1

Modern Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 2 semesters

First Semester Civilization themes:
I.
II.

III.
IV.

V.

VI.

The British Empire at home: economy, technology and the reforms that
changed the society at home (excerpts from Dickens: Hard Times)
Definitions of Victorian man in Literature and the Victorian Modes of
Modern Writing (Thomas Carlyle The Hero as Man of Letters) (Charlotte
Bronte: Jane Eyre; Tennysons Ulysses; Arnold The Buried Life) Thomas
Hardy: Tess of the DUrbervilles/Jude the Obscure
The Old and the New Liberal Education Paradigms ( Newman, Mill, Arnold,
Huxley)
Victorian Mentality Blocks : Thomas Carlyles condemnation of the
present: skepticism; ; The High Church Revival of The Oxford Movement
and the Popular, Puritanical Revival; agnosticism and the new cultural and
aesthetic faith ( Liberalism; (Browning - Caliban Upon Setebos)
(Swinburne, Hymn to Proserpine)
The Victorian Revivals as the source for the Cultural Campaigns and Styles
in Poetry, Painting and Architecture (Ruskin and the Gothic Revival; the
Pre-Raphaelite sensibility and techniques)
Utopian and Fabian Socialism on the Eve of the Twentieth Century (George
Bernard Shaw: Major Barbara)

Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
Excerpts from Essays: by Carlyle, The Hero as Man of Letters ; Signs of the
Times; Sartor Resartus: The Everlasting Yea www.victorianweb.org.; by John Stuart
Mill On Liberty: Chap III: Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-Being
(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm by John Henry
Newman: The Idea of a University www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24526; Thomas Henry
Huxley: Agnosticism http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE5/Agn.html; Oscar Wilde:
The Soul of Man Under Socialism http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wildeoscar/soul-man/index.htm
Poems: Alfred Tennyson Ulysses;Matthew Arnold The Buried Life; Robert
Browning Caliban Upon Setebos; Algernon Charles Swinburne, Hymn to
Proserpine.
Novels: Ch. Dickens: Hard Times
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/786/pg786.html; C. Bronte: Jane Eyre
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1260/1260-h/1260-h.htm; Thomas Hardy: Tess of the
DUrbervilles http://www.gutenberg.org/files/110/110-h/110-h.htm /Jude the Obscure
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/153 ; O. Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/844/844-h/844-h.htm;

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Play: George Bernard Shaw: Major Barbara
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3790/3790-h/3790-h.htm

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Anthologies
Cartianu, Ana & Stoenescu, Stefan: Proza eseistica Victoriana (vols 1, 2, 3),
Tipografia Universitatii Bucuresti, 1977
Stoiculescu, Mira, Constantinescu, Aurelia-Scumpa si Bottez Monica: The Victorian
Age (an anthology)

Secondary Sources
Literary criticism from the site www.Victorianweb. org.
Prefaces of the Victorian novels read
Ioana Zirra, Contributions of the British Nineteenth Century The Victorian Age to
the History of Literature and Ideas (the first volume - excerpts)

FIRST LECTURE
The Victorian Age, named after the long reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) is the
age of the British Empire, a significant national age for Britain, which had become
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1801. Geopolitically
speaking, the British Empire came to be in control of 1/3 of the world during the 19 th
century with possessions on all the continents (Australia and New Zealand, several
Islands in the Pacific West Indies, India, which began as a colony of the merchants
from the East India Company and turned into a Crown possession in 1877, when
Queen Victoria became Empress of India; Canada, forty times the sizes of Britain in
North America; in Africa, Egypt and Nigeria to the North and South Africa at the
southern tip of the continent, completely British and defeated after the Boer Wars of
the centurys last decades.
Four keywords can be used to begin the economic, political and sociological
description of Britain in the nineteenth century: wealth, capitalism, democracy and
socialism. Wealth was produced thanks to the scientific and technological
advances, which enabled Victorian man to control nature and increase the living
standard of the rich, in accordance with the ideas of the classical economist Adam
Smiths The Wealth of Nations. Capitalism, the economy based on capital, rested on
the accumulation of wealth as a sure path to progress. It was made possible by the
massive scientific and technological advances of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries (Zirra, vol. I, 9,10) that led to the creation of a huge, all-powerful market.
The main issues of nineteenth century politics were to strengthen the free market
(and the British Empire possessions essentially contributed to this) to enfranchise
the men of property and turn them into mature, responsible citizens with equal

