jack and Algy are in reality brothers and that considered in a broader context of late nineteenth-centu.!}'..a.estheti-
Jack's real name is, after all, Ernest - he had been lost in a handbag as c ~ A central principle of aestheticism - which can be traced to
222 A Brief History of English Literature Victorian Literature, 1876--1901 223

Walter Pater's Studies in the History ofthe Renaissance (1873) -was that art manners and morality. The issue of sexuality is always a relevant
had no reference to life, and therefore had nothing to do with moral- matter in Wilde's writings (and life), for part of the overall effect is the
ity. Relating this to the issues discussed in the earlier sections of this extent to which he plays with the idea of stepping outside assigned
chapter, it might be said that aestheticism represents a refusal, or gender roles. It is in the late nineteenth century that the presence of a
inability, to engage with reality, and a withdrawal into the safety of homosexual subculture first becomes apparent. There is something
art. In Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), a portrait of highly significant about this, in that it reflects again the disintegra-
Dorian Gray ages while the hero himself retains his youthful beauty. tion of a consensus; even sexual identity becomes something other
Aestheticism, which overlaps at the end of the century with the con- than fixed, something that is open to question and choice. But what
cept of decadence, became a delicate means of evading materialism, we might also note in Wilde's works, which again and again focus on
capitalism and the sheer complexity of the era. It prompted a form of characters playing a role in society, is the way in which they raise the
poetry in which musical effects are perhap·s more important than question of whether there is anything behind the mask. It is an
sense. Notable figures associated with aestheticism were Lionel important issue, as questions are being asked about the very concept
Johnson, Ernest Dowson and Arthur Symons. Their verse, character- of identity. Our first impression of Wilde, both as a person and as a
istically, displays an enervated feeling. The favoured time of day in writer, may conform to the received image of the outrageous dandy,
such poetry is twilight; it can be associated with a mood in which the a man refusing to engage with life, but the contradictions within
harsh light of day is avoided, yet at the same time there is no sense of Wilde's works amount to possibly the most complete expression of
probing into real darkness. a sense of a disintegration of values at the end of the nineteenth cen-
These writers remain attractive and interesting to read, but their tury. It is hard to pin Wilde down, but this in itself indicates how he
cultivation of a mood and little else means that there is not really a is at a far remove from earlier certainties, just as many of his con-
great deal of substance in what they write. Some would express sim- temporaries seem at a remove from the more confident convictions
ilar reservations about the works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a of earlier generations of Victorians.
Catholic priest who produced extraordinarily innovative poems
about his relationship to God. The most ambitious of these poems is
The Wreck of the Deutschland' (1876). In the years that followed,
notable poems included 'God's Grandeur', The Windhover' and 'Pied
Beauty', but none of his poetry was published until 1918, nearly thir-
ty years after his death. Many regard Hopkins's works as tremen-
dously important poems, anticipating the techniques of modernism,
but others see them as a kind of escape from reality into the patterns
and techniques of verse. But that, in a sense, is their strength.
Hopkins, in particular in his so-called 'terrible sonnets', teeters on the
edge of an abyss of despair; it is as if there is nothing left, the last trace
of God having been replaced by mere poetics.
It is Wilde, however, a writer who combines many late-century
strands of thinking and feeling in his works, who seems to embody
in the most complex way a new mood at the end of the nineteenth
century. He deliberately positions himself outside conventional
 The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 225

literary texts in the decades preceding the event seem to be anticipat-

ing it; they are, albeit unknowingly, examining the social and politi-
13 The Twentieth Century: cal tensions that are leading to the imminent upheaval. This is
certainly true of the relationship between the novels and short stories
The Early Years ofJoseph Conrad and the First World War: his works consistently
offer a pessimistic vision of the frailty of the civilised order. Indeed, as
we read Conrad we are likely to form the impression that this is the
first major English-language writer of the twentieth century. In the
works of novelists before Conrad there is always a sense that a com-
Joseph Conrad
munity used to exist, and that people used to belong to a place and to
Queen Victoria died in 1901. The twenty years following her death a family, but in Conrad there is a new, and far more extreme, sense of
saw Joseph Conrad establish his reputation as a novelist, and the dislocated individuals in an unrelentingly cruel world.
climb to fame of popular novelists such as Arnold Bennett and H. G. In Lord Jim, Conrad's first major novel. published in 1900, Jim is
Wells. D. H. Lawrence published his first novel, The White Peacock, in chief mate on a steamship, the Patna, taking a group of pilgrims to
1911, and went on to write, among other works, Sons and Lovers (1913), Mecca. When the ship appears to be at risk, the members of the crew
The Rainbow (1915) and Women in Love (1921). Henry James was still lower a lifeboat to save their own lives, leaving the pilgrims to
writing, his novels moving into a new and more complex phase at drown; Jim watches, and then finally jumps overboard to join the
the start of the century, and E. M. Forster published four novels - others in the lifeboat. The Patna does not sink, and the circumstances
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with of the crew abandoning the ship become public knowledge. A Court
a View (1908) and Howards End (1910) - in the space of a few years, fol- oflnquiry is held in Aden. Jim loses his Master's Certificate and after-
lowed by a period of literary silence before A Passage to India (1924). wards is haunted by his behaviour. Eventually he settles in the trad-
George Bernard Shaw was at the height of his powers as a dramatist, ing port of Patusan, where his peaceful life is destroyed by the arrival
with plays such as Major Barbara (1905), and T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound of thieves led by Gentleman Brown. Jim hopes that Brown can be
and James Joyce all started to publish at this time. Perhaps most persuaded to leave without violence, but the son of the local chief is
intriguingly, the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, who had made his name in killed. Jim, assuming responsibility for the tragedy, lets himself be
the 1890s, developed a new mature voice around the time of the 1916 shot by the chief. The world presented in this novel. as in many of
Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland. Conrad's novels and stories, which often have a maritime dimension,
Moving beyond a list of names, the event that defines the first two is a world of grubby trade, of ships picking up whatever work they
decades of the twentieth century was the First World War, from 1914 can wherever they can, without too many questions being asked.
to 1918. Even long-established writers such as Rudyard Kipling and Transporting the group of pilgrims on the Patna is a very dubious
Thomas Hardy were prompted to write startlingly original works commercial venture; it is a form of trafficking in bodies, with the
that reveal just how profoundly they were affected by the war. More packing of too many people on an unsafe ship.
broadly, it is no exaggeration to suggest that the First World War There is a disparity in Lord Jim between the Court oflnquiry, where
changed fundamentally the way in which people thought and wrote. a standard of conduct is codified in a set of regulations, and the real-
There is, however, another factor that we have to be alert to in litera- ity of the commercial enterprise Jim is involved in, which is not
ture. It has often been noted that when a major historical event takes informed by any ethical considerations. When Jim fails to rise to the
place (for example, the English Civil War in the seventeenth century), challenge he has been set on the ship, jumping instead to save his

224
226 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 227

own life, perhaps the real surprise is that a concept of correct conduct to gather strength from belonging, from being a part of something.
still survives at all; it seems an anachronism in the commercial climate As is the case with Conrad, who wrote in a language other than his
of late nineteenth-century colonialism. A number of factors can be native tongue, even words seem untrustworthy.
identified that help shape Conrad's negative vision. In the background A general air of scepticism, including scepticism about language,
there is the influence of Darwinian thinking, with ideas of a world writing and literature, becomes even clearer in Conrad's novella Heart
characterised by ruthless competition and survival of the fittest. But of Darkness (1902). Marlow, who is also the narrator of Lord Jim, on this
such ideas only have any relevance because they so clearly match the occasion relates the story of his journey up the River Congo on a
reality of an increasingly competitive, land-grabbing and inhumane steamboat owned by a Belgian trading company; this firm is known
late-century colonialism. If this is how Conrad perceives and presents for its ruthlessness in the acquisition of ivory. He begins to hear sto-
the trading world of his time, the only thing that can be set against ries about Kurtz, the company's most successful agent, yet at the
such barbarism from the representatives of the West is a concept of same time a man with a reputation as an idealist. After a number of
civilised behaviour; this might offer some hope, however slight, of delays, Marlow reaches the Inner Station, where he is confronted by
redeeming qualities in the agents of colonialism. In this context, the heads on sticks surrounding Kurtz's hut. It becomes clear that Kurtz,
obvious point to make about Jim's dereliction of duty is that, howev- rather than standing as an apostle of western civilisation, has taken
er he might behave subsequently, when he was tested he failed to act part in barbaric acts, including human sacrifice and, quite possibly,
properly. He does so, moreover, in a novel that, as it approaches its cannibalism. As Kurtz dies, his final words are The horror! The hor-
conclusion, sets Jim against 'Gentleman Brown', a latter-day pirate ror!', but on his return to Europe Marlow tells Kurtz's fiancee that he
with nothing but contempt for morals, human life and other such died with her name on his lips. The story ends, therefore, with a sen-
niceties. In the modern world, it seems, a character such as Jim cannot timental lie; it is as if, in the interest of keeping alive the old reassur-
compete with the villain; the villain is bound to win. ing fictions, Marlow chooses to keep quiet about the excesses he has
Conrad's novel has the effect of drawing attention to a rather sen- witnessed.
timental streak that runs through many nineteenth-century novels; The main way in which a harsh sense of the reality of a world dom-
whatever their subject matter, time and time again they place their inated by colonialism is brought to life in Heart of Darkness is through
confidence in the figure of the individual who is likely to act in a way references to bodies, in particular the abuse and destruction of peo-
that, at least to some extent, mitigates or deflects attention from the ple's bodies. There are many grotesque episodes and passages of
worst failings of society. In Conrad's novel, however, we seem to description in the work, but these find their most extreme expression
have moved on to a world where the individual can no longer make in the suggestion that Kurtz has engaged in cannibalism, the ultimate
a difference, where there is no room for such concepts as gentle- transgression. Cannibalism as a topic appears in other novels. It is,
manly behaviour. There is a cruel, unrelenting logic to life, and indi- for example, of central importance in the first major English novel,
viduals are just pulled down by this general momentum. The heroes Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. But traditionally such depravity is associated
in Conrad's novels, as is the case with Jim, might have a place of ori- with non-European people, such as natives, or with dissident charac-
gin and a family, but there is never any sense of their roots or con- ters, such as pirates. Indeed, the mark of Crusoe as a civilised man is
nections offering them any strength or help. It is relevant to note at that he is appalled and outraged by the existence of cannibalism.
this point that Conrad was a Polish sailor who, after his life at sea, Heart of Darkness inverts this scale of values. In this work it is the rep-
settled in England as a writer. There is something significant about a resentative of the West who is the murderer and the cannibal.
modern writer being an outsider in this kind of way; there is, in early Possibly for the first time in English literature, the representation of
twentieth-century literature, an absence of any sense of being able white civilisation is associated with the kind of behaviour that the
228 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Ear!)> Years 229

western imagination generally associates only with uncivilised peo- and the story that is imposed upon the events, but the manner of the
ple and the uncivilised world. Kurtz's conduct suggests that there narration consistently suggests that there is not really a meaning to
might be something rotten at the very heart of civilisation; indeed, it be teased out of the tale. This is a view that will become almost a
is possible that the very idea of civilised people and a civilised society commonplace in the early twentieth century: writers will find ways
might be nothing more than an anachronistic myth. of writing about a world which, they are prepared to accept, does not
The vision conveyed in Heart ofDarkness anticipates the kind of gen- make sense. They do it most commonly, as in Heart of Darkness, by
eral collapse that is associated with the First World War. It is as if narrating a story, but at the same time drawing attention to the fact
everything that the West has spent centuries building up is blown that a story is being imposed. Such texts, and Heart of Darkness is one
apart; the war is, of course, associated with physical destruction, but of the first to do this, question our desire for coherence and meaning.
what also disappears is a traditional structure of values, understanding It is an approach that seems particularly relevant at the time of the
and reassurance. Values associated with the individual, including an First World War, when events were taking place that were, essential-
idea of the positive contribution an individual can make to society, are ly, too extreme to be accommodated in any narrative. The overall
undermined. The things that people cling on to in life - such as their effect in Heart of Darkness is that, rather than offering a revelation, the
identity, their sense of belonging to a community, and their sense of text seems more of a comment on our need for revelation. The nar-
shared human values - are mocked, or shown to be nothing more rator embarks upon a journey; as with the traditional heroes of
than illusions. Life has a cruel and destructive logic of its own, and romance, he is on a quest for the truth. But Heart of Darkness becomes
individuals are simply sucked into the meaningless, but vicious, cycle a form of ironic romance, mocking our yearning for truth.
of existence. This undercutting of old values is not only apparent in The Secret Agent (1907) explores similar ideas. Verloc, married to
the content of Heart of Darkness but also in the manner in which the Winnie, works as a double agent, for the Russians and for Inspector
story is told. Heart of Darkness is narrated by Marlow, a created charac- Heat at Scotland Yard. He also has connections with a group of anar-
ter; this indicates a distancing of the narration from the kind of omni- chists. Verloc obtains explosives, with which he plans to blow up
science we encounter in, say, a George Eliot novel. There is no longer Greenwich Observatory. His wife's brother, a simple-minded lad
the possibility of omniscience, because omniscience suggests shared called Stevie, is killed in the bungled terrorist operation. When
values and a steady, reliable perspective. All that is now possible is the Verloc tells Winnie about his role in Stevie's death she stabs him with
partial or fallible interpretation of one observer. And, beyond this, a kitchen knife. Winnie then plans to leave the country with an anar-
there is always a rather mannered or stylised quality to everything chist, Ossipon, but he deserts her, and she jumps overboard from a
Marlow says. We cannot simply look through what he says to see the Channel ferry. It is a story of waste, violence and death. Apart from
world he is reporting on. We are brought to a halt by the prose itself; the care that Winnie has lavished on her brother, there is nothing
we cannot help but notice the role that language plays in structuring positive in the novel. Human agency is ineffective; people's actions
a vision of the world. In a way, Marlow's narration reveals a very are selfish and destructive; political acts, such as the bombing of
assured literary style, but when we become too aware of a literary style Greenwich Observatory, are pointless and mindless. There are, in
we also become aware of how language falsifies reality. short, no ideals to pursue.
This seems to be a deliberate tactic in Conrad's prose. Writing The consistently negative emphasis of Conrad's novels and tales is,
imposes a grammar, a syntax and, as such, an order on life, but curiously, only reversed in the first work that he completed after the
Conrad's self-conscious prose deconstructs the very idea of coher- outbreak of the First World War. The Shadow-Line (1919) is the story of
ence that the writing, at one level, is aiming to achieve. The implica- a sea captain, a challenge, and his success in meeting that challenge.
tions of this are substantial. In Heart of Darkness there are the events A ship is becalmed on tropical seas. Some of the crew are dying, but
230 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 231

the captain, with initial support from his men, copes with the crisis. with the values and established way of life of this society. And the
In a straightforward way, a man's readiness to be tested and a tradi- title also probably suggests that Bennett's style will be straightfor-
tional standard of conduct are positioned at the centre of the novel. ward, a kind of clear window on the world. A novel such as Anna of
And very directly at the centre; this is an unusual Conrad novel in the Five Towns is important in that it engages with social, moral and
that the method of narration is unambiguous, with none of the iron- cultural change; in particular, at the start of the twentieth century a
ic distancing or undercutting that he generally favours. Essentially, it novel like this is likely to offer an insight into a changing sexual
is a story that has a singleness of purpose dictated by the circum- morality, with an emphasis on a new assertiveness on the part of
stances of its production. Conrad's works seem to anticipate the young women characters. At the time of their publication, therefore,
general collapse of the First World War, but the actual outbreak such novels appeared very modern, but in retrospect Anna of the Five
of war seemed to demand a straightforward response stressing the Towns appears curiously old-fashioned. If we compare Bennett with
interdependence of men, as if to counterbalance the shock of the Conrad, it is Conrad who seems to be probing deeper in analysing the
cataclysmic events. society of his day.
Yet, even if the novels of Bennett and Wells strike us as old-fash-
Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, E. M. Forster, ioned, there is something intriguing about the renaissance of this
Katherine Mansfield kind of novel at the start of the twentieth century. Hardy, as we have
seen, dwells on death and despair, but here are novels about people
No other novelist writing in the first twenty years of the twentieth starting out in life. There is every possibility that Bennett and Wells
century paints such a bleak picture as Conrad. Indeed, we are more had actually found a new direction for fiction. If we consider The Old
likely to be struck by the apparently rather traditional quality of the Wives' Tale, this is the story of two sisters, Constance and Sophia, one
works of some of the leading novelists of the time. If the realistic of whom follows the traditional path of marriage and motherhood
novel falls apart at the end of the nineteenth century, at the start of while the other leads an adventurous and unconventional life. It
the twentieth it appears to acquire new energy. Two popular realistic looks like a traditional realistic novel, but it can also be seen as a sub-
novelists in particular demand attention: Arnold Bennett and H. G. version of realism. As the world changes, the characters lose a sense
Wells. Bennett produced ten substantial novels: A Man from the North of who they are and where they belong. At the same time, characters
(1898), Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), the repeat the pattern of the lives of previous generations; as such, there
Clayhanger trilogy (1910- 16), The Preti)! Lady (1917), Riceyman Steps is nothing unique about their lives or identities. This might seem a
(1923), Lord Raingo (1926) and Imperial Palace (1930). Wells wrote more fairly minor tinkering with realism, but Bennett's innovations work
than a hundred books and pamphlets in his fifty-year career, includ- well to convey a sense ofliving in a world where all familiar reference
ing over forty novels. He is best known for his early science-fiction points have disappeared.
works, The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of Wells was a slapdash writer compared to Bennett, more concerned
the Worlds (1898), and for novels such as Kipps (1905), Tono-Bungay with conveying his ideas than anything else. But Tono-Bungay, his best
(1908), Ann Veronica (1909) and The History of Mr Polly (1910). novel by a considerable margin, is as effective as Bennett's novels in
A typical novel by either of these writers is a story about a young creating an impression ofliving in uncertain times. It features George
man or young woman making his or her way in life. With a novel Ponderevo, who becomes a salesman for a quack medicine, and who
such as Anna of the.Five Towns, the title alone tells us a great deal. We is later involved in aviation, and then in the search for 'quap', a
can anticipate that it is about a young woman growing up in a par- radioactive material that might revive his family's fortunes.
ticular society; we know in advance that she will find herself at odds Invention is an issue in the novel, but it is essentially a story about
232 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 233

decay: the collapse of the house of Ponderevo foreshadows the forth- conviction. As is the case in T. S. Eliot's TheWaste Land (1922), Forster's
coming collapse of Europe. Wells presents a vulgar, commercial soci- thoughts turn to religion , in particular seeing something in
ety, bent on its own destruction. In a sense Wells's work Hinduism that is lacking in the West. The quality that is apparent in
complements the novels and tales of Conrad, but whereas Conrad these and other post-war works is a sense of a void waiting to be
adopts an indirect method, calling upon symbols and metaphors to filled, a direction that is being sought. Forster's pre-war works seem
convey his sense of impending darkness, Wells is direct and trans- to be awaiting the apocalypse; after the war there is a sense of politi-
parent in his writing. cal, cultural and spiritual emptiness.
The novels of E. M. Forster provide a rather similar impression of D. H. Lawrence, as we will see in the next section, is the author
an old order that is exhausted and has outlived its usefulness. Howards who proves most active in trying to fill that void, in trying to find a
End (1910) focuses on the relationship between the Schlegel family, new direction. Beforehand, however, it is interesting to see how the
who live on unearned income, and the Wilcoxes, a family in business. concerns discussed here overlap with the position of women before
The Schlegels are liberal and cultivated, but despise the Wilcoxes, and after the war. The first twenty years of the century might have
even though they depend upon the Wilcoxes for their income. The been a time of crisis for the West, but they were also years in which
Wilcoxes are a snobbish, rather unpleasant middle-class family. An opportunities for women increased dramatically, though not with-
additional complication involves Helen Schlegel who becomes preg- out bitter struggles. A case in point is Katherine Mansfield. Born in
nant by a poor bank clerk, Leonard Bast. Bast then dies after being New Zealand, she moved to England and, later, France to pursue a
beaten by one of the Wilcox sons. This undercurrent of violence is literary career. Locked into a disastrous marriage, like George Eliot
possibly the most alarming element in Forster's novel. It is a work she broke with social convention by living with a man. She is best
that offers a delicate sense of fluctuating class and social relationships known for her collections of short stories which are characterised
in England before the First World War, but there is also a sense by their multiple points of view, and by their attention to detail and
throughout of a violent explosion that might entirely destroy this old atmosphere. The titles of collections such as In a Gennan Pension
order. (1911) and Je Ne Parle Pas Fran~ais (1918) suggest the way in which
The explosion came with the First World War. A Passage to India, Europe assumes increasing importance in almost every aspect oflife
which was published in 1924, is far more ambitious than Forster's pre- in the early decades of the twentieth century; a wider world has dis-
war novels, even though it had been planned ten years before and placed the old sense of domestic security and the insular convictions
reflects the India of that period. The earlier novels are almost parochial, of English life.
dealing with the legacy of Victorian middle-class liberalism; they gen- There is, consequently, something profoundly symbolic about a
erally involve characters who unthinkingly conform to established story such as The Daughters of the Late Colonel' (1922), where two
social standards and conventions. This is also true of A Passage to India, daughters watch their father die. On the surface, it seems slight
which focuses on British officials and their wives in Chandrapore, and enough, the story of a man dying, but the details imply much more:
their encounters with the local Indian intelligentsia. As in some of the
He lay there, purple, a dark, angry purple in the face, and never even
earlier novels, Forster contrasts British culture and a foreign tradition
looked at them when they came in . Then, as they were standing there,
that has qualities that are missing in the British way oflife, but the scale wondering what to do, he had suddenly opened one eye. Oh , what a
of the contrast is much more extreme here. There is a deeper sense of difference it would have made, what a difference to their memory of
the emptiness of the British tradition, which is adequate for routine him, how much easier to tell people about it, if he had only opened
matters and day-to-day business and administration, but which, in the both! But no - one eye only. It glared at them a moment, and then . . .
wake of the war, is exposed as lacking any real core of purpose or went out.
234 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Ear!Y Years 235

A representative of the old order is dying. The comic tone here can- autobiographical novel based on Lawrence's early years. It tells the
not disguise the bullying contempt of the father for his daughters, story of Paul Morel's development as a young man and his ambitions
nor the sense in the story as a whole of their wasted lives under his to become an artist, ambitions nurtured by his mother but also frus-
regime. But, at the same time, with his death there is just the slightest trated by her jealous possessiveness. Her marriage to Walter Morel is
possibility of a different kind of future not governed by patriarchy deeply unhappy, while her relationship with Paul is intense and pas-
and military bravura. It is as if the death of the colonel signals the sionate to the point that both his father, and Miriam, his girlfriend,
death of a whole way of life which, looked back upon, now seems are finally excluded from Paul's life. He finds some fulfilment, or per-
absurd in all its gestures and pomposity. haps just release, in his intensely physical affair with a married
woman, Clara Dawes, but it is only with the death of Mrs Morel that
Paul gains release from his mother's grip on his emotional life. He is
D. H. Lawrence
left at the end, however, with very little to hold on to. Whereas in a
D. H. Lawrence was born in 1885 at Eastwood, a small village in traditional novel the hero or heroine usually comes to terms with
Nottinghamshire. His father was a miner. Lawrence.was, therefore, society by the close of the narrative, Sons and Lovers breaks with this
doubly removed from the cultural and middle-class dominance of pattern: Paul turns his back on his community at the end, striking out
London, and has come to be seen as the voice of working-class fic- on his own.
tion standing outside the confines of polite society. His life itself was There are other ways, too, in which Lawrence's novel breaks with
fraught with battles against the authorities in one form or another, the conventional patterns of fiction . Initially the novel might look
especially the censors who objected to the frankness of his writings like a traditional realistic novel, relating a familiar story about a
about sex, specifically in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928) . After ill health young man making his way in life. But the style of the novel is very
forced him to give up teaching, Lawrence eloped to Italy with Frieda different. Much of its power comes from its use of heightened, sen-
Weekley, the wife of a university professor. The couple went on to suous language that attempts to convey inner emotional feelings ;
live in Australia and New Mexico and finally Vence, in the south of time and time again, it is as if the feelings a character experiences are
France, where he died in 1930. There is something characteristically reflected in a physical response, the body experiencing sensations
modem about the lack of rootedness in this life-style, just as there is that mirror a state of mind. But also present in the novel is a constant
about every aspect of Lawrence's career. Lawrence hated the First undercurrent of violence and destruction: relationships no longer
World War, but also the social conditions of England which he hold together, families are fragmented, and the social world of the
regarded as responsible for destroying spontaneous feelings. His rep- novel seems unable to accommodate or sustain individuals.
utation rests not just on the achievement of the major novels (The Lawrence explores the possibility of his hero entering into new rela-
White Peacock, 1911; Sons and Lovers, 1913; The Rainbow, 1915; Women in tionships, in which he is no longer hampered by the burden of the
Love, 1921), but also on his short stories, poetry, plays and essays. His past, but complementing this exploration of private life is a more
output was both distinctive and disconcerting to a society incapable general sense of social unease; there is an impression of the potential
of or unused to confronting the issue of human sexuality. If Conrad for violence in life that seems to foreshadow and anticipate the
offers a sense of the bleakness of the opening years of the twentieth destruction that was to come in 1914.
century, Lawrence anticipates, and in part creates, the sexual revolu- The Rainbow, which came out in 1915, is another Lawrence novel
tion that was such a feature of the twentieth century as a whole. informed by a sense of conflict. It can be argued that it is a work of
It is all but impossible to keep details of Lawrence's life separate fiction that exists between two formal conventions. On the one
from his writings. This is especially the case with Sons and Lovers, an hand, it is an extraordinarily vivid social history, a realistic novel that
UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA
Fae. Filologia - Biblioteca
236 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 237

tells the story of the lives of a small number of people in a specific kills his brother when he is a boy, and his sister Diana drowns - but
community. These people are the Brangwen family. They are farm- in the case of Gerald it is connected with a particular social class and
ers, and the novel tells their story across three generations, extending ideology. The ruthless management that Gerald exercises at the mine
from Tom Brangwen who marries an aristocratic Polish exile Lydia also informs his personal life; the result is that his relationship with
Lensky, his nephew Will who marries Lydia's daughter Anna, and Gudrun is characterised by a growing destructiveness and sense of
their daughter Ursula, a teacher who is involved with another figure emptiness. Birkin recognises this, and offers Gerald an intimate male
with a Polish background, Skrebensky. He wishes to marry Ursula, friendship based on love; it is not quite homosexuality, more a set of
but, in a way that could be considered characteristic of a new, or at feelings intended to complement their relationship with the sisters.
least more widely shared, feeling in the early twentieth century, she is What Birkin seems to embody in the novel is an attempt to con-
reluctant to sacrifice her freedom and her career for the dubious ben- struct something new in terms of personal relationships, something
efits of marriage. This dynastic genealogy provides the novel with its that has both a political and a spiritual dimension to it. Women in Love
linear framework, tracing the changes in a family and looking at how is, in this sense, manifestly about how to live in the modem world
individuals come to terms with or rebel against the social and reli- and survive its mechanistic philosophy, about the place of reason,
gious codes that govern their lives. In essence, the struggle is between and about the importance of spontaneous feelings and instincts. But
conformity and freedom, which includes a form of sexual freedom; it it is also about modem people. The characters move in the intellec-
is a contest between deadening obedience and trusting one's emo- tual circles of their day, and the conversations are as much about art
tional instincts. and culture as about relationships. It is as if Lawrence is trying to
But, in addition to being this kind of realistic novel, The Rainbow, resolve the schism he sees between nature and culture, desiring to
calling upon the narrative conventions traditionally associated with make whole again what has been rent asunder by war and violence.
the romance, is also a novel that starts to move on and forward, look- In a number of respects, Lawrence might, therefore, be regarded as a
ing for something new, something to fill the void of modem life. The visionary writer, working in a Protestant tradition that runs back
choice of the metaphoric title - the promise of something new after through Blake and Milton, writers who also looked for a fundamen-
the destruction of the flood - indicates this, as does the emphasis on tal restructuring of society and human values. Such writers, it must
a new kind of woman in the figure of Ursula, a woman seeking inde- be said, can irritate, annoy and even infuriate some, perhaps a great
pendence and a life outside marriage. Other novelists in this period many, of their readers.
seem to focus on waste, ruin and despair, but Lawrence starts to con- In the case of Lawrence, a lot of people consider his works offen-
struct a quest for a different way ofliving as well as a different way of sive; not, as was the response at the time of their publication, because
writing. The challenge is to move beyond realism while not losing of their sexual explicitness, but because of Lawrence's sexual politics.
the particularity of lived experience, as Lawrence searches for a new His novels do tend to focus on male self-realisation; time and time
way in which human beings can relate to one another. again this is achieved at the expense of women. Particularly in Women
This becomes more obvious in Women in Love. Once again there is in Love, it might be felt that the women are only present in order to
a solid realistic picture in the novel, with the main narrative focusing help Lawrence work out Birkin's intellectual and philosophical posi-
on the relationship of Ursula (the same Ursula as in The Rainbow) and tion. What we also have to consider, however, is that Lawrence's
Rupert Birkin, a school inspector, and her sister Gudrun's affair with emphasis on sex, on personal fulfilment and on self-discovery is not
Gerald Crich, a wealthy mine-owner, which ends with his death in simply a case of the author voicing his personal obsessions. Such con-
the Austrian Alps. As in earlier novels, there is an emphasis on the cerns are, in fact, a large strand in Western thought and politics in the
violence that destroys human relationships - Gerald accidentally twentieth century: that what matters above all else is the individual
238 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 239

