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LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH 
LANGUAGE 
Lesson 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Profª Patricia Barreto Mainardi 
 
 
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LESSON 3 – FROM THE ROMANTICISM TO THE VICTORIAN AGE 
3.1 Romanticism 
3.1.1 Historical background – Precursors: Goethe, Schlegel, Blake 
3.1.2 The Romantic Poetry 
3.1.3 Novelists 
3.2 The Victorian Age 
3.2.1 Victorian novel and poetry 
3.3 The 19th - 20th century transition 
3.3.1 Historical background: Make it new, Malcolm Bradbury 
GETTING STARTED (STRUCTURE AND LESSON GOALS) 
Lesson 3 provides you with a complete, albeit general, overview of 
Romanticism and the Victorian Age, that is the period from the late 18th century 
to the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries. Based on the contents, you 
should be able to understand the importance of this period for literature, including 
the transition from the Augustan Age to Romanticism and afterwards the context 
of the early 20th century; understand the notion that literary movements are 
historically influenced processes that occur in response to earlier movements; 
understand the characteristics of literary genres from the Romanticism to the 
Victorian era, especially Romantic poetry, prose and realism; understand the 
conditions of the end of the century that would generate later movements. 
TOPIC 3 – FROM THE ROMANTICISM TO THE VICTORIAN AGE 
3.1 Romanticism 
3.1.1 Historical background – Precursors: Goethe, Schlegel, Blake 
The 19th century is a revolutionary period for literature in general and for 
the literature in English specifically, both in the UK and in the USA. In the end of 
the 18th century, a new literary movement would follow and replace the classical 
ideals that had led to the development of satirical poetry and prose, fiction, and 
 
 
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the novel. As in prior transitions of schools of thought and artistic expression, 
some authors foreshadowed the new aesthetic movement within the previous 
one. Now, the stage is taken by Romanticism. According to Carter and McRae, 
conventionally, the period begins in 1798, which saw the publication by 
Wordsworth and Coleridge of their Lyrical Ballads and ends in 1832. 
[…] These years link literary and political events. The Romantic period 
was an era in which a literary revolution took place alongside social and 
economic revolutions. (1997, p. 217) 
These events were the Industrial Revolution, in which England changed 
from an agricultural into an industrial nation; the French Revolution, that changed 
the ideals and the balance of power in the world; and the American Revolution, 
that deprived the UK from its most important colony. 
They created social and economic unrest and turmoil: the population 
increased rapidly, people started to move to the cities and poverty ensued, along 
with unemployment. Rising capitalism and the doctrine of the free market, from 
the ideas of Adam Smith and his book The Wealth of Nations (1776), were 
spreading: the world was becoming inescapably modern, national identities were 
being forged and individual expression was becoming the trend. 
In continental Europe, specifically in Germany, authors such as Goethe 
and Schiller were defining new aesthetical forms for the novel and poetry. As 
opposed to logic and reason of the classical Augustan period, emotion would 
triumph over reason and personal expression was more and more relevant. 
According to the Schlegel brothers, August and Friedrich (especially the latter), 
“poetry is mixed with the poetical and both constitute a complement to the 
worldview of the Romantic art as they connect to authenticity and spontaneity” 
(Gomes; Vecchi, 1992, p. 52, translated). The expression is universal, but the 
poet is the one who is able to capture the poetic in the world and express it. 
In England, it was not different: the Romantic period would feature the rise 
of individual expression over social rules, the overcoming of reason by intuition 
and passion, and the development of personal experience. Nature was a 
reflection of the poet’s inner feelings and the whole world would behave 
accordingly. Exotic places and cultures, far in time and space, would fascinate 
writers, just as the supernatural; the expression of spiritual and mystical values 
would become also more individual, and less collective. 
 