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rights and powers moreover, by granting them the power to consume an
increasing variety of goods. Victorian middle-class democracy, which was modern
because, by comparison to Athenian democracy, it was aimed at creating a perfect
middle-class establishment. Though modern democracy incorporated some of the
revolutionary principles for which people had died in America and France in 1777
and 1789, respectively, in Britain1, it was actually carried out in peaceful
confrontation, and in fact in cooperation, by the two political parties of the
nineteenth century: the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. (The following
paragraphs reformulate the material available in Zirra, vol. 1,10-12)Between the
two of them, they carried out the reforms which brought about the modernization of
Britain: the electoral and free-market reforms, firstly, and then generally social,
religious , urban and cultural reforms, for example the reforms in education. The
first electoral reform, the Reform Bill2 of 1832 enfranchised male owners of property
whose annual income was at least 10 pounds, the next one, of 1867, doubled the
number of middle-class voters and the third, in 1884, secured the universal male
enfranchisement. In 1846, a law that put an end to the British monopoly on the
corn market was the repeal of the Corn Laws and by 1860, a full-fledged free market
had become operative in Britain. Other reforms that modernized British society and
made it resemble nowadays society were the Catholic Emancipation (which became
effective after 1830), which gave the Catholics equal opportunities, civil rights and
access to the middle-class professions (of lawyers, doctors, professors), the 1870
Education Act, which generalized literacy by making primary education compulsory
and setting up English State Schools all over the Empire, the 1871 Repeal of the Test
Acts. The last of these reforms gave free access to prestigious universities
( Cambridge and Oxford) to non-Anglicans and opened their way to elite careers in
the establishment. The cultural campaigns conducted in the Victorian age, which we
can read about at large in the essays and fictional literature preserved in
anthologies, indicate that culture was regarded as one of the important levers for
social emancipation and control. This leads to the paradox that the Victorian first
mass age had a high-culture. It can be stated without exaggerating that the
Victorian society was held together by quality press circulated in broadsheets: one
1

England is an incorrect way of referring to Britain, in the nineteenth century, just as

today: the countrys name is the UK, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in the
nineteenth century, and of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the twentieth century. The
citizens are formally the British/the British people, and informally, the Brits. The contrast
between British and English comes from that between politics and linguistics/literary
culture, British being politically correct, because it naturally includes the inhabitants of the
kingdoms of Wales and Scotland and Ireland. People study English in Britain and abroad, in
(high)school or when they are at university.
2
Because a law is just a Bill while it is discussed in the British parliament and before it
receives the Royal assent to become a statute, the name the Reform Bill as retained by
history indicates the serious debates preceding its adoption. This revolutionary measure
turned the democratic masquerade practices and traditional political favoritism towards the
modern, genuine political representation of wide masses of middle-class people. This meant
the abolition of the so-called rotten boroughs, for example fake constituencies that sent
to parliament representatives of places on the map with no real population to represent.