and his or her sensibility. In connection with this, it is important to What I saw
note that we do not tum to Lawrence for a message. As readers of his Was Adlestrop- only the name
novels, we do not have to share or even sympathise with his convic- And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry
tions. What we are interested in with Lawrence, as with any writer, is
(ll. 7-10)
how he expresses the mood and the anxieties of his time. Lawrence
anticipates the destruction wrought by the war, and then tries to fill This is, essentially, rural poetry, celebrating a certain vision of rural
the void. England as an unspoilt paradise. The moment is all the more signifi-
cant given the date of the poem; it was written in 1915. In such a poem
the war is at a distance; its threat, by implication, is to nature and the
Georgian Poetry, War Poetry, W. B. Yeats
landscape of England, but there is also a chilling emptiness in the
The term 'Georgian poetry' is used in relation to five anthologies of poem: there is no one on the platform, and no one comes to the train.
poetry, edited by Edward Marsh, published between 1912 and 1922, Behind the poem, then, lies a sense of impending death, but this in
during the reign of George V. The poets represented included A. E. the end serves only to intensify the stress on the value of the rural
Housman, W. H. Davies, Walter de la Mare, John Masefield, Ralph idyll of England.
Hodgson, Edward Thomas, James Stephens, Robert Graves, Edmund If Thomas celebrates the beauty and richness of England, Sassoon
Blunden and D. H. Lawrence. The signal sent out by the anthologies sets out to shock, satirising the authorities responsible for the war. In
was that the new century created the possibility of a new energy in and a poem such as 'They' the soldiers reply to a bishop's platitudes about
a new direction for English poetry. The aesthetic verse of the 1890s death by relaying the grim details of how 'George lost both his legs;
(the poetry of writers such as Lionel Johnson, Arthur Symons and and Bill's stone blind'. Earlier in the century Conrad had written of
Ernest Dowson) can, quite reasonably, be regarded as the exhausted the horrors of cannibalism and human sacrifice, but it is the war
last gesture of Romantic poetry. In the Georgian volumes there is a poets who offer us the sharpest sense of the barbarism that overtook
more direct and colloquial approach, with more of an attempt to civilisation and destroyed forever the old order and its supporting
engage with real issues and real life. But it is sometimes the case that myths. Each poem is itself a kind of explosion; the recurrent imagery
the originality of certain works of literature fails to command atten- is of landscape sunk in mud and a world tom apart by shells as the
tion because other writers come along and do more interesting things. war destroys the young men of Europe. This is the recurrent theme
This is the case with Georgian poetry; the works of W. B. Yeats, Ezra and nightmare of Wilfred Owen's poetry, of the mass, senseless
Pound and T. S. Eliot are innovatory and substantial to a degree that slaughter of young men, as in 'Anthem for Doomed Youth':
makes the Georgians look almost inconsequential. This is to be regret-
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
ted; there is a great deal of interesting verse in these anthologies, but
- Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
for the most part it remains unread, while still being used as a yard-
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
stick against which other new writing at the time is measured. Can patter out their hasty orisons.
There is, for example, a clear contrast between Edward Thomas's
'Adlestrop' and the war poetry of Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon
(writers conventionally grouped together, along with a number of Elsewhere Owen writes of the futility of men's lives as they returned
others, such as Charles Sorley and Isaac Rosenberg, as the 'war emasculated and disabled from the front. It is a gloomy picture, unre-
poets'). Adlestrop is a small village in Gloucestershire. The poem lieved even by the flashes of tenderness shared between the men in
recalls how Thomas's train stopped there briefly one afternoon: the trenches. And yet, for all its honesty in responding to the war and
240 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 241

its terrifying consequences, there is, strangely, a looking back in It might seem natural to associate war poetry with the men who
Owen's poetry, a kind of yearning for the past. In the lines above, the fought, but those who remained at home were also, of course,
frame of reference for the poem is provided by religious ceremony deeply affected by the First World War. In recent years there has
and the associated rituals, as if that might somehow restore a dimen- been renewed interest in the war poetry and prose of a number of
sion of decency to the deaths on the field of battle. If there is a criti- women writers, in particular Alice Meynell. Born in 1847, and pub-
cism that can be levelled against the works of the war poets, it is this lishing her first volume of poems in 1875, she was, in addition to
looking back, as if the only way to make sense of the war was to cling being the mother of eight children, engaged in a wide variety of
to outmoded forms of thinking even while recognising, as in social issues and humanitarian projects, including the woman's suf-
Sassoon's poem, that these ways of thinking did not match the world frage campaign. Describing herself as a Christian Socialist and a
of the Somme, the river in northern France where, in 1916, unimagin- feminist, what is fascinating about Meynell's First World War
able numbers of soldiers perished. poems is the manner in which she combines a personal and lyrical
A different perspective is afforded by the poetry of Ivor Gurney. approach, that often focuses upon the theme of religious mystery,
Wounded in 1917, Gurney was sent back to the front in the same year with the enormous and public subject of war. This can be seen in
and was in the battle at Passchendaele. Like the Somme, this was 'A Father of Women':
another major battle with terrifying numbers killed. In The Silent
Like to him now are they,
One' Gurney writes of the death of a soldier from Buckinghamshire
The million living fathers of the War -
on the barbed wire of the trenches. The poem features a dialogue
Mourning the crippled world, the bitter day-
between Gurney and his commander who asks him in a 'finicking Whose striplings are no more.
accent'
The crippled world! Come then,
'Do you think you might crawl through there: there's a hole.' Fathers of women with your honour in trust,
Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely replied - Approve, accept, know them daughters of men,
Tm afraid not, Sir.' Now that your sons are dust.
(ll.10-12) (11. 21-8)
The poem dramatises what both Sassoon and Owen point to, that Meynell's war poems make a powerful impact on their own, but
the war is not, as Thomas would have it, remote from England but become even more interesting when we consider how she adds to the
informed by its social hierarchy and class values. The politeness and range of voices and responses we can detect in Britain in the war
'finicking accent' may seem out of place, but what Gurney implies is years. In particular, there is an awareness of gender issues that is
that at the heart of the war is the deceit of language itself, which seldom addressed directly in the work of male writers.
betrays men, leading them into death and violence. More particular- We will, of course, never know in what direction poets such as
ly, it is the language of the old patrician code which now seems to Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen might have developed if they had
find a new home on the battlefield of modem warfare. There is a survived the war. In the case of W. B. Yeats, by contrast, we have a
social and political dimension to such language: Gurney shows it to writer with a career that extends from the 1880s to the outbreak of
be a factor contributing to the slaughter of war even as it pretends to the Second World War. Born in Dublin, Yeats spent his early years
offer and represent a civilised code of behaviour. This is an important between London and Sligo, his mother's home county in north-west
aspect of the works of the war poets: they discover how barbarity has Ireland. He studied art for a while, but by the 1890s he was deeply
its roots in the very words that we use to shape and order our world. involved both with editing and writing poetry and also with the
242 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 243

founding of the Irish National Theatre at the Abbey Theatre in bill for Home Rule in Ireland had received Royal Assent, but, owing
Dublin. Yeats was manager of the theatre, but also wrote plays for it, to the outbreak of the First World War, the Act was not implement-
the most successful being Cathleen Ni Houlihan (1902). Throughout his ed. Consequently, at Easter 1916 there was a rising in Dublin. In 1918
career Yeats continued to write plays which, like his poems, drew the independence of Ireland was affirmed, but fighting between the
upon myths, folklore, the occult and contemporary Irish politics. forces of the British Crown and supporters of Sinn Fein continued
The most significant period for his poetry begins in 1919 with the until 1921. In that year the Irish Free State came into being. It is clear
publication of The Wild Swans at Coole, and then Michael Robartes and the that Yeats's poems acquired a new strength of expression as they
Dancer (1921), The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair (1933), poetry engaged with these political changes. In 'Easter 1916', for example, he
characterised by its symbolism and by its sparse yet rich style. Yeats writes of the people he has met in the streets of Dublin; they are
is central to the revival of Irish literature, beginning with his early people he once scorned, but their deaths in the Easter rising have
poetry in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889), followed by made them into heroes and martyrs.
collections such as The Countess Kathleen and Other Legends and Lyrics Yeats describes one of the rebels:
(1892), The Land of Heart's Desire (1894) and The Wind Among the Reeds A drunken, vainglorious lout.
(1899), as well as prose works, studies oflrish culture and essays. The He had done most bitter wrong
result is an enormous body of work, and a body of work that changes To some who are near my heart,
as the world changes. Yet I number him in the song . . .
Yeats's earliest verse, as in The Wanderings of Oisin (1889), could be (ll.32-5)
said to represent a mixture of Romanticism, nationalist idealism,
Irish mythology and mysticism. A good impression of Yeats in the Yeats is confused: this man who seemed so awful has become a hero.
early stage of his career as a poet is provided by The Lake Isle of He writes of what has happened to the man:
Innisfree', where he writes about how he longs to escape from the He, too, has been changed in his tum,
city to Innisfree. Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
(11. 38-40)
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, The rebels, including this lout, disrupt both the calm of Ireland and
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. the civilised calm of Yeats's mind, but there is something inspiring
(IL 1-4) about their actions that makes them fit subjects for celebration in
There is an implicit contrast here between the complications of the verse; what they embody is heroism and the promise of a new dawn
everyday world and the simplicity of Innisfree, where everything for Ireland, even if this new order overturns the kind of aloof civilised
seems idyllic and harmonious. This is apparent in the lazy, reverie- order that Yeats has clung on to.
like quality of the poem, as if the abrasiveness of life has been left far The movement in Yeats's approach from the dying years of the
behind. It is an effective and attractive poem, but, as most readers will nineteenth century to the period of the First World War may be said
sense, this is really a poem of escape, a poem expressing a desire to to represent a more general movement discernible in literature at the
avoid engagement. time: the nature and scale of the political upheaval forces writers to
By the second decade of the twentieth century, however, Yeats's become engaged, and such engagement demands formal innovation,
desire for escape might have seemed almost offensive. A parliamentary in that it is necessary to find new rhythms in writing to capture and
244 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: The Early Years 245

convey a new, more urgent rhythm in life. Yeats's poems in response in the poem between the complexity and variety of life and the
to Ireland's political changes do not in any way amount to a politi- coherence and order of art, a tension that is a recurrent issue in
cal manifesto; on the contrary, what they convey is the contra- modernist writing. In a very self-conscious way, such writing looks
dictory and confused feelings of a writer living through such times. again and again at the possibility of creating or finding order in a
But what perhaps finally distinguishes our sense of Yeats as a poet, disorderly new century.
enabling us to talk about a level of poetic development beyond his
poems from the immediate period around 1916, is the manner in
which a changing social and political climate demands a reconsid-
eration of how poetry engages with life. This is, again, a develop-
ment that we find in other writers besides Yeats. Essentially, in the
post-war period we can refer to Yeats as a modernist writer. What
this means is that basic ideas about life and art have been so dis-
rupted by the events of the period between 1914 and 1918 that the
writer has to reconsider in a fundamental way the relationship
between the civilised activity of writing and what might now appear
to be an uncivilised world.
This kind of complete reconsideration of the relationship between
the activity of writing and life itself is apparent in a poem such as
'Sailing to Byzantium'. It is a poem in which Yeats seems to tum his
back on Ireland; he wants to escape from a world where people grow
old and die, and so imagines himself as the court poet in Byzantium,
who will
sing
To lords and ladies ofByzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
(IL 30-2)

The idea might seem elevated, but in reality he is nothing more than
the court gossip. We might contrast this with the poem's opening
evocation of Ireland:

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born and dies.
(IL 4-6)
What is apparent is a teeming sense of life in this opening stanza,
conveyed in its rich and abundant imagery. But there is also a tension
 The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 247

poetic tradition. Eliot became a British subject in 1927, and was

awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
14 The Twentieth Century: Of all his works, it is The Waste Land, with its innovatory technique,
that continues to command the most attention. It was published in
Between the Wars 1922, the same year as James Joyce's U[ysses, and which can be viewed
as the key year in modernist writing. It is easy to deduce that The
Waste Land expresses a mood of disillusionment that was prevalent
after the First World War, but much of the poem remains baffling to
T. S. Eliot readers encountering it for the first time. It is a long poem, divided
These are the opening lines ofT. S. Eliot's The Waste Land: into six sections, each of which has a somewhat cryptic title, such as
The Burial of the Dead' and 'A Game of Chess'. Long poems are often
April is the cruellest month, breeding narrative poems, where the reader can follow the story, but The Waste
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Land clearly does not operate in this manner, consisting instead of a
Memory and desire, stirring
disjointed sequence of verse paragraphs. The content of any one of
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
these paragraphs, such as the opening lines above, is likely to prove
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding confusing, principally because of the absence of a single thread of
A little life with dried tubers. meaning; individual lines often appear to head off in unexpected and
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee unanticipated directions.
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, If we look a little more closely, however, a number of things start
And went on in the sunlight, into the Hofgarten, to fall into place. For example, we might detect an overall movement
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. of a kind of journey through a dry, or waste, land in search of water,
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. which could be seen as a sign of both physical and spiritual nourish-
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's, ment. The Waste Land is a poem that breaks new ground in a dramat-
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, ic manner, but even in the most innovatory works we are always
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
going to encounter patterns that have existed in literature for thou-
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
sands of years. The Waste Land can, quite reasonably, be described as a
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. quest, and in this respect it bears a striking resemblance to many
(IL 1-18) early twentieth-century texts, starting with Joseph Conrad's Heart of
Darkness. The idea of being on a journey or quest is never all that
Eliot was an American poet, playwright and critic, who lived in apparent in nineteenth-century realistic fiction, even though such a
England from 1915. His first volume of poems, Prnfrock and Other pattern does underlie a great many works, including, for example,
Observations (1917), was followed by Poems (1919) and The Waste Land George Eliot's Middlemarch. Thomas Hardy makes more of the jour-
(1922). Poems 1909-25 (1925) and Collected Poems (1936) reveal a devel- ney, although in Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure his charac-
oping religious tendency in his verse, an impression that is consoli- ters tend to go round in circles getting nowhere. In the early
dated in Four Quartets (1943). His plays include Murder in the Cathedral twentieth century, however, the idea of the quest becomes more and
(1935) and The Cocktail Party (1950). His most notable critical work is more apparent in literature; as in the works ofD. H. Lawrence, there
probably The Sacred Wood (1920), which sets out his views on the is a sense of searching for a new order that might exist beyond the

246
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248 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 249

present state of confusion. In T. S. Eliot's poetry, and increasingly so that, surprisingly often, modernist writers tum towards right-wing
as the years passed, there is a sense of searching for some kind of spir- ideas in their search for stability and order, largely in response to their
itual consolation, some enduring set of values beyond the post-war fear that various forms of decadence were undermining the whole of
sense of a void. civilisation. This becomes evident in the way Eliot's fragmented poem
This, however, is to anticipate a great deal. The Waste Land starts with creates an image of a world out of joint. The Waste Land is a fragmentary
a reference to April as the cruellest month. Conventionally we think poem in three ways: each verse paragraph seems to bear only a loose
of April as the season of spring and renewal, but Eliot refers to it in a relationship to the previous verse paragraph; line by line, there are dis-
very different light. It is a cruel month; there is even something chill- concerting shifts from image to image; and the individual images are
ing in the signs of growth that are in evidence, with lilacs blooming disconcerting. Consider the start of the second verse paragraph:
out of 'the dead land'. Essentially, The Waste Land sets up an idea of a
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
life-giving, beneficial renewal in the natural order and pits this against Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
a vision of a world that has become hard and unyielding. A theme has You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
been established for the poem as a whole: Eliot is confronting a dispir- A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
iting world, but it is likely that he will be seeking some sign of hope or And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief.
promise in this waste land. The disconcerting shifts from image to (11. 19-23)
image in the opening sequence of the poem help to convey the appro-
Images of disorder are prominent: this is a world of stony rubbish,
priate impression of a disordered world. The sense that comes across
where nothing grows. We are confronted with a world of 'broken
is of a rootless existence, of a wandering life on the continent. The line
images', a world where everything has collapsed into pieces. But by
in a foreign language ('Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt
incorporating images such as 'roots' and 'branches' Eliot also points to
deutsch') adds to this impression. It is not even necessary to under-
what is missing, which is signs of growth. Some of the images, how-
stand the line to feel its effect; it adds to the sense of a world where
ever, seem to imply more. 'Son of man', which alludes to the biblical
nothing seems to make sense any more. If we do translate it, however,
figure of Ezekiel, might also suggest 'Son of God'. If this is the case,
the line ('I am not Russian at all; I come from Lithuania; I am pure
then it starts to become evident how Eliot just hints at the need for, or
German') provides an insight into an aspect of Eliot that has troubled
his desire for, the concept of a religious dimension to experience.
many readers over the years. The line deals with racial purity;
What is far more apparent, however, is the sense of a painful and
throughout The Waste Land there is a sense that degeneration is linked
bewildering world. We witness it, for example, in a sudden, seeming-
to race, the poem using descriptions of racial characteristics to create
ly inexplicable shift to the character of Madame Sosostris:
a sense of seediness and corruption. Some critics deny there is a prob-
lem, but many accept that Eliot is a great poet with unpleasant politi- Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
cal views. As always, the issue needs to be set in context. It does not Had a bad cold, nevertheless
excuse Eliot if we say that others held similar views at this time, but Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
it does add to the challenge of his work that he reflects fears and With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
ls your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor.
anxieties of his time, incorporating widely held views not only about
CTI. 43-1)
how but also about why his society is in decay.
Eliot's politics, as is the case with the politics of most of the major The particular images in evidence here also add to an impression that is
modernist writers, are an awkward and complex matter, which we sustained throughout the poem, which is of the cheap and sordid nature
have only a small amount of space to touch on here. Suffice it to say of modern life. It is a society in which people turn to fortune-tellers
250 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 251

rather than trusting in any traditional sense of God. At the same time, These lines appear towards the end of the poem. We feel consider-
the introduction of the Tarot cards reasserts what is perhaps the cen- able relief as rain comes. But The Waste Land remains a poem where
tral theme of the poem, which is the search for meaning in the pre- hope is hinted at rather than stated. Here, for example, there is an
sent waste land, in the post-war void. image of a chapel, which carries obvious implications, but the point
What we also need to consider, however, is the way in which a is not developed. As readers, we are searching for things to hold on
great many lines in the poem contain literary allusions; that is to to amidst the ruins, and in this respect we shadow the process of the
say, Eliot has incorporated phrases and words from other texts into poem itself, which also appears to look for things that work in a bro-
this poem. For example, the opening reference in the poem to April ken world. But the poem does not deliver any kind of answer;
is an inversion of the opening line of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. instead, in its self-conscious way, it seems, like many modernist texts,
These fragments from other works underline how the post-war to be as much concerned with examining literature's quest for truth
world has collapsed into fragments, but they also suggest that writ- as with the truth itself.
ers in the past had a sense of wholeness. The effect is not uncom-
mon in modernism; the author draws attention to how authors in
James Joyce
the past have been able to perceive a pattern in life. Essentially, the
modernist writer takes a step back, examining how literary texts The term modernism is used widely in relation to the creative arts in
relate to the world they reflect. This leads to a certain kind of self- the first half of the twentieth century. For example, cubism in the visu-
consciousness about language and, indeed, every aspect of writing, al arts is one branch of modernism. Cubism, founded by Pablo Picasso,
which is again a feature of modernist texts. The Waste Land, disrupt- involves dissecting the form of an object and separating the pieces so
ing the continuity and logic that we normally expect to encounter that it is reduced to flat, slightly angled planes. This parallels the man-
in a literary text, forcibly draws our attention to the manner in ner in which modernist literary texts not only establish a break with
which traditional texts conspire to make life coherent and mean- established ways of looking but also draw attention to the way in
ingful. In a sense, every modernist writer distrusts the implications which a work of art views, presents and interprets what it sees. What
of writing. the comparison with cubism also draws attention to is that modernism
As a whole, The Waste Land is a poem that conveys a dark mood at was an international movement in the arts, and one particularly asso-
the end of the First World War, but tantalises us with a variety of ciated with capital cities; time and time again, the classic texts of mod-
images of hope: ernism are about huge, anonymous an.cl dispiriting modem cities.
James Joyce's stories and novels, however, are set in a small capital
In this decayed hole among the mountains city, Dublin, where people still know each other. Joyce published a
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing collection of short stories, Dubliners, in 1914, and this was followed by
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), serialised by Ezra Pound in
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home,
the Egoist in 1914 and 1915. It was also in 1914 that Joyce began Ulysses,
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
which appeared serially in a New York magazine, The Little Review,
Only a cock stood on the rooftree from 1918 to 1920, when it was banned after a prosecution instigated
Co co rico co co rico by the Society for the Suppression of Vice. It was published as a book
In a flash oflightning. Then a damp gust in Paris and London in 1922, but the book was banned in Britain and
Bringing rain America. U!Ysses is an account of the thoughts and experiences of
Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertisement canvasser, and Stephen
252 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 253

Dedalus, a school teacher, who is also the central character in A The novel is conveying the way in which the child begins to under-
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It is set during a single day in stand who he is and how he relates to other people. A growing aware-
Dublin. Bloom's day is structured to parallel the wanderings of ness of how the world is structured is also apparent in Joyce's use, or
Odysseus in Homer's epic poem. Ulysses was followed by Joyce's final lack of use, of punctuation. The first paragraph is unpunctuated, but
work, Finnegans Wake, in 1939. Joyce then introduces punctuation, which steadily becomes more
The first thing that can be said about A Portrait ofthe Artist as a Young complex. It is as if at the beginning there are just individual words, like
Man is that it is in some ways the same novel as D. H. Lawrence's Sons 'moocow', and then strings of words, but as we acquire language we
and Lovers: an artistic young man who is trapped by his family, and learn how language is organised, especially in its written form, to struc-
particularly at odds with his father, tries to break free by establishing ture experience. As the opening continues, the child encounters addi-
relationships with women. Both young men, as they grow up, are tional ordering frames that we call upon in life, including politics and
opinionated and annoy other people. And at the end, both young religion. By the end of the first page, even though the opening impres-
men escape, Stephen leaving Ireland, and Paul Morel turning his back sion is baffling, it is clear that Joyce is examining the family, political
on his birthplace and walking towards the city. But if the two novels and religious structures that Stephen has been born into; in addition,
have a great deal in common, they also have a great deal that sets the self-conscious use of language forces us to consider the ways in
them apart. Most obviously, there is the extraordinary manner in which language and the patterns of fiction help shape the world.
which A Portrait of the Artist is written. The truth is that the style of The point about the patterns of fiction is evident in the way that the
Sons and Lovers is just as original and innovatory as that of Joyce's opening sequence sets up a pattern for the novel. Stephen is caught in
novel, but A Portrait of the Artist is wilfully odd. a situation that he does not like, challenges those in authority, feels
From the outset, Joyce finds ways of distancing his novel from the elated, but is then punished for his presumption. This pattern is
structures of perception that characterise nineteenth-century fiction: repeated in the five chapters of the novel. There is also a repeated pat-
Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow com-
tern in small incidents. At one stage, Stephen is sitting in a maths les-
ing down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along son at school. The class has been split into two teams: York and
the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo .. . . Lancaster. Stephen does not enjoy the competitive atmosphere, but
His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: what is worse is that the history of another country, England, is being
he had a hairy face. imposed upon these Irish schoolboys. He drifts off into a reverie, a
daydream in which he imagines a magical land where a green rose
[... ]
might exist. But his reverie is interrupted, and he finds himself back in
0, the wild rose blossoms the sordid real world. Stephen again and again drifts off in this kind of
On the little green place. way; repeatedly, it is as if he leaves the real world for the world of art.
He sang that song. That was his song.
But if he is ever to succeed as an artist he will have to engage with the
0, the green wothe botheth.
real world, rather than conceiving of art as an escape from reality.
When you wet the bed first it is warm then it gets cold. His mother put
on the oilsheet. That had the queer smell. There is a similar pattern in Stephen's encounter with a prostitute
His mother had a nicer smell than his father. She played on the piano at the end of the second chapter:
the sailor's hornpipe for him to dance.
She passed her tinkling hand through his hair, calling him a little
\Ye~rt see that this is about a child's earliest memories. Initially he rascal.
ern,ounters a 'moocow', and then his father and mother are introduced. - Give me a kiss, she said.

l
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254 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 255

His lips would not bend to kiss her. He wanted to be held firmly in her the development and progress of a young man. It is not, however,
arms, to be caressed slowly, slowly, slowly. In her arms he felt that he had possible to read Ulysses in the same way as, from the outset, it is
suddenly become strong and fearless and sure of himself. But his lips apparent that form in this novel is far in excess of what seems to be
would not bend to kiss her. necessary for any traditional idea of content. Consider the opening of
the 'Sirens' chapter, for example:
At one level, Stephen has escaped from the morally oppressive reli-
Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing lmperthnthn thnthn-
gious climate of Dublin, finding liberation. But the encounter is also
thn. Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips.
humorous; it is as if Stephen can romanticise the encounter, with
ecstatic prose, but cannot engage himself physically. Rather than To a far greater extent than is true of A Portrait of the Artist, Ulysses is
overcoming any sense of sexual anxiety, he has simply sought the not just drawing attention to life but also to the activity and idea of
security of a romantic discourse, reflected in his romantic thoughts. writing.
Time and time again, Stephen, for all his air of being a rebel, seeks the This is apparent in the sentence-by-sentence texture of the novel,
security of the old structures. This is evident again in the way that, and also in the overall use of the Homeric parallels between Joyce's
just after his meeting with the prostitute, he accepts the security of text and the original epic poem, the Odyssey. Much has been made of
religious faith, albeit for a short period. the parallels, but it is worth asking whether there are any real simi-
At this stage of the novel, as at every stage, the book laughs at the larities between the episodes in Homer's work and the lives of Joyce's
way in which Stephen takes himself seriously. What this amounts to characters. Or is it simply that any fictional structure can be imposed
is the presence of irony, which could be said to be one of the most in an almost arbitrary fashion on everyday, essentially shapeless and
distinctive features of modernist texts. In this instance, Stephen's meaningless, experiences? This extends to the manner in which
story is told, and to a degree taken at its face value, but Joyce also Bloom and Stephen meet up, and establish a relationship, during the
mocks his character, and mocks the way in which novels pay serious course of the novel. Is this a significant meeting of father and son, as
attention to such characters. The result is double-edged: we are in the Odyssey, with Stephen finding a substitute for his own father,
offered a story about a young man's development that we can who has failed him? Or is the very idea of a reconciliation of father
become genuinely involved in, but there is also a level of detachment and son, and, with it, the idea of the restoration of coherence and
that laughs at the kind of comfort the reader derives from a familiar continuity, just a literary cliche? Rather similar questions are raised
narrative structure. It is, indeed, the failure of the old sustaining struc- by the way in which the 'story' of Ulysses ends with the two men
tures - religion, family, nationality - that seems to be the most together, to be followed by a final chapter, which is a long mono-
prominent issue in A Portrait of the Artist, and this links with the self- logue from Bloom's wife, Molly. It is as if a structure has been com-
conscious manner of the narration, that takes a step back from the pleted with the meeting up of the two men, but the woman remains
conventional, and familiar, structures of fiction. untidily outside the neatness of the story, and, as such, the neatness
Ulysses, like A Portrait of the Artist, also takes a step back at every of a work of art. There is a self-mocking dimension in Joyce's
stage, examining not just life but also the role of writing and language approach here. In a masculine fashion, he has built an elaborate
in how we perceive and structure experience. There is a possibility, model, in which all the connections with Homer's epic and between
however, that we could read, follow and enjoy A Portrait of the Artist the characters are established, but Joyce then has to concede that the
without even registering the ways in which it is a modernist text; that woman remains outside the model he has built, the story he has
might involve ignoring many aspects of the novel, but it would be already finished telling. Clearly, when we consider a work that func-
possible to read it as a reasonably traditional education novel about tions in this kind of way, as readers we are not merely engaged with
256 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 257

the details of the lives of the characters presented; any kind of mean- and chaotic in a way that seemed to deny and defy comprehension.
ing we derive from the text is not dependent upon the straightfor- At the same time, it is evident that modernist writers such as Joyce
ward picture of life that is presented. Instead, we are forced to consciously set out to find new ways of writing in order to defamil-
confront more abstract questions about how we structure and pre- iarise what had become staid and conventional. Ezra Pound's words,
sume to make sense of life through fiction and narrative. 'Make it new', seem to define this spirit of experimentation, of trying
At one point in U(ysses, in the 'Nestor' chapter, Stephen, working as to remake the world through representing it differently.
a schoolmaster, sets a riddle:
- This is the riddle, Stephen said. Virginia Woolf
The cock crew
The typical nineteenth-century novel, as is the case with David
The sky was blue:
The bells in heaven Coppeifield, Jane Eyre and Adam Bede, uses the name of the main char-
Were striking eleven. acter as its title. This is such an obvious point that we never stop to
Tis time for this poor soul think about it, but it is, in fact, a very significant gesture, for what it
To go to heaven. asserts is a certain view of the importance of individual identity. By
- What is that? contrast, some of the most significant modernist novels employ a
-What, sir? metaphoric title, such as Lawrence's The Rainbow and Virginia
-Again, sir. We didn't hear. Woolfs To the Lighthouse. The change is more than mere coincidence.
Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence What these metaphoric titles, which often play with images of dark-
Cochrane said: ness and light, imply is a different kind of quest for truth. But what is
- What is it, sir? We give it up.
also the case over and over again in modernism is that the emphasis
Stephen, his throat itching, answered:
- The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.
is not so much on any answer that is arrived at but on the process of
searching. In the period of disillusionment following the First World
The riddle in some ways resembles a traditional literary text: clues are War, there is a sense of all ofEurope trying to pick itself up after the
laid, and the reader links the clues together in order to arrive at a solu- disaster and trying, without a great deal of success, to find a fresh
tion. In a realistic novel, for example, we assess all the little details direction.
that we are offered both about the people and the society in which If we consider the novels of Virginia Woolf, for example, we can
they live, and on the basis of the evidence we have accumulated we see that there is a constant sense of searching for a new way of repre-
arrive at an interpretation. But it is a false process, and U(ysses, as in senting the world, a new way of thinking about people and their
this riddle, exposes the absurdity of the whole idea of a series of clues experiences. Woolf herself was born into a literary family and is par-
pointing to an answer. The reservation some readers might have is ticularly associated with the Bloomsbury Group, a set of intellectual
whether any kind of real satisfaction can be derived from a text such and artistic friends who met at the house she shared with her sister in
as Ulysses that refuses to tell us things in the way a traditional novel London at Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. These included, amongst
might. But it can be argued that this is how a novel had to be at this others, the novelist E. M. Forster and her husband-to-be, Leonard
time, teasing the reader with the possibility of meaning but frustrat- Woolf. Together the couple set up the Hogarth Press whose policy
ing the desire for meaning. As Europe emerged from the First World was to publish new and experimental works such as Eliot's early
War, not only had the old structures of explanation and understand- poems and The Waste Land, as well as some of Woolfsown work. Her
ing been blown apart, but also the world itself had become complex first novel, The Voyage Out, appeared in 1915, followed by Night and