 
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In terms of the use of language, the Romantic Age would differ from the 
Augustan period in many forms. While classical traditional expression entailed 
high levels of formality and order, 
characterized by the balance and symmetry of the heroic couplet in 
poetry and by an adherence to the conventions […] the Romantics 
developed ways of writing which tried to capture the ebb and flow of 
individual experience in forms and language which were intended to be 
closer to everyday speech and more accessible to the general reader. 
(Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 222) 
Thus, as in the Renaissance, the focus was dislocated to the human being, 
but now as a result of mass industrialization, that led to the loss of personal 
identity: the task of the Romantic writer was that of emphasizing individual 
sensibility as a response to the impersonal mechanized reality. The authors, 
poets and novelists of the period would take hold of the mission of balancing 
these conditions. Some of them almost like the seer, the visionary that is truly the 
“thief of fire” (Rimbaud, 2009, p. 38). 
This figure corresponds to the first writer we have to approach: William 
Blake (1757 – 1827), precursor of Romanticism in England. Blake was an 
engraver and poet who became known for his prophetic books. He did not 
experience fame in his lifetime, but in the twentieth century was largely 
recognized as a poetic genius. 
He wrote Poetical Sketches (1783), Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of 
Experience (1794), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), among others. 
Some of his books include his illustrations. Blake’s poetry is quite symbolic, with 
images of children, flowers and lambs to symbolize innocence; machines and 
urban images, social institutions or priests as symbols of oppression; and some 
less evident symbols in his final poems. Below, two of his most famous poems, 
The Tyger (1794) and The Lamb (1789): 
The Tyger 
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 
In what distant deeps or skies. 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 
On what wings dare he aspire? 
What the hand, dare seize the fire? 
And what shoulder, & what art, 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
And when thy heart began to beat. 
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 
What the hammer? what the chain, 
 
 
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In what furnace was thy brain? 
What the anvil? what dread grasp. 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 
When the stars threw down their spears 
And water'd heaven with their tears: 
Did he smile his work to see? 
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 
Tyger Tyger burning bright, 
In the forests of the night: 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 
(Blake, 2009) 
The Lamb 
Little Lamb who made thee 
Dost thou know who made thee 
Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 
By the stream & o'er the mead; 
Gave thee clothing of delight, 
Softest clothing wooly bright; 
Gave thee such a tender voice, 
Making all the vales rejoice! 
Little Lamb who made thee 
Dost thou know who made thee 
Little Lamb I'll tell thee, 
Little Lamb I'll tell thee! 
He is called by thy name, 
For he calls himself a Lamb: 
He is meek & he is mild, 
He became a little child: 
I a child & thou a lamb, 
We are called by his name. 
Little Lamb God bless thee. 
Little Lamb God bless thee. 
(Blake, 1988) 
3.1.2 The Romantic Poetry 
After Blake, a precursor of the Romantic poetry, the landmark of the period 
is set by the publication of Lyrical Ballads, in 1798, by the English poets William 
Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834). The lines 
ofWordsworth are tributary of Blake’s, especially concerning nature and its 
celebration: “central to Wordsworth’s vision of nature is the importance of the 
impact and influence of nature on the human mind. Wordsworth’s poetry is 
essentially empirical” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 226). 
It means that the senses play an important role, collecting evidence from 
the world; however, the expression is mediated by them, instead of being 
considered a representation of the actual experience. This is connected to the 
concept of individuality, expressed as a persona, the voice that speaks in the 
poem. Among Romantic writers, this voice coincides with the voice of the actual 
poet: “there is a close relationship between the poem and the poet’s own personal 
 
