English literature in Victorian period

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Critical Realism

1. critical realism: definition
In Victorian period appeared a new literary trend—critical realism. English critical realism of the 19th century flourished in the 1840s and early 1850. It found its expression mainly in the writing of novels. The critical realists, most of whom were novelists, described with much vividness and artistic skill the chief traits of the English society and criticised the capitalist system from a democratic viewpoint.

The greatest English critical realist of the time was Charles Dickens. With striking force and truthfulness, he pictured bourgeois civilization, showing the misery and sufferings of the common people. Another critical realist, William Makepeace Thackeray, was a severe critic of the English society. Thackeray’s novels are mainly a satirical portrayal of the upper stratum of society. Other novelists who adhere to critical realism were Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy.

2. critical realism: strength and weakness
The English critical realists of the 19th century not only gave a satirical portrayal of the bourgeoisie and all the ruling classes, but also showed profound sympathy for the common people.
In their best works, the greed and hypocrisy of the upper classes are contrasted with the honesty and goodhearted-ness of the obscure “simple people” of the lower classes. Hence humor and satire abound in the English realistic novels of the 19th century.

Humorous scenes set off the actions of the positive characters, and the humor is often tinged with a lyricism that serves to stress the fine qualities of such characters. At the same time, bitter satire and grotesquery are used to expose the seamy side of the bourgeois society.
Critical realism reveals the corrupting influence of the rule of cash upon human nature. Here lies the essentially democratic and humanistic character of critical realism.

But the critical realists did not find a way to eradicate the social evils they knew so well. They did not realise the necessity of changing the bourgeois society through conscious human effort.
They were unable to find a good solution to the social contradictions. Their works did not point toward revolution but toward evolution or reformism.
They often started with a powerful exposure of the ugliness of the bourgeois world in their works, and their novel usually had happy endings or impotent compromises in the end. Here we see the strength and the weakness of critical realism.

1) The major contribution made by the 19th century critical realists is their perfection of the novel. Like the realists of the 18th century, the 19th century critical realists made use of the form of fiction for full and detailed representations of social and political events, and of the fate of individuals and of whole social classes.

2). However, the realistic novels of the 19th century went a step further than those of the 18th century in that they not only pictured the conflicts between individuals who stood for definite social strata, but also showed the broad social conflicts over and above the fate of mere individuals.
Their artistic representation of vital social movements such as Chartism, and their vivid description of the dramatic conflicts of the time make the 19th century realistic novels “the epic of the bourgeois society.”

3). Moreover, the novelists of the 19th century became social critics.
They not only exposed the social evils but also criticised the evil makers and the oppression of the poor from a democratic viewpoint.

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