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258 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 259

Day (1919). Both of these are essentially realistic works, but with her method of Dorothy Richardson's long novel Pilgrimage, begun in 1915.
next novel, Jacob's Room, published in 1922 (the same year as Joyce's Like Woolf, Richardson explores the subjective experience of her
Ulysses), she broke with the realist tradition and established herself as heroine. It is more than coincidence that both use stream of con-
a leading modernist writer. This is evident in her most famous works, sciousness in works that place women at their centre. Both are con-
Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931), but cerned with the intricacies of personal relationships and how these
also in Orlando (1928), an oblique, fantastical biography of the poet can be rendered more truthfully in prose fiction, but, more impor-
Vita Sackville-West, and in her last work, Between the Acts, which tantly, both are concerned with the position of women, their rights
appeared in 1941. Plagued by mental illness, she committed suicide in and their place in political and social life, and their complex identi-
the same year. ties.
The Vcryage Out tells the story of Rachel Vinrace's journey to South Much of this can be seen in To the Lighthouse, a novel about the
America on her father's ship, her engagement there to Terence Ramsay family. The setting is their holiday house. The first section is
Hewet, and, following a fever, her death. In many ways the novel is a entitled 'The Window' and concerns Mrs Ramsay's thoughts as she
rewriting of earlier prose narratives, in particular journey fictions, sits at a window with her son James. Out at sea is a lighthouse flash-
such as Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There is, however, a distinct differ- ing in the darkness in the same way that Mrs Ramsay illuminates the
ence: this time the adventurer is a woman. In addition, while the imaginative life of her family. The middle section, 'Time Passes', covers
novel includes marriage and romance, and so can be seen as fitting in the war years 1914-18, while the house is empty, and Mrs Ramsay's
with a romantic tradition in fiction (romantic, that is, in the sense of death. In the final part, 'The Lighthouse', Mr Ramsay visits the light-
love stories, as opposed to the other meaning of romance, which sug- house with his son James, symbolically healing an earlier quarrel. At
gests a quest narrative, although The V cryage Out clearly is a quest nar- this moment, too, Lily Briscoe, a painter friend of Mrs Ramsay, com-
rative at the same time), the emphasis ofThe Voyage Out falls upon the pletes her picture of the house inspired by Mrs Ramsay. The novel
distinctively twentieth-century complications in the relationship dispenses with plot and instead is organised around the symbols of
experienced by Rachel. In this respect, the novel can be said to be the lighthouse and the painting, but what strikes us most is just how
about a journey into womanhood and sexuality, a journey that par- wonderfully Woolf conveys the mood of each moment, as here, in
allels in some ways Lawrence's exploration of sex in a modem patri- section five of the book, when Mrs Ramsay is thinking about the
archal society. As with so much twentieth-century fiction, the house and her children:
voyage 'out' is also a voyage 'in' to the recesses of the mind, a quest At a certain moment, she supposed, the house would become so shabby
that Woolf was to pursue in all her work. that something must be done. If they could be taught to wipe their feet
Indeed, what Woolf was especially interested in was rendering a and not bring the beach in with them - that would be something. Crabs,
more subtle sense of identity than could be found in the traditional she had to allow, if Andrew really wished to dissect them, or if Jasper
novel. In a famous essay, 'Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown', she attacked believed that one could make soup from seaweed, one could not prevent
what she saw as the crude characterisation of Arnold Bennett, argu- it; or Rose's objects - shells, reeds, stones; for they were gifted, her chil-
ing for a presentation of character that recognised the internal con- dren, but all in quite different ways. And the result of it was, she sighed,
sciousness, the inner experience of people. In order to achieve this, taking in the whole room from floor to ceiling, as she held the stocking
Woolf abandoned the kind of realism she used in The V cry age Out in against James's leg, that things got shabbier and got shabbier summer
after summer.
favour of a much more fluid technique, a style closer to poetry than
prose. Her approach is often referred to as 'stream of consciousness', These are very ordinary thoughts reinforcing Mrs Ramsay's role as
a technique also employed by Joyce in Ulysses, but inspired by the wife and mother, but there is a sufficient piling up of details to make
260 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 261

us stand back and wonder about the tone of the novel and about how that did not focus on the two dominant male figures; not only would
we are to read such domestic scenes. Simultaneously, complicating such an account pay more attention to various women writers, but it
our response, there are subtle shifts between the present, the past and would also want to challenge the parochialism of focusing exclusive-
the future, as the passage hints at the coming war as 'things' get 'shab- ly on English literature (a term that becomes open to question as
bier' and 'shabbier'. Or perhaps it is family life itself that is shabby, soon as we acknowledge that Eliot and Joyce are, respectively,
Woolf offering a critique of the family, with its gender assumptions American and Irish). A fuller account of modernism in literature,
and routine ordinariness. intent on re-reading the past, would want to look at writers such as
What has been said so far might create the impression that Woolf, H.D. (the American poet Hilda Doolittle), Gertrude Stein (the
as an important modernist writer, is, none the less, simply echoing American autobiographer, essayist and poet; see, in particular, Tender
the formal procedures and political and social concerns of the other Buttons, 1914, a work influenced by cubism), Dorothy Richardson (the
modernist writers we have discussed up to this point. But this is only English author of a sequence of thirteen novels called Pilgrimage, the
half the story. Woolfs unique importance lies in her recognition that first of which, Pointed Roofs, was published in 1913), Djuna Barnes (the
the traditional myths and structures have excluded women, they American author of Nightwood, 1936, an account of bohemian life in
have been excluded both from society and from writing in their own Europe in the inter-war years), and Harriet Monroe (the American
voice. Her works, consequently, both her novels and her essays, poet and critic). It is significant that a number of these authors were
demand to be recognised as constituting a highly significant, indeed American women based in Europe; as with T. S. Eliot, they were
ground-breaking, feminist critique of the exclusion of women from external voices breaking into what might be regarded as someone
economic independence and education. This is the central theme of else's conversation. What becomes apparent when we list such
A Room of One's Own (1929), in which she analyses the figure of authors is not only the fact that it would be possible to read and inter-
'woman' both in male texts and in writings by women, and where she pret the modernist movement with different emphases, but also the
considers the broader issue of the ideological oppression of women. fact that American critics, and students, are likely to have different
In order to counter the suggestion that 'there has never been a points of reference in constructing a view of modernism. Time and
woman writer as great as Shakespeare', Woolf invents a sister for the time again in interpreting literature, what we see depends to a large
bard, Judith Shakespeare, and shows how she is destroyed by society. extent upon the position from which we decide to look. It might be
It is a characteristically challenging move on Woolfs part as she con- argued, indeed, that this was the main effect of modernism, to make
fronts patriarchy and its authoritarian power. If To the Lighthouse us aware of the way we look at the world, by changing it.
remains Woolfs most remarkable novel, A Room of One's Own is her
most enduring contribution to changing the ways in which we live
11te 1930s
and think today.
That, in tum, can alter how we respond and interpret the past. In Britain was not involved in a really major war for a hundred years
this chapter we have reproduced the standard view of the modernist from the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 to the outbreak of
movement, with Eliot and Joyce as the two dominant figures, while the First World War in 1914. It was a very different story in the first
Woolf is to some extent seen as a supplementary figure. But in a half of the twentieth century; just twenty-one years after the conclu-
movement such as modernism, which questions the inherited order sion of the First World War, the Second World War commenced in
of things, there are, as in the Romantic period, opportunities for a 1939. A war is often followed by a period of economic recession, with
wide variety of new and different voices to assert their presence. It a large surplus labour force seeking work, but generally the countries
would be possible to construct an account of modernism in literature of Western Europe have shown great strength in bouncing back to
262 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 263

good health after a conflict. This, however, was not the case in the the watersheds of history, after which people would never write
1920s and 1930s. Britain experienced a General Strike in 1926, and again as they had in the past. The 1930s, by contrast, was a decade of
1929 witnessed the Wall Street Crash and the start of the Great serious political tension, but in some ways an aftershock from the
Depression. Britain's second Labour government, with Ramsay First World War. Writing from the period tends, therefore, to be an
MacDonald as prime minister, had been elected in 1929, but in 1931 a attempt to engage with contemporary political tensions, rather than
National Government was formed under MacDonald (this was a amounting to a fundamental reconsideration of the nature of writ-
coalition government, a form of goverment that is only ever con- ing.
templated at a time of major crisis). In 1933 Hitler was appointed This is very clear in the early poems of W. H. Auden who, in the
Chancellor of Germany, in 1934 Stalin started a purge of his political late 1920s and the 1930s, was associated with a group of writers,
enemies in the USSR, while 1936 saw the outbreak of the Spanish including Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender, who were
Civil War. In 1938, the year of the Munich crisis, the British prime committed, at that time, to a Marxist social vision. Auden's poems
minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to Hitler's territorial demands from this decade deal directly with specific social and international
on Czechoslovakia, but in 1939, following the German invasion of crises. It is always a characteristic of a significant work of literature
Poland, Britain declared war on Germany. The Second World War that it will reflect the fears and anxieties of the period of its produc-
continued until 1945. tion, and this is sharply apparent in Auden, who deals with a world
It is against this background of political, social and economic that seems worryingly ready to embrace fascism and just as willing to
unrest that we need to evaluate the literature of this period, in partic- abandon consideration for the individual. We can see this in a poem
ular the works of the generation of writers that succeeded figures such as 'Spain 1937', where he can accurately be described as the voice
such as Eliot, Joyce and Woolf. Significant names associated with the of his generation:
1930s include W. H. Auden (Poems, 1930, and Look, Stranger!, 1936),
To-day the makeshift consolations; the shared cigarette;
Evelyn Waugh (Vile Bodies, 1930, and A Handfal of Dust, 1934), Noel
The cards in the candle-lit barn and the scraping concert,
Coward (Private Lives, 1930), Henry Green (Living, 1929), Aldous Huxley
The masculine jokes; to-day the
(Brave New World, 1932), George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and Fumbled and unsatisfactory embrace before hurting.
London, 1933), Christopher Isherwood (Mr Norris Changes Trains, 1935,
and Goodbye to Berlin, 1939). The decade also saw the publication of The stars are dead; the animals will not look:
early poems by Dylan Thomas, the debut of Samuel Beckett, with We are left alone with our day, and the time is short and
History to the defeated
Murphy (1938), and important works by Elizabeth Bowen, with The
May say Alas but cannot help or pardon.
Death of the Heart (1938), and Graham Greene, with Brighton Rock
(1938). Many of these authors are still known and widely read today,
but it is noteworthy that the decade produced no writer, with the A vivid sense of the political tensions of the 1930s is also apparent
possible exception of Auden, of the reputation of Eliot, Joyce or in the works of Christopher Isherwood, who worked as a teacher of
Woolf. A point that some critics would also make is that the new English in Berlin from 1930 to 1933. Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935) and
authors of this decade seem to have retreated from the kind of inno- Goodbye to Berlin (1939) are very direct accounts of a decadent Berlin in
vations that we associate with modernism. But literature is always a the last days of the Weimar Republic. In the latter work, in particular,
response, as well as a contribution, to the period of its production. It there is a sense ofliving on borrowed time. Stability and a sense of tra-
was the fundamental change that the First World War amounted to dition have been lost in the frenzied atmosphere of Berlin, which is a
that produced a fundamental change in literary form. This was one of modem city as we experience it in modernist texts. But such frivolity
264 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: Between the Wars 265

cannot last forever; in the background there is a sense of threat, of the missed if too much emphasis is placed on the more overtly political
Nazi party about to call a halt to the way of life described. What is texts. And even in the area of politics, a great many options were
also apparent in Goodbye to Berlin, however, is a contradiction that is available to writers. There is, for example, the emergence of the
repeatedly present in socialist writing from this period. The narrator dystopian novel. A dystopia is the opposite of utopia; the dystopian
of Goodbye to Berlin characterises himself in the following manner: 'I novel is not a report on a perfect country but a vision of the worst
am a camera with its shutter open . . .'. There is a detachment appar- possible state of affairs. There are nineteenth-century precedents for
ent throughout, a sense of an English observer who retains his indi- the dystopian novel, but it comes into its own in the 1930s with
viduality and will not become involved. It could be said that a great Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). The essence of Huxley's
deal of socialist writing from this period, including the works of method is to select tendencies evident in the society of his day and
Auden, is essentially little more than middle-class dabbling with then to work them through to a nightmare conclusion, showing a
working-class politics. In his later work, for example, Auden turns to society where any sense of individual freedom has been lost. It is an
Christianity, but is also interested in developing a philosophy of indi- approach echoed in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and also indi-
vidualism. Auden, Isherwood, and a number of their contempo- cates a concern that links many texts from the 1930s, which is that the
raries, such as Stephen Spender, Cecil Day Lewis and Louis MacNeice, modem state will increasingly neglect the rights and freedoms of the
seem to lose a sense of direction and relevance after the 193 os, in that individual. It is an understandable fear during the decade of fascism,
their personal concerns never really again coincide with the general but the fear really goes beyond the immediate issue of fascism, seeing
concerns of their contemporaries. an incompatibility between the interests of any modem state and the
In the thirties, however, there is evidence everywhere of a strong interests of the individual.
interest in social and political issues. It was in this decade that George The overall impact of the 1930s, therefore, is of a decade in which
Orwell started to write, works such as Down and Out in Paris and literature became increasingly concerned with contemporary politi-
London (1933) and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) looking at poverty in cal and social issues. In their own way, the plays of Noel Coward, and
modem life. Orwell also fought in the Spanish Civil War, reporting other texts from the 1930s, such as Richard Hughes's A High Wind in
on his experiences in Homage to Catalonia (1938). He is considered in Jamaica (1929) and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), are also obliquely
more detail in the next chapter, as he published his most important engaged with political questions. But the impression that the reader
works immediately after the Second World War. A novelist who possibly takes away from the 1930s is that there is not a clear-cut or
superficially seems to be working in a similar area to the social and discernible literary character to the decade. There are a lot of authors
political writers of the 1930s is Henry Green, but his works in fact we still read, but it is difficult to link them all together and arrange a
offer a far more oblique form of social commentary. Living has an sense of an overall pattern. It might be tempting to think that this is
industrial working-class setting, but Party Going (1939) takes place because the 1930s is still, in terms of literary history, a relatively
over the course of a few hours in a fog-bound London railway sta- recent decade, and that the job of sifting out what really matters has
tion. One of the things that is most distinctive about Green's novels not yet been completed. But it is actually a different consideration
is that he avoids the kind of rendering of consciousness that we see that we have to take account of. In the 1920s, the major texts of mod-
in, for example, the novels of Virginia Woolf. On the contrary, he ernism all have a family resemblance. But in the 1930s we possibly
relies upon the spoken words of his characters to convey a complex begin to witness the true aftermath of the First World War, which is
sense of social relations. the disintegration of a coherent culture. By the 1930s in Britain there
Green's novels indicate that writers were experimenting in a great is an unprecedented impression of literary fragmentation, with a
variety of ways in the 1930s, and that the complexity of the period is host of authors writing in different ways and adopting different
266 A Brief History of English Literature

stances. A sense of a main drive and purpose, and even a national

identity, has fragmented. This begins to explain why the last fifty
years of the twentieth century in Britain are characterised by an
unprecedented number of interesting works, but the absence of an
The Twentieth Century:
15
overall direction. The Second World War to the
End of the Millennium

Wartime and Post-War Britain

The Second World War, from 1939 to 1945, involved Britain and the
British Empire and Commonwealth, France, America, Russia and
China (the Allied powers) fighting Germany, Italy and Japan (the Axis
powers). This might, in Winston Churchill's memorable phrase,
legitimately be referred to as the British people's 'finest hour', but vic-
tory in the war could not disguise a fundamental problem in Britain.
The depression of the inter-war years meant that, in 1939, Britain
entered the war with limited resources; by the end of the war, the
country was virtually bankrupt. Financial and also political leader-
ship of the world now moved decisively to the United States.
In Britain, in the immediate post-war period, there was, however,
a spirit of optimism, a sense that the country was entering a new era
of prosperity. The post-war Labour government's creation of the
Welfare State, with what was, at that time, the finest free health ser-
vice in the world, offered the promise of a better life for everyone. But
so much of the country's economic power had been eroded that
there was never enough money to pay for the health, education and
welfare provision people had come to expect. Throughout the fifties,
sixties and seventies, with the British economy continuing to decline,
the country had to make a series of painful adjustments. Initially,
Britain had to accept that it was no longer a dominant player on the
world stage. As the years went by, it had to come to terms with the
fact that it was also on the margins of Europe; even at the start of the
twenty-first century, Britain still finds it impossible to define the
nature of its relationship with its European neighbours. Britain also

267
268 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 269

had to adjust to a new economic reality; that much of its industrial It is, of course, hard to make sense of recent history. But there is one
infrastructure was old and inefficient, that British working practices thing we can be sure of, which is that, in centuries to come, when his-
left a lot to be desired, and that, perhaps due to complacency, there torians look back at this period they will look at how events were
had never been enough investment in research, new plant and new reported in newspapers and on television, but they will also look at
skills. Such problems found vivid, even alarming, expression in the novels, poems and plays to capture a sense of the mood of the nation.
almost total decline of the British car industry in the 1980s. At a It is not that poets, playwrights and novelists are more astute social
rather more intangible level, Britain and the British people had to commentators than their journalistic contemporaries; indeed, more
adjust to a sense of national decline and loss of national self-confi- often than not they are probably unaware of the deeper resonances
dence; as sometimes happens, a sense of weakness can find expres- of their own works. But a literary text can often convey the deeper
sion in belligerence, lack of manners and aggression. currents of change and concern within a society; even unknowingly,
The last twenty years of the century - the years of the Thatcher, a literary text can touch on the issue behind the surface issue, the
Major and Blair governments - saw attempts to tackle some of story behind the story.
Britain's fundamental problems. The country's principal weakness We can start to appreciate the truth of this proposition if, initially,
was its economy. Margaret Thatcher as prime minister focused her we consider the literature of the Second World War and texts that
energies on revitalising the economy; keen to promote a competi- look back to the war. The point has often been made that the Second
tive, entrepreneurial society, there were times when she seemed World War did not lead to the production of the great, if painful,
utterly unconcerned with social welfare provision. In fact, two main poetry that we associate with the First World War. But this is under-
stances can be identified in British politics in the last twenty years of standable; there was not the same sense of an apocalypse, of being at
the twentieth century, both of which prioritised business: one group the end of everything. What we tend to witness, in the poetry of Keith
of politicians argued that the economy mattered, and that the bene- Douglas, Alun Lewis and Charles Causley, for example, is a sense of
fits of greater prosperity would work their way down through soci- individuals caught up in events that they can neither comprehend
ety, while another group maintained that economic prosperity could nor control; more often than not, they are decent people in a world
be the bedrock on which the government could gradually improve that has become indifferent to decency. There is something of this in
public services. The economic changes within Britain as a result of the increasingly highly regarded wartime fiction of the Anglo-Irish
these policies, accompanied by a sustained boom in the world econ- novelist Elizabeth Bowen. The Heat of the Day (1949) concerns a sus-
omy, meant that by the end of the twentieth century many people pected pro-German traitor, Robert Kelway, and his relationship with
enjoyed a standard of living that they could never have envisaged a divorcee, Stella Rodney, in wartime London. Stella is told about
fifty or even twenty-five years earlier. Robert's apparent crimes, but refuses to believe her informant.
Yet at the same time a feeling persisted that there was something Stella's son, Roderick, inherits an estate in Ireland, and then discovers
fundamentally wrong in Britain. It was clear that the health and edu- the uncomfortable truth about his parents' divorce. Another strand
cation services were far from satisfactory. Despite the fact that the in the novel involves Louie Lewis, a young woman whose adulterous
British people were working harder than ever before, poverty in some relationship results in the birth of a child.
areas of the country was as bad, if not worse, than ever. And people What the novel conveys is a sense of emotional dislocation. In a
were worried about levels of crime and social indiscipline. These are, time of war, old points of reference, old values and old convictions
of course, concerns that are felt in all countries, but in Britain there have gone. Readers today might be interested in the wartime setting of
was possibly the added feeling that the country had lost a sense of The Heat ofthe Day, but are likely to become more caught up in the lives
where it was heading; indeed, whether it was heading anywhere at all. of emotionally vulnerable and exposed characters. The influence of
270 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 271

Henry James, who frequently deals with innocent characters in a cor- interrogation, he eventually betrays Julia. She, he later discovers, has
rupt world, has often been noted, but whereas James deals with the similarly betrayed him. But it does not matter, for they no longer love
rottenness lurking in European civilisation, in Bowen's novel, as in each other; they love the party leader, Big Brother. In Orwell's novel,
her stories set in the London Blitz, Iry Gripped the Stairs (1946), there is surveillance and control of the individual are more extreme than they
an awareness that there are no secure places any more. In the First have ever been; the very notion of privacy and a private life is all but
World War, the battle was always elsewhere, but in the Second eliminated. In the post-war period Orwell's works were seen as refer-
World War, with aerial bombing of British cities, safe refuges were, ring to Russia and the form of Stalinist dictatorship associated with
literally and symbolically, being destroyed. Russia at that time, but it is now apparent that Nineteen Eighty-Four, in
It is a recurrent feature of British Second World War novels that particular, addresses a broader issue concerning the role of the mod-
they recall an order that used to exist. Evelyn Waugh's trilogy, Sword ern state. The ways in which the state intrudes in people's lives may
of Honour, features Guy Crouch back, a decent man who has no place be more subtle today than in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it is clear that it
in the modern world. The values he has lived by, including his is a text that with the passing of time becomes more rather than less
Catholicism, have no relevance in a world that has changed so much. relevant.
The Sword of Honour trilogy is made up of Men at Arms (1952), Officers
and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961). Together the
Drama
three can be described as a roman fleuve, a series of novels, each of
which may be read separately but which constitute a continuous nar- What connects many of the novels written during the Second World
rative. As a genre, it is quietly traditional; in a steady and coherent War and novels looking back to the war is an emphasis on an order
way, the novels in a roman fleuve explore the extended moral and that has fallen or is falling apart, and on the exposed individuals who
social development of an individual over a long period. It is a genre then have to make the best of their lives in this unstable society. In
that is most associated with the Second World War and the years addition, there are some novels, as is the case with Nineteen Eighty-
immediately before and after. Another example is Olivia Manning's Four, that look at the structures likely to be established by politicians
The Balkan Trilogy (1960-5), which deals with the lives of British expa- to fill the void; a state of chaos is acknowledged, but the literary text
triates before and during the German invasion of the Balkans in 1941. then speculates on how that chaos is to be managed. These concerns
The most ambitious British roman fleuve is Anthony Powell's A Dance that are evident in fiction obviously reflect a broader debate that was
to the Music ofTime (1951-75), several volumes of which are set during being conducted in all areas oflife in a country that had lost its world
the Second World War. The appeal of all these novels lies in the ten- role and lost a sense of purpose and direction. When values are
sion between the moral perspective they seek to maintain and the changing rapidly, however, it is the theatre that can often stage the
extreme threat to any moral code posed by war. most effective debate about the state of the nation, capturing and
If an old structure of values disappears, however, the modern state showing a state of flux. This is certainly the case in Britain over a peri-
is likely to move in to fill the void with its own rules and systems of od of about twenty years that begins with John Osborne's Look Back
regulation. George Orwell's most famous works, Animal Farm (1945) in Anger in 1956.
and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), dystopian fantasies about totalitarian Having said that, however, it seems sensible to start with the major
states, both focus on the limitations on individual freedom that could playwright who transcends these, perhaps insular, concerns. Samuel
occur in the near future. The story of Nineteen Eighty-Four takes place Beckett is, intriguingly, equally an Anglo-Irish and a French writer.
in a Britain that is now part of a European superstate. Winston Smith Born near Dublin, Beckett made his home in France in the 1930s
transgresses state rules by having a love affair with Julia Smith. Under where he wrote two full-length novels (Murphy, 1938; Watt, 1953) in
272 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 273