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magazine which carried parliamentary reports, essays, poems and fiction, for
example, was read by one hundred thousand people. Apart from the gentry, after
the Education Act, even the servants in the genteel households had access to the
literature read at home. In the Victorian genteel households literature was originally
read on Sundays, after Church, as another instrument for the generally moral
education and entertainment. In general, it is fair to say that the British Liberals
were keener on home reforms, as they were partisans of the little England policy. At
their head was William Ewart Gladstone, four times Prime Minister (between 186874, 1880-85, 1885-6 and 1892-3). One famous example of the Liberal foreign policy
was the campaign for putting an end to the Union between Ireland and Great Britain
through the Irish Home Rule bills unsuccessfully passed (debated) in 1886 and
1893, owing to the alliance between William Ewart Gladstone, nicknamed The Old
Man, and the Irish uncrowned king, Charles Stuart Parnell. The Conservative Party
was imperially minded, the partisan of the Bigger England policy, of wars and the
investment policies implicit in them. The head of the Conservative Party was William
Ewart Gladstone, in office as Prime Minister for one year in 1868 and between 18741880. He was also Queen Victorias friend, an elegant dandy and a writer. In his
1845 novel Sybil, or the two Nations (available on the portal of the Project
Gutenberg on the net, in electronic form for anyone who may wish to read it), he
introduced the idea that the rich and the poor were two separate British nations.
This point is proved by the last keyword announced at the beginning of the
lecture: socialism. Throughout the nineteenth century, the lower classes were
almost completely neglected by the leaders of the Victorian establishment and the
non-interventionist state3. Among the few reforms which regarded the poor in Early
Victorianism was the1834 Poor Law Amendment, which created the workhouses,
which resembled prisons more than asylums and in which were gathered (confined)
the begging, underfed and overworked poor from the streets. The Factory Acts
passed between 1833 and 1878, though, eliminated child labour and gross
overworking. Moreover, there was no chance for substantially extending any
modernization reforms to the people who were not represented in parliament as
proved by the Chartist Movement. Between 1836 and 1854, several petitions or
Charts drafted in perfect ignorance of the legal forms with which Parliament
operated. Although they were endorsed by millions of signatures of people who
gathered in long street-demonstrations (the 1840 Chart, for example was signed by
over three million three hundred people), they were not taken into consideration by
parliament because of their formal aspect and the civil rights claimed in them were
not granted. The first general strike took place in Britain in 1842 and Trade
Unionism became a steady movement between the 1860s and 1870s. No wonder,
then, that the end of the nineteenth century saw the rise of two brands of socialism:
radical or utopian socialism (which envisaged the complete abolition of property as
3

The non-interventionist state was a state committed to the principle of laissez-faire which
bequeathed the political prerogative of the state to the entrepreneurial class (the capitalists)
and allowed the invisible hand of the market, i.e., free competition, to rule undisturbed.

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a source of justice for a perfect modern age and as the only way for regenerating a
society that reduced its people to mere mechanisms at the mercy of entrepreneurs)
and Fabian (or moderate) socialism. The rise of socialism proved the limitations and
actual injustice of modern, capitalistic and very partial democracy. It demonstrated
that the material criteria for the general, average greatest happiness of the
greatest numbers (as advocated by Jeremy Bentham at the end of the eighteenth
century needed to be completed with virtues that the mercantile, capitalist worldorder could not rise to. The failure of communism to right the wrongs of capitalism
one century after the Victorian age, however, demonstrates the shortcomings of
any modern utopia, be it capitalist or socialist. This is why the slow-pace, rational
reformism which the Fabian socialists advocated and tried to implement in Britain
seems to have more chances of success in principle because, though being
moderate , pragmatic and corporatist in spirit, it does not destroy existing
structures of social, economic and political life but tries to correct evils gradually
while retaining the overall frames.

Lecture II
Definitions of Victorian man in Literature and the Victorian Modes of
Modern Writing: Thomas Carlyle - The Hero as Man of Letters. Victorian
Proto-Feminism in Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre. Tennysons Ulysses;
Matthew Arnold The Buried Life. Thomas Hardy: Tess of the
DUrbervilles/Jude the Obscure
A. Models of Victorian Humanism - Overview
1. The Model of Puritanical modesty: inspired by mans return to God and the
ethical teachings of the Bible ( After the model of the lower-class Protestants
the Puritans, whose individualism was based on virtues such as humility and
activism (self-denial dictated by lucrative ambition and a sense of perfection ;
industriousness. Although the aim of the 17th century Puritans and of their
later followers was to attain moral perfection in the eyes of God, the sideeffect of their perfectionism and lucrative spirit was the achievement of
material wealth and material progress, too which led to the development of
capitalism see Max Webers The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism German edition 1904, made famous in the English translation by
Talcott Parsons in 1930 and its 1993 Romanian translation, by Ihor Lemnij,
Etica protestanta si spiritual capitalismului , Bucuresti: Humanitas.) In
nineteenth century Britain, Thomas Carlyle paradoxically commended the
Puritanical ethos, as will be seen below, while he despised the material
concerns and progress of the modern, industrialized ages, as was seen in the
previous lecture and the quotation from the essay 4 Signs of the Times (p. 4 in
Proza eseistica Victoriana I, in his vituperations against the Age of
Mechanism)
2. The cultural idealistic model : it was a high-mimetic 5/exemplary model of
culture understood as the endeavour to imitate heroes in the present. The
series/cycles of heroism transmitted (communicated) by culture to the
modern ages were defined by Carlyle al which envisaged the revival of based
on the revival of the heroic Thomas Carlyles lectures On Heroes, HeroWorship and the Heroic in History (1840)
3. Modelsputincirculationbyliteraryrealism
a.

