NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE

NINETEENTH CENTURY PROSE

ROMANTIC PROSE

Poetry dominated the literary scene of the first half of 19^th century more popularly known as the Romantic period. Due to the presence of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and Keats the literary limelight was focussed on poetry. Jane Austen and Walter Scott were the prominent names in Novel. Hence prose was at the third rank in the stature of literary popularity. However the prose of this period was no mean genre and we have essayists like Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt enlarging the horizon of English literature through their contributions. Apart from these two we have Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Shelley and Keats also writing some substantial prose works.

It is a fact that the age did not produce a pamphleteer of the first rank but the productivity of the age is marked in the immense productivity of the political writers. Apart from a steep rise in periodicals the age witnessed the beginning of daily journals which are still very strong elements in literature and politics. Some of the dailies that started are The Morning Chronicle (1769), The Morning Post (1772), The Times (1785) etc. A race of strong literary magazines sprang to life: The Edinburgh Review (1802), The Quarterly Review (1809), Blackwood’s Magazine (1817), The London Magazine (1820), and The Westminster Review (1824).

Though Wordsworth and Coleridge are great poets but they also contributed in the development Romantic prose by their critical works and treatises. Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads is a fine specimen of prose and critical theory which blasted the ailing dogmatic classical dictates of literature in general and poetry in particular. Coleridge’s prose, like his poetry, was scrappy, chaotic and tentative. In bulk it is massive; in manner it is diffuse and involved; but it possesses a breadth, a depth and a searching wisdom that is rare and admirable. The prose of Coleridge is philosophical and literary in theme. In 1796 he started a periodical The Watchman in which he contributed typical essays showing considerable weight and acuteness of thought. He contributed some miscellaneous prose in The Morning Post. In 1808 he started a series of lectures on poetry and allied subjects. In 1817 he published Biographia Literaria and Sibylline Leaves. Biographia Literaria is his most valuable prose work. After long philosophising the book discusses Wordsworthian theory of poetry in a masterly fashion. The book places Coleridge in the first rank of critics. Second only in importance in establishing Coleridge as the greatest of English critics are his lectures on Shakespeare and other poets.

Shelley and Keats also wrote some prose of good consideration. Shelley’s Defence of Poetry (1821) is soundly written and is a strong exposition of the Romantic point of view. His letters show him as a man of common sense and not merely the crazy theorist of popular imagination. His prose style is somewhat heavy but clear. As a prose writer, unlike Wordsworth, Keats made no attempt at a systematic formulation of his views on his art. His Letters give a clear insight into his mind and artistic development. Written with a spontaneous freshness and an easy intimacy, they are the most interesting letters of their times. Apart from poems and exquisite novels Sir Walter Scott also compiled a mass of some beautiful miscellaneous prose. Among them are his prefaces to the editions of Dryden (1808), Swift (1814), Lives of the Novelists (1821-24), Life of Napoleon (1827) and the admirable Tales of a Grandfather (1828-30). His articles, pamphlets, journals and letters are a legion in themselves.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) began his literary career as a poet, attempted a tragic play and compiled Tales from Shakespeare with his sister Mary Lamb. His substantial critical work is found in his specimens of English Dramatic Poets, who lived about the time of Shakespeare (1808) which is remarkable for its delicate insight and good literary taste. But all these writings are of little importance compared with his essays. The first of his essays appeared in The London Magazine in 1820 when Lamb was forty five. The original series was published as The Essays of Elia (1823) and a second under the title of The Last Essays of Elia (1833).

The essays of Lamb are unequalled in English. They are on a variety of subjects ranging from chimney sweeps to old china. They are touched with personal opinions and recollections so oddly obtruded that interest in the subject is nearly swamped by reader’s delight in the author. It is said that no essayist is more egotistical than Lamb; but no egotist can be so artless and yet so artful, so tearful yet so mirthful, so pedantic and yet so humane. It is this delicate clashing of humours, like the chiming of sweet bells, which affords the chief delight to his readers.