English, together with the trilogy Molloy (1951), Malone Meurt (1951, impression of writing after the Holocaust. In Endgame (in French 1957,
Malone Dies) and L'Innommable (1953, The Unnamable) in French. Like in English 1958) Nag and Nell, two elderly characters, spend the
Joyce, by whom he was influenced, Beckett uses interior monologue whole play in dustbins. The play takes place in a single room. At its
as his major device to convey his sense of a bleak world in which all centre is the blind Hamm, totally dependent on his servant Clov.
are isolated. It would, therefore, be reasonable to refer to Beckett as a Outside the room is a wasteland. In Happy Days (1961) Winnie is
modernist writer, someone engaged in experimenting with language buried up to her middle in a mound of earth, and unable to move. In
and literary form in a self-conscious, sometimes parodic way. There Not I (1973) a disembodied monologue is delivered and all that the
are, however, significant differences between Joyce and Beckett. audience see is a 'Mouth'. Time and time again the impression creat-
Where we might feel that Joyce is writing in a real context, making ed by the plays is of a sense of desolation and sparseness as the char-
references to real history and a particular culture - Ireland in the acters, like the audience, struggle with the incomprehensibility of
1920s - Beckett seems to belong more to the postmodern world. This their world where there seems no future and no past, only a kind of
is the world after the Second World War, a world haunted by its constant waiting in desperate hope. Equally, language is reduced to
knowledge of nuclear war. circularity and repetition, and isolation becomes the norm.
The writers looked at so far are; for the most part, caught up in the Beckett shows us the world that we have come to inherit. Like
void of the Second World War and its aftermath, but there is a way in many great writers, he seems to see around the comer of time, antic-
which Beckett takes us beyond this moment to a much more trou- ipating what is to come or to be. He belongs to the second half of the
bling vision where everything has been utterly changed. The most twentieth century, but, moving between French, Irish, and British
obvious place he does this is in his plays which, though related to the identities, remains oddly elusive. There is, however, also a great deal
novels, strike a different note. The plays belong to what, since of interest in those writers who can be placed rather more neatly in a
Beckett, has been called the Theatre of the Absurd, a term used to particular cultural context and a very specific time slot, as in the case
describe plays where the main feeling of the audience is one of baf- with John Osborne and Look Back in Anger. First staged in 1956, the
flement as they face a world on stage where there is no logic to events year of the Suez Crisis, which marked the end of British imperialism
or human behaviour: human life seems absurd in its disjointedness in the Middle East, and which can also be seen as a final empty, and
and meaninglessness. In Waiting for Godot (1952), two tramps, humiliating, attempt by Britain to play a major role on the world
Estragon and Vladimir, wait for Godot, who never comes. We do not stage, the play created a tremendous stir. At the time it was described
find out who he is. The characters fill their time by playing word as a 'kitchen-sink' drama. Audiences at the Royal Court theatre where
games. Pozzo and his slave Lucky arrive, but they are not Godot. A it was staged were used to polite drawing-room comedies, but
boy announces that Godot will not be coming that day. In Act Two, Osborne, as was also the case in the plays of Arnold Wesker and
the tree that is bare at the start of Act One has leaves, but almost Shelagh Delaney, put a new emphasis on domestic realism and
everything else is the same. What the play adds up to is a bleak vision everyday life and language. Suddenly the theatre reflected, in a way
of life; it is, at once, both comic and terrifying. that had not previously been the case, post-war life in ordinary
With Waiting for Godot Beckett changed modem drama forever, Britain.
and changed, too, our perception of the world. This has to do with The play tells the story of the marital conflicts of Jimmy Porter and
the way in which Beckett captures not so much local events at a par- his middle-class wife Alison, intensified by the presence of their
ticular time as a deeper shift in feeling. In brief, what Beckett conveys lodger Cliff and the visit of Alison's friend Helena. Sentimental and
is the deep sense of anxiety that marks the second half of the twenti- violent, Jimmy drives Alison out, but she returns after a miscarriage.
eth century. That sense of anxiety is connected in the plays with an The play ends with a kind of reconciliation. The plot, however, is not
274 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 275

the main interest. Our attention focuses on the character of Jimmy, a of a sane or healthy society emerging. Rather, the sense is of individ-
new sort of hero. University-educated, he now works on a sweet stall, uals trying to gain some assurance about their existence, but never
and much of the play consists of his attacks on British society. His able to articulate their needs. Their words, and language generally,
speeches, along with his education, position him outside the usual become part of the menace and violence they are seeking to escape,
working-class stereotype; consequently, he seems to belong nowhere. but from which escape is impossible.
For Jimmy, the old structure has disappeared, and the result is that he If Pinter's plays are comic, they are so in an uncomfortable way.
is an isolated figure without any place. But his bullying attitude This may be because they deal so often with people who are almost
towards women is revealing. Cut off from his own class, he seeks reas- normal, with very ordinary lives, living on the edge of violence. In
surance in the old-fashioned pattern of a gender relationship in which Act Two of The Caretaker Mick's spring-cleaning in a darkened room
he can at least dominate women. The contradiction between Jimmy's with a vacuum cleaner proves to be a moment of pure terror for a
analysis of social ills and his shocking treatment of his wife, which, it tramp, Davies, who has been invited into the house by Mick's
must be said, was not readily apparent to audiences at the time of the brother. As Mick explains, however, the cleaner has to be plugged
plays first performance, suggests something of the turmoil of the into the light socket, throwing the room into darkness, before the
1950s. Britain emerged from the war years without any clear convic- bulb is put back. The noise terrifies Davies so much that he stands
tions about new directions or new forms of politics that might guide flat against the wall, knife in hand:
the country towards new ways of thinking about how to order soci-
ety. Jimmy is full of a certain kind of energy, but energy that is frittered I was just doing some spring cleaning . ... There used to be a wall plug for
away in empty speeches; he talks, but he is incapable of action. this electrolux. But it doesn't work. I had to fit it in the light socket ....
How do you think the place is looking? I gave it a good going over.
The sense of isolated individuals that is conveyed in Look Back in
Anger is present as well, in a very destructive way, in Harold Pinter's Pause
plays, which can be associated with the Theatre of the Absurd, and We take it in turns, once a fortnight, my brother and me, to give the place
which clearly owe a debt to Beckett. Pinter's first play, The Room, was a thorough going over. I was working late tonight, I only just got here. But
performed in 1957, followed by The Birthday Party the next year, The I thought I better get on with it, as it's my tum.
Caretaker in 1960 and The Homecoming in 1965. Other plays have fol-
lowed, but it is these early plays that are generally recognised as The language is mundane and unremarkable, with Mick, engrossed
Pinter's special contribution to modern drama, in which menace and in his own actions, indifferent to the fear Davies is experiencing. The
violence constantly threaten the characters' lives. The plays are oddly familiar domestic world remains in place, but its most familiar rou-
realistic in so far as they are concerned with social relationships and tines are now associated with unpredictable, if improbable, threats of
in their expression of the difficulties of communication between violence.
people. The characteristic Pinteresque exchange is one of silences In a different kind of play, Tom Stoppard in Rosencrantz and
and pauses, just as the characteristic Pinteresque setting is a room Guildenstern are Dead (1966) focuses on little men in a world beyond
where people retreat from the world that threatens them, although their comprehension. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the two
the nature of this threat is never clearly defined. There is, too, some- courtiers in Shakespeare's Hamlet who serve as spies on the Prince for
thing characteristically Pinteresque about the obsessive behaviour of the King. Stoppard moves these peripheral characters from the mar-
his characters and their disturbed mental states. What Pinter presents gins to centre stage, so that we come to see Hamlet from their power-
is a world where people seem locked in their own non-communicat- less position, and, if we know Shakespeare's play, with an awareness
ing lines of thought, or in fantasies, so that there is never any chance that they will die, as they are overtaken by events over which they
276 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 277

have no control and of which they have very little understanding. A the obedient wife from one of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - are brought
different slant is found in Joe Orton's plays. Starting with Entertaining into the everyday world of contemporary women to set up an extra-
Mr Sloane (1964), Loot (1965) and then What the Butler Saw (1969), Orton ordinary dialogue about oppression and the struggle waged by
confronted audiences with a picture of bizarre people with bizarre women across the years for recognition. In the 'Top Girls' employ-
lives, as he mocked the remnants of a moral order. The odd thing ment agency Louise is looking for a new job after twenty years in the
with Orton is that, although these plays proved controversial at the same firm:
time of their first performance, nobody today would seem very con-
I've spent twenty years in middle management. I've seen young men go
cerned about things that people found shocking at that time. It is as
on, in my own company or elsewhere, to higher things. Nobody notices
if once a framework of values goes, that framework loses all rele- me, I don't expect it, I don't attract attention by making mistakes, every-
vance in people's lives. body takes it for granted that my work is perfect.
This helps us understand why there is such a strong sense of
decline and drift in post-war drama. There are, none the less, power- Louise's words seem to sum up the whole course of history for women:
ful political writers at work in the British theatre who meet the chal- it is assumed that they will always play the role expected of them to
lenge of examining the 'state of the nation' in an era of decline. We perfection, but they are always seen as inferior to men and, conse-
can mention David Hare's plays, including Plenl)I (1978) and Murdering quently, denied opportunities for self-fulfilment. But Louise's desire to
Judges (1991), and David Edgar's That Summer (1987), about the miners' move on is a recognition of the way in which people, and especially
strike in Britain in 1984-5. Such plays might seem essentially topical, women, in the late twentieth century can embrace a new position.
reflecting British life at a particular moment, but they also have a Churchill, as such, articulates not just a sense of the past but also a sense
wider relevance in identifying the damaged state of the social body in of how the social order might be reconstructed differently.
Britain in the years between 1950 and 2000. This is particularly clear
in the violent plays of Edward Bond. In Saved (1965) it is urban vio-
Novels
lence that Bond dramatises, shocking audiences with the stoning to
death of a baby, but it is his Lear (1971), a rewriting of Shakespeare's The earlier novels of Doris Lessing, from 1951 to 1969, offer perhaps
King Lear, but even more provocatively cruel than the original work, the most vivid, if indirect, evidence of how and why people's lives
that sums up the state of modern society as Bond sees it. If Beckett changed in the first twenty-five years after the Second World War.
seeks to convince us of the absurdity of contemporary twentieth- Her first novel The Grass is Singing (1951), set in Southern Rhodesia
century society, Bond seeks to show us its appalling and meaningless (now Zimbabwe), focuses on the marriage of Mary and Richard
cruelty. Turner, and the murder of Mary by Moses, the African servant with
Behind Bond's play, as is the case with the works of Pinter, Hare whom she has been sleeping. British fiction over the years has con-
and Edgar, lies a recognition of the collapse of old structures of order, sistently returned to, or at the very least included references to, colo-
but also an awareness of the continuing grip of the past on the pre- nial settings. It makes one realise the extent to which the English over
sent. As old structures disappear, including the traditional authority a long period depended on the empire for a sense of self-definition;
of masculinity, some dramatists, however, do seek to move forward Englishness was defined both on the basis of difference and on the
and adopt new positions. This is evident in the works of the feminist basis of being at a centre where everything else was peripheral. There
dramatist Caryl Churchill. Her best-known plays are Top Girls (1982) are those who argue that with the collapse of an imperial role, most
and her satire on the Thatcher years, Serious Montry (1987). In Top Girls, obviously with the withdrawal of the British from India in 1947, the
women from history- for example, Pope Joan and Patient Griselda, English were left without any way of defining their identity.
278 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 279

The Grass is Singing is a novel that considers the essential frailty and their reversion to savagery; as such, it is another novel that considers
emptiness of colonial power, conveying the sterility and hypocrisy of the frailty of the structure of civilisation. And as in a great many
the lives of the settlers. The novel starts with the mere facts of the modern texts, we are always only a step away from violence.
murder, as reported by the local newspaper; it then goes on to Characteristically in his novels, Golding speculates on whether there
explore the story behind the headline. There is, throughout the novel, is any meaning in existence. The Spire (1964) is about a man driven to
a sense of a colonial order that has been imposed upon Africa with- build an immense spire for a cathedral; it is to the glory of God, but
out any regard for the land or the native people. It might be felt, of also a hare-brained scheme. There is a nicely poised ambivalence in
course, that as a novel about Southern Africa The Grass is Singing has the work, Golding wavering between commitment to religious belief
little to do with post-war Britain, but what we see here is something and scepticism. In Darkness Visible (1979) a horribly disfigured child
that will be repeated over and over again, and that still continues emerges from the wartime bombing of London. The child, Matty, is
today. Just as the English always relied upon the empire to define convinced that he has been put on earth for a purpose. This seems to
their national characteristics, the British novel has continued to call be the case when, towards the end of the novel, he saves the life of
upon outside perspectives in order to discuss Britain. Writers from another child. His action stands as an illustration of the power oflove
India and Ireland, in particular, have played a central role in British as a force in the world. But any impression that we are being offered
culture since the Second World War; reflecting on their own post- a fable with a positive message is countered by the overall effect of
colonial nations, they inevitably acknowledge the country that has, Darkness Visible, which confronts us with a dark, violent and essen-
for better or for worse, been part of their own history. In The Grass is tially meaningless world.
Singing, however, the connection is more straightforward; the British A criticism that can be levelled against Golding's novels is one that
settlers live out a pale parody of Englishness, the defining feature of relates to a great deal of modern British fiction. This is that, although
which is their racist contempt for the Africans. Golding can engage with the present, he is always looking back, rec-
After The Grass is Singing, Lessing, in a five-volume sequence of nov- ollecting old ways of structuring the world. This is a criticism that
els entitled Children of Violence, tracks the life of a character called can be applied to the novels of John Fowles, in particular The French
Martha Quest. The five novels are Martha Quest (1952), A Proper Lieutenant's Woman (1969), which at the time of its publication seemed
Marriage (1954), A Ripple from the Storm (1958), Landlocked (1965) and The so innovatory. A modern narrator writes a Victorian novel about the
Four-Gated City (1969). The novels deal with Martha's childhood on a relationship between Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, who
farm in Southern Rhodesia, her involvement in left-wing politics, her has previously been involved with a French sailor. The narrator
marriage, her life in post-war Britain, through to an apocalyptic end- stresses the gap between the framework of secure beliefs the
ing in the year 2000. The pattern is that Martha, seeking something, Victorians needed and the uncertainties of modern life. But Fowles's
moves through a series of structures, or temporary solutions, all of experimental narrative method cannot conceal the fact that his own
which prove unsatisfactory. When it comes down to it, there is just convictions are essentially traditional; that he is a middle-class, liber-
her dislocated individual conscience, but Lessing is also trying to al author, and that he desires and wishes to possess his heroine every
grasp how the individual will relates to and engages with larger his- bit as much as his hero Charles does. Fowles, it is clear, cannot detach
torical and political realities. Similar themes are explored in The himself from a male-centred, literary and very English way of judging
Golden Notebook (1962). life.
William Golding is another writer who, sometimes directly and An inability to break free from old ways of looking is at the very
sometimes indirectly, considers the post-war world. Lord of the Flies heart of Graham Swift's Waterland (1983). A middle-aged history
(1954) looks at a group of schoolboys marooned on an island and teacher is facing redundancy; history is not going to be taught any
280 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 281

more. He tells the story of his life, telling it in the same way that he mainstream of white, middle-class, male-authored works have in
has told stories about the past to his audience of school children. In a recent times struggled to add anything new to the tradition of fiction,
history lesson, as in his own life, he deals with violence, suffering and outsiders have found new ways of looking and in doing so have
tragedy, but a story imposes coherence, and, as such, a sense of com- reformed the English novel.
fort, on chance events. The teacher knows, however, that he is a Novels by women writers who have absorbed and been shaped by
middle-aged Englishman, and that there is, therefore, something that the emergence of a feminist discourse over the past thirty years pro-
belongs to the past and that is too insular about the narratives he vide the clearest examples of genuinely new voices in fiction. Angela
constructs. But what alternative is there? How can an English author Carter, before her premature death in 1992, wrote novels, short sto-
break free from old ways of seeing, and, more generally, how can ries, film scripts, polemic and journalism. Her novels include The
English fiction break free from received ways of telling a story? Passion of New Eve (1977) and Wise Children (1987), but in all her work
It is a problem that Martin Amis engages with in his novels. In there is a subversive playfulness and theatricality. Nights at the Circus
works such as Money (1984) and London Fields (1989), Amis paints a (1984), her eighth novel, concerns Fevvers, a circus artist, and Walser,
picture of Britain during the Thatcher years, with characters cynical- a journalist who hopes to debunk the improbable stories about her
ly pursuing their own interests in a society where both culture and life. In the inventive manner that characterises her novels, Carter
compassion are redundant concepts. But what really distinguishes plays with fantasy and narrative points of view. The effect is that,
Amis's novels is that he narrates in the voice of this society, repro- rather than Walser debunking Fevvers, traditional patriarchal ways
ducing, albeit in a stylised manner, the discourses of contemporary of telling a story and ordering the world are debunked. It is a tactic
English and American life. The effect is that modern life appears to be that extends into Carter's treatment of sexuality, the behaviour and
looked at from the perspective of the present rather than through the motives of her characters eluding received categorisations. There is a
lens of an inherited style. Amis's detractors, however, question his rather similar quality in the novels of Jeanette Winterson, such as
originality, arguing that the word-play in his novels cannot conceal a Oranges are Not the On!Y Fruit (1985), an account of a girl's upbringing
curmudgeonly contempt for modem life that echoes the stance in by her Evangelical adopted mother and her decision in her teens to
the novels of his father, Kingsley Amis. As a member of the literary come out as a lesbian. Interestingly, this is more than a case of male
establishment, Martin Amis, they would argue, can offer nothing religious authority being set against the girl's emotional instinct; on
more than the mannerisms of something new. the contrary, the eccentricity of the cult members seems to fuel the
A different level of inventiveness is found in the works of a long girl's unconventionality.
list of writers who are outsiders in one way or another. The first evi- Other outsiders who are, at the same time, also heirs to the English
dence of this is found in working-class novels of the post-war period, tradition in the novel are Scottish, Welsh and Irish authors; these are
such as Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958), which writers who seem to speak the same language as everyone else but
tells the story of a factory worker, Arthur Seaton, whose aspirations who actually have a distinctive voice, and stance, of their own. This
do not rise above the pursuit of drink and women. The attraction of can be seen in James Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late (19 95).
Sillitoe's novel is that it offers a different perspective on English life; Kelman, a Scottish nationalist, relies upon an aggressive Glasgow
the fact that it deploys, very convincingly, a working-class voice. Perhaps the biggest impression in recent years, however, has
Nottingham voice brings to life the point that there are many voices been made by writers whose roots are elsewhere or who, as residents
present within Britain, and that a different voice sees the world in a of other countries, continue to be affected by the legacy of British
different way. Doris Lessing, as a woman from Southern Africa, is an colonial rule. V. S. Naipaul is the author of works such as The Mystic
outsider in a similar way. Indeed, it can be argued that, whereas a Masseur (1957) and A House for Mr Biswas (1961). His novels illustrate a
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282 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 283

constant theme in postcolonial fiction, which is finding an appropri- a subtle expression of the changing mood ofBritain in the decades fol-
ate tradition in which to write. This is also a central issue in the novels lowing the end of the Second World War. Larkin's near-contempo-
of Salman Rushdie (discussed in the Postscript). The postcolonial nov- rary Ted Hughes, particularly in Crow (1970), is a different kind of poet,
elist, reflecting on the nature of the authority implicit in European with a consistent strain of violence in his work; in particular, he sets
narrative forms, puts himself or herself in a position where, in estab- the savagery of nature against the pretensions of civilisation.
lishing a distance from the received tradition, observations, implicit or Hughes was married to Sylvia Plath, whose real place is in a
explicit, can be made both upon the nature of English fiction and history of American literature, but who, as a more radical and
upon the nature of English thought and behaviour. We can see this in disturbing poet than her husband, stands as a good example of how
Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1989), a postcolonial novel of an outsider can manage to speak in a new voice. In the case of Plath,
manners that dissects the structure and meaning of Englishness in a this was a matter of being both an American and a woman. Stevie
way that is only possible for a writer looking in from outside. Smith, whose Collected Poems were published in 1975, was a woman
writer who could produce poems with a discomforting emphasis on
sexual anxiety, something that combines uneasily in her work with
Poetry
an ambivalence towards Christianity. Smith can, in fact, be located in
The point has sometimes been made that English literature in the sec- a tradition in poetry by women in which private, suppressed, and in
ond half of the twentieth century lacks major figures. It is, perhaps, a sense unsanctioned, feelings are allowed to intrude into what looks
easy to see why. The story of English literature, particularly from the like a well-mannered poem; there is a break of decorum, but a break
sixteenth through to the nineteenth century, is a story that coincides of decorum with fascinating implications.
with the rise of Britain as the dominant world power. In the twenti- We can see this today in the poems of Carol Ann Duffy (see Selected
eth century, with that rule ceded to the USA, Britain became a signif- Poems, 1994), particularly in her disturbing dramatic monologues.
icant but second-rate power. It is, though, unfair, and certainly too These lines are from Warming Her Pearls', a poem about a maid who
glib a generalisation, to describe British literature in the second half has to wear her mistress's pearls to warm them before they are put on:
of the twentieth century as significant but just a little second-rate. If
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
we turn now to consider poets in this period, what we repeatedly wit-
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
ness is the arrival of outsiders with new voices who have enlivened
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
and redirected English poetry. round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,
This is not entirely a recent phenomenon. In the era of modernism,
the two most significant poets, Eliot and Yeats, were both outsiders resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
injecting something new into British culture. Alongside their original- or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
ity and ambition, the poems of, perhaps the most distinctively English
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.
poet in the post-war period, Philip Larkin, appear modest and unas- (IL 1-8)
suming. His poems, in collections including The Less Deceived (1955), The
Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974), characteristically Duffy's skill lies in the way she manages to invest simple, mundane
touch on the pathos and humour of everyday experience; ordinary details and words with both a sensuality and a kind of erotic menace.
lives are described in a fairly direct style. It is easy to be dismissive of The 'slow heat' that enters each pearl infuses it with an impregnating
Larkin, but his carefully constructed poems, with layer upon layer of life, while the 'rope' suggests an uneasy link between the voyeuristic
complexity in their depiction of contemporary English life, represent love of the maid and death. The poem seems to encourage this sort of
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284 A Brief History of English Literature The Twentieth Century: To the End of the Millennium 285

over-reading through its careful pacing of the speaking voice in century, however, has originated from Northern Ireland, with three
hushed tones. It is a voice that mimics the burning desire of the quite outstanding poets, Seamus Heaney (discussed in the Postscript
Petrarchan lover as in, for example, Wyatt's sonnet Whoso List to to this book), Derek Mahon and Paul Muldoon. The vitality of poetry
Hunt', but in this case the desire is not simply illicit but arousing. from Northern Ireland is more than a matter of chance. Poetry, more
Dylan Thomas was another writer who breached poetic decorum. than any other art form, has always reflected on adversity and suffer-
Thomas (Collected Poems, 1953) adopts an elaborate, rhetorical style for ing. The 'Troubles' that have affected Northern Ireland since the
poems that celebrate natural energy and the emotions. The critical 1960s are, in fact, not often dealt with directly in poetry, but a
disparagement Thomas has received over the years is interesting; he Northern Ireland poet cannot avoid being aware that it is a country
has often been slated for adopting an exaggerated Celtic pose, but that is, at the same time, a part of the United Kingdom and not part
this metropolitan dismissiveness is a way of overlooking the fact of the United Kingdom. A Northern Ireland poet, as such, is interest-
that, like a postcolonial writer, Thomas, as a Welshman writing in ingly placed as an outsider; to a certain extent, whatever a poet in
English, must not only negotiate a relationship with the English tra- Northern Ireland writes about, he or she is also writing about how
dition but also be true to his sense of the feelings he recognises in his the province relates to Britain yet also relates to the Irish Republic.
own culture (which might be unlike the natural reserve of the Consequently, although a writer such as Paul Muldoon may have
English). There is a similar dimension in the poems of R. S. Thomas, little to say directly in his poetry about local political issues, a certain
a clergyman, writing in North Wales, who died in 2000. Superficially, tension is always present. One of Muldoon's finest poems is 'Cuba':
Thomas's poems (Selected Poems, 1946-1968, 1973, and Later Poems: A
Selection, 1983) might appear to be inconsequential descriptions of My eldest sister arrived home that morning
Welsh farm life, but implicit in the poems is an awareness of a huge In her white muslin evening dress.
'Who the hell do you think you are,
cultural distance between Wales and England, the danger being that
Running out to dances in next to nothing?
Englishness will consume another culture, another way of life and
As though we hadn't enough bother
even another language within the British Isles. With the world at war, if not at an end.'
Scottish poetry has always been characterised by figures who, like My father was pounding the breakfast-table.
R. S. Thomas in Wales, wish to register and maintain their distance
Those Yankees were touch and go as it was -
from the English. A notable example is Hugh MacDiarmid
If you'd heard Patton at Armagh -
(1892-1978), who in a long career focused on the use of the Scots ver-
But this Kennedy's nearly an Irishman
nacular as a modern literary language. Black writers, both in Britain So he's not much better than ourselves.
or in a post-colonial setting, can also present a distinctive sense of the And him only to say the word.
relationship between a dominant culture and those who are outside If you've got anything on your mind
the cultural consensus. This is evident in the poems of Derek Maybe you should make your peace with God.'
Walcott, in a volume such as The Castaway (1965), and, more recently
I could hear Mary from beyond the curtain.
in the poems of Linton Kwesi Johnson. Born in Jamaica, but coming 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
to Britain at the age of nine, Johnson writes what is essentially per- I told a lie once, I was disobedient once.
formance poetry, dealing with issues of race and social problems, but And, Father, a boy touched me once.'
relying for its effectiveness on the use of a voice that seems close to a Tell me, child. Was this touch immodest?
disaffected London street-voice. Did he touch your breast, for example?'
Perhaps the most interesting British poetry of the last quarter of a 'He brushed against me, Father. Very gently.'
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286 A Brief History of English Literature

The poem reflects on the hold of the church, the family, the father
and her brother over the young woman. As is the case with so much
modern writing, it examines how, in an age when individuals seem to
have more freedom, old structures of authority, and power, includ-
16 Postscript
ing the legacy of colonialism and, as we look to the future, American
colonialism, still affect and constrain people's lives. There is a sense
of how the past manages to maintain its hold over the present, frus-
trating a movement forward.
The Twenty-First Century
It is far too early to write about the literature of the present century.
It is possible, however, to forecast directions and concerns. When we
look at the texts produced at the end of the nineteenth century, we
can see how they are beginning to explore the issues and to adopt the
formal approaches that will become central in the modernist era. In
a similar way, books produced at the end of the twentieth century
have laid trails that writers are likely to pursue in the opening decades
of the twenty-first century.
The first point it is necessary to come to terms with is that the
United States, rather than Britain, is, and will continue to be, the cen-
tre for books written in English. Indeed, these days it is essential to
register the difference between English Literature and Literature in
English. This book has focused on English Literature, but in the
future it might become the standard approach to focus on the
tremendous variety of works from many countries that happen to be
written in English. Against this broader background, we suggest -
although we might be proved totally wrong - that it is unlikely that a
major English novelist, poet or playwright will emerge in the course
of the next twenty years. If a major writer does emerge in Britain, this
will be an outsider in some way, a writer with a far from straightfor-
ward connection with the dominant literary tradition (for example, it
could be a Welsh, Scottish or Irish author). Writers such as Peter
Ackroyd, Julian Barnes and Will Self are interesting, but it is difficult
to see them providing a fresh direction for the novel in the same way
that, for example, Joyce changed it in 1922 with the publication of
Ulysses; they are essentially extending the tradition rather than chang-
ing it. This, however, is a state of affairs that we have grown used to

287
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288 A Brief History of English Literature Postscript 289

in Britain, just as we have grown used to the fact that the vacuum at (1988), a novel about modern-day Pakistan that led to demands for
the centre of British literary culture creates all kinds of opportunities the book to be banned and to death threats to Rushdie that forced
for writers on the margins. For example, a work such as Trainspotting him to go into hiding for a number of years. In the West, the response
(1993), by Irvine Welsh, who is Scottish, dealing with an Edinburgh- to Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses is rather different. The
based drug culture, confronts us with the diversity of modern Britain. Western reader is interested in the representations of the societies
This kind of novel. however, although important and popular, is depicted, but is also conscious of how the structure of the novels
usually a fairly modest project. reflects on how we order experience; this is echoed in the way that
In this respect, Welsh's novels can be contrasted with the novels of Rushdie's analysis of Asian society alerts us to the nature of the val-
Salman Rushdie. When Midnight's Children (1981) appeared, there was ues and codes we construct in our own society. There is a similar
an immediate realisation that this was a major text and, in an ambi- effect of dealing primarily with Indian life but also, in the process,
tious way, quite unlike anything published before. Midnight's Children offering an oblique commentary on British life and the English novel,
is a history of India since independence, this story coinciding with in the works of two more outstanding Indian novelists, albeit that
the narrator's personal history: Saleem Sinai was born on 15 August Vikram Seth, in A Suitable Boy (1993) and Arundhati Roy, in The God of
1947, in the first hour that an independent India came into existence. Small Things (1997), employ a rather more traditional manner of nar-
When the novel, a Western European genre, usually focusing on the ration than Rushdie.
relationship between individuals and society, is relocated in a differ- A fuller account of current literature would also demand consider-
ent geographical and cultural context, it either lamely echoes the ation of a number of Black-British and Asian-British writers. Caryl
original model. or, as is the case with Midnight's Children, mutates into Phillips, born in St Kitts, but who has lived in Britain since childhood,
something different. Rushdie does not offer a linear, realistic history has produced novels focusing on colonialism and the legacy of colo-
of modern India. On the contrary, employing an approach that nialism. These include The Final Passage (1985), A State of Independence
might be referred to as fabulation or magic realism, he presents a (1986), Cambridge (1991) and The Nature of Blood (1997). While Phillips's
bizarre, disconcerting tale, with strange characters, odd events, and works move back and forth between Britain and the West Indies,
plot developments that defy any conventional logic. Rushdie's Hanif Kureishi, with an English mother and a Pakistani father, who
approach to narration establishes a distance from the conventions of has written plays, the screenplay of My Beautiful Laundrette (filmed
Western story-telling, an approach that is relevant to his subject mat- 1985), and novels including The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), The Black
ter as a history of India inevitably must dwell on the continuing rami- Album (1995) and Intimacy (1998), focuses more on cross-generational
fications of the relationship between the coloniser and the differences in multicultural Britain. These can take a surprising form.
colonised. A central aspect of this is linguistic, Midnight's Children Kureishi's screenplay My Son the Fanatic (1998) deals with the conflict
exploring the divergence between Western and Indian forms of the between a liberal-minded immigrant and his son, who is a funda-
English language. mentalist convert. Buchi Emecheta, born in Nigeria, moved to
The result is a book that belongs in two traditions. Midnight's London at the age of twenty. Her novels include In the Ditch (1972), The
Children belongs in the history of Indian literature, but it also belongs Bride Price (1976), and Gwendolen (1989). The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
in the history of English literature. It does justice to Indian history, deals with the struggles of Nnu Ego to raise a family; in looking at her
but also, both in terms of its formal and structural qualities and in its as the mother of nine children, the novel amounts to an account of
subject matter, reflects back on the West. In the East, the political her long martyrdom. As with Emecheta's other novels, also set in
implications of Rushdie's work have received most attention, some- West Africa, there is both compassion and anger in her advocacy of
thing that certainly proved to be the case with The Satanic Verses women's rights. There are, obviously, enormous differences between
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290 A Brief History of English Literature Postscript 291