TheearlyVictorianmodelofhighmimetic/exemplaryrealismthefemaleversion:CharlotteBronte:
JaneEyre(1847)admiration/maturingplot(Bildungsroman;novelofadolescence)themakingof
virtueanditsperfectioninstagesbecoming.ThestagesinJaneEyrearemarkedbyplaces(social

See the Modes of Modern Writing part of the lecture for the place of the essay in the chart
of the literary genres and for its importance in the Victorian Age.
5
The term High-mimetic is derived by traditional stylistics from Aristotles classifications in
Poetics and refers to arts noble imitation, in high registers, of life. Its synonym is elevated
and translates in Romanian as modul mimetic superior (see the Romanian version, by
Domnica & Mihai Spariosu, of Northrop Fryes Anatomy of Criticism)

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milieu)whereshelives,whichrepresentstagesofvirtuousacquisitionorvictoriesshescoresin
becomingamodelhumanbeing:atGateshead,shemanifestshersenseofjusticebecausesheiskept
outofthegate(i.e.,thehouseholdinwhichsheisanoutsider)andbecomesheadstrong(obstinate)
inresponsetoherrelativesabuses(sheislikeable,angrychild);atLowoodSchoolshelearnsthe
virtueofdeliberatehumilityandtolerancefromMissTempleandHelenBurns6;atThornfieldHall,
thegenteelmiddleclassmanorwhichlacksamistressbutacquiresinJaneEyremorethana
governessfortheorphanedgirlAdleandahousekeeper,likeMrs.Fairfax.Janesradiantmaturity
andsweetnesswinsovereverybodyincludingthemaster,Mr.EdwardRochester,whofallsinlove
withJaneandproposestoher,althoughhewasalreadymarriedandhiscrazywife,BerthaMasonwas
lockedupintheatticatThornfieldHall.Janemanagestoavoidthethornsoftemptation,without
becomingthewrongmistressatThornfieldHallandrunsaway,preservinghervirtue,herbalanceand
selfrespect.Aftercrossingakindofdesert,likethatoftheBiblicalpeopleledbyMosestotheland
ofCanaan7,JanesurvivesbyarrivingatMoorHouse,anothergenteelhousehold,morebalancedthan
ThornfieldHall.WhatJaneachieveshereisdiscretion(discernama^nt):sherejectsanothermans
proposalthatdidnotsuither:SaintJohnRiverss.Janerealizesthatwithoutlovingeachother,their
marriageanddeparturetoanotherlifeasChristiansmissionarieswasaformofnobleselfdeceit.After
allherdearlypaidvictories,JaneEyreisrewardedwithahappylifeinmarriagetoEdwardRochester
atFerndeanManor,atthebooksend.
b. TheearlyVictorianmodeloflowmimetic(selfdivided/critical)realismdebatedinthedramatic
monologuebyLordAlfredTennysonUlysses(1842)aconflictofpublic/privatementalitiessolved
infavourofsubjectivedesire(typifiedbyUlyssesasaRomanticmanofaspiration)
c.

ThemidVictorianmodelofPhilistine

8(skepticalandmildlysentimental)realismMatthewArnold:
TheBuriedLife(1852)thecriticalpatronizingviewofmanasa(frivolous)baby

d. ThelateVictorianironic9modelofpessimistic(harsh,dejected)realism:ThomasHardy:Tessofthe
DUrberville(1891)(thefemaleversion)JudetheObscure(themaleversion)(1895)
Tess,thepurewomanundonebyillluckandsociety:Theexceptionalmaidenofthenovelstitleand
subtitleretainsherexemplaryPuritanicalprofilethroughoutthebookandservesasastandardof
condemnationformodernsocietyandhumanityasawhole,becausetwomen,whodonotresemble
eachotherintheirmoralprofile,socialorculturalbackgroundanddeeds,intheleastbothendup
forcingthefeminineprotagonisttobecomeakindofsacrificialVictimoftheirwrongbehaviour.

