The Literary Evolution from Romanticism to the Victorian Era

The Romantic Age

In the historical period which goes under the name of Romanticism the main social changes occurred above all in the working classes. The word Romantic, first appeared in England in the 17 th century means extravagant unreal then it assumed a different meaning connected with feeling, imagination and emotional pleasures. It was a break with the insistence on reason and it encouraged individualism and emotion and imagination were the sources of inspiration. The English Romanticism was dominated by poetry the poet was seen as a prophet whose task was to convoy truth to mankind. The most important characteristics were: introspection and motivation beauty nature. The most important writers were: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lord Byron, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Jane Austen

Her life was quiet and uneventful. Her stories were all love stories that took place in the little world of a village. Sense and sensibility (1811) set in the simple domestic scenery of rural England, it tells of the striking contrast between two sisters one endowed with common sense and the after with romantic sensibility. Jane Austen’s subjects are courtship and marriage. She seldom intrudes into her works with comments or judgements.

Charles Dickens

One side of his genius was his natural sense of humor that can be found in character drawing, in dialogue and in whole episodes. He was one the most important writers of the Victorian Age. Dickens in the subtle observer of London life: the situations of the streets, of the factories, the sordid life in the debtors’ prison. He used fiction to denounce the vices and evils of his age. Hard Times (1854) he denounces the wrongs of society and the terrible conditions of industrial workers.