Phillips, Kureishi and Emecheta (differences that are to some extent subjects including Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995) and Thomas
defined by where they choose to locate the events that take place in More (1998), and, curiously but very interestingly, a biography of
their works), but in the case of all three we can see the complexity of London (2000). These are always mould-breaking biographies, in
the relationship when one social and cultural tradition encounters which, alongside meticulous research, Ackroyd does not hesitate to
another social and cultural tradition. employ the imaginative approach of a novelist. The result, to a
If one element in current English literature is the kind of tangential greater extent than in a conventional biography, is an active sense of
perspective encountered in the works of these Asian and Black novel- how the past connects with, yet is different from, the present. Among
ists, another is looking back. The British have never been as obsessed other novelists who look at the past in the manner outlined here are
with history as they are at the start of the twenty-first century. If, in Barry Unsworth (Saaed Hunger, 1993), Sebastian Faulks (Birdsong,
1947, Britain began to lose its identity as a colonial power, for some 1993), Pat Barker (The Regeneration Trilogy, 1996), and Michael Ondaatje
years it has, often reluctantly, been trying to adjust to or work out a (The English Patient, 1993).
new sense of itself as a nation state within Europe. If, at the moment, If there is one period that is returned to more than any other it is
the British are uncertain about quite who they are and where they the four years of the First World War. That is the moment when
stand (particularly following devolution and the continuing debate Britain was still a great power but also started to lose its status as a
about Europe), it is the past that can help give some meaning to the world power. The novel in Western Europe is a genre whose ascen-
present. In literature, a central aspect of this has been die emergence dance corresponds entirely with the emergence and consolidation of
of a certain kind of historical novel that finds parallels between the the nation state within the continent. The present condition of the
past and present, but also reflects on the differences between the past English novel, it can be argued, is both a reflection of and a comment
and present. A typical example is Rose Tremain's Restoration (1989), upon current uncertainties in Britain, including uncertainties about
a novel set at the court of Charles II, following the rise and fall in the country's status as a nation state. In short, we have a national lit-
the fortunes of Robert Merivel. Banished from the court, he erature that reflects confusion and a lack of direction. Given this state
embarks upon a painful journey of self-discovery. The novel is, to of affairs, it is those works that look back and those works that offer
some extent, a mirror held up to the excesses of the 1980s, contrast- a tangential perspective that seem to deliver most. It is with these
ing materialism and cynicism with a quest for a more substantial ideas in mind that we can turn to the poetry of Seamus Heaney.
direction in life. Heaney, from Northern Ireland, but who sees himself as Irish, writes
A. S. Byatt's Possession: A Romance (1990) returns to the Victorian from the margin, and in all his works, but most clearly in his recent
period in order to consider, indirectly, Britain at the end of the twen- translation of Beowulf (1999), is always drawn to looking back.
tieth century. In particular, it explores how Victorian ideas about By general assent the outstanding poet of his generation, Heaney
gender relations correspond with but also differ from our own per- has published numerous collections of work, including Death of a
ceptions. But there is also, in a novel that focuses on twentieth-cen- Naturalist (1966), Field Work (1979), The Haw Lantern (1987), The Spirit
tury academics researching the relationship between a Victorian poet Level (1996) and Electric Light (2001). He was awarded the Nobel Prize
and his mistress, a consideration of the values and codes of conduct for Literature in 1995. There is a double quality to Heaney, who can be
that are encountered in two different historical contexts. Peter accommodated in an English tradition but also needs to be seen in an
Ackroyd, in novels including Hawksmoor (1985), Chatterton (1987), The Irish tradition. His work is often a consideration of his native soil, his
House of Doctor Dee (1993), and Milton in America (1990), is another own complicated relationship to it, and the conflicts that have been
writer whose interest in the past is really motivated by his interest in fought on and over that soil. His translation of Beowulf is a means,
the present. Significantly, Ackroyd is also a literary biographer, with albeit an indirect means, of writing about conflict between close
292 A Brief History of English Literature
T
neighbours. At the same time, at the start of a new millennium, it
looks back across more than a thousand years of English literature,
calling upon the past; the past will not illuminate or solve the prob-
lems of the present, but has to be considered. As we start the twenty-
Periods of English Literature
first century, English literature, including works by authors such as
Rushdie and Heaney, which, with more than a touch of colonial arro-
and Language
gance, we continue to appropriate into English literature, seems fix-
ated with self-analysis and self-dissection, as we continue to strive
towards an understanding of who we are and where we stand now.
When discussing the English language, linguists usually distinguish
just three periods:
Old English 450-1100
Middle English 1100-1500
Modem English 1500-

When discussing the periods of English literature, the following

terms are generally used:
Old English literature 450-1066
Middle English literature 1066-1485
Renaissance literature 1485-1660
Restoration literature 1660-1700
Augustan/Eighteenth-century literature 1700-1789
Romantic literature 1789-1837
Victorian literature 1837-1880
Late Victorian literature 1880-1900
Twentieth-century literature 1900-1999

We can subdivide this last:

Edwardian literature 1900-1914
Modernism 1914-1930
The thirties 1930-1939
The forties 1940-1949
Post-war literature 1945-

Some critics prefer to emphasise literary events over historical events

when describing periods. For example, the Romantic period might
be said to begin in 1798, with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads by

293
294 A Brief History of English Literature

Wordsworth and Coleridge, or in 1789, the date of the French

Revolution. Similarly, different events can be chosen, so that the
Victorian period might be said to begin in 1832 with the Reform Bill
rather than in 1837 with the coming of Victoria to the throne.
Chronology
Generally, however, there is agreement about the terms and approx-
imate dates used.

Dates for texts from earlier periods are often only approximate, as,
for example, with Chaucer's poems and Shakespeare's plays. There is
also the problem that many texts circulated in manuscript. In the
outline below, first names of authors are given for their first but not
subsequent entries (not every work by every author is listed). Unless
stated otherwise, the date is that of publication. In the case of serial
publication, the date used is that of the first instalment.

407 Romans withdraw their forces from Britain to protect

Rome
410 Sacking of Rome by Goths
q25 Raids by Angles, Saxons and Jutes (northern Germanic
tribes)
449 Jutes settle in Kent
450 The coming of the Saxons to England to settle in
Wessex

597 St Augustine's m1ss10n to convert England to

Christianity arrives in Kent

664 Synod of Whitby accepts Roman Catholicism as the

established religion
c.670 Caedmon's Hymn (earliest surviving record of oral
Anglo-Saxon poetry)

qoo Seven kingdoms established in England: Northumbria,

Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, Wessex
q20 Lindisfarne Gospels in Latin (Anglo-Saxon gloss added
in tenth century)

295
296 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 297

731 Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia 1147 Second Crusade
Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum) 1152 Future Henry II marries Eleanor of Aquitaine
735 Death of Bede 1154 Death of Stephen; accession of Henry II (start of the
C-750 Beowulf composed House of Plantagenet)
779 Offa becomes king of all of England 1154 Wace, Roman de Brut (history of Britain); End of the
793 Viking raids begin; sacking of Lindisfarne Peterborough Chronicle, last branch of the Anglo-Saxon
796 Death of Offa of Mercia Chronicle
1169 Invasion of Ireland by Norman barons
Alfred becomes King of Wessex 1170 Murder of Thomas aBecket (St Thomas)
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (history) begun c.1184 Andreas Capellanus, De Amore (on courtly love)
Death of Alfred 1187 Saracens recapture Jerusalem
c.1188 Gervase, History of Canterbury
960 Dunstan becomes Archbishop of Canterbury 1189 Death of Henry II; accession of Richard I
991 The Battle ofMaldon 1189 Third Crusade
992 Aelfric, Catholic Homilies (sermons translated from 1199 Death of Richard I; accession of John
Latin)
C.1200 The Owl and the Nightingale; La3amon, Brut (history of
Britain); Jocelin de Brakelond, Chronicle
1000 Date of the four major surviving manuscript copies of
1202 Fourth Crusade
Anglo-Saxon poetry: Exeter (c.970), Vercelli (c.975),
1204 Loss of Normandy by English crown; Crusaders sack
Credmon, and Beowulf manuscripts
Constantinople (Byzantium)
1042 Accession of Edward the Confessor
1215 Magna Carta signed (defines limitations on royal power:
1066 Death of Edward the Confessor; accession of Harold;
a freeman may not be imprisoned or punished except
defeats Harold Hardrada (King of Norway) at Stamford
bylaw)
Bridge but is defeated at Battle of Hastings; William of
1216 Death of John; accession of Henry III
Normandy becomes King of England
1217 Fifth Crusade
1070 Lanfranc becomes Archbishop of Canterbury
C.1220 Ancrene Riwle (devotional manual)
1086 Domesday Book (survey of England) compiled
1221-4 Dominican and Franciscan friars arrive in England
1087 Accession of William II
C.1225 King Hom (English verse romance)
1096 First Crusade (following appeal by the Pope to Christian
1228 Sixth Crusade (Jerusalem recaptured)
nations to free the 'Holy Places' from the Muslims); cru-
1244 Egyptians capture Jerusalem from Christians
sades end 1291
1272 Death of Henry III; accession of Edward I
1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem
c.1275 Guillaume de Lorris, Roman de la Rose (dream-vision:
poem, allegory of love affair)
1100 Death of William II; accession of Henry I
1291 Saracens recapture Acre: end of Crusades
1135 Death of Henry I; accession of Stephen
1138 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy)
(Historia Regum Britanniae) (1307?-1321)

....
298 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 299

1314 Battle of Bannockburn (Robert the Bruce defeats the 1400 Death of Chaucer; murder of Richard II
English) c.1400 Only surviving manuscript of the four alliterative
1327 Accession of Edward III poems Sir Gawain, Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience
1327 Petrarch sees Laura in church; inspiration behind his 1408 Death of Gower
sonnets (the Canzoniere or Rime sparse published in 1411-12 Thomas Hoccleve, The Regiment of Princes
1470-1) 1413 Death of Henry IV; accession of Henry V
1337 Edward II declares himself king of France following 1415 Henry V revives claim to French throne; defeats French
attacks on his French territories: beginning of Hundred at Battle of Agincourt
Years War between England and France (ends 1451) 1422 Death ofHenryV; accession of Henry VI
c.1343 Birth of Geoffrey Chaucer 1422 Earliest reference to the Chester cycle of mystery
c.1344 Founding of Order of Garter plays
1346 Defeat of French by English at Battle of Crecy 1426 Death of Hoccleve
1349 The Black Death (bubonic plague) in England; wipes out 1429 Joan of Arc raises Siege of Orleans
one-third of population in Europe 1439 Joan of Arc burnt as a witch at Rouen, Normandy
1349 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron (1349-51) 1431-8 John Lydgate, The Fall of Princes
1360 Edward III gives up his claim to the French throne 1432-8 Margery Kempe, Book of Margery Kempe
1362 English displaces French as the language of the law c.1435 James Stewart, The Kingis Quair
courts and Parliament 1440 Johann Gutenberg invents printing with movable type
1367 William Langland, Piers Plowman (A Text) 1449 Death ofLydgate
c.1369 Chaucer, Book of the Duchess 1451 End of Hundred Years war between England and France
c.1373 Julian of Norwich, Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love 1453 Battle of Castillon; loss of last English territory in
(revised 1393?) France; Fall of Constantinople to the Turks
c.1375 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 1455 Wars of the Roses begin (end 1485)
1376 Earliest reference to the York cycle of mystery plays 1461 Henry VI deposed; Edward IV becomes king (House of
1377 Death of Edward III; accession of Richard II York)
c.1377 Langland, Piers Plowman (B Text) 1470-1 Henry VI restored to throne
c.1380 (Wycliffe's?) English translation of the Bible 1470-1 Petrarch, Canzoniere, Trionfi (both written 1327-74)
1381 The Peasants' Revolt Qed by Wat Tyler) against serfdom 1471 Henry VI murdered; Edward IV regains throne
(people tied to the land as part of the property of a lord) 1471 Death of Sir Thomas Malory
1384 Death of John Wycliffe 1473-4 William Caxton, Recuyell ofthe Historyes ofTroye (History of
c.1385 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde Troy), the first book printed in English
c.1385-6 Langland, Piers Plowman (C Text) 1483 Death ofEdward IV; accession and presumed murder of
c.1387 Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales Edward V; accession of Richard III
1390 John Gower, Confessio Amantis 1484 Witchcraft declared a heresy
1394 Birth of Charles d'Orleans and James I of Scotland 1485 Richard III defeated at Battle ofBosworth (end of Wars
1399 Richard II deposed; accession of Henry IV (House of of the Roses) ; accession of Henry VII (start of the
Lancaster) Tudors)
UNIVERSIOADOESEVILLA
Fae. Filolog\a. B1ohoteca
300 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 301

Caxton prints Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur 1531 Sir Thomas Elyot, Boke named the Governour (treatise on
Date of manuscript of Towneley (Wakefield) mystery education and politics)
plays 1533 Cranmer becomes Archbishop of Canterbury; Henry
Christopher Columbus discovers America VIII divorces Catherine of Aragon, marries Anne
Boleyn, and is excommunicated.
c.1500 John Skelton, Bouge of Court 1534 Final break with Rome; Henry makes himself 'Supreme
c.1500 Date of manuscript ofN-Town mystery plays Head of the Church' in England
1504 Colet becomes Dean of St Paul's 1535 Execution of Thomas More for refusing to recognise
c.1504 Skelton, Philip Sparrow Henry VIII's divorce
1508 Michelangelo begins painting ceiling of Sistine Chapel 1535 Thomas Coverdale's translation of the Bible
in the Vatican (completed 1512) 1536 Execution of Anne Boleyn; William Tyndale burned to
1509 Death of Henry VII; accession of Henry VIII death in the Netherlands; Union of England and Wales;
c.1510 Everyman printed John Calvin leads Protestants in Geneva (beginning of
1513 Battle of Flodden (defeat of Scots by Henry VIII) Calvinism, a strict form of Protestantism); Thomas
1513 Gavin Douglas, translation of Virgil's Aeneid; Niccolo Cromwell supervises Dissolution of the Monasteries in
Machiavelli, II Principe (The Prince) (English translation England
1640) 1540 Institution of the Society of Jesus Oesuits); Thomas
1516 Sir Thomas More, Utopia (Latin version; political/philo- Cromwell executed
sophical treatise); Skelton, Magnyfycence 1542 Accession of Mary Queen of Scots on death of James V
1517 Martin Luther publishes 95 theses at Wittenberg of Scotland
challenging sale of indulgences (pardons for sins); 1542 First edition of Edward Hall's chronicle history, The
start of Reformation (reform of church) leading to Union of the Two Noble and Ilustre Families of Lancaster and
Protestantism York (traces rise of the Tudors as if a matter of divine
1520 Field of the Cloth of Gold (meeting of Henry VIII and providence)
Francis I in France to arrange an alliance in a setting of 1543 Copernicus's theory of the sun as centre of the solar sys-
splendour); Henry VIII proclaimed 'Defender of the tem
Faith' by Pope Leo X 1545 (Catholic) Council of Trent (start of the Counter-
1521 Luther condemned as a heretic by the Pope; publishes a Reformation to reform the Catholic Church and
Protestant translation of the New Testament counter the growth of Protestantism)
1523 Skelton, Garlande of Laurel! 1547 Death of Henry VIII; accession of Edward VI
1526 William Tyndale prints the first Protestant New 1549 Act of Uniformity, imposing uniform religious prac-
Testament in English tices
Baldassare Castiglione, II Cortegiano (The Courtier: prose 1549 Thomas Cranmer, (Protestant) Book of Common Prayer
dialogues discussing the ideal qualities of the courtier) 1552 Birth of Edmund Spenser
1529 Fall of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York; Thomas 1553 Death of Edward VI; accession of Mary I (Catholic)
Cromwell becomes Chief Minister; More becomes Lord 1554 Roman Catholicism re-established in England by
Chancellor Parliament
302 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 303

Executions of Cranmer, Ridley, and Hugh Latimer 1583-4 Sidney, 'New' Arcadia (published 1590)
(Protestant reformer) 1585 Sir Walter Ralegh establishes first colony in Virginia
Stationers' Company gains monopoly of English print- 1586 Death of Sidney at Zutphen
ing 1587 Execution of Mary Queen of Scots; opening of Rose
1557 Richard Tottel's edition of Songes and Sonettes ('Tottel's Theatre
Miscellany'), includes poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt; Earl Christopher Marlowe Tamburlaine Part I acted (published
of Surrey's translation of Aeneid, II and IV 1590); William Camden, Britannia (description of Britain)
Crown loses control of Calais; death of Mary I; acces- Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy (published 1592)
sion ofElizabeth I Defeat of Spanish Armada
1558-9 Martin Marprelate pamphlets (attacking bishops) George Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie (treatise on
1559 Religious reform in Scotland (Calvinism); Religious criticism); Thomas Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations,
Settlement in England (Protestantism re-established) Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation;
'Geneva' Bible (favoured by Puritans) Thomas Lodge, Rosarynde.
Sir William Hoby's translation of Castiglione's The Cou~er; 1590 Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1-111)
Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, Gorboduc 1590-1 Shakespeare, 2, 3 Henry VI,
Plague in London kills many 1591-2 Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI,
John Foxe, Actes and Monuments (about Protestant mar- 1592? Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (published 1604, with addi-
tyrdom) tions 1616)
1564 William Shakespeare born; Christopher Marlowe born 1592 Plague closes theatres for two years
1567 Red Lion playhouse opens 1592 Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy; Samuel Daniel, Delia;
1568 Bishops' Bible (Anglican) Shakespeare, Richard III, Comedy of Errors
1570 Excommunication of Elizabeth I by the Pope 1593 Death of Marlowe
1570 Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster (education manual) 1593 Marlowe, Hero and Leander (published 1598);
1571 Battle of Lepanto (Turkish fleet destroyed) Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis; Michael Drayton, Idea's
1572 St Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants in Paris; Mirror; Richard Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (I-IV)
Birth of John Donne (defence of Church of England); Sidney, Arcadia (Old
1576 The Theatre opens and New combined)
1577 Francis Drake sets out on circumnavigation of world Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Taming of the Shrew, Two
1577 Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles Of England Scotland and Gentlemen ofVerona
Ireland (history); Sir Philip Sidney, 'Old' Arcadia (1577-81) 1594 Death of Kyd; Lord Chamberlain's men established
John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit; second part (Shakespeare's acting company)
Euphues and his England published 1580 1594 Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller
1579 Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender 1594-5 Shakespeare, Love's Labours Lost, Romeo and Juliet
1579-80 Sidney, Defence of Poesie (published 1595; also under the 1595 Samuel Daniel, Civil Wars (I-IV); Sir John Davies,
title An Apologie for Poetrie) Orchestra; Shakespeare, Sonnets (published 1609);
Performance of plays on Sundays forbidden Spenser, Amoretti, Epithalamion
Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (published 1591) 1595-6 Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
304 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 305

1596 Blackfriars Theatre opens 1607-8 Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens

1596 Spenser, Faerie Queene (IV-VI) 1608 Birth of John Milton; Shakespeare, Pericles
1596-7 Shakespeare, King John, The Merchant ofVenice 1609 Jonson, Epicene; Shakespeare's sonnets published;
1597 Francis Bacon, Essays Spenser, The Faerie Queene; Jonson, The Masque of Queens
1597 Shakespeare, Richard II 1610 Shakespeare, Cymbeline; Donne, Pseudo-Martyr (attack
1597-8 Shakespeare 1, 2 Henry N on Catholic martyrs); Jonson, The Alchemist
1598 George Chapman-Christopher Marlowe, Hero and 1610-11 Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale
Leander; John Stow, Survey of London; Ben Jonson, 1611 Colonisation of Ulster
Everyman in His Humour (first version); Daniel, Poetical 1611 Authorised Version of Bible (King James Bible)
Essays, Thomas Nashe, Lenten Stuffe 1611 Shakespeare, The Tempest; Cyril Toumeur, The Atheist's
1598-9 Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V Tragedy ; George Chapman, The Revenge of Bussy
1599 Globe Theatre opens D'Ambois; Aemilia Lanier, Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum
1599 Oliver Cromwell born 1612 Last recorded burning of heretics in England
1599-1600 Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, The Merry Wives ofWindsor, As 1612 John Webster, The White Devil
You Like It 1612-13 Shakespeare, Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen
1613 Globe Theatre burned down
1600-1 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night 1614 Sir Walter Ralegh, The History of the World; Jonson,
1601 Rebellion ofEarl of Essex against Elizabeth (and his exe- Bartholomew Fair
cution) 1616 Death of Shakespeare; Ben Jonson, Works
1601-2 Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida 1617 Webster, The Duchess ofMalfi
1602-3 Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well 1618 Execution of Ralegh; Beginning of Thirty Years War in
1603 Death of Elizabeth; accession of James VI of Scotland as Europe between Catholics and Protestants
James I of England (start of the Stuarts); union of the 1620 Puritan Pilgrim Fathers reach America
crowns of England and Scotland 1621 John Donne becomes Dean of St Paul's
1603 Jonson, Sejanus 1621 Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancho!Y (wide-ranging
1604 Peace between England and Spain (at war since 1587) enquiry into the melancholic mind); Mary Wroth,
1604 Shakespeare, Othello Urania; Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women
1605 Gunpowder plot; Jonson's first court masque with Inigo 1622 Middleton, The Changeling
Jones 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare's Complete Works
1605 Jonson, Volpone acted (published 1607); Bacon, The 1625 Death of James I; accession of Charles I
Advancement of Leaming; Saavedra Cervantes, Don 1625 Samuel Purchas, Purchas his Pilgrimes
Quixote (1605, 1615); Shakespeare, King Lear 1629 Charles I dissolves Parliament; assumes personal rule
160 5-6 Shakespeare, Macbeth until 1640
1606 Virginia Company granted charter 1631 Milton, 'L'Allegro', 'II Penseroso'
160 6- 7 Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra 1633 William Laud becomes Archbishop of Canterbury
1607 Thomas Middleton (or Cyril Tourneur), The Revenger's 1633 John Donne, Poems; John Ford, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore;
Tragedy George Herbert, The Temple
306 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 307

1634 Milton's Camus performed Death of Cromwell; Richard Cromwell succeeds his
1635 Francis Quarles, Emblems (moral poems with engrav- father but forced to resign by army; recall of Rump
ings) Parliament
Milton, Lycidas 1660 End of Civil War; Charles II restored to throne by
Long Parliament called (lasted until 1653) Parliament; reopening of theatres
Charles I attempts to arrest five Puritan Members of 1660 John Dryden, Astraea Redux; Samuel Pepys starts his
Parliament opposed to his powers; beginning ofEnglish diary
Civil War; theatres closed by Parliament 1662 Restoration of Church of England; final revision of
Milton, The Reason of Church Government (pamphlet on Book of Common Prayer; Royal Society for Science
role of church) founded
Battle of Marston Moor; victory of Parliamentary Army 1664 War between Britain and Holland
(turning point in Civil War) 1664 Katherine Philips, Poems
Milton, Areopagitica (pamphlet on the subject of the 1665 Great Plague in London
freedom of the press) 1666 Great Fire of London destroys the City
Execution of Laud; Cromwell's Model Army defeats 1667 Dryden, Annus Mirabilis; Milton, Paradise Lost
Charles I at Naseby 1670 Aphra Behn, The Forced Marriage
Charles surrenders to Scots 1671 Milton, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes
William Crashaw, Steps to the Temple 1675 John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 'A Satyre against
Charles escapes and makes deal with Scots; Scots hand Mankind'; William Wycherley, The Country Wife
over Charles to Parliament 1677 Dryden, All for Love
Abraham Cowley, The Mistress 1677 Behn, The Rover (1677-81)
Rump Parliament (consisting of those MPs still opposed 1678 John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (Part 1)
to the King); Scots invade England; defeated at Preston 1679 Habeas Corpus Act against arbitrary imprisonment of
Robert Herrick, Hesperides citizens
Trial and execution of Charles I; England a 1680 Rochester, Poems
Commonwealth; Church of England no longer recog- 1681 Lord Shaftesbury tried for treason: acquitted
nised as the state religion 1681 Marvell's Miscellaneous Poems posthumously published;
Richard Lovelace, Lucasta Dryden, Absolom and Achitophel
Cromwell's military campaigns in Ireland and Scotland 1682 Dryden, MacFlecknoe
Andrew Marvell, 'An Horation Ode'; Henry Vaughan, 1685 Death of Charles II; accession of James II (brother of
Silex Scintillans Charles and fanatical Catholic); Duke of Monmouth's
Thomas Hobbes (political philosopher), Leviathan (illegitimate son of Charles II, Protestant) rebellion
(treatise on political philosophy) crushed at Sedgemoor; last recorded burning of a witch
Cromwell becomes Lord Protector (in place of a king) in England
Ann Collins, Divine Songs and Meditations Sir Isaac Newton, Philosophiae Natura/is Principia
James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana (analysis Mathematica (scientific treatise on gravity and the solar
of a utopian republic) system)
308 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 309

1688 'Glorious Revolution' in England; William III of the 1713 Peace of Utrecht ends War of Spanish Succession
Netherlands invited to become king to save country 1713 Anne Finch, Miscellany Poems; Congreve, Incognita
from Catholicism; James II flees to France; William III 1714 Death of Anne; accession of George I, Elector of
and Mary II succeed Hanover (start of house of Hanover)
c.1688 Behn, Oroonoko 1715 Jacobite Rebellion in favour of James Edward (the 'Old
1690 John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding Pretender', son of James II)
1690 Battle of the Boyne in Ireland - defeat of exiled James II 1716-18 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Letters (published 1763)
by William III 1717 Pope, Works
1694 Death of Mary II 1719 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
1695 William Congreve, Love for Love 1720 South Sea Bubble - thousands of investors lose money
1698 Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and 1720 Pope, translation of The Iliad
Profaneness of the English Stage (attack on Restoration 1721 Sir Robert Walpole, first British prime minister
comedy for indecency) 1722 Defoe, Moll Flanders and Journal of the Plague Year
1726 Swift, Gulliver's Travels; James Thomson, Winter (first of
1700 Congreve, The Way of the World The Seasons, 1726-30)
1701 War of Spanish Succession; Great Britain allied with 1727 Death of George I; accession of George II; Walpole
Holland against France remains in power; death of Isaac Newton
1701 Act of Settlement, that all future monarchs belong to 1728 John Gay, Beggar's Opera; Pope, Dunciad (first version)
the Church of England 1729 Swift, A. Modest Proposal
1702 Death of William III; accession of Anne (James I's grand- 1733-4 Pope, Essay on Man
daughter) 1735 Pope, 'An Epistle from Mr Pope, to Dr Arbuthnot'
1702 Edward Hyde, Earl of darendon, The True Historical 1736 Repeal of witchcraft laws
Narrative of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1702-3) 1738 Dr Samuel Johnson, London
1704 Duke of Marlborough's victory at Blenheim against the 1739 War against Spain
French 1739 Charles Wesley (Methodist leader), first collection of
1704 Jonathan Swift, The Battle of the Books and A Tale of a Tub hymns; Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Letters (published
1706 George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer 1763-7)
1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland 1740 War of Austrian Succession begins (Britain sides against
1707 Farquhar, The Beaux Stratagem France)
1709 Richard Steele (and others), The Tatler (periodical) 1740 Samuel Richardson, Pamela; Thomson, 'Rule
171.0 St Paul's Cathedral (Wren) completed Britannia'
1710 Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, 1741 Henry Fielding, Shamela
Opinions, Times (prose writings on morals) 1742 Fall of Walpole
1711-12 Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator (peri- 1742 Fielding, Joseph Andrews
odical) 174 2-5 Edward Young, Night Thoughts
1711 Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism 1743 Pope, The Dunciad (final version)
1712 Pope, The Rape of the Lock 1744 Sarah Fielding, David Simple
310 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 311

