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Transition from the Victorian period to the Modern Period


 It is almost a truism to say that no other period of English literature rather transitional period, has been so rich in its variety and complexity, in the mixture of progress and regress at the same time, of hope and futility, as the first forty years of the present century. Literature is always a reflex of life and also a product of the times and the modernism literature, more than those previous periods, has been conditioned by its social milieu. New ideas, new inventions, were rapidly transforming the world in the first decades of the century and social life in all its various aspects physical, intellectual, political, economic and moral had practically emarged anew, as it were.
In the first decade this life was serene and happy at least for the upper and middle classes of England, in many ways, though in the lower strata poverty was the rule rather than the exception. Nevertheless, the first decade may be described as "the Indian summer of the old world". It was chiefly the comfortable middle classes "who gave this decade its broad characteristics of material prosperity, continuing faith in progress and a rather self-satisfied philistinism". There was the leisurely atmosphere of life and this bred the qualities of dignity, grace, and sweetness. "Work was agreeably broken by undouded holidays; there was time and the inclination to relax. The roads were not crowded; only birds and balloons occupied the air." There was no breathless hurry and hustle, and life ran smoothly. People could pursue occupations with a thoroughness, with a sense of beauty and love for form.

The expansion of democracy conferred its benefits of health, education and happiness on the citizens. On the high seas the might of the British navy inspired the nation with pride, with high hopes and a sense of supremacy. Yet this was only a stage of transition, a passing phase. Inner and outer tensions were gathering force, and horizon was blackened at the beginning of the second decade. Industrial problems raised their ugly heads and there was national rail strike in 1911 to be followed by a coal strike in 1912. The reign of George V opened with a sharp political strife in domestic sphere. Abroad, there was the threat of civil war in Ireland and the menace of the growing power of Germany. At last the storm broke out in August 1914, when Germany declared the War. Poets and sentimentalists welcomed it as the splendid opportunity for patriotic self-sacrifice and deeds of heroism.

But the discordant note was also sounded by the realists like Owen, Sassoon among poets and others of the common people who saw, war at first hand and realistically. As massacres developed, and horrors were piled on horrors by aerial bombing of towns and trenches, filling the country with the slain, the maimed; doubt, despair and disillusionment filled the entire nation. The average mass was still in the slough of despair, poverty and fear, with little hope of improvement and progress. The war to end war and to ensure liberty and democracy had been fought and won. The flowers of the nation had been cut off. Post-war reconstruction was taken up in right earnest but huge and multifarious problems in the economic, moral and social spheres arose. The forces of disintegration and unrest were let loose till another World War, more devastating than the first came.


