Victorian Era and Literature
Defining Victorian literature in any satisfactory and comprehensive manner has
proven troublesome for critics ever since the nineteenth century came to a close.
The movement roughly comprises the years from 1830 to 1900, though there is ample
disagreement regarding even this simple point. The name given to the period is
borrowed from the royal matriarch of England, Queen Victoria, who sat on throne from
1837 to 1901. One has difficulty determining with any accuracy where the Romantic
Movement of the early nineteenth century leaves off and the Victorian Period begins
because these traditions have so many aspects in common. Likewise, identifying the
point where Victorianism gives way completely to Modernism is no easy task.
Literary periods are never the discrete, self-contained realms which the anthologies
so suggest. Rather, a literary period more closely resembles a rope that is frayed at
both ends. Many threads make up the rope and work together to form the whole
artistic and cultural milieu. The Victorian writers exhibited some well-established
habits from previous eras, while at the same time pushing arts and letters in new
and interesting directions. Indeed, some of the later Victorian novelists and poets
are nearly indistinguishable from the Modernists who followed shortly thereafter. In
spite of the uncertainty of terminology, there are some concrete statements that one
can make regarding the nature of Victorian literature, and the intellectual world
which nurtured that literature.
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