See the exchange between Jane Eyre and Helen Burns in the Section with illustrations from
the literary texts
7
For further associations with the Biblical text as a source of inspiration in the interpretation
of Charlotte Bronts novel, see Ioana Zirra, Contributions of the Nineteenth Century the
Victorian Age - to the History of Literature and Ideas, vol. I, Bucuresti: Editura Universitati
the lecture on Jane Eyre.
8
Philistine is a Biblical term applied by Matthew Arnold to the Victorian middle-classes for
whom he believed there was hope of perfection through culture, see the essays of Culture
and Anarchy (1869).
9
The meaning of ironic points to the inferior position of man regarded as a victim of
circumstances and life, as explained by Northrop Frye, in the Anatomy of Criticism, the first
page of the First Essay.

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Jude,thefailedmanofletters:Althoughheisamanofaspiration,asuncommoninhismilieu
(environment)asUlysses(inTennysonspoem),JudeFawleysfailuretobecomeamanoflettersis
blameduponthecircumstancesinThomasHardysnaturalisticnovel.IllstarredJudefallsbecause
andforwomenthathecannotbematchedwith,becauseHardybelievesintheincompatibilityof
modernhumanbeings10.Society,withitsoppressiveconventions,mansindividualunconsciousand
thegeneralincompatibilitiesbetweentheaspirationsanddeedsofhumanbeingscooperateinundoing
Hardyscharacters.TheinstinctualpathologyresponsibleformanyofHardyscharactersfailures
makethemqualifyasmodernneurotics.Hardysmodelis,therefore,thatofmodernpsychoanalysable
man.

Models of Victorian Humanism

1. THE MODEL OF PURITANICAL MODESTY:

Mans Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because

there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury
under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholsterers and
Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, in joint-stock company, to make
one Shoeblack HAPPY? They cannot accomplish it, above an hour or two: for
the Shoeblack also has a Soul quite other than his Stomach; and would
require, if you consider it, for his permanent satisfaction and saturation,
simply this allotment, no more, and no less: Gods infinite Universe
altogether to himself, therein to enjoy infinitely, and fill every wish as fast as it
rose. Oceans of Hochheimer, a Throat like that of Ophiuchus: speak not of
them; to the infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner is your ocean
filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better vintage. Try him with
half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling with the
proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men.
Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: it is even, as I said,
the Shadow of Ourselves.
But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat thus. By certain
valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of
average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of
indefeasible right. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires
neither thanks nor complaint; only such overplus as there may be do we
10

In the first volume of Contributions.the lecture on Thomas Hardy explains at length the
conflicting cultural phases and orders of nature to which Hardys characters belong.