This was the social scene of England in these two decades and it was reflected minutely and vividly in its literature. Nominally, the Victorian era came to an end in 1901 with the death of the Queen but even disintegrating forces were at work and the revolt had begun. Victorians, stood for a sense of stability and self-complacency, for conformity with custom and established order and a consciousness of dignity. But in the words of the late Victorian elders like Carlyle, Meredith and Hardy a note of revolt against the deadening effects of convention had been struck.
 A new spirit in poetry, a need for reform and renovation had expressed itself in the poetry of the 'nineties' (the Decadents). Victorian literature had languished and become devitalised. It was the task of the generation that arose with the turn of the century to infuse new life, force, beauty into this decadent literature. The attitude of the new generation was one of challenge challenge of the old moral and social values, challenge of the old literary conventions and forms and what not. In this all-embracing and sweeping process of change everything Victorian had suffered from a great contempt. In the zeal to let in fresh air, the windows were smashed, as in the case with every pioneering movement. Fresh fields of experience were annexed, old man traditional models of literary expression were cast aside and new ones evolved. This is reflected in all branches of the literature of the age - poetry, the novel and the drama.
The Victorian era has been described as an age of transition and change in which the traditional system of belief was not only questioned but also transgressed. At the same time, it is often considered to be emblematic of conservatism, prudery and a stability which borders on stagnation. The Victorians are seen as people with an almost pathological dread of everything connected to the body, even, as Fryer notes, hiding the legs of the table and the pianoforte under frilled pantalets (cf. 35). But they are also, as Altick argues, seen as belonging to a society which welcomed reform or experiment, and committed itself to the idea of progress (cf. 107). In this context, the poetry of the Victorian era is much more than a mere mirror of these contradictory impulses. Both groups of English poets of the time, whether radicals like Browning or conservatives such as Tennyson, use literature to confront deep- seated anxieties in a time of crisis. Taboos and their transgression are a central issue in the assessment of this inherently contradictory era and its poetry. My main thesis is based on Tzvetan Todorov’s view in Genres in Discourse that transgression does not destroy a norm but on the contrary makes this norm visible. This view is complemented by Stephen Greenblatt’s view of culture as a system of mobility and constraint (cf. 225–32). In this sense, Victorian poetry will be analyzed as a transgression that makes nineteenth- century laws and taboos visible while at the same time asking questions about their legitimacy. While the poetry of S. Horlacher et al. (eds.), Taboo and Transgression in British Literature from the Renaissance to the Present © Stefan Horlacher, Stefan Glomb, and Lars Heiler 2010 160 Sarah Heinz the era questions the ineffability and sanctity of taboos, these taboos are also reestablished as points of reference in a period that thinks of itself as an age of transition. The focus of attention will be on the depiction of sexuality, love, and the body since Victorian society puts these issues under a strong social and moral taboo. Nevertheless, their status as taboo is intensely scrutinized in Victorian poetry. This paradox will be interpreted within the main framework with a view to two countervailing, even contradictory movements: the backward impulse of poets of regeneration such as Tennyson and the forward impulse of radical poets such as Browning. Theoretical Background: Violating and Reestablishing Taboo by Transgression In their study of language and taboo, Keith Allan and Kate Burridge write that “[n]othing is taboo for all people, under all circumstances, for all time” (9). Taboos arise out of social constraints on an individual’s behavior because a breach of taboo will cause discomfort, harm or injury. In that sense, taboos are not objects with a demonic power as nineteenth- century anthropologists described them but rather conventionalized rules. But if taboos are neither absolute nor timeless and if they are really products of a specific time and society, then they can tell us something about that selfsame society in which they were created. According to such a view, taboos are social conventions that, as Sigmund Freud observed, “have no grounds and are of unknown origin” although “to those who are dominated by them they are taken as a matter of course” (18).1 In spite of their arbitrariness, taboos therefore have a strong, unifying effect. Tzvetan Todorov interprets transgression as a means for making visible the borders as well as limitations of a law or system, not a destruction of it: “ . . . in order to exist as such, the transgression requires a law— precisely the one that is violated. We might even go further and observe that the norm becomes visible— comes into existence— owing only to its transgressions” (14). With respect to literary works and their transgression of the laws of genre, Todorov states later: “One has to think that every time, in these exceptional works where a limit is reached, the exception alone is what reveals to us that ‘law’ of which it also constitutes the unexpected and necessary deviation” (ibid.).
Modernism advanced the literary forms and styles prevalent in Victorian literature. Modernism pushed for a return to Victorian values and principles. Modernism marked a break from Victorian traditions and values. Modernism viewed Victorian culture and values as the ideals for which to strive. While the Victorian Era embraced traditional values and forms as it dealt with social issues of industrialization and national identity, Modernist literature reflects the disillusionment of the 20th century and introduced more ambiguity in its themes and greater experimentation in its style.
Strictly speaking, the Victorian era began in 1837 and ended with Queen Victoria's death in 1901, but the period can be stretched to include the years both before and after these dates, roughly from the Napoleonic Wars until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
The Age of Transition is an historical and cultural period situated between 1760 and 1798, and so between the Augustan Age and the Romantic Age, which saw the explosion of the romantic movement from 1798, year of the publication of the Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
It had a stable government, a growing state, and an expanding franchise. It also controlled a large empire, and it was wealthy, in part because of its degree of industrialization and its imperial holdings and in spite of the fact that three-fourths or more of its population was working-class.