The period from the coronation of Queen Victoria (1837) until her death (1901) is called as The Victorian Era. But, what was this era all about? Certainly it was a period for major changing in all social matters. I have seen many articles, from different sources that have the tendency to label the Victorian writers as novelists. Well, there is much more to this matter in my particular point of view.

The Victorian Era had, without doubts, many unsettling social developments that practically gave writers no choice: they just had to take positions regarding the immediate matters activating the society. Even though the forms of expression in prose and poetry would still be dominating most part of that century, several writers point of view began to be directed to different causes, such as the growth of democracy in England, the improvement of industrial companies, which leaded indirectly to other related topics: the concern of education level of the masses, an increase of the materialistic philosophy and the troubles that the newly industrialized worker was having to face. Faith, Truth and their related issues started to become major subjects for writers due to science's advance, specially concerning Darwin's evolution theory, and the confusion that arouse with the historical study of the Bible and the unstable religious beliefs.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, in his History of England and even more in his Critical and Historical Essays, expressed the complacency of the English middle classes over their new prosperity and growing political power. The clarity and balance of Macaulay's style, which reflects his practical familiarity with parliamentary debate, stands in contrast to the sensitivity and beauty of the prose of John Henry Newman. Newman's main effort, unlike Macaulay's, was to draw people away from the materialism and skepticism of the age back to a purified Christian faith. Apology for His Life (Apologia Pro Vita Sua), his most famous work, describes with psychological subtlety and charm the basis of his religious opinions and the reasons for his change from the Anglican to the Roman Catholic church.

Thomas Carlyle, another of the great Victorians, similarly alienated by the materialism and commercialism of the period, advanced a heroic philosophy of work, courage, and the cultivation of the godlike in human beings, by means of which life might recover its true worth and nobility. Carlyle expressed this view, borrowed in part from German idealist philosophy, in a vehement, idiosyncratic style in such works as Sartor Resartus (The Tailor Retailored) and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.

Two fine Victorian prose writers presented other answers to social problems with a different approach. The art critic John Ruskin social criticism's looked to the healing of the ills of industrial society and capitalism as the only path to beauty and vitality in the national life. The contribution of the Oxford scholar Walter Patter was the escape from social problems into aesthetic hedonism.

Please choose where you want to go and have a very Victorian visit!

The beautiful set displayed on this page is a creation of my very talented friend Beverly at Moon and Back Graphics. Her artwork is so gorgeous! You just have to go to her wonderful site and see for yourself! This particular set was based on Mrs. Paula Vaughan's painting and is used with permission. Below are both logos linking to their respective sites.