1745 Second Jacobite Rebellion led by Charles Edward (the 1773 Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer
'Young Pretender', Bonnie Prince Charlie, grandson of 1775 First shots of American War oflndependence
James II) beaten at Culloden (1746) 1775 Birth of Jane Austen; Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The
1747 Richardson, Clarissa (1747-8) Rivals
1748 Peace of Abe-la-Chapelle ends War of Austrian Succession American Declaration of Independence
1748 Tobias Smollett, Roderick Random Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the
1749 Fielding, Tom Jones Roman Empire (1776-88)
1750-2 Johnson, The Rambler (periodical) 1777 Sheridan, School for Scandal; Reeve, The Old English
1751 Smollett, Peregrine Pickle; Fielding, Amelia; Thomas Baron
Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Frances (Fanny) Burney, Evelina
1752 Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote Johnson, The Lives of the Poets (critical essays) (1779-81)
1753 Richardson, Sir Charles Grandison (1753-4) Gordon Riots (popular riots led by Lord George Gordon
1755 Johnson, Dictionary against 1778 law to relieve condition of Catholics)
1756 Beginning of Seven Years War against France British defeated by Americans at Yorktown
1757 General Clive captures Calcutta and begins British rule Sheridan, The Critic; Burney, Cecilia
in India Treaty of Paris recognises independence of American
1757 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Colonies
our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (prose treatise) Edmund Cartwright invents the power loom
1759 British capture Quebec from French The Times newspaper begins; William Cowper, The Task
1759 Johnson, Rasselas William Beckford, Vathek; Robert Bums, Poems, Chiefly
1759 Laurence Sterne, Trstram Shandy (1759-67) in the Scottish Dialect
1760 Death of George II; accession of George III Foundation of the Association for the Abolition of the
1763 Peace of Paris ends Seven Years War; British territorial Slave Trade
gains in India and North America Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary; Charlotte Smith, Emmeline
Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto French Revolution; Fall of Bastille; Declaration of the
Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry Rights of Man
(collection of ballads) William Blake, Songs of Innocence
Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar ofWake.field Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Manchester-Liverpool canal (political prose); Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Sterne, A Sentimental Journey; En01clopaedia Britannica (1790-3); Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of
(1768-71) Men (political treatise)
James Watt's steam engine 1791 Flight of Louis XVI of France
James Hargreaves's spinning jenny; Lord North, prime 1791 James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson; Thomas Paine,
minister; suicide of Thomas Chatterton at 17 The Rights of Man (Part I) (political treatise)
1770 Goldsmith, The Deserted Village 1792 Siege of Tuileries (French royal palace); September
1771 Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker; Massacres of the imprisoned nobility in France;
Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling Beginning of Napoleonic Wars
312 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 313

1792 Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman 1801 Amelia Opie, The Father and Daughter
(political treatise); Thomas Holcroft, Anna St Ives 1802 Treaty of Amiens ends war between Britain and
1793 Execution of Louis XVI; Reign of Terror led by France
Maximilien de Robespierre; Britain and France at war 1802 Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (collec-
1793 Blake, America (political prose work); William Godwin, tion of ballads); the Edinburgh Review (periodical)
Inquiry Concerning Political Justice (political treatise); begins; William Cobbett starts his Political Register;
Charlotte Smith, The Old Manor House Opie, Poems
1794 Executions of Jean Jacques Danton and Robespierre 1803 Renewal of war against France
(ends Reign of Terror in France); suspension of Habeas 1804 Bonaparte overthrows government and becomes
Corpus Act in Britain; Thomas Holcroft (ardent sup- Emperor Napoleon I of France
porter of French Revolution) found not guilty of trea- 1804 Blake, Milton (1804-8)
son; French invade Dutch republic and occupy the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar - British fleet under Nelson defeats
Netherlands French/Spanish fleet
1794 Blake, Songs of Experience; Godwin, Caleb Williams; Ann 1805 Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel; Wordsworth begins
Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho; Holcroft, Hugh The Prelude
Trevor 1807 Abolition of slave trade in the British empire
1795 5-man Directory rules in France; 'Speenhamland' sytem 1807 Wordsworth, Poems
of poor relief to supplement wages of labouring classes 1808 Peninsular War in Spain (Britain against France) begins
1795 Birth of John Keats (ends 1814)
1796 Napoleon Bonaparte leads French army to conquer 1808 Scott, Marmion; Leigh Hunt, The Examiner (periodical)
Italy; Jenner introduces vaccination against small pox 1809 Lord (George Gordon) Byron, English Bards and Scotch
1796 Burney, Camilla; Robert Bage, Hermsprong; Matthew Reviewers; foundation of the Quarter!), Review
Gregory Lewis, The Monk 1810 John Dalton (chemist) explains atomic theory and table
1798 French occupy Rome; rebellion in Ireland by United of atomic weights
Irishmen seeking separation from Britain; Battle of the 1810 George Crabbe, The Borough; Scott, The Lady of the Lake
Nile - Nelson defeats French fleet 1811 George III declared insane; Prince of Wales becomes
1798 William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Regent; Luddite riots against mechanisation of textile
9rical Ballads; Wollstonecraft, The Wrongs of Woman industry
(political prose work); Mary Robinson, Thoughts on the 1811 Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Condition of Women, and on the Injustice of Mental 1812 Napoleon invades Russia but is forced to retreat from
Insubordination (political analysis) Moscow; birth of Charles Dickens
1799 Napoleon Bonaparte becomes First Consul in France 1812 George Crabbe, Tales; Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage;
Edgeworth, The Absentee; Felicia Hemans, Domestic
1800 Act of Union with Ireland Affections
1800 Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent 1813 French driven from Spain by Wellington
1801 Union of British and Irish Parliaments; Habeas Corpus 1813 Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen
Act again suspended Mab
314 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 315

1814 Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba; restoration of 1821 Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sketches; Byron, The Vision of
Louis XVIII; Robert George Stephenson invents steam Judgement; Galt, The Entail
locomotive National Gallery opened
1814 Wordsworth, The Excursion; Byron, The Corsair; Death of Byron in Greece; Scott, Redgauntlet; James
Austen, Mansfield Park; Scott, Waverley; Burney, The Hogg, Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner;
Wanderer The Westminster Review (periodical) begins
1815 Wellington defeats Napoleon at Battle of Waterloo; Financial crisis; Trade Unions legalised; opening of
English Corn Laws against cheap imports Stockton and Darlington Railway (first passenger line)
1815 Wordsworth, Poems; Scott, Guy Mannering Hazlitt, The Spirit of the Age (essays); publication of
1816 Coleridge, Christabel and Kubla Khan; Shelley, Alastor; Pepys's diary
Austen, Emma; Scott, The Antiquary and Old Mortality; Opie, The Black Man's Lament
Peacock, Headlong Hall Clare, The Shepherd's Calendar; John Keble, The Christian
1817 Habeas Corpus Act suspended; death of Jane Austen Year (sacred verse)
1817 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (critical writings); Byron, Test and Corporation Acts repealed (required all crown
Manfred; Keats, Poems; Hazlitt, The Characters of officers to conform to Anglican Church)
Shakespeare's Plays (prose criticism); foundation of 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act in Britain (granting civil
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine rights to Catholics); beginning of police force under Sir
1818 Habeas Corpus Act restored Robert Peel
1818 Austen, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion; Keats, 1830 Death of George IV; accession of William IV; opening of
Endymion; Scott, Rob Roy and The Heart of Midlothian; Manchester and Liverpool railway
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; William Hazlitt, Lectures on 1830 Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical
the English Poets; Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, Marriage 1831 Unsuccessful introduction of Reform Bills (to distribute
1819 Peterloo massacre at Manchester (soldiers fire on politi- MPs to the centres of population rather than the coun-
cal meeting) try); riots in Bristol and elsewhere
1819 Crabbe, Tales of the Hall; Byron, Don Juan (1819-24) ; 1832 Reform Act extends vote to middle classes
Scott, The Bride ofLammermoor, Ivanhoe 1832 Death of Scott; Tennyson, Poems
1820 Death of George III; accession of George IV 1833 Slavery abolished throughout British empire; Keble's
1820 Shelley, Prometheus Unbound; Keats, Lamia, Isabella, The Assize sermon (start of the 'Oxford Movement', a
Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems; John Clare, Poems Catholic revival within the Church of England);
Descriptive of Rural Life; Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia; Factory Act in Britain - children under nine not to be
Cobbett, Rural Rides (essays); Charles Robert Maturin, employed
Melmoth the Wanderer 1833 Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus ('the tailor repatched')
1821 Greeks rise against Turks and begin War of (1833-4)
Independence 1834 Tolpuddle Martyrs - six labourers transported for try-
1821 Byron, Cain; Shelley, Adonais; Clare, The Village ing to form a trade union; New Poor Law (workhouse
Minstrel; Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English system established); Houses of Parliament destroyed by
Opium Eater; John Galt, Annals of the Parish fire
316 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 317

Municipal Reform Act; photography developed by Royal Commission on Health in Towns; Morse tele-
William Fox Talbot graph used for first time
Robert Browning, Paracelsus Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby; William Makepeace
Beginning of Chartist movement demanding vote for all Thackeray, The Luck of Barry Lyndon
adult males Famine follows failure of Irish potato crop
Charles Dickens, Sketches by 'Boz' and the first number of Disraeli, Sybil; Browning, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics
Pickwick Papers (1836-7) Repeal of Corn Laws (had protected high price of home-
1837 Death of William IV; accession of Queen Victoria (sub- grown corn)
sequently married to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg- Dickens, Dombey and Son (1846-8)
Gotha); Chartist Movement advocating political Ten Hours Bill limits working hours of women and
rights for working classes excluded from Reform Bill of young people
1832 Tennyson, The Princess; Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre;
Carlyle, History of the French Revolution; Dickens, Oliver Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Anne Bronte, Agnes
Twist (1837-8) Grey; Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847-8)
'People's Charter' published by William Lovett and Chartist demonstration in London; New Public Health
Francis Place; London-Birmingham Railway opened Act; foundation of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; Year of
Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby Revolutions, with revolutions in France, Germany,
Introduction of Penny Post in Britain Poland, Hungary, and Italy; Second Republic pro-
Carlyle, Chartism (political prose work dealing with the claimed in France; Republic in Rome
'Condition of England') Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist
Opium War with China; new Houses of Parliament Manifesto; Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton; Anne Bronte,
built; People's Charter presented to Parliament The Tenant ofWildfell Hall; Thackeray, Pendennis (1848-50)
Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge Charlotte Bronte, Shirley; John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps
(1840-1); Browning, Sardella of Architecture (criticism); Macaulay, History of England
Miners' Association formed (1849-50)
Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero Worship Qectures); John 'Papal Aggression' (following re-establishment of
Henry Newman, Tract XC (analysis of religious issues); Roman Catholic hierarchy in England)
foundation of Punch Tennyson, In Memoriam AHH; Thomas Carlyle, Latter-
Chartist riots; second presentation of People's Charter Day Pamphlets; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from
to Parliament; Copyright Act; first use of general anaes- the Portuguese; Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke; Dickens,
thetics for an operation David Coppeifield (1849-50); death of Wordsworth
Tennyson, Poems; Browning, Dramatic Lyrics Great Exhibition; Louis Napoleon overthrows the gov-
Theatre monopoly removed from Covent Garden and ernment in France and makes himself Emperor
Drury Lane theatres Napoleon III; Amalgamated Society ofEngineers formed
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essays; Carlyle, Past and Gaskell, Cranford; Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (1851-3)
Present (political prose); John Ruskin, Modem Painters (architectural study)
(criticism); Dickens, A Christmas Carol Death of the Duke of Wellington
318 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 319

11tackeray, The History ofHenry Esmond; Matthew Arnold, 1861 Victor Emanuel, King of United Italy; Abraham Lincoln
Empedocles on Etna; Dickens, Bleak House (1852-3) becomes President; start of American Civil War; death
Charlotte Bronte, Villette; Gaskell, Ruth; Arnold, Poems; of Prince Consort; Post Office bank established
lnackeray, The Newcomes (1853-5) Eliot, Silas Mamer; Anthony Trollope, Framlry Parsonage
Crimean War (Britain and allies against Russia); Russia Gatling machine gun invented
defeated at battles of Alma, Inkerman, and Balaclava Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor Qet-
(Charge of the Light Brigade); strike of Preston cotton ters) ; Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market; Meredith,
spinners; opening of Working Man's College Modem Love; Eliot, Romola (1862-3) ; Mary Elizabeth
Dickens, Hard Times; Gaskell, North and South (1854-5) Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret
Fall of Sebastopol; Metropolitan Board of Works estab- 'Cotton Famine' in Lancashire; Battle of Gettysburg -
lished; Stamp Duty on newspapers abolished; Florence Confederate defeat; construction of London Under-
Nightingale reforms Army nursing care ground begins
Tennyson, Maud ; Kingsley, Westward Ho!; Robert Gaskell, Sylvia's Lovers
Browning, Men and Women ; Trollope, The Warden; Geneva Convention
Dickens, Little Dorritt (1855-7) Gaskell, Wives and Daughters (1864-6) ; John Henry
Treaty of Paris ends Crimean War; Pasteur begins study Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua ('Apologies for his life' -
of bacteriology prose defence of spiritual life); Dickens, Our Mutual
Indian Mutiny Qocal soldiers rebel in Bengal army) Friend (1864-5)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh; Trollope, 1865 Jamaican rebellion suppressed by Governor Eyre;
Barchester Towers; Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte; Lincoln assassinated
George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life; lnackeray, The Arnold, Essays in Criticism; Algernon Charles Swinburne,
Virginians (1857-9) Atalanta in Calydon; Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
End of Indian Mutiny; India transferred from East India 1866 John Stuart Mill presents first female suffrage petition to
Company to British Crown Parliament; Austro-Prussian War begins and ends;
Arthur Hugh Clough, Amours de Voyage ; Carlyle, dynamite invented by Alfred Nobel
Frederick the Great (biography, 1858-65) Eliot, Felix Holt; Swinburne, Poems and Ballads
Construction of Suez Canal Second Reform Bill: extends vote to all working-class
Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities; Eliot, Adam Bede; George men in towns; USA buys Alaska from Russia
Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel; John Stuart Mill, Arnold, New Poems; Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Barset;
On Liberty (political treatise); Charles Darwin, The Origin Marx, Das Kapital ('Capital': political analysis); Emile
of Species; Tennyson, The Idylls of the King (1859-72); Zola, Therese Raquin
Samuel Smiles, Self Help (political prose on work ethic) 1868 Collins, The Moonstone; Browning, The Ring and the Book
1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi's campaign in Sicily and Naples to (1868-9); William Morris, The Earthly Paradise (1868-70)
free Italy from Austrian control First Vatican Council; first Trades Union Congress
1860 Eliot, The Mill on the Floss; Wilkie Collins, The Woman in Trollope, Phineas Finn; Mill, The Subjection of Women
White; John Ruskin, Unto This Last; Dickens, Great (political tract); Arnold, Culture and Anarc~ (collection
Expectations (1860-1) of critical essays)
320 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 321

Married Woman's Property Act; Franco-Prussian War; Phoenix Park murders in Dublin of government officials
Education Act sets up school boards to compel atten- Hardy, Two on a Tower; Walter Besant, All Sorts and
dance at school until thirteen; Kingdom of Italy incor- Conditions of Men
porates Papal States; death of Dickens Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island; George
Dickens, Edwin Drood; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poems Moore, A Modern Lover
Paris Commune set up in opposition to the national Reform Bill extends vote to males in rural areas
government; Britain legalises trade unions; unification Gissing, The Unclassed
of Germany Radio waves discovered; fall of Khartoum and death of
Edward Lear, The Owl and the Pussy Cat; Eliot, General Gordon; first successful petrol-driven car
Middlemarch (1871-2); Zola, Les Rougon-Macquart invented by Karl Benz
(1871-93) (series of naturalistic novels about the Rougon Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean; Meredith, Diana ofthe
and Macquart families) Crossways; Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines; Moore,
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass; Samuel Butler, A Mummer's Wife; Hopkins, 'Dark Sonnets' (published
Erewhon; Thomas Hardy, Under the Greenwood Tree 1918)
Arnold, Literature and Dogma (study of the Bible); Mill, 1886 Home Rule Bill for Ireland defeated; gold discovered in
Autobiography; Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance South Africa; Coca-Cola invented
(criticism); Trollope, The Way We Live Now (1873-4) 1886 Moore, A Drama in Muslin; Robert Louis Stevenson,
Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd; Butler, The Way of Kidnapped and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Gissing, Demos;
All Flesh (published 1903); Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1874-6) James, The Bostonians; Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge
Agricultural Depression Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria
Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'The Wreck of the Deutschland' White, Revolution in Tanner's Lane; Conan Doyle, first
(published 1918) Sherlock Holmes story (in the Strand Magazine); Hardy,
Telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell The Woodlanders; Haggard, Allan Quatermain
Victoria proclaimed Empress of India by British prime 1888 Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales.from the Hills; Mrs Humphry
minister Disraeli Ward, Robert Elsmere
1877 Hopkins, 'The Windhover' (published 1918) William Butler Yeats, The Wanderings of Oisin;
1878 Congress of Berlin Stevenson, The Master of Ballantrae
1878 Hardy, The Return of the Native Fall of Parnell as leader of Irish Home Rule Party after
1879 Irish Land League formed by Stewart Parnell being named in a divorce case
1879 Meredith, The Egoist Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray; Kipling, Barrack
1880 Gladstone, prime minister Room Ballads
1880 Hardy, The Trumpet Major; George Gissing, Workers in Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles; Gissing, New Grub Street;
the Dawn Kipling, The Light That Failed
Death of Disraeli George Bernard Shaw, Widowers' Houses; Yeats, The
William Hale White, The Autobiography of Mark Countess Kathleen; Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
Rutherford, Dissenting Minister; Henry James, The Portrait of House of Lords rejects Second Home Rule Bill;
a Lady Independent Labour Party founded by Keir Hardy
322 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 323

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, The Second Mrs Tanqueray; 1904 Entente cordiale between Britain and France
Shaw, Mrs Warren's Profession; Gissing, The Odd Women; 1904 Conrad, Nostromo; Hardy, The Dynasts (1904-8); James,
Kipling, Many Inventions; Wilde, A Woman of No The Golden Bowl
Importance 1905 Shaw, Major Barbara and Man and Superman; Wells,
Ward, Marcella; George Moore, Esther Waters; Shaw, Kipps; Edward Morgan Forster, Where Angels Fear to
Arms and the Man Tread
X-rays discovered by William Roentgen; Sigmund 1906 Election of Liberal government; launch of HMS
Freud publishes first work on psychoanalysis; first Dreadnought (revolutionary battleship)
public film show by Lumiere in Paris Anglo-Russian Entente; Cubist exhibition in Paris
Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal John Millington Synge, The Playbcry of the Western World;
Husband; Herbert George Wells, The Time Machine; Conrad, The Secret Agent
Hardy, Jude the Obscure Old age pensions introduced in Britain; Elgar's first
Wireless telegraphy invented by Marconi symphony
Alfred Edward Housman, A Shropshire Lad; Shaw, You 1908 Bennett, The Old Wives Tale; Forster, A Room with a View;
Never Can Tell Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday;
Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (60 years of rule) Wells, Tono-Bungay
Bram Stoker, Dracula; James, What Maisie Knew; Shaw, 1909 'People's Budget'; English Channel flown
Candida; Wells, The Invisible Man 1909 Wells, Anne Veronica
Hardy, Wessex Poems; Bennett, A Man from The North; 1910 Death of Edward VII; accession of George V; first exhi-
Wells, The War of the Worlds bition of Post-Impressionist art in London
James, The Awkward Age; Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds 1910 Bennett, Clay hanger; Forster, Howards End; Wells, The
Boer War History of Mr Polly
1911 National Insurance Act; Amundsen reaches South Pole
1900 Relief of Mafeking; Kodak 'Brownie' camera with 1911 Conrad, Under Western Eyes; Wells, The New Machiavelli;
removable film David Herbert Lawrence, The White Peacock
1900 Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams; Joseph Conrad, 1912 Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition; Lords reject
Lord Jim Home Rule (for Ireland) Bill; sinking of SS Titanic; death
1901 Death of Victoria; accession ofEdward VII of Scott in the Antarctic
1901 Kipling, Kim 1913 Second rejection of Home Rule Bill by Lords; Ford
1902 Bennett, Anna of the Five Towns; James, The Wings of the introduce the moving assembly line for car production;
Dove; Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Yeats, Cathleen Ni Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring performed in Paris
Houlihan 1913 Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
1903 Wright brothers make first aeroplane flight; foundation 1914 Parliament passes Home Rule Bill; Britain declares war
of Women's Social and Political Union (Suffragettes) by on Central Powers (Germany, Austria, Hungary,
Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst Turkey)
1903 Butler, The Way of All Flesh; Gissing, The Private Papers of 1914 Percy Wyndham Lewis, Blast; James Joyce, Dubliners;
Henry Ryecroft Yeats, Responsibilities; Hardy, Satires of Circumstances
324 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 325

1915 Second battle of Ypres (Germans use poison gas for 1923 Huxley, Antic Hay; Shaw, St Joan; Bennett, Riayman
first time); sinking by U-Boat of SS Lusitania (passenger Steps
ship) 1924 J. Ramsay MacDonald leads first Labour Government
1915 Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier; Virginia Woolf, The 1924 Forster, A Passage to India; Sean O'Casey, Juno and the
Voyage Out; Lawrence, The Rainbow; Rupert Brooke, Paycock; Noel Coward, The Vortex
1914 and Other Poems; Dorothy Richardson, Pointed 1925 Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; William Alexander Gerhardie,
Roofs The Polyglots
1916 Battle of the Somme; Gallipoli Campaign (in Turkey); 1926 General Strike in Britain
Easter Rising in Dublin (April 24) 1926 Hugh MacDiannid, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
1916 Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1927 First solo flight across the Atlantic
1917 Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele); T.E. Lawrence's 1927 Woolf, To the Lighthouse
campaigns in Arabia; Revolution in Russia led by Lenin 1928 Death of Hardy; Yeats, The Tower; Lawrence, Lady
and Trotsky; royal family changes name from House of Chatterley's Lover; Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall; R. C.
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to House of Windsor Sherriff, Journey's End; Woolf, Orlando; Sassoon,
1917 Thomas Stems Eliot, Pru.frock and Other Observations; Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man
Wilfred Owen, Poems (1917-18; published 1920); Siegfried 1929 US stock market collapses (Wall Street Crash)
Sassoon, war poems published in The Old Huntsman 1929 Richard Aldington, Death of a Hero; Richard Henry
1918 Second battle of the Somme; last major German offen- Green, Living; Woolf, A Room of One's Own; Richard
sive collapses; Armistice with Germany (n November); Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica
women over 30 get the vote; death of Owen 1930 World economic depression
1918 Lewis, Tarr; Hopkins, Poems (written 1876-89, pub- 1930 Wystan Hugh Auden, Poems; Eliot, Ash Wednesday;
lished by Robert Bridges); Lytton Strachey, Eminent Waugh, Vile Bodies; Coward, Private Lives
Victorians (biographical essays) 1931 National Government formed; Commonwealth of
1919 Treaty of Versailles signed by Germans; Atlantic flown; Nations replaces British Empire
rebellion in Ireland led by Sinn Fein party 1931 Woolf, The Waves
1919 Mary Sinclair, Mary Olivier; Conrad, The Shadow Line; 1932 Huxley, Brave New World; Lewis Grassie Gibbon, Sunset
Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coo le; Woolf, Night and Day Song (first part of A Scots Quair)
1920 Civil War in Ireland 1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
1920 Owen, Poems; Shaw, Heartbreak House; Roger Eliot Fry, 1933 George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
Vision and Design (collected essays on painting) 1934 Eliot, 'Burnt Norton'; Waugh, A Handful of Dust; Robert
1921 Establishment oflrish Free State Graves, I, Claudius; Samuel Beckett, More Pricks than
1921 Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow; Lawrence, Women in Kicks
Love; Yeats, Michael Robartes and the Dancer 1935 George V's Silver Jubilee; persecution of Jews begins in
1922 Fascist government in Italy, led by Mussolini; USSR Germany
established; BBC makes first regular broadcast 1935 Christopher Isherwood, Mr Norris Changes Trains and
1922 Eliot, The Waste Land; Joyce, Ulysses; Lawrence, Fantasia Lions and Shadows; Auden and Isherwood, The Dog
of the Unconscious; Woolf, Jacob's Room Beneath the Skin; Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

..... J
326 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 327

1936 Death of George V; accession of Edward VIII; abdicates 1943 Allied invasion ofltaly; Russians defeat German army at
to many Mrs Wallis Simpson (abdication crisis); acces- Stalingrad
sion of George VI; Civil War breaks out in Spain; Keynes 1943 Eliot, Four Quartets; Greene, The Ministry of Fear
publishes economic theory of employment, interest 1944 Allied landings in Normandy ('D Day'); Allies liberate
and money Paris
1936 Auden, Look Stranger!; Terence Rattigan, French Without 1944 Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth
Tears (published 1937) 1945 Germany surrenders, 7 May; first atomic bomb dropped
1937 Auden and Louis MacNeice, Letters from Iceland; David on Hiroshima, second on Nagasaki; Labour Party wins
Jones, In Parenthesis; Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier; J. R. election
R. Tolkien, The Hobbit 1945 Green, Loving; Orwell, Animal Farm ; Waugh, Brideshead
Germany annexes Austria Revisited; Philip Larkin, The North Ship
Munich agreement; Germany gains part of Nuremberg Trials of Nazi leaders; nationalisation of
Czechoslovakia coal industry; start of National Health Service; War in
Beckett, Murphy; Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Indochina
Heart; Orwell, Homage to Catalonia; Graham Greene, Larkin, Jill; Rattigan, The Winslow Boy; Dylan Thomas,
Brighton Rock Deaths and Entrances
1939 End of Civil War in Spain; Russo-German pact; 1947 Independence of India and Pakistan
Germany annexes Czechoslovakia and invades Poland; 1947 Ivy Compton-Burnett, Manservant and Maidservant
Britain and France declare war on Germany 1948 USSR blockades Berlin and airlift begins (the 'cold war');
1939 MacNeice, Autumn Journal; Green, Party Going; transistors invented
Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin; Eliot, The Family Reunion; Greene, The Heart of the Matter; Christopher Fry, The
Joyce, Finnegans Wake Lady's Not For Burning; Rattigan, The Browning Version
1940 Germany invades Denmark and Norway; fall of France; 1949 NATO formed
evacuation of British troops at Dunkirk; beginning of 1949 Elizabeth Bowen, The Heat of the Day; Orwell, Nineteen
the 'blitz' on London Eighty-Four; Eliot, The Cocktail Party
1940 Auden, New Year Letter; Eliot, 'East Coker'; Greene, 1950 Labour re-elected; Suez Canal crisis; Korean War
The Power and the Glory; Arthur Koestler, Darkness at 1950 Auden, Collected Shorter Poems; D.J. Enright, Poets of the
Noon 1950s (the 'Movement'); Derek Walcott, Henri Christophe
1941 Germany invades Russia; Japanese attack American 1951 Conservatives win General Election; Festival of Britain
Fleet at Pearl Harbor 1951 Keith Douglas, Collected Poems; Anthony Powell, A
1941 Eliot, The Dry Salvages'; Woolf, Between the Acts; Question of Upbringing (first volume of A Dance to the
Coward, Blithe Spirit Music of Time); Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing;
1942 Japanese take Singapore; British victory in North Africa Beckett, Molloy; Walcott, Henri Denier
at El Alamein; beginning of extermination in concen- 1952 Death of George VI; accession of Elizabeth II
tration camps of Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals by 1952 Jones, Anathemata; Rattigan, The Deep Blue Sea;Beckett,
Germany Waiting for Godot; Angus Wilson, Hemlock and After;
1942 Eliot, 'Little Gidding' Lessing, Martha Quest; Waugh, Men at Arms
328 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 329