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account Happiness; any deficit again is Misery. Now consider that we have the
valuation of our own deserts ourselves, and what a fund of Self-conceit there is
in each of us, do you wonder that the balance should so often dip the wrong
way, and many a Blockhead cry: See there, what a payment; was ever worthy
gentleman so used! I tell thee, Blockhead, it all comes of thy Vanity; of what
thou fanciest those same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou deservest to be
hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy
that thou deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a luxury to die in
hemp.
So true is it, what I then said, that the Fraction of Life can be increased
in value not so much by increasing your Numerator as by lessening your
Denominator. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, Unityitself divided
by Zero will give Infinity. Make thy claim of wages a zero, then; thou hast the
world under thy feet. Well did the Wisest of our time write: It is only with
Renunciation (Entsagen) that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin.
2. THE MODEL OF CULTURAL IDEALISM - Thomas Carlyles lectures On
Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1840)
the heroic/high-mimetic/exemplary cultural model: the Man of Letters
(lecture V)
- HeroGods,Prophets,Poets,PriestsareformsofHeroismthatbelongtotheoldages,maketheir
appearanceintheremotesttimes;someofthemhaveceasedtobepossiblelongsince,andcannotanymore
showthemselvesinthisworld.TheHeroasManofLetters,again,ofwhichclasswearetospeaktoday,is
altogetheraproductofthesenewages;andsolongasthewondrousartofWriting,orofReadywritingwhich
wecallPrinting,subsists,hemaybeexpectedtocontinue,asoneofthemainformsofHeroismforallfuture
ages.Heis,invariousrespects,averysingularphenomenon..
- thissameManofLettersHeromustberegardedasourmostimportantmodernperson.He,suchas
hemaybe,isthesoulofall.Whatheteaches,thewholeworldwilldoandmake.
aGreatSoullivingapartinthatanomalousmanner;endeavoringtospeakforththeinspirationthatwasin
himbyPrintedBooks,andfindplaceandsubsistencebywhattheworldwouldpleasetogivehimfordoing
that.ruling(forthisiswhathedoes),fromhisgrave,afterdeath,wholenationsandgenerationswhowould,
orwouldnot,givehimbreadwhileliving
ExamplesofMenofLetters:Goethe,Rousseau,Dr.Johnsonmenoftheeighteenthcentury
TheEighteenthwasaScepticalCentury;inwhichlittlewordthereisawholePandora'sBoxofmiseries.
ScepticismmeansnotintellectualDoubtalone,butmoralDoubt;allsortsofinfidelity,insincerity,spiritual
paralysis.Perhaps,infewcenturiesthatonecouldspecifysincetheworldbegan,wasalifeofHeroismmore
difficultforaman.ThatwasnotanageofFaith,anageofHeroes!TheverypossibilityofHeroismhad

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been,asitwere,formallyabnegatedinthemindsofall.Heroismwasgoneforever;Triviality,Formulismand
Commonplacewerecomeforever.
Johnsonsportrait:
Johnson'syouthwaspoor,isolated,hopeless,verymiserable.Indeed,itdoesnotseempossiblethat,inanythe
favorablestoutwardcircumstances,Johnson'slifecouldhavebeenotherthanapainfulone.(helivedina
garretandhadwornoutshoes)
Ahardstruggling,wearyheartedman,or"scholar"ashecallshimself,tryinghardtogetsomehonest
livelihoodintheworld,nottostarve,buttolivewithoutstealing!Anobleunconsciousnessisinhim.He
doesnot"engraveTruthonhiswatchseal;"no,buthestandsbytruth,speaksbyit,worksandlivesbyit.
ThehighestGospelhepreachedwemaydescribeasakindofMoralPrudence:"inaworldwheremuchisto
bedone,andlittleistobeknown,"seehowyouwilldoit!Athingwellworthpreaching."Aworldwheremuch
istobedone,andlittleistobeknown:"donotsinkyourselvesinboundlessbottomlessabyssesofDoubt,of
wretchedgodforgettingUnbelief;youweremiserablethen,powerless,mad:howcouldyoudoorworkat
all?
3. THEMODELSOFLITERARYREALISM
Highmimetic/exemplaryrealismthefemaleversion:CharlotteBronte:JaneEyre(1847)admiration/
maturingplotthemakingofvirtueanditsperfectionstagedbecominghervictoriesatGateshead;
LowoodSchool;ThornfieldHall;MoorHouse;FerndeanManor
Dramatic(divided/critical)realism:LordAlfredTennyson:Ulysses(1842)conflictofpublic/private
mentalities;focusonsubjectivedesire
Philistine(nave,skepticalandsentimental)realism:MatthewArnold:TheBuriedLife(1852)critical
patronizingviewofmanasababy
Pessimistic(harsh,dejected)realism:ThomasHardy:TessoftheDUrberville(1891)(thefemaleversion)
JudetheObscure(themaleversion)(1895)

Quotations
JANEEYRE
JaneEyreasensitivechild,withakeensenseofjusticeandharshjudgmentsaboutotherspoiltchildren:

Accustomed to John Reeds abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was
how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.
What were you doing behind the curtain? he asked.
I was reading.

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Show the book.