 
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circumstances […] the poem becomes a form of spiritual autobiography” (Carter; 
MacRae, 1997, p. 249). 
The preface of Lyrical Ballads, written by Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
reads “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin 
from emotion recollected in tranquility” (Wordsworth; Coleridge, 1968, p. 42). The 
quotation presents the sentimental character of Romantic poetry, as we can 
confirm in the lines of I wandered lonely as a cloud, also known as Daffodils, by 
Wordsworth, a prolific writer: 
I wandered lonely as a cloud 
I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host, of golden daffodils; 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 
Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretched in never-ending line 
Along the margin of a bay: 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 
The waves beside them danced; but they 
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: 
A poet could not but be gay, 
In such a jocund company: 
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought: 
For oft, when on my couch I lie 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils. 
(Wordsworth, N/A) 
Different from Wordsworth, Coleridge wrote few long poems about the 
mysterious and exotic elements and phenomena, from distant places and strange 
origins. He was fascinated by the uncanny, and used language in an elaborated 
style which resembles that of the Elizabethans. His most famous poems are The 
Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Kubla Khan, of which we 
reproduce a fragment below: 
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
A stately pleasure-dome decree: 
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 
Down to a sunless sea. 
So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round; 
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 
 
 
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And here were forests ancient as the hills, 
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 
(Coleridge, N/A) 
Regarding use of language, as we mentioned before, the Romantics 
intended to use simple forms, close to the expression of common people in 
everyday life, and tried to achieve this; however, as we can perceive in 
Coleridge’s lines, the intention was not the result. Even Wordsworth, who wrote 
in much more accessible a style, did not manage to employ “a selection of 
language really used by men” (Wordsworth; Coleridge, apud Carter; McRae, 
1997, p. 222) as he himself intended to. It has proven to be impossible at that 
moment, as we can perceive also in Lord Byron’s poems. Author of Don Juan 
and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, he would prefer an elaborate language, and was 
inspired by Pope’s style. 
Other important poets of British Romanticism are John Keats, Percy 
Bysshe Shelley, and Robert Burns, names whose works became part of the 
national identity and contributed greatly for the definition of the movement. Below, 
to finish this section, we present one of Shelley’s most emblematic sonnets, 
Ozymandias: 
I met a traveller from an antique land, 
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, 
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; 
And on the pedestal, these words appear: 
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; 
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away. 
(Shelley, N/A) 
3.1.3 Novelists 
If the 18th century saw the rise of the novel, the 19th century witnessed its 
consolidation as a literary genre, acknowledged by the critics as a high form of 
written expression. It was in the Victorian Age that the novel became the most 
regarded and usual literary form; however, the process depended highly on 
Romantic novelists and their innovations and experiences in writing. 
Versatile, the novel accepted any subject matter: the contrast of social 
classes, national concerns, identity and gender issues, historical fiction, science, 
 
 
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horror, current events or criticism to social conventions. The possibilities were 
never-ending and were opened for male and female writers; actually, the 
readership of women was rising, and female novelists became more usual in the 
period. 
The first name we will approach is Walter Scott (1771 – 1832), Scottish 
novelist and great exponent of historical fiction. He was another example of 
prolific writer. He started as a poet, actually a successful one, and afterwards 
turned his attention to the novel. 
Among his best-known works are Waverley (1814), Rob Roy (1817) and 
Ivanhoe (1819), all of which were published anonymously, a practice he would 
keep until 1827. In his works, he has developed a rich and diverse set of 
characters, and his use of historical fiction would be a model for Victorian writers 
in the late 19th century. Below, an excerpt of Ivanhoe illustrates Scott’s prose: 
“Think not thus of it, my father”, said Rebecca; “we also have 
advantages. These Gentiles, cruel and oppressive as they are, are in 
some sort dependent on the dispersed children of Zion, whom they 
despise and persecute. Without the aid of our wealth, they could neither 
furnish forth their hosts in war, nor their triumphs in peace, and the gold 
which we lend them returns with increase to our coffers. We are like the 
herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on. Even this day’s 
pageant had not proceeded without the consent of the despised Jew, 
who furnished the means. (Scott, 2000, p. 89) 
If women writers were not unusual, as mentioned before, two of them are 
especially important for the development of our subject: Mary Shelley and Jane 
Austen. Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851) was responsible for one of the most 
important novels of the 19th century, a groundbreaking classic, that is considered 
one of the founding works of gothic fiction and science fiction: Frankenstein or 
The Modern Prometheus (1818) was published first anonymously, and only in 
1831 it received a revised edition with Shelley’s name. 
Frankenstein is a powerful metaphor about the role of science and the 
limits that it might entail, involving issues of ethics and responsibility. Like 
Prometheus stealing fire from the gods in the ancient myth, Victor Frankenstein 
exceeds these limits when he creates a monster with parts of multiple corpses 
and moves through the narrative trying to escape the consequences of his terrible 
experiments, which he did not consider in advance. The passage below presents 
Frankenstein confronting the creature: 
“Abhorred monster! fiend that thou art! the tortures of hell are too mild 
a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil!you reproach me with your 
 
