Development of the Novel in Romantic Age

Topic: Development of the Novel in Romantic Age

Paper Name: The Romantic Age

Paper No: 5

Name: Bhatt Urvi

Roll no: 32

Submitted to: Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

·       Introduction of the Romantic Age:-

                          The age of Romanticism [1800-1850] was The second Creative Period of English Literature. The first half of the nineteenth century record the triumph democracy in literature and of democracy in government, and the two movements are so closely associated, in so many nations and in so many periods of history that one must wonder if there be not some relation of cause and effect between them. Just as we understand the tremendous energizing influence of Puritanism is the matter of English literary by remembering that the common people had begun to read, and that their book was the Bible, so we may understand this age is popular government by remembering that the chief subject of romantic literature was the essential nobleness of common man and the value of the individual.

                            It great historic movements become intelligible only when we read what was written in this period, for the French Revolution and the American common wealth, as well as the establishment of a true democracy in England by the Reform Bill, were the inevitable result of ideas which literature had spread rapidly through the civilized world.

·       Historical Summary:-

                                 The period we are considering begins in the latter half of the reign of    George III  and ends with the accession of Victoria in 1837. England herself learned the lesson taught her by America, and became the democracy of which her writers had always dreamed.

·       The French Revolution:-

                                  The storm center of the political unrest was the French Revolution, that frightful uprising which proclaimed the natural right of man and the abolition of class distinctions. Patriotic aubs and societies multiplied in England, all asserting the doctrine of revolutions but her own looked with horror on the realm the two nations into war.

·       Economic Conditions:-

                                  While England increased in wealth and spent vast sums to support her army and subsidize her allies in Europe, and while nobles, landowners, manufactures, and merchants lived in increasing luxury, a multitude of skilled laborers were clamoring for work. Fathers sent their wives and little children into the mines and factories were sixteen hours labor would hardly pay for the daily bread and in every large city were riotous mobs made up chiefly of hungry men and women. It was this unbearable economic condition, and not any political theory, as Burke supposed, which occasioned the danger of another English revolution.

·       Reforms:-

                           The destruction of the African slave trade, the mitigation of horribly unjust laws, which include poor debtors and petty criminals in the same class, the prevention of child labor, the freedom of the press, the extension of manhood suffrage, the abolition of restrictions against Catholics in parliament, the establishment of hundred of popular schools, under the leadership of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancasta - these are but a few of the reforms which mark the progress of civilization in a single half century, When England in 1833, proclaimed the emancipation of all slaves in all her colonies she unconsciously proclaimed her final emancipation from barbarian.

·       Literary Characteristics of the Age:-

Ø  When the terminology was over and England began her mightily work of reform. Literature suddenly developed a new creative spirit, which shows itself to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats and in the prose of Scott, Jane Austen, Lamb- a wonderful group of writers.

Ø  The essence of Romanticism was, it must be remembered that literature must reflects all that is spontaneous and unaffected in nature and in man, and be free to follow its own fancy in own way.

Ø  Coleridge and Wordsworth, best represent the romantic genius of the age in which they lived, though Scott had a greater literary reputation, and Byron and Shelley had larger audience.

Ø  It was during this period that woman assumed, for the first time, an important place in our literature.

Ø  As all strong emotions tend to extremes, the age produced a new type of novel which seems rather hysterical now, but which in its own day delighted multitudes of readers whose nerves were somewhat excited, and who reeled in “bogey” stories of supernatural terror.

·       Prose Writers of the Romantic period:

                              The early nineteenth century is remarkable for the development of a new and valuable type of critical prose writing. If we except the isolated work of the Dryden and of Addison, it is safe to say that literary criticism, in its modern sense, was hardly known in England until about the year 1825. The later element showed itself in a profound human sympathy, the essence of the Romantic Movement and its importance was  summed up by                             

“Not to sympathy is not to understand”

Ø These new critics, with abundant reverence for past masters, could still lay aside the dogmatism and prejudice which marked Johnson and the magazine editors, and read sympathetically the work of a new author, with the sole idea of finding what he had contributed or tried to contribute, to the magnificent total of our literature.

                                       Now let us discuss the major Novelists of the Romanic Age.

v Sir Walter Scott:

·        His life:-

                        Scott was born in Edinburgh, of an ancient stock of Border freebooters. At the age of eighteen month he was crippled for life by a childish ailment, and though he grew up to be a man of great physical robustness he never lost his lameness. As a pleader he had little success, for he was much more interested in the lore and antiquities of the country.