His style bears the echoes and odours of older writers like Browne and Fuller. It is full of long and curious words and it is dashed with frequent exclamations and parentheses. The humour that runs through the essays is not so strong but it is airy and elfish in note; it vibrates faintly but never lacks precision. His pathos is of the same character; and sometimes, as in Dream Children, it deepens into a quivering sigh of regret. He is so sensitive and so strong, so cheerful and yet so unalterably doomed to sorrow.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) held unusual political and literary views and headstrong temperament that made him centre of controversies and battles throughout his life. A lecturer of literature by profession Hazlitt was a representative literary critic of the period. From 1814 till his death he contributed to The Edinburgh Review, while others of his articles were published in The Examiner, The Times and The London Magazine. His early writings were consisted of miscellaneous philosophical and political works but his reputation rests upon the lectures and essays on literary and general subjects published between 1817 and 1825. His lectures on Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817), The English Poets (1818), The English Comic Writers (1819) and The Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820) are good examples of literary criticism and scholarship. The best of his essays are collected in The Round Table (1817), Table Talk, or Original Essays on Men and Manners (1821-22) and The Spirit of the Age or Contemporary Portraits (1825).

Hazlitt’s writing is remarkable for its fearless expression of an honest and individual opinion, his ability to communicate his own enjoyment and his gift for evoking unnoticed beauty. His judgements are based on his emotional reactions rather than on objectively applied principles. Hence they are sometimes marred by personal bias but, for the most part, they show his enthusiasm guided by a strong common sense. In style he stands in contrast to De Quincey’s elaborate orchestration of the complex sentence and the magic of the delicate word tracery. His brief, abrupt sentences have the vigour and directness which his views demand. His lectures have manly simplicity and something of the looseness of organisation which is typical of good conversation. His lectures and essays show a fondness for the apt and skilfully blended quotation and for the balanced sentences. His diction is always pure and his expression is concise.

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) is one of the authors whose work has to be rigorously sifted. He wrote a large amount of prose; most of which is hackwork, a fair proportion is of good quality, and a small amount is of highest merit. His Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821), appeared in The London Magazine, is a series of visions that melt away in the manner of dreams. The best of his work is contained in The English Mail Coach (1849), Suspiria de Profundis (1845) and On Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts (1827). A great part of his work is dreary and diffuse. He displays a wide range of knowledge. His style is apt to stumble into vulgarity but when inspired he gives to the English tongue a wonderful strength and sweetness. In these rare moments he plunges into an elaborate style and imagery but never looses grip, sweeping along with sureness and ease. In rhythm and melody he is supreme.

VICTORIAN PROSE

With all its immense production, the Victorian age produced poets like Tennyson, Browning and Arnold; novelists like Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot. It revealed no supreme writer like Shakespeare but the general literary level was very high and it was an age of spacious intellectual horizon, noble endeavour and bright aspirations.

With regard to prose, the greater proportion is written in middle style, the established medium in journalism, in all miscellaneous work and in majority of the novels. Outside this mass of middle style, the style of Ruskin stands highest in the scale of ornate ness; of the same kind is the scholarly elegance of Walter Pater. The style of Macaulay and Carlyle are peculiar brands of the middle style.

During the Victorian age novel had thrust itself into the first rank with Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot. Short story developed as a new species. Essays had expanded as a giant literary type with Macaulay, Carlyle, Pater, Ruskin and many others. Of the minor essayists Dickens in his The Uncommercial Traveller and Thackeray in his The Roundabout Papers practised the shorter Addisonian style that was enlarged by Ruskin, Pater and Stevenson. The lecture became a prominent literary species with Carlyle, Thackeray and Dickens publishing their lectures in book form. But it was Ruskin who, like Coleridge, gave a distinct style and manner to it.

John Ruskin (1819-1900), with no need to earn a living, settled down to a literary career. He developed his own advanced notions on art, politics, economics and other subjects. In art he was particularly devoted to the landscape painting of Turner. In social and economic issues he was an advocate of an advance form of socialism. His ideas appear innocuous today but the Victorian public received them with shock and dismay. First he received only jeers from his adversaries but gradually he freely expounded his opinions in lectures, pamphlets and books. He began with a book Modern Painters which turned out to be his longest book with its first volume published in 1843 and the fifth and last in 1860. The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) is a shorter and more popular work. The Stones of Venice (1851-53), in three volumes, is considered as his masterpiece in thought and style. His other writings are of miscellaneous nature. It comprises of The Two Paths (1859), a course of lectures; Unto This Last (1860), a series of articles on political economy; Munera Pulveris (1862-63), an unfinished series of articles on political economy; Sesame and Lilies (1865), his most popular shorter works; The Crown of Wild Olive (1866), a series of addresses etc.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) is considered as the most representative and honourable name in Victorian prose that not only enriched the genre but also exerted a tremendous impact on the age. His earliest works were translations, essays and biographies. The best work of this period are his translation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1824), his The Life of Schiller (1825) and his essays on Burns and Scott. Then came Sartor Resartus (1833-34) in a series in Fraser’s Magazine. It is an extraordinary book which pretended to contain the opinions of a German professor but under the thin veil of fiction Carlyle disclosed his own spiritual struggles during his early troubled years. Though the style is violent and the meaning is obscure but it has energy and a rapturous ecstasy of revolt. Carlyle then switched over to historical writings which he did in his own unconventional style. His major historical works are The French Revolution (1837), a series of vivid pictures rather than history, but full of audacity and colour; Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (1845), a huge effort relieved by his volcanic methods; Life of John Sterling (1851), a slight work but more genial and humane; and The History of Frederich 11 of Prussia (1858-65), an enormous work in scale and detail both. He wrote numerous works dealing with contemporary events that include Chartism (1840), Past and Present (1843), and Letter-day Pamphlets (1850). The series of lectures which he delivered in 1837 was published as On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841).