 
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creation; come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so 
negligently bestowed.” 
My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the 
feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another. 
He easily eluded me and said, 
“Be calm! I entreat you to hear me, before you give vent to your hatred 
on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough that you seek to 
increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of 
anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made 
me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine; my joints 
more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to 
thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile tom y natural 
lord and king If thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. 
Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other, and trample upon me 
alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is 
most due. Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; 
but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no 
misdeed. Every where I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably 
excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make 
me happy, and I shall again be virtuous. (Shelley, 2011, p. 567) 
Regarding Jane Austen (1775 – 1817), our second woman novelist 
mentioned, she had an outstanding ability: applying “the techniques of the novel 
to the acute observation of society in microcosm” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 256). 
An acute observer, she avoids exaggerations and focuses on characters’ 
dispositions and attitudes, with intelligence that sheds light in a society of 
appearances. 
However, Austen is not whatsoever concerned about satirizing or 
moralizing the circumstances she represents: the goal seems to be to document 
and unravel the subtleties of provincial behavior, presenting young heroines in 
their own sphere, dealing with small issues that have, however, impact in their 
lives. It does not mean Austen is naive, but ironic in her comments on people’s 
lives and experiences in small scale, addressing issues such as loneliness and 
failure. Among her works, we should mention Northanger Abbey (1817), Pride 
and Prejudice (1813) and Sense and Sensibility (1811). 
3.2 The Victorian Age 
3.2.1 Victorian novel and poetry 
The Victorian Age is named after another queen, Victoria, and, once again 
is a period of prosperity and economic expansion and change. England was a 
world power and an industrialized country, and a sense of optimism was 
widespread. However, it was also a moment of ambivalence, motivated by the 
contrast 
 
 
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between national success and the exploitation of lower-class workers 
at home and of colonies overseas; a compromise between philanthropy 
and tolerance (the abolition of slavery, 1833; tolerance for Catholics, 
1829) and repression. (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 272) 
It shall not be forgotten that part of the context of the Romantic movement 
overlaps that of the Victorians. Thus, complexities and contrasts were the trend 
to a great extent, and the Victorian values would clash against the 
experimentation and the revolutions that we have described in the former literary 
movement. It is a period of optimism and uncertainty at once, or like one of the 
most famous paragraphs of literature puts: 
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of 
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was 
the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of 
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had 
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct 
to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period 
was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities 
insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative 
degree of comparison only. (Dickens, 1859, p. 1) 
Mentioning Dickens could not be more adequate and, therefore, we should 
continue discussing the work of this gifted writer, one of the best novelists of all 
times. When the acknowledgement of the novel as higher literature was 
mentioned before, this was the point to which the discussion was pointing to: the 
process of perfecting the novel in the Victorian Age. 
Dickens has written some of the most regarded novels of the 19th century: 
Oliver Twist (1837 – 1839), David Copperfield (1849 – 1850), A Tale of Two Cities 
(1859), Great Expectations (1861 – 1862) and many more. His works include also 
short stories. His style resorts to sentimental action and characters facing ordeals 
related to social conditions: his powerful descriptions of these conditions reveal 
much of society and Victorian morality, based on appearances. 
The Brönte Sisters, Charlotte (1816 – 1855), Anne (1820 – 1849) and 
Emily (1818 – 1848) add to our list of female writers but in fashion quite different 
from the subtlety and irony of Austen, or the innovations of Mary Shelley. In their 
works we can find much darker characters and tones, as in the ordeals of 
Charlotte’s coming of age novel Jane Eyre (1847), or the vengeful personality of 
Heathcliff, in Emily’s Wuthering Heights (1847). 
The latter presents a cycle of violence and cruelty that results in intense 
suffering. The narrative is partly reported by one of the characters, what grants it 
prior interpretation and adds other layers of connection with the reader. George 
 