1953 Dylan Thomas, Collected Poems National Theatre established; Algeria becomes indepen-
1954 Beginning of Vietnam wars; beginning of Algerian War dent; satellite communications begin
of Independence Wilson, Late Call; Lessing, The Golden Notebook;
1954 Rattigan, Separate Tables; Golding, Lord of the Flies; Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange; Walcott, In a
Kingsley Amis, Liu:ky Jim; Lessing, A Proper Marriage Green Night
1955 Larkin, The Less Deceived; Golding, The Inheritors; John F. Kennedy (US president) assassinated; death of
Beckett, Waiting for Godot (first British performance); Plath
Waugh, Officers and Gentlemen; Patrick White, The Tree of Amis, One Fat Englishman; John Fowles, The Collector;
Man W ole Soyinka, The Lion and the Jewel
Egypt nationalises Suez Canal; Britain and France inter- Orton, Entertaining Mr Sloane; Larkin, The Whitsun
vene and are obliged to withdraw; Soviet invasion of Weddings; Golding, The Spire; Osborne, Inadmissible
Hungary Evidence; Achebe, Arrow of God
Golding, Pincher Martin; Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes; Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) declares independence from
John Osborne, Look Back in Anger Britain
1957 CND formed; Treaty of the European Economic Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea; Orton, Loot; Pinter, The
Community (EEC) Homecoming; West, The Birds Fall Down; Paul Scott,
1957 Ted Hughes, The Hawk in the Rain; Muriel Spark, The The Jewel in the Crown; Edward Bond, Saved; Walcott,
Comforters; Lawrence Durrell, Justine; Osborne, The The Castaway; Lessing, Landlocked; Plath, Ariel; Soyinka,
Entertainer; Beckett, Endgame; Harold Pinter, The Room; The Interpreters
White, Voss Legalisation of homosexuality and abortion
USSR launches Sputnik I (start of space race) Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead;
Barbara Pym, A Glass of Blessings; John Betjeman, Achebe, A Man of the People; Elechi Amadi, The
Collected Poems; Pinter, The Birthday Party; Iris Murdoch, Concubine
The Bell; Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; First heart transplant operation; Arab-Israeli Six Day
Lessing, A Ripple From the Storm; Chinua Achebe, Things War
Fall Apart Orton, The Erpingham Camp; Hughes, Wodwo
1959 Spark, Memento Mori; Arnold Wesker, Roots; Golding, Assassination of Martin Luther King; assassination of
Free Fall; John Arden, Serjeant Musgrave's Dance; T.M. Robert Kennedy (presidential candidate and brother of
Aluko, One Man, One Wife John F. Kennedy)
Unexpurgated text of Lady Chatterley's Lover published Student unrest in Paris; Soviet invasion of
after obscenity trial Czechoslovakia; the 'Troubles' begin in Northern
1960 Hughes, Lupercal; Pinter, The Caretaker; Beckett, Krapp's Ireland
Last Tape; Spark, The Ballad of Peckham Rye; Sylvia Plath, Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound; Geoffrey Hill, King
The Colossus; R.K. Narayan, The Guide Log
Yuri Gagarin first person in space Neil Armstrong first person to walk on moon; abolition
Beckett, Happy Days; Osborne, Luther; Spark, The Prime of capital punishment; Britain sends troops to Northern
of Miss Jean Brodie; V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas Ireland
 -i-
1

330 A Brief History of English Literature Chronology 331

Heaney, Door into the Dark; Orton, What the Butler Saw; movement heralds end of Communism; first direct elec-
Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman; Lessing, The tions to European Parliament; John Lennon murdered
Four-Gated City; Amadi, The Great Ponds inNewYork
1970 Age of majority reduced from 21 to 18; US begins war in 1979 Golding, Darkness Visible; Heaney, Field Work
Cambodia 1980 Iran-Iraq war begins
1970 Hughes, Crow; Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch; 1980 Golding, Rites of Passage; Burgess, Earthly Powers; Brian
Walcott, The Gulf Friel, Translations
1971 Bangladesh breaks away from Pakistan 1981 Inner-city riots (Bristol, Liverpool}
1971 Hill, Mercian Hymns; Bond, Lear; Pinter, Old Times; 1981 Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Spark, Not to Disturb 1982 Falklands war against Argentina
1972 Britain assumes direct rule in Ulster 1982 Caryl Churchill, Top Girls
1972 Buchi Emecheta, In the Ditch 1983 Thatcher government re-elected
1973 United Kingdom J0ms European Economic 1983 Graham Swift, W aterland
Community; US withdraws troops from Vietnam 1984 Brighton bombing - IRA attempts mass assassination
1973 Beckett, Not I; Murdoch, The Black Prince; Howard of government ministers; miners' strike
Brenton, Magnificence; R. S. Thomas, Selected Poems; Heaney, Station Island; Angela Carter, Nights at the
Walcott, Another Life Circus; Martin Amis, Money
1974 Watergate scandal - Richard Nixon forced to resign as Famine in Africa: Live Aid concert across the world
US president Hare and Brenton, Pravda; Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor;
1974 Beckett, That Time; Spark, The Abbess of Crewe; Larkin, Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit; Caryl
High Windows; Stoppard, Travesties Phillips, The Final Passage
1975 End of Vietnam War; first International Women's Year IRA attacks multiply; nuclear disaster at Chernobyl
1975 Heaney, North; Pinter, No Man's Land; Trevor Griffiths, Walcott, Collected Poems; Phillips, Independence; Festus
Comedians; Malcolm Bradbury, The History Man; Stevie Iyayi, Heroes
Smith, Collected Poems; Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Thatcher government elected for third term of office;
Dust Gorbachev in Russia extends policy of glasnost (openness}
1976 Race riots in South Africa Ackroyd, Chatterton; Churchill, Serious Money; David
1976 Walcott, Sea Grapes; Emecheta, The Bride Price Edgar, That Summer
1977 Stoppard, Professional Foul; Margaret Drabble, The Ice Lockerbie bomb jet disaster; Iran-Iraq war ends
Age; Pym, Quartet in Autumn Pinter, Mountain Language; Stoppard, Hapgood;
First test-tube baby born Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
Pinter, Betrayal; Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea; Antonia Overthrow of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe;
Susan Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden; Hill, Tenebrae; fall of the Berlin Wall
Brenton, Romans in Britain; David Hare, Plenty; Amadi, Martin Amis, London Fields; Kazuo Ishiguro, Remains of
The Slave the Day; Walcott, Omeros
1979 Election of Conservative government led by Margaret 1990 Anti-poll tax riots in London; fall of Margaret Thatcher;
Thatcher, first woman prime minister; Polish Solidarity Mary Robinson first female president in Ireland
332 A Brief History of English Literature

1990 Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa; Byatt, Possession; Hanif

Kureishi, Buddha of Suburbia
1991
1991
USSR dissolved
Carter, Wise Children
Further Reading
1992 Conservative government re-elected under John Major;
Czechoslovakia partitioned
1992 Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient; Phillips, Crossing
the River
1993 IRA bomb at Warrington; EEC becomes the European In compiling this list we have sought to include books which are
Union (EU); genetic cloning of a sheep likely to appeal to readers interested in the interaction of literature,
1993 Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy; Barry Unsworth, Sacred history and criticism. The list is deliberately brief. The intention is
Hunger to point in the direction of works that seem particularly helpful or
1994 Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa; thought-provoking; the books themselves will, of course, provide
IRA cease-fire declared ideas about where to turn next.
1994 Carol Ann Duffy, Selected Poems
1995 Microsoft launches global operating system Aers, David, Chaucer, Langland and the Creative Imagination (London:
1995 James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late Routledge, 1979).
1996 BSE scandal; Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorce Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen, The Empire Writes
1997 Princess Diana killed in car crash in Paris; death of Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature (London:
Mother Teresa; Labour win landslide victory Routledge, 1989).
1997 Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things Barrell, John, Poetry, Language and Politics (Manchester: Manchester
1998 General Pinochet arrested in London University Press, 1988).
1999 Armed strife in Albania; Euro currency introduced; par- Beer, Gillian, Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot
liaments for Scotland and Wales and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1999 Seamus Heaney, Beowulf 1983).
Belsey, Catherine, Critical Practice (London and New York: Routledge,
2000 Millennium celebrations world-wide; petrol tax strike 1980).
in Britain; widespread flooding as a result of global Bennett, Andrew and Royle, Nicholas, Introduction to Literature,
warming; age of homosexual consent lowered to 16; Criticism and Theory (London: Prentice Hall, 1999).
Stock Exchange collapse of dot.com companies Boehmer, Elleke, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (Oxford: Oxford
2000 Peter Ackroyd, London; Heaney, The Midnight Verdict University Press, 1995).
2001 Labour re-elected for second term; terrorist attacks on Brown, Peter (ed.), A Companion to Chaucer (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).
World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Butler, Marilyn, Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries (Oxford: Oxford
Washington provoke US-led military action in University Press, 1981).
Afghanistan. Callaghan, Dympna (ed.), A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2000).
Connor, Steven, Postmodernist Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).

333
334 A Brief History of English Literature

Corcoran, Neil, English Poetry since 1940 (London: Longman, 1993).

Cox, John D. and Kastan, David Scott (eds), A New History of English
Drama (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
Culler, Jonathan, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford:
Index
Oxford University Press, 1997).
Eagleton, Terry, Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontes
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1975, 2nd edn, 1987).
Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modem Memory (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1975). Absalom and Achitophel, (Dryden), Anglo-Saxon period, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 11
112,116 Animal Farm (Orwell), 270
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Gubar, Susan, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Ackroyd, Peter, 287, 290-1 Ann Veronica (Wells), 230
Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination (New Haven, Adam Bede (Eliot), 191, 257 Anna of the Five Towns (Bennett),
CT: Yale University Press, 1979). Addison, Joseph, 118, 123-4 230-1
Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance Self-Fashioning (Chicago: Chicago essays in The Spectator, 124 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'
University Press, 1980). Adeline Mowbray (Opie), 166 (Owen), 239-40
'Adlestrop' (Thomas), 238-9 Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare),
Richetti, John (ed.), The Columbia History of the British Novel (New York: Aenid (Virgil), 28 68,69-70,88
Columbia University Press, 1994). Aeschylus, 62 Arcadia, The (Sidney), 41, 138
Rogers, Pat, Literature and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England aestheticism, 221-2 Areopagitica (Milton), 100
(Brighton: Harvester, 1985). Age of Revolution, 151-4 Arms and the Man (Shaw), 220
Ainsworth, Harrison Arnold, Matthew, 188-9
Ryan, Kiernan, Shakespeare, 3rd edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001).
Rookwood, 171 Culture and Anarchy, 189
Rylance, Rick, and Simons, Judy (eds), Literature in Context Alchemist, The (Jonson), 84, 85 'Dover Beach', 188
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001). Alfred, King, 4, 7 Arthur, King, 20, 32
Showalter, Elaine, A Literature of their Own: British Women Writers from Alfred (Thomson), 126 As You Like It (Shakespeare), 56
Bronte to Lessing (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Ascham, Roger, 39
Sinfield, Alan, Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident (Carroll), 204 Asian-British writers, 289
All Sorts and Conditions of Men Astrophil and Stella (Sidney), 43-5
Reading (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). (Besant), 214 Atheist's Tragedy, The (Tourneur), 81
Trotter, David, The English Novel in History, 1895-1920 (London: Allan Quatermain (Haggard), 216 Auden, W. H., 262, 263
Routledge, 1993). Allen, Grant 'Spain (1937)', 263, 264
Waugh, Patricia (ed.), Revolutions of the Word: Intellectual Contexts for the The Woman Who Did, 215 Augustan Age, 118, 121-6
Study of Modem Literature (London: Arnold, 1997). Amelia (Fielding), 144 Aurora Leigh (Barrett Browning),
American War of Independence, 186-7
Widdowson, Peter, Hardy in History: A Study in Literary Sociology 122,127 Austen, Jane, 145, 147-50, 167
(London: Routledge, 1989). Amis, Kingsley, 280 Emma, 147, 148, 149
Williams, Raymond, The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence Amis, Martin, 280 Mansfield Park, 147, 149-50
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1970). Amoretti (Spenser), 48 Awkward Age, The Qames), 216
Anatomy of Melancholy, The (Burton),
100 Bacon, Francis
Angles, 4, 7 Essays, 100
Anglo-Norman period, 15 Balkan Trilogy, The (Manning), 270
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 7 Barker, Pat, 291
336 Index Index 337

Barnes, Djuna Songs of Innocence, 15 5 Burney, Fanny (Frances), 130, 144-5 Celtic languages, 12
Nightwood, 261 works, 156 Cecilia, 144-5 Chamberlain, Neville, 262
Barnes, Julian, 287 Bleak House (Dickens), 172-3 Evelina, 144 Changeling, The (Middleton). 81, 82
Baroque, 94 Bloomsbury Group, 257 The Wanderer, 146 Chapman, George
Barrett Browning, Elizabeth, 186-7 Blunden, Edmund, 238 Bums, Robert, 131 The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, 81
Aurora Leigh, 186-7 Boccaccio, 22 Burton, Robert Charles I, King, 87, 97
Sonnets from the Portuguese, 186, 187 Boleyn, Anne, 34, 37 The Anatomy of Melancholy, 100 Charles II, King, 74, 87, 105, 107, 111,
Bartholomew Fair Gonson), 84, 85 Bond, Edward, 276 Butler, Samuel 112,113
'Battle ofBrunanburh, The', 10 Bonnie Prince Charlie, 126 The Way of All Flesh, 215 Chatterton (Ackroyd), 290
'Battle ofMaldon, The', 10 Book of the Duchess, The (Chaucer), 22 Byatt,A. S. Chaucer, Geoffrey, 14, 22-7, 30
battle poems, 10 Book of Margery Kempe, The (Kempe), Possession: A Romance, 290 The Book of the Duchess, 2 2
Beckett, Samuel, 262, 271-3, 276 18-19 Byron, Lord, 161-2, 168 Canterbury Tales, 24-7, 250
Endgame, 273 Book ofThel, The (Blake), 156 and dream-vision poems, 23
Happy Days, 273 Book ofUrizen, The (Blake), 156 Caedmon, 8 General Prologue, 16
Not I, 273 Bostonians, The Games), 216 Caesar, Julius, 3 Italian literary influences, 24
Waitingfor Godot, 272 Boswell, James Cain (Byron), 162 life, 22
Bede Life of]ohnson, 129 Caleb Williams (Godwin), 166 power as a writer, 27
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Bowen, Elizabeth, 262 Cambridge (Phillips), 289 religious beliefs, 26
Anglorum, 3 The Heat of the Day, 269-70 Candida (Shaw), 220 The Romaunt of the Rose, 22, 23-4
Beggar's Opera, The (Gay), 127 Braddon, Mary Elizabeth cannibalism, 227 Troilus and Criseyde, 24
Behn, Aphra, 88, 90, 98, 129 Lady Audley's Secret, 201 Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), 24-7, 250 Children ofViolence (Lessing), 278
Oroonoko, 138-9 Bradstreet, Anne, 98 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Christianity, 7, 10
The Rover, 90 Brave New World (Huxley), 262, 265 (Shaw), 220 Churchill, Caryl, 276-7
The Willing Mistress', 98-9 Breuer, Josef, 191 Captain Singleton (Defoe), 137 Churchill, Winston, 267
'Belle Dame Sans Merci, La' (Keats), Bride Price, The (Emecheta), 289 Caretaker, The (Pinter), 274, 275 Cibber, Colley, 117
163-4 Brighton Rock (Greene), 262 Carew, Thomas, 83, 96 Civil War (1642-60), 66, 74, 81, 156,
Bennett, Arnold, 215, 224, 230 Bronte, Charlotte, 183 Carlyle, Thomas, 189 224
Anna of the Five Tawns, 230-1 Jane Eyre, 173, 174-6, 177, 257 Carmen Seculare (Prior), 117-18 Clare, John, 167
The Old Wives' Tale', 230, 231 Villette, 176-7 Carroll, Lewis Clarendon Code, 111
Beowulf, 1-6, 7, 8, 21, 291-2 Bronte, Emily Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Clarissa (Richardson), 133, 139-40,
Besant, Walter Wuthering Heights, 173, 178 204 145
All Sorts and Conditions of Men, 214 Browne, Thomas Carter, Angela, 281 Cocktail Party, The (Eliot), 246
Between the Acts (Woolf), 258 Hydriotaphia, 100 Castaway, The (Walcott), 284 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 159-61,
Bible, 17, 31, 39 Browning, Robert Castiglione 168
Biographia Literaria 'My Last Duchess', 185-6 The Courtier, 40 Biographia Literaria, 161
(Coleridge), 161 Buddha of Suburbia, The Castle of Otranto, The 'Frost at Midnight', 160
Birthday Party, The (Pinter), 27 4 (Kureishi), 289 (Walpole), 145 'Kubla Khan', 159-60
Black Album, The (Kureishi), 289 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Castle of Perseverance, The, 31 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 160
Black Death, 15 Paul Clifford, 171 Cathleen Ni Houlihan (Yeats), 242 Colin Clout's Come Home Again
Black Man's Lament, The (Opie), 167 Bunyan, John Causley, Charles, 269 (Spenser), 48-9
Black-British writers, 289 Pilgrim's Progress, 100, 138 'Cavalier' poets, 96, 104 'Collar, The' (Herbert), 102-3
Blackfriars theatre, 74 Burke, Edmund, 167 Cavendish, Margaret, 101 Collier, Jeremy
Blake, William, 154-7 Reflections on the Revolution in Caxton, William, 33 Short View of the Immorality and
Songs of Experience, 154-5 France, 152 Cecilia (Burney), 144-5 Profaneness ofthe English Stage, 89
338 Index Index 339

Collins, An Culture and Anarchy (Arnold), 189 Doctor Faustus (Marlowe), 78-9 East Lynne (Wood), 201
Divine Songs and Meditations, 98 Cycle Play, 30-1, 56 Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Stevenson), 'Easter 1916' (Yeats), 243
Collins, Wilkie, 197-201 Cymbeline (Shakespeare), 68 217 Easter Rising (1916), 243
The Moonstone, 200-1 Cynewulf, 8 Dombey and Son (Dickens), 172 Edgar, David
The Woman in White, 197-200, 208 Domesday Book, 7 That Summer, 276
Collins, William, 131-2 Dance to the Music ofTime, A (Powell), Don Juan (Byron), 162 Edgar, King, 4
'Ode to Evening', 131 270 Donne, John, 50, 91-6, 106, 113, 115, Edward VI, King, 38
Colonel Jack (Defoe), 137 Daniel Deronda (Eliot), 191-2 165 eighteenth century, 3, 114-32
Comedy of Errors, The (Shakespeare), Daniel, Samuel, 35 background and life, 91 Electric Light (Heaney), 291
56 Darkness Visible (Golding), 279 'Good Friday, 1613. Riding Elegy, 9
Communist Manifesto, The (Marx and Darwin, Charles, 191, 213 Westward', 94-6 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Engels), 190-1 The Origin of Species, 190, 199 Pseudo-Martyr, 91 (Gray), 130-1
Compleat Angler, The (Walton), 100 'Daughters of the Late Colonel, The' The Sun Rising', 92-3 Eliot, George, 191-7, 206, 208
Comus (Milton), 86 (Mansfield), 233-4 'A Valediction Forbidding Adam Bede, 191, 257
Concealed Fancies, The (Cavendishes), David Copperfield (Dickens), 171, 172, Mourning', 94 Middlemarch, 192, 194-7, 208, 247
101 180, 257 Doolittle, Hilda (H.D.), 261 The Mill on the Floss, 193-4
'conceit', concept of the, 94 Davies, W. H., 238 Douglas, Gavin, 28 Eliot, T. S., 224, 238, 246-51, 248,
Confessions of an English Opium Eater de la Mare, Walter, 238 Douglas, Keith, 269 261, 282
(De Quincey), 167 De Quincey, Thomas, 167 'Dover Beach' (Arnold) 188 politics of, 248-9
Congreve, William, 88 Death of the Heart, The (Bowen), 262 Down and Out in Paris and London The Waste Land, 233, 246, 247-8,
Incognita, 138 Death of a Naturalist (Heaney), 291 (Orwell), 262, 264 249-51, 257
The Way of the World, 89-90 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Dowson, Ernest, 222, 238 works, 246-7
Conrad, Joseph, 224-30, 231, 232 The (Gibbon), 127-8 drama Elizabeth I, Queen, 38, 39, 42, 46, 50,
Heart of Darkness, 227-9, 247 Defence of Poesie, The (Sidney), 44 Medieval, 30-2 53-4, 61
Lord Jim, 225-6 Defoe, Daniel, 134-9, 141, 148 Renaissance, 73-9 The doubt of future foes exiles
The Secret Agent, 2 2 9 Moll Flanders, 136-7 Restoration, 87-90 my present joy', 42-3
The Shadow-Line, 229-30 Robinson Crusoe, 122, 133, 134-6, twentieth century, 271-7 Elizabethan revenge tragedy, 79-83
Copernicus, 79 139, 227 Drapier's Letters (Swift), 122 Emecheta, Buchi, 289
Coriolanus (Shakespeare), 68 Delaney, Shelagh, 273 Drayton, Michael, 35 Emma (Austen), 147, 148, 149
Countess of Montgomery's Urania, The 'Delight in Disorder' (Herrick), 104 'Dream of the Rood, The', 10-11 Emmeline, or the Orphan of the Castle
(Wroth), 99 Demos (Gissing), 213 dream-vision poetry, 23 (Smith), 145, 167
Country Wife, The (Wycherley), 88-9 Denham, John, 115 'Drummer Hodge' (Hardy), 211-12 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 128
Court Poems by a Lady of Quality Deserted Village, The (Goldsmith), 127 Dryden, John, 96, 111-13, 115, 116 Endgame (Beckett), 273
(Montagu), 124 Devil's Disciple, The (Shaw), 220 Absalom and Achitophel, 112, 116 Engels, Friedrich, 190-1
Courtier, The (Castiglione), 40 Dickens, Charles, 167-73, 176 All for Love, 88 English language, 15, 22
Coward, Noel, 262, 265 Bleak House, 172-3 Dub!iners 0oyce), 251 promotion ofby Reformation, 39
Cowper, William, 131 Dombey and Son, 172 Duchess of Malfi, The (Webster), 81, Enlightenment, 127-8, 155
Crashaw, Richard, 96 Great Expectations, 171 82 Entertaining Mr Sloane (Orton), 276
Cromwell, Oliver, 87,107 Oliver Twist, 169,170,171 Duffy, Carol Ann, 283-4 epic, 19
Crow (Hughes), 283 Dictionary (Johnson), 128 'Warming Her Pearls', 283-4 epic poetry, 4-5, 8
Crusades, 20 Divine Songs and Meditations (Collins), Dunbar, William, 28 'Epistle from Mr Pope, to Dr
Cry of a Stone, The (Trapnel), 101 98 Dunciad, The (Pope), 117,119 Arbuthnot, An' (Pope), 114-15,
'Cuba' (Muldoon), 285-6 Dixon, Sarah, 125 Dutch Lover, The (Behn), 98 115-16
Cubism, 251 Dobree, Bonamy, 124 dystopian novel, 265 Epithalamion (Spenser), 48, 49-50

j
340 Index Index 341

Essay on Man (Pope), 117 Four Zoas, The (Blake), 156 Golden Bowl, The Qames), 216 Jude the Obscure, 206, 210, 211, 212,
'Essay on Woman, An' (Leapor), 125 Fowles, John Golden Notebook, The (Lessing), 278 217, 247
Essays (Bacon), 100 The French Lieutenant's Woman, 279 Golding, William, 278-9 The Mayor of Casterbridge, 206, 210
Essex, Earl of, 54 Frankenstein (Shelley), 146 Darkness Visible, 279 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, 206, 210-11,
Esther Waters (Moore), 214 Freemantle, Bridget, 125 Lord of the Flies, 278-9 247
Euripides, 62 French Lieutenant's Woman, The The Spire, 279 poetry, 211-12
Evelina (Burney), 144 (Fowles), 279 Goldsmith, Oliver Hare, David, 276
Everyman, 31-2 French literary culture, 19-20 The Deserted Village, 127 Harvey, William, 79
Everyman in His Humour 0onson), French Revolution, 146, 151-3, 155, 'Good Friday, 1613. Riding Haw Lantern, The (Heaney), 291
83-4 156, 166 Westward' (Donne), 94-6 Hawksmoor (Ackroyd), 290
Examiner, 123 Freud, Sigmund, 190, 191 Goodbye to Berlin (Isherwood), 262, Haywood, Eliza, 144
Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, The 'Frost at Midnight' (Coleridge), 160 263-4 Heaney, Seamus, 285, 291, 291-2
(Smollett), 142-3 Fruits of Retirement (Mollineux), 99 Gorboduc, 76 Heart of Darkness (Conrad), 227-9,
Gothic fiction, 132, 145-6, 164, 170 247,258
Faerie Queene, The (Spenser), 48, 49, Gaskell, Elizabeth, 181-3, 213, 214 Grass is Singing, The (Lessing), Heart of Midlothian, The (Scott), 147
50-2, 54, 58, 108 Mary Barton, 173, 183 277-8 Heat of the Day, The (Bowen), 269-70
Far from the Madding Crowd (Hardy), North and South, 181-3, 196 Graves, Robert, 238 Hemans, Felicia, 167
206-7, 209 Gay.John Gray, Thomas Henry N (1) (Shakespeare), 56
Father and Daughter, The (Opie), 166 The Beggar's Opera, 127 Elegy Written in a Country Henry N (2) (Shakespeare), 56
'Father of Women, A' (Meynell), 241 General Prologue (Chaucer), 16 Churchyard, 130-1 Henry V (Shakespeare), 56
Faulks, Sebastian, 291 Geneva Bible, 39 Great Exhibition (1851), 179 Henry VIII, King, 30, 31, 37-8, 39
Female Quixote, The (Lennox), 144 Geoffrey of Monmouth Great Expectations (Dickens), 171 Henry VIII (Shakespeare), 68
Field Work (Heaney), 291 History of the Kings of Britain, 20 Greece, Ancient, 4 Henryson, Robert, 28
Fielding, Henry, 141-2 George I, King, 127 Green, Henry, 262, 264-5 Herbert, George, 96
Amelia, 144 George II, King, 127 Greene, Graham, 262 The Collar', 102-3
Shamela, 141 George III, King, 168 Greville, Fulke, 50 Herbert, Mary (Countess of
Tom Jones, 133, 141-2 George IV, King, 168 Gulliver's Travels (Swift), 122-3 Pembroke), 41
Fifth Monarchists, 101 Georgian poetry, 238-9 Gunpowder Plot, 65 Hero and Leander (Marlowe), 75
Final Passage, The (Phillips), 289 Germinal (Zola), 213 Gurney, Ivor, 240 heroic couplet, 115
Finch, Ann (Countess of Gibbon, Edward The Silent One', 240 Herrick, Robert, 83, 96
Winchilsea), 125 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Gwendolen (Emecheta), 289 'Delight in Disorder', 104
Finnegans Wake 0oyce), 252 Empire, 127-8 Hervey, Lord, 114, 115
First World War, 224-5, 228, 241, Gissing, George, 213-14, 216 Haggard, Rider, 139, 216 High Wind in Jamaica, A (Hughes),
262, 291 New Grub Street, 214 Haklyut, Richard 265
Forced Marriage, The (Behn), 90 The Odd Women, 215 The Principal Navigations, Voyages, High Windows (Larkin), 282
Ford.John Gladstone, William Ewart, 212 Traffiques and Discoveries of the 'His Private Honour' (Kipling), 218
Tis Pity She's a Whore, 81 Globe theatre, 73 English Nation, 40 Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum
Forster, E. M., 224, 232, 257 Goblin Market (Rossetti), 204-5 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 53, 62-4, 65, (Ecclesiastical History of the English
Howards End, 224, 232 God of Small Things, The (Roy), 289 67, 81, 95 People) (Bede), 3
A Passage to India, 224, 232-3 'God's Grandeur' (Hopkins), 222 Hand.Jul of Dust, A (Waugh), 262 Historical and Moral View of the Origin
Fortunate Foundlings, The (Haywood), Godwin, William, 154, 162 Happy Days (Beckett), 273 and Progress of the French
144 Caleb Williams, 166 Hardy, Thomas, 194, 206-12, 224 Revolution, An (Wollstonecraft),
Four Hymns (Spenser), 49 Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Far from the Madding Crowd, 206-7, 166
Four Quartets (Eliot), 246 166 209 historical novels, 171, 290
342 Index Index 343