I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have
no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with
gentlemens children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our
mamas expense. Now, Ill teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine;
all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out
of the way of the mirror and the windows.
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise
the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not
soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head
against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed
its climax; other feelings succeeded.
Wicked and cruel boy! I said. You are like a murdereryou are like a slave-driver
you are like the Roman emperors!
I had read Goldsmiths History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero,
Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to
have declared aloud.
Janes perfecting encounter with Miss Temple and Helen Burns at Lowood School (ch
6) VIRTUE

Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, even the worst
in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them gently; and, if I do anything
worthy of praise, she gives me my meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly
defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not
influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly,
cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.
That is curious, said I, it is so easy to be careful.

And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?
No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which
is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the
information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain.
Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?

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Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is
no merit in such goodness.
A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be.
If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked
people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they
would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a
reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we shouldso hard as to
teach the person who struck us never to do it again.
You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little
untaught girl.

ULYSSES (by Tennyson)

-

Public domesticity versus infinity in individual aspirations

- It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades.
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
THE BURIED LIFE (by Matthew Arnold)
-

Arnolds lament for the individual caught in the snares of public existence mans sadness and his soul

I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.

Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,

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To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
The mass of men (social man)
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!
-

Arnoldian/Philistine Paternalism

Fate, which foresaw

How frivolous a baby man would be-By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity-That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.
-

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Modern mans longing for authenticity

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us--to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
..
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true!

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The few, exceptional moments of authenticity the equivalent of the

moments of grace
Only--but this is rare.
When our world-deafen'd ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd-A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,

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And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze

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TESS OF THE DURBERVILLE

Lucidity and the sense of mans loss in a doomed universe (ch 4) ; all the events with longstanding effects
happen when the character is, as it were in a trance, always made dumb and suffers from ill luck.

"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"

"Yes."
"All like ours?"
"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on
our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sounda few blighted."
"Which do we live ona splendid one or a blighted one?"
"A blighted one."
"'Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sound one, when there were so
many more of 'em!"
"Yes."
"Is it like that really, Tess?" said Abraham, turning to her much impressed,
on reconsideration of this rare information. "How would it have been if we had
pitched on a sound one?"
"Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does, and
wouldn't have got too tipsy to go on this journey; and mother wouldn't have
been always washing, and never getting finished."
"And you would have been a rich lady ready-made, and not have had to be
made rich by marrying a gentleman?"
JUDE THE OBSCURE
A man of aspiration with a clearer target: Christminster (ch 3 - the beginning and the end)

He ascended the ladder to have one more look at the point

the men had designated, and perched himself on the highest
rung, overlying the tiles. He might not be able to come so far as
this for many days. Perhaps if he prayed, the wish to see

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Christminster might be forwarded. People said that, if you

prayed, things sometimes came to you, even though they
sometimes did not. He had read in a tract that a man who had
begun to build a church, and had no money to finish it, knelt
down and prayed, and the money came in by the next post.
Another man tried the same experiment, and the money did not
come; but he found afterwards that the breeches he knelt in were
made by a wicked Jew. This was not discouraging, and turning
on the ladder Jude knelt on the third rung, where, resting against
those above it, he prayed that the mist might rise.
He then seated himself again, and waited. In the course of ten
or fifteen minutes the thinning mist dissolved altogether from
the northern horizon, as it had already done elsewhere, and
about a quarter of an hour before the time of sunset the
westward clouds parted, the sun's position being partially
uncovered, and the beams streaming out in visible lines between
two bars of slaty cloud. The boy immediately looked back in the
old direction.
Some way within the limits of the stretch of landscape,
points of light like the topaz gleamed. The air increased in
transparency with the lapse of minutes, till the topaz points
showed themselves to be the vanes, windows, wet roof slates,
and other shining spots upon the spires, domes, freestone-work,
and varied outlines that were faintly revealed. It was
Christminster, unquestionably; either directly seen, or miraged
in the peculiar atmosphere.
The spectator gazed on and on till the windows and vanes
lost their shine, going out almost suddenly like extinguished
candles. The vague city became veiled in mist. Turning to the

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west, he saw that the sun had disappeared. The foreground of the
scene had grown funereally dark, and near objects put on the
hues and shapes of chimaeras.
.

"It is a city of light," he said to himself.

"The tree of knowledge grows there," he added a few steps
further on.
"It is a place that teachers of men spring from and go to."
"It is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship and
religion."
After this figure he was silent a long while, till he added:
"It would just suit me."