 
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Elliot (1819 – 1890) is another female writer whose inventive spirit added to the 
genre. In her Middlemarch (1871), she presents techniques such as the use of 
counterpoint, contrasting points of view of different characters directly presented 
to the reader. In poetry, the most relevant names of the time are Alfred Lord 
Tennyson, Robert Browning and the Pre-rafaelites. 
3.3 The 19th - 20th century transition 
3.3.1 Historical background: Make it new, Malcolm Bradbury 
As we discussed in the beginning of this lesson, any transition from a 
movement to a new one is a delicate moment. Once again, the turn of the 19th to 
the 20th century is one of them. Victorian Age was ending and new forms of 
expression were arising, crafted from a new ethos. 
According to Bradbury, in his text Make it new (1989, p. 25-37, translated), 
from the mid-19th century onwards many scientific discoveries and technical 
advances were shaping a new reality. If science gains importance and vigor in 
the 19th century, at the same time it leads to questioning the idea of divinity; the 
industrialized world, illuminated by a newly tamed electricity, enters a dazzling 
spiral of massification in which individual existence loses meaning; art starts 
dealing with the perception of phenomena and objects instead of pretending to 
portray reality. 
Such a state of affairs is the context for diving into the intricacies of the 
human mind. Human beings appear fragmented by the events that torment them, 
so that to shake their beliefs, their understanding of reality, and their own capacity 
to interact with and interpret it becomes art’s absolute necessity. In this context, 
psychoanalysis, from the studies of William James and, later, Sigmund Freud, 
emerges as a way to unravel the human being subject to so many new forms of 
determination. 
This context is necessary to face another period of dramatic changes in 
the arts, specifically in literature. They would be later affected by the turmoil of 
World War I, that would present to the world new kinds of horror that had been 
never experienced before — if wars were not new to humanity, the scale of a 
global conflict was a terrible new reality. 
How does literature respond to these events? In the works of a different 
type of writer, whose controversy and wit recover part of the spirit of the classicalauthors of the 18th century, but again in much darker tones in the works of 
 
 
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Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928), Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900), and George Bernard 
Shaw (1856 – 1950), among others. 
3.3.2 Summing up 
In this part of the course, we have discussed the context and the literary 
movements of the 19th century in the United Kingdom, their main authors, and 
their repercussion. The starting point was the Romanticism and the radical 
changes that it entailed in prose and particularly in poetry: poetic expression 
underwent transformations that would impact the authors in the beginning of the 
20th century, not only in the UK, but also in the USA. In Romantic prose the novel 
continued to develop and our lesson approached the versatility of this genre. 
Moreover, the inclusion of women writers was a noticeable advance of the period. 
Then, we moved to the Victorian Age and its idiosyncrasies in the attitudes 
and how it translates into literature. The main focus was on the novel, especially 
on the work of Charles Dickens, for during this period the genre attained its 
highest recognition. Our journey brought us to another set of transformations in 
society and literature, in the beginning of the 20th century. It will continue in the 
next lessons, throughout the first decades of the century and their developments. 
 
 
 
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CARTER, R.; McRAE, J. The Routledge History of Literature in English: 
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