·        His poetry:-

                              Scott’s earliest poetical efforts were translations from the German. As a narrative poet Scott’s reputation has depreciate, though as his lyrical qualities have more recently been acclaimed, Of his narratives it may be said that his faults, like his merits, are all on the surface: he lacks the finer political virtues, such as reflection, melody and delicate sympathy, he is deficient in humor, he records crude physical action simply portrayed.

·        His prose:-

                           In 1814 Scott returned to a fragment of a Jacobite prose romance that he had started and left unfinished in 1805. He left the opening chapters as they stood, and on to them tacked a rapid and brilliant narrative dealing with the forty-five. This made the novel Waverley, which was issued anonymously in 1814. After Waverley Scott went on from strength to strength: Guy Mannering[1815], The Black Dwarf[1816], The Monastery[1820], The Betrothed[1825] and Talisman[1825].

·        Features of his novels:-

A] Rapidity of production, Scott’s great success as a novelist led to some positive evils, the greatest of which was a too great haste in the composition of his stories.      

       B] His contribution to the novel is very great indeed , To the historical novel he brought a knowledge that was not pedantically exact, but manageable, wide, and bountiful.                                                                                                                                     C] His Shakespearian Qualities, Scott has often been called the prose Shakespeare, ans in several respects the comparison is fairy just, He resembles Shakespeare in the free manner in which he ranges high and low, right and left, in his search for material.

v Jane Austen:

·        Her Life:-

                   Jane Austen’s life was unexciting, being little more than a series of Pilgrimages to different places of residence, including the fashionable resort of Bath [1801]. Her first publication works were issued anonymously, and she died in middle age, before her merits had received anything like adequate recognition.

·        Her Novels:-

                      Her first novel was ‘Pride and Prejudice’ [1796-97]. ‘Sense and Sensibility’ [1797-98] was her second novel, and it followed the same general lines as its predecessor. Her other three great novels, ‘Mansfield park’, ‘Emma’ and ‘Persuasion’.

·        Features of the novels:-

A]      Her plots. Her skillfully constructed plots are severely unromantic. Her first work, beginning as a burlesque of the horrible in fiction, finishes by being as an excellent example of her ideal novel. As her art develops, even the slight casualties of common life such an incident, for example, as the elopement that appears in Pride and Prejudice-become rarer, with the result that the later novels, such as Emma, are the pictures of everyday existence.

B]    Her characters are developed with minuteness and accuracy. They are ordinary people, but are convincingly alive. Her characters are not types, but individuals. Her method of portrayal is based upon acute observation and a quiet but incisive irony. Her male characters have a certain softness of threw and temper, but her female characters are almost unexceptionable in perfection of finish.

C ]    Her place. In the history of fiction is remarkable. Her qualities are of a kind that is slow to be recognized, for there is nothing load or garish to catch the casual glance.

v Other Novelists and Their works:-

A] Maria Edgeworth[1767-1849] :

1.    The Parent’s Assistant

2.   Castle Rockrent

3.   Ormond

B] John Galt[1779-1839] :

1.    The Annals of the Parish

2.   The Provost

3.   The Entaili or, the Lairds of Grippy

C] William Harrison Ainsworth [1805-82] :

1.    The Tower of London

2.   The star Chamber

3.   The Constable of the Tower

D] George P.R.James [1801-60] :

           1. A Tale of France

          2. De I’Orme

          3. The Gipsey

E] Charles Lever[1806-72] :

              1. The Knight of Gwynne

             2. The O’Donoghue

             3. The Dodd Family Abroad

F] Frederick Marryat[1792-1848] :

                  1. Jacob Faithful

                  2. Peter Simple

                  3. Search of a Father

G] Michael Scott[1789-1835] :

                     1. Tom Cringle’s Log

                     2. The Cruise of the Midge

                       3. Backsword’s Magazine

H] Thomas Love Peacock[1785-1866] :

                      1. The Genius of the Thames

                      2. Maid Marian

                      3. Nightmare Abbey

I] Washington Irving[1783-1859] :

                        1. History of the New York

                       2. Tales of a Traveler

                       3. The Conquest of Granda

J] James Fennimore Cooper[1789-1851] :

                      1. The Spy

                      2. The Pilot

          3. The Red Rover

v Conclusion:-

                    This period extends from the war with the colonies, following the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, to the accession of Victorian in 1837, both limits being very indefinite, as will be seen by a glance at the Chronology following. The agitation for popular library, which at one time threatened a revolution, went steadily forward till it resulted in the final triumph of democracy in the Reform Bill of 1832. The literature of the age is largely political inform and almost entirely romantic in spirit.