History of Henry Esmond, The In a German Pension (Mansfield), 233 Sejanus, 84 Kureishi, Hanif, 289
(fhackeray), 180-1 In Memoriam (fennyson), 184-5 'To Penshurst', 103 Kyd, Thomas, 75
History ofJemmy and Jenny Jessamy Inchbald, Elizabeth, 167 Volpone, 84-5 The Spanish Tragedy, 56, 79-81, 82
(Haywood), 144 Incognita (Congreve), 138 'Jordan' poems (Herbert), 102
History of the Kings of Britain Industrial Revolution, 163 Journal of the Plague Year, A (Defoe), Lady Audley's Secret (Braddon), 201
(Geoffrey of Monmouth), 20 Intimacy (Kureishi), 289 137 Lady Chatterley's Lover (Lawrence), 234
History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless Invisible Man, The (Wells), 230 Joyce, James, 224, 247, 251-7, 261, 'Lady of Shallot, The' (fennyson),
(Haywood), 144 Isherwood, Christopher, 262, 263 272 184
History of Mr Polly, The (Wells), 230 Goodbye to Berlin, 262, 263-4 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Lady Windermere's Fan (Wilde), 220
History of Pendennis, The (fhackeray), Ishiguro, Kazuo Man, 251, 252-4 'Lake Isle oflnnisfree, The' (Yeats),
180 The Remains of the Day, 282 Ulysses, 247, 251-2, 254-7, 258, 287 242
History of the World, The (Raleigh), 40 Italian Renaissance, 38 Joys of Motherhood, The (Emecheta), Lamb, Charles, 95
Hitler, Adolf, 262 Ivanhoe (Scott), 147 289 Lanfranc, 17
Hobbit, The (folkien), 265 Ivy Gripped the Stairs (Bowen), 270 Jude the Obscure (Hardy), 206, 210, Langland, William, 14, 28-30
Hodgson, Ralph, 238 211, 212, 217, 247 Piers Plowman, 28-30
Hogarth Press, 257 Jacobean revenge tragedy, 79-83 Julian of Norwich, 21 Lanyer, Aemelia, 42
Homage to Catalonia (Orwell), 264 Jacobites, 126 Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love, Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum, 97
Homecoming, The (Pinter), 274 Jacob's Room (Woolf), 258 17-18 Larkin, Philip, 282-3
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 222 James, Henry, 215-16, 224, 270 Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 56, 60-1, Latin, 12, 17, 22, 39
Horace, 115 James I, King, 28, 61, 65, 67, 74 65 Law of Freedom, The (Winstanley),
'Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's James II, King, 111, 113 Jutes, 4, 7 100
Return from Ireland, An' Jane Eyre (Bronte), 173, 174-6, 177, 257 Juvenal, 115 Lawrence, D. H., 224, 233, 234-8,
(Marvell), 105 Je Ne Parle Pas Fran~is (Mansfield), 247-8
House of Doctor Dee, The (Ackroyd), 233 Kapital, Das (Marx), 191 background,234
290 Jerusalem, 15 6 Keats, John, 163-5, 168, 202 Sons and Lovers, 224, 234-5, 252
House of Fame, The (Chaucer), 23, 24 Jew of Malta, The (Marlowe), 79 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci', 163-4 The Rainbow, 234, 235-6, 257
House for Mr Biswas, A (Naipaul), 281 John, King, 14, 15 'Ode to a Nightingale', 164 Women in Love, 224, 234, 236-7
Housman, A. E., 238 Johnson, Linton Kwesi, 284 Kelman, James Leapor, Mary
How Late It Was, How Late (Kelman), Johnson, Lionel, 222, 238 How Late It Was, How Late, 281 'An Essay on Woman', 125
281 Johnson, Samuel, 128-9, 130 Kempe, Margery, 21 Lear (Bond), 276
Howards End (Forster), 224, 232 Dictionary, 128 The Book of Margery Kempe, 18-19 Legende of Good Women, The
Hughes, Richard, 265 Jones, Inigo, 86 Killigrew, Anne, 98 (Chaucer), 23, 24
Hughes, Ted, 283 Jones, Mary, 129 King John (Shakespeare), 56 Lennox, Charlotte, 130
humanism, 38 Jonson, Ben, 50, 60, 83-7, 96, 103-4, King Lear (Shakespeare), 53, 62, 64-6, The Female Quixote, 144
Huxley, Aldous )15 67 Less Deceived, The (Larkin), 282
Brave New World, 262, 265 The Alchemist, 84, 85 King Solomon's Mines (Haggard), 216 Lessing, Doris, 277, 280-1
Hydriotaphia (or Um Burial) background, 83 King's Quair, The (James I), 28 Children ofViolence, 278
(Browne), 100 Bartholomew Fair, 84, 85 Kingsley, Charles, 181 The Grass is Singing, 277-8
conversion from Anglicanism to Kipling, Rudyard, 217-19, 224 Letters on Education with Observations
Ibsen, Henrik, 220 Catholicism, 104 'His Private Honour', 218 on Religious and Metaphysical
Imperial Palace (Bennett), 230 Everyman in His Humour, 83-4 The Light that Failed, 219 Subjects (Macaulay), 167
Importance of Being Earnest, The and masques, 85-6 Kipps (Wells), 230 Letters Written during a Short Residence
(Wilde), 220-1 'On My First Son', 103 'kitchen-sink' drama, 273 in Sweden, Norway and Denmark
In the Ditch (Emecheta), 289 poetry, 96 'Kubla Khan' (Coleridge), 159-60 (Wollstonecraft), 166
344 Index Index 345

Lewis, Alun, 269 Man of Feeling, The (Mackenzie), 145 Memoirs of Mrs Sidney Biddulph Monroe, Harriet, 261
Lewis, Cecil Day, 264 Man from the North, A (Bennett) , 230 (Sheridan), 144 Montagu, Elizabeth, 130
Lewis, Matthew G. Manfred (Byron), 162 Merchant ofVenice, The (Shakespeare), Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 115,
The Monk, 146 Mankind, 31 56, 57-8 124-5
Life's Progress Through the Passions Manning, Olivia Merry Wives of Windsor, The Moonstone, The (Collins), 200-1
(Haywood), 144 The Balkan Trilogy, 270 (Shakespeare), 56, 57 Moore, George
Light that Failed, The (Kipling), 219 Mansfield, Katherine, 233 Meynell, Alice, 241 Esther Waters, 214
Little Dorrit (Dickens), 172 Mansfield Park (Austen), 147, 149-50 'A Father of Women', 241 Moral Essays (Pope), 117
Lives of the English Poets 0ohnson), Many Inventions (Kipling), 218 Michael Robartes and the Dancer morality plays, 31-2
128 Maria; Or the Wrongs ofWoman (Yeats) , 242 More, Hannah, 130
Living (Green), 262, 264 (Wollstonecraft), 166 Middle English Literature, 13, 14-33 More, Sir Thomas, 38-9, 63
Lodge, Thomas, 35 'Mariana' (fennyson), 184 Middlemarch (Eliot), 192-3, 194-7, Utopia, 37, 38-9
'London' (Blake), 154-5 Marlowe, Christopher, 75-9 208, 247 Morris, William, 190
London Fields (Amis), 280 background and life, 75 Middleton, Thomas, 81 Morte D'Arthur, Le (Malory), 20, 32-3
Longest Journey, The (Lawrence), 224 death, 75 The Changeling, 81, 82 'Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown'
Look Back in Anger (Osborne), 271, Doctor Faustus, 78-9 The Revenger's Tragedy, 81-2 (Woolf), 258
273-4 Hero and Leander, 75 Midnight's Children (Rushdie), 288, Mr Norris Changes Trains (Isherwood),
Look, Stranger! (Auden), 262 The Jew of Malta, 79 289 262,263
Loot (Orton), 276 Tamburlaine the Great, 75-7 Midummer Night's Dream Mrs Dalloway (Woolf), 258
Lord of the Flies (Golding), 278-9 Marprelate, Martin, 42 (Shakespeare), 56 Mrs Warren's Profession (Shaw),
Lord Jim (Conrad), 225-6 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Mill on the Floss, The (Eliot), 193-4 219-20
Lord Raingo (Bennett), 230 (Blake), 156 Mill, John Stuart, 189 Much Ado About Nothing
Louis XVI, King, 151 Marsh, Edward, 238 Milton, John ,96, 104, 106-11, 156 (Shakespeare), 56, 57, 58
Lovelace, Richard, 96 Marston, John, 50 Areopagitica, 100 Muldoon, Paul, 285
Love's Labours Lost (Shakespeare), 56 Marvell, Andrew, 96, 104-6, 115 background, 106 'Cuba', 285- 6
Luther, Martin, 37-8 'An Horatian Ode upon Comus, 86 Murder in the Cathedral (Eliot), 246
lyric poetry, 8 Cromwell's Return from Paradise Lost, 49, 106-10, 159 Murdering Judges (Hare), 276
Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth), 157, 159 Ireland', 105 Paradise Regained, 110 Murphy (Beckett), 262, 271
'To His Coy Mistress', 104-5 Samson Agonistes, 110- 11 My Beautiful Laundrette (Kureishi),
Macaulay, Catherine, 167 Marx, Karl, 190-1, 205 The Reason of Church Government, 289
Macbeth (Shakespeare), 53, 62 Das Kapital, 191 100 'My Last Duchess' (Browning),
MacDiarmid, Hugh, 284 Mary Barton (Gaskell), 173, 183 Milton in America (Ackroyd) , 290 185- 6
MacDonald, Ramsay, 262 Mary Queen of Scots, 4 3, 54 Milton (Blake), 156 My Son the Fanatic (Kureishi), 289
MacFlecknoe (Dryden), 116 Masefield, John, 238 miracle plays, 30-1, 56 Mysteries of Udolpho, The (Radcliffe),
Mackenzie, Henry Mask of Anarchy (Shelley), 162 Miss Majorbanks (Oliphant), 204 145
The Man of Feeling, 145 Masque of Queens, The 0onson), 86 modernism , 251, 257, 260-1, 262, Mystic Masseur, The (Naipaul), 281
MacNeice, Louis, 264 masques, 74, 85-7 28 2
Magna Carta, 15 Maturin, C. R. Modest Proposal, A (Swift), 122 Naipaul, V. S., 281-2
Magnyfacence (Skelton), 31 Melmoth the Wanderer, 146 Moll Flanders (Defoe), 136-7 Napoleon Bonaparte, 151, 153
Mahon, Derek, 285 Mayor of Casterbridge, The (Hardy), Mollineux, Mary Nashe, Thomas
Major Barbara (Shaw), 224 206, 210 Fruits of Retirement, 99 The Unfortunate Traveller, 41, 138
Malory, Thomas Medieval romance, 19-20 Money (Amis), 280 Nature of Blood, The (Phillips), 289
Le Morte D'Arthur, 20, 32-3 Melmoth the Wanderer (Maturin), Monk, The (Lewis), 146 neo-classical period, 118
Man of Destiny, The (Shaw), 220 146 monks, transcribing by, 3, 10 Nether World, The (Gissing), 213
346 Index Index 347

New Grub Street (Gissing), 214 Adeline Mowbray, 166 Peterloo Massacre, 163 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A
Newgate novel, 171 Oranges Are Not the On(y Fruit Petrarch, 22, 34, 36, 44 (Joyce), 251, 252-4
Night and Day (Woolf), 257-8 (Winterson), 281 Philip (Thackeray), 181 Portrait of a Lady, The (James), 216
Night Thoughts (Young), 131 Origin of the Species, The (Darwin), Philips, Katherine, 98 Possession: A Romance (Byatt), 290
Nights at the Circus (Carter), 281 190, 199 Phillips, Caryl, 289 post-war Britain, 267-71
Nightwood (Barnes), 261 Orlando (Woolf), 258 Phineas Finn (Trollope), 202-3 Pound, Ezra, 224, 238, 251, 257
1930s, 261-6 Oroonoko (Behn), 138 Picasso, Pablo, 251 Powell, Anthony
Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell), 265, Orton, Joe, 276 Picts, 3 A Dance to the Music of Time, 270
270-1 Orwell, George, 262, 264 Picture of Dorian Gray, The (Wilde), Prelude, The (Wordsworth), 159
Norman Conquest (1066), 12, 13, Down and Out in Paris and London, 222 Pretty Lady, The (Bennett), 230
14-15, 17 262,264 'Pied Beauty' (Hopkins), 222 Pride and Prejudice (Austen), 147
Norman French language, 15, 22 Nineteen Eighty-Four, 265, 270-1 Piers Plowman (Langland), 28-30 Principal Navigations, Voyages,
North, Lord, 126 Osborne, John, 271 Pilgrimage (Richardson), 259, 261 Traffiques and Discoveries of the
North and South (Gaskell), 181-3, 196 Look Back in Anger, 271, 273-4 Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan), 100, 138 English Nation, The (Hakluyt), 40
Northanger Abbey (Austen), 147, 170 Othello (Shakespeare), 53, 62, 66-7 Pinter, Harold, 274-5 Prior, Matthew
Northern Ireland Owen, Wilfred, 238, 241 The Caretaker, 274, 275 Carmen Seculare, 117-18
poetry from, 285 'Anthem for Doomed Youth', Pitt the Elder, William, 126 Private Lives (Coward), 262
Norton, Thomas, 76 239-40 Pitt the Younger, William, 126 Protestantism, 98
Not I (Beckett), 273 Plath, Sylvia, 283 Prothalamion (Spenser), 49
novel, 127, 133-50, 167,170 Paine, Thomas, 154 Plautus, 56 Pru.frock and Other Observations (Eliot),
concern with those in possession Rights of Man, 152 Playhouses, 73-4 246
of new wealth, 137 Pamela (Richardson), 139-40 Plenty (Hare), 276 Pseudo-Martyr (Donne), 91
dominance of in Victorian Pamphilia to Amphilantus (Urania) Poems and Ballads (Swinburne), 205 Puritans, 41, 42, 53, 55, 74, 84
period, 183 (Wroth), 99 Poems and Fancies (Cavendish), 101
emergence of in eighteenth Paradise Lost (Milton), 49, 106-10, 159 poetry Queen Mab (Byron), 162
century, 119, 121-2, 133-4 Paradise Regained (Milton), 110 Georgian, 238-9 quest, idea of, 247-8
as a mirror of new middle-class Parlement of Foules, The (Chaucer), 23, Northern Ireland, 285
audience, 133-4 24 religious, 97-8 Radcliffe, Ann
Party Going (Green), 264 Scottish, 284 The Mysteries of Udolpho, 145
Odd Women, The (Gissing), 215 Passage to India, A (Forster), 224, seventeenth century, 91-113 Rainbow, The (Lawrence), 224,234,
'Ode to Evening' (Collins), 131 232-3 twentieth century, 282-6 235-6, 257
'Ode to a Nightingale' (Keats), 164 Passion of New Eve, The (Carter), 281 in Victorian period, 183-7 Ralegh, Sir Walter, 40
'Ode to the West Wind' (Shelley), 'Passion, The' (Collins), 131 war, 239-41 Rape of the Lock, The, 116
162 Pater, Walter Poor Law (1834), 169 Rasselas 0ohnson), 129
Odyssey (Homer), 255 Studies in the History of the Pope, Alexander, 112, 114-21, 126, realism, 191, 192, 194, 197
Old English language, 11, 12-13, 15 Renaissance, 222 132 Reason of Church Government, The,
Old English literature, 1-13, 16, 38 patriotism, 126 background, 116-17 100
OldWives'Tale, The (Bennett), 230, Paul Cl!fford (Bulwer-Lytton), 171 differences between Swift and, Red Lion playhouse, 73
231 Peasants Revolt (1381), 15 123 Reformation, 30, 80
Oliphant, Margaret, 204 Pelham, Henry, 126 Dunciad, 117, 119 and sixteenth-century prose,
Oliver Twist (Dickens), 169,170,171 Pepys, Samuel, 87 'An Epistle from Mr Pope, to Dr 37-42
'On My First Son' (Jonson), 103 Peregrine Pickle (Smollett), 142 Arbuthnot', 114-15, 115-16 religion, 41-2
Ondaatje, Michael, 291 Pericles (Shakespeare), 68 The Rape of the Lock, 116 religious poetry, 97-8
Opie, Amelia, 166-7 Persuasion (Austen), 147 Windsor Forest, 116-17 Religious Settlement (1559), 38, 53

.l..
348 Index Index 349

religious writing Rosenberg, Isaac, 238 Sentimental Journey, A (Sterne), 145 Sheridan, Frances
Middle English Literature, 17-18 Rosencrantz and Guildenstem are Dead Serious Money (Churchill), 276 Memoirs of Mrs Sidney Biddulph,
Remains of the Day, The (Ishiguro), (Stoppard), 275-6 Seth, Vikram, 289 144
282 Rossetti, Christina seventeenth-century poetry and Sheridan, Richard, 127
Renaissance drama, 73-87, 88 Goblin Market, 204-5 prose, 91-113 Shoreditch theatre, 73
Report and Plea (frapnel), 101-2 Rover, The (Behn), 90 Seward, Anna, 129 Sidney, Mary, 42, 43
Restoration drama, 87-90 Roxana (Defoe), 137 Shadow-Line, The (Conrad), 229-30 Sidney, Sir Philip, 35, 42, 138
Restoration (fremain), 290 Roy, Arundhati, 289 Shakespeare, William, 3, 6, 53-72, The Arcadia, 41, 138
Return of the Native, The (Hardy), 206 Royalists, 98 95 Astrophil and Stella, 43-5
Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, The 'Rule Britannia', 126 Antony and Cleopatra, 68, 69-70, The Defence of Poesie, 44
(Chapman), 81 Rushdie, Salman, 282, 288 88 'Silent One, The' (Gurney), 240
Revenger's Tragedy, The (Middleton), Midnight's Children, 288, 289 characters in plays, 60 Sillitoe, Alan
81-2 The Satanic Verses, 288-9 comedies and histories, 55-61 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning,
rhymed metrical verse, 12 Ruskin, John, 189-90 The Comedy of Errors, 56 280
Riceyman Steps (Bennett), 230 Ruth (Gaskell), 183 deconstruction of role-playing, 'silver-fork' novel, 170
Richard II (Shakespeare), 56, 58-60 58 Sir Charles Grandison (Richardson),
Richardson, Dorothy Sackville, Thomas, 76 and the Globe theatre, 73 139, 145
Pilgrimage, 259, 261 Sacred Wood, The (Eliot), 246-7 Hamlet, 53, 62-4, 65, 67, 81, 95 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 19-21,
Richardson, Samuel, 130, 139-41 'Sailing to Byzantium' (Yeats), 244-5 Julius Caesar, 50, 60-1, 65 33
Clarissa, 133, 139-40, 145 Salve Deus Rex Iudaeorum (Lanyer), 97 King Lear, 53, 62, 64-6, 67 Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love
Pamela, 139-40 Samson Agonistes (Milton), 110-11 late plays, 68-72 Qulian of Norwich), 17-18
Sir Charles Grandison, 139, 145 Sassoon, Siegfried, 238, 239 Macbeth, 53, 62 sixteenth-century poetry and prose,
Rights of Man (Paine), 152 They', 239 The Merchant of Venice, 56, 57-8 34-52, 93
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Satanic Verses, The (Rushdie), 288-9 The Merry Wives of Windsor, 56, 57 Skelton, John, 31
(Coleridge), 160 satire, 115, 116, 117, 118-19 Much Ado About Nothing, 56, 57, 58 'slum novels', 214
Road to Wigan Pier, The (Orwell), 264 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Othello, 53, 62, 66-7 Smart, Christopher, 131
Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), 122, 133, (Sillitoe), 280 questioning of established order Smith, Charlotte
134-6, 139, 227 Saved (Bond), 276 in plays, 58, 67 Emmeline, or the Oiphan of the
Robinson, Mary, 167 School for Scandal, The (Sheridan), 127 rewriting of in Restoration, 88 Castle, 145, 167
Roderick Random (Smollett), 142, 143 Scott, Sir Walter, 147, 171 Richard II, 56, 58-60 Smith, Stevie, 283
rogue literature, 41 Scottish Chaucerians, 28 sonnets, 46-8 Smollett, Tobias, 142-3
Roman Britain, 3-4 Scottish poetry, 284 The Tempest, 41, 68, 71 Roderick Random, 142, 143
Roman de Brut (Wace), 20 'Seafarer, The', 8, 9-10 themes of works, 55 Songs of Experience (Blake), 154-5
romance Seasons, The (fhomson), 125-6 Titus Andronicus, 58, 81, 82 Songs of Innocence (Blake), 155
difference between epic and, 19 Second Shepherds' Play, The, 31 tragedies, 62-8 sonnets, 34-5, 36, 37, 40, 42-8
Medieval, 19-20 Second World War, 261, 262, 267, The Winter's Tale, 41, 68 and Shakespeare, 46-8
Romantic period, 130, 147, 151-68 269-70 Shamela (Fielding), 141 Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, 43-5
Romaunt of the Rose, The (Chaucer), Secret Agent, The (Conrad), 229 Shaw, George Bernard, 219-20, 224 Sonnets from the Portuguese (Barrett
22, 23-4 Sejanus Qonson), 84 She (Haggard), 216 Browning), 186, 187
Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), 56 Self, Will, 287 Shelley, Mary, 147, 166 Sons and Lovers (Lawrence), 224,
Rookwood (Ainsworth), 171 Seneca, 56 Frankenstein, 146 234-5, 252
Room of One's Own, A (Woolf), 260 sensation novel, 197-201 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 162-3, 168 Sophocles, 62
Room, The (Pinter), 274 Sense and Sensibility (Austen), 147 Shepheardes Calender, The (Spenser), Sorley, Charles, 238
Room with a View, A (Forster), 224 sensibility, 129-32, 142, 145 48 'Spain (1937)' (Au

- .c c.1 0\ooi
~~~~--:-
350 Index Index 351

Spanish Tragedy, The (Kyd), 56, 79-81, Tamburlaine the Great (Marlowe), To Penshurst' (Jonson), 103 Unsworth, Barry, 291
82 75-7, 82 Tolkien, J. R. R. Utopia (More), 37, 38-9
Spectator, The, 124 Tatler, 124 The Hobbit, 265
Spender, Stephen, 263, 264 Tempest, The (Shakespeare), 41, 68, 71 Tollett, Elizabeth, 125 'Valediction Forbidding Mourning,
Spenser, Edmund, 35, 42, 48-52 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 183-5, 186 Tom Jones (Fielding), 133, 141-2 A' (Donne), 94
Epithalamion, 48, 49-'-50 In Memoriam, 184-5 Tono-Bungay (Wells), 230, 231-2 Vanity Fair (Thackeray), 173, 179-80
The Faerie Queene, 48, 49, 50-2, 54, Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Hardy), 206, Top Girls (Churchill), 276-7 Vanity of Human Wishes (Johnson),
58 210-11, 247 Tourneur 128-9
literary career, 48-9 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 173, The Atheist's Tragedy, 81 Vaughan, Henry, 96
Spire, The (Golding), 279 179-81 Tower, The (Yeats), 242 Victoria, Queen, 169, 212, 224
Spirit Level, The (Heaney), 291 Philip, 181 Town Eclogues (Montagu), 124 Victorian literature
Stalin, Joseph, 262 The History of Henry Esmond, 180-1 Toxophilus (Ascham), 39 1837-57, 169-87
State of Independence, A (Phillips), 289 The History of Pendennis, 180 tragedy, 62 1857-76, 188-205
Steele, Richard, 124 Vanity Fair, 173, 179-80 Elizabethan and Jacobean, 1876--1901, 206-23
Stein, Gertrude, 261 That Summer (Edgar), 276 79-83 Victorian sages, 189-90
Stephens, James, 238 Thatcher, Margaret, 268 and Shakespeare, 62-8 View of the Present State of Ireland, A
Sterne, Laurence Theatre of the Absurd, 272, 27 4 Trainspotting (Welsh), 288 (Spenser), 49
A Sentimental Journey, 145 theatres Trapnel, Anna, 101-2 Vikings, 4
Tristram Shandy, 133, 142 playhouses, 73-4 Report and Plea, 101-2 Vile Bodies (Waugh), 262
Stevenson, Robert Louis Restoration, 87 Treasure Island (Stevenson), 216 Villette (Bronte), 176-7
Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 217 They' (Sassoon), 239 Tremain, Rose Vindication of the Rights of Men, A
Treasure Island, 216 Thomas, Dylan, 262, 284 Restoration, 290 (Wollstonecraft), 152,166
Stoppard, Tom, 275-6 Thomas, Edward, 238, 241 Tristram Shandy (Sterne), 133, 142 Virgil, 28
Rosencrantz and Guildenstem are 'Adlestrop', 238-9 Troilus and Criseyde (Chaucer), 24 Visions of the Daughters of Albion
Dead, 275-6 Thomas, Elizabeth, 125 Trollope, Anthony, 202-3 (Blake), 156
Studies in the History of the Renaissance Thomas, R. S., 284 Phineas Finn, 202-3 Volpone (Jonson), 84-5
(Pater), 222 Thomson, James The Way We Live Now, 203 Vortigern, King, 4
Studies in Hysteria (Freud and Breuer), Alfred, 126 True Relation of My Birth, Breeding and Vcyage Out, The (Woolf), 257, 258-9
191 The Seasons, 125-6 Life, A (Cavendish), 101
Suckling, Sir John, 96 Thoughts on the Condition of Women, Tudor period, 36-7, 38, 40, 42 Wace
Suez Crisis, 273 and on the Injustice of Mental Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), 56 Roman de Brut, 20
Suitable Bey, A (Seth), 289 Insubordination (Robinson), 167 twenty-first century, 287-92 Waitingfor Godot (Beckett), 272
'Sun Rising, The' (Donne), 92-3 Thyrza (Gissing), 213 Two Gentlemen ofVerona, The Walcott, Derek, 284
Surrey, Earl of, 35, 38 Timber: or Discoveries (Jonson), 83 (Shakespeare), 56 Waller, Edmund, 96,115
Swift, Graham Time Machine, The (Wells), 230 Two Noble Kinsmen, The Walpole, Horace
Waterland, 279-80 Timon of Athens (Shakespeare), 68 (Shakespeare), 68 The Castle of Otranto, 145
Swift, Jonathan, 118, 121, 122-3, 126 Tintern Abbey' (Wordsworth), 157-8 Tyndale, William, 39 Walpole, Robert, 114, 117, 119, 121,
background and literary career, Tis Pity She's a Whore (Ford), 81 126
122 Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), 56, Ulysses (Joyce), 247, 251-2, 254-7, Walton, Izaak
Gulliver's Travels, 122-3 81, 82 258, 287 The Compleat Angler, 100
Swinburne, Algernon, 205 To His Coy Mistress' (Marvell), Unclassed, The (Gissing), 213 'Wanderer, The', 8-9
Sword of Honour (Waugh), 270 104-5 Unfortunate Traveller, The (Nashe), 41, Wanderer, The (Burney), 146
Sylvia's Lovers (Gaskell), 183 To the Lighthouse (Woolf), 257, 258, 138 Wanderings of Gisin and Other Poems,
Symons, Arthur, 222, 238 259-60 United States, 287 The (Yeats), 242

L
352 Index Index 353

war poetry/poets, 238, 239-41 Windsor Forest (Pope), 116-17 To the Lighthouse, 257, 258, 259-60 Wycherley, 88
War of the Worlds, The (Wells), 230 Wings of the Dove, The (James), 216 The Voyage Out, 257, 258-9 The Country Wife , 88-9
'Warming Her Pearls' (Duffy), 283-4 Winstanley, Gerrard, 100-1, 101 works, 257-8 Wycliffe, John 17, 31
Wars of the Roses, 27, 33, 36, 58 Winter's Tale, The (Shakespeare), 41, Wordsworth, William, 157-9, 164-5,
Waste Land, The (Eliot), 233,246, 68 168 Yeats, W. B., 224, 238, 241-5, 282
247-8,249-51,257 Winterson, Jeanette Lyrical Ballads, 157, 159 background,241-2
Waterland (Swift), 279-80 Oranges Are Not the Onry Fruit, The Prelude, 159 'Easter 1916', 243
Watt (Beckett), 271 281 'Tintern Abbey', 157-8 'Sailing to Bzyantium', 244-5
Waugh, Evelyn, 262 Wise Children (Carter), 281 Workers in the Dawn (Gissing), 2123 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree', 242
Sword of Honour, 270 Wives and Daughters (Gaskell), 183 'Wreck of the Deutsch/and, The' The Wanderings of Oisin and Other
Waverley (Scott), 147 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 130,154, (Hopkins), 222 Poems, 242
Waves, The (Woolf), 258 165-6 Wroth, Mary, 99 You Never Can Tell (Shaw), 220
Way of All Flesh, The (Butler), 215 An Historical and Moral View of the Young, Edward
Wuthering Heights (Bronte), 173, 178
Way We Live Now, The (Trollope), 203 Origin and Progress of the French Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 34-7, 38, 284 Night Thoughts, 131
Way of the World, The (Congreve), Revolution, 16 6 'Whoso list to hunt', 34-5, 35-7, Zola, Emile 213
89-90 private life, 166 284 Germinal, 213
Webster, John, 81 A Vindication of the Rights of Men,
Wells, H. G., 215, 224, 230, 231-2 152, 166
Tono-Bungay, 230, 231-2 Woman of No Importance, A (Wilde),
Welsh, Irvine 220
Trainspotting, 288 Woman in White, The (Collins),
Wesker, Arnold, 273 197-200, 208
What the Butler Saw (Orton), 276 Woman Who Did, The (Allen), 215
What Maisie Knew (James), 216 women
Where Angels Fear to Tread increasing visibility in literary life
(Lawrence), 224 during eighteenth century,
White Devil, The (Webster), 81 124-5
White Peacock, The (Lawrence), 224, and poetry and writing in
234 eighteeth century, 129-30
Whitney, Isabella, 43 position before and after First
Whitsun Weddings, The (Larkin), 282 World War, 233
'Whoso list to hunt' (Wyatt), 34-5, prominence of in Renaissance
35-7, 284 drama, 82
Wild Swans at Coole, The (Yeats), 242 in Romantic period, 153-4
Wilde, Oscar, 220-3 Women Beware Women (Middleton),
The Importance of Being Earnest, 81
220-1 Women in Love (Lawrence), 224, 234,
The Picture of Dorian Gray, 222 236-7
William I, King, 7 Wood, Mrs Henry
William III, King, m, 117, 121 East Lynne, 201
William IV, King, 168 Woodlanders, The (Hardy), 206
'Willing Mistress, The', 98-9 Woolf. Leonard, 257
'Windhover, The' (Hopkins), 222 Woolf, Virginia, 90, 257-61, 264
Winding Stair, The (Yeats), 242 A Room of One's Own, 2 6 o