Now it is difficult to understand why Carlyle was valued so highly in moral and political affairs. His works have froth and thunder but little of anything is solid and capable of analysis. However he was a man of sterling honesty, of sagacious and powerful mind which he applied to the troubles of his time. His opinions were widely discussed and accepted. His books had the force of ex cathedra pronouncements. Carlyle’s style was entirely his own. At the first glance a passage seems rude and uncouth: with many capital letters in the German fashion, with broken phrases, he proceeds amid a torrent of whirling words. Yet he is flexible to a wonderful degree; he can command a beauty of expression; a sweet and piercing melody. His style has the lyrical note that requires only the lyrical metre to become great poetry.

Macaulay (1800-59), at Cambridge, won the Chancellor’s medal for poetry twice and was made a fellow at Trinity College in 1824. The collapse of father’s business led him to study law and he entered into the bar in 1826. He began his literary career with Knight’s Quarterly Magazine but later began writing his famous essays for The Edinburgh Review. He entered the Parliament in 1830 as a Whig, came to India for four years on a legal post, re-entered political life and rose to the level of Secretary of War and Paymaster General of the Forces. Before leaving for India Macaulay had written 22 essays for The Edinburgh Review; he added three during his stay in India and finished eleven more after his return. He contributed five biographies for Encyclopaedia Britannica. His essays dealt with either literary subjects like Milton, Byron, Bunyan etc or historical studies including his famous compositions on Warren Hastings and Lord Clive. His opinions were often one sided, and his knowledge was often flawed with actual error or distorted by his craving for antithesis but his essays are clearly and ably written and disclose an eye for picturesque effect. His History of England remained unfinished with four volumes of the book completed during his life time. His treatment of history is marked by picturesque details, desire for brilliant effect which resulted in a hard, self confident manner and in a lack of broader outlines and deeper views.

Walter Pater (1839-94) is known both as a stylist and a literary critic. He devoted himself to art and literature producing some remarkable volumes on these subjects. The collection of his first essays appeared as Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873). The essays were chiefly concerned with art. Imaginary Portraits (1887) deals with artists and Appreciations (1889) is on literary themes with an introductory essay on style. Pater was a representative of the school of aesthetic criticism. He was a strong believer of the theory of art for art’s sake. He focused his attention always on form rather than subject matter. His own style is among the most notable of the Victorian prose writers. It is the creation of immense application and forethought; every word is conned, every sentence proved and every rhythm appraised. It is never cheap, but firm and equable.

The earlier published works of the renowned Victorian novelist R L Stevenson (1850-94) were consisted of collection of essays titled An Inland Voyage (1878), Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (1879) and Virginibus Puerisque (1881). In the essays he appears to be a master of easy, graceful style which is the result of much care and a close attention to artistic finish. Any list of Victorian prose stylists will be incomplete without mentioning the name of Matthew Arnold. Arnold (1822-88) was a man of many activities but now he holds his rank as a poet and a literary critic. His prose works are large in bulk and wide in range. His critical essays are ranked of highest value. Essays in Criticism (1865 & 1889) contain the best of his critical works, which is marked by wide reading and careful thought. His judgements are usually sane and measured. He ranks as one of the great English literary critics. In his prose, as in his poetry, he appears to be an apostle of sanity and culture. He advocates a broad cosmopolitan view of European literature as a basis for comparative judgement and attacks provincialism and lack of real knowledge. He wrote freely upon theological and political themes also. Two of his best books of this class are Culture and Anarchy (1869) and Literature and Dogma (1873). His style is perfectly lucid, easy, elegant, distinct and rhythmical.