A Brief Overview to the History of British NovelsAfter Victorian period

汪定辉

Except poetry， drama and prose， novel is an important part in literature. And in British literature， there are many important and precious novels.What is British novel？ A novel is a fictional piece of prose that is typically written in a narrative style and presented as a bound book（Jessica，2015：1）. Like poetry， British novels developed with a long history. People usually use ”the English novel” represent British novels， this usage is not exact. English is the adjective of”England”（Lu，2004：10）. This paper is making an superficial and simple conclusion about the history of British novels， mainly focuses on the period after Victorianism period. The first part the period after Charles Dickens， and the Second part is after World war I.

1. After Charles Dickens.

From the the late 18th century to early 19th century， English literature developed into the Victorian period. During this period， sprang up many British novels and writers. Such as William Makepeace Thackeray， The Bronte sisters， George Eliot， Thomas Hardy. Charles Dickens was an Critical realist writer， his Oliver Twist tells about an orphan Oliver， his mother died after his birth and lived in very terrible environment， her mother's relic was stolen and Oliver lost his status when his birth. He suffering a lot and under the help of kind people（ his father's friend and her mothers relatives）， he survival from the persecution of his stepmother， his brother， also another bad guys. Oliver Twist also reflect the social environment of Victorian period. Similarly， David Copperfield tells the Bildungsroman of an orphan David Copperfield. After the death of his father， her mother got married an bad man less long before his birth， his suffering a lot under his stepfather and his sister. He ran away and he wanted to go home of his father's sister， on the way to his aunt， he cheated by bad guys， he helped poor friends， when he got to his aunt， he helped his friend and was educated， he learned a lot. He became a good man with better life in the end. Some of Charles Dickens' novels are about bildungsroman of child. And also reflect the situation at the age. Vanity Fair named from The Pilgrim's Progress of Bunyan. This a novel without a hero. In the Victorian age， there were three woman writers， they were Bronte sisters. Charlotte Bronte， famous work are Jane Eyre， Shirley and Professor. Jane compared with works of Jane Austen， Jane Eyre tells the independence of young woman both in live and in love.

It seemed to focus on the life of woman and highlighted the social status of female. Looking back to former articles， Elizabeth Hale had ever researched on two novels of faith and doubt by women novelists in the paper Sickly Scholars and Healthy Novels：The Classical Scholar in Victorian Fiction（ Elizabeth，2001：213）. The primary focus is on George Elliot's Middlemarch （1872-3） and Mary Augusta Ward's Robert Elsmere （1888）， novels which make great capital out of presenting and taming sickly， deathly， impotent， and sinister classicists （Elizabeth，2010：219）. In this period the writers still took some resistance about sexuality. Through Robert Elsmere's eyes： his “lower-half had a thin and shrunken look， but the shoulders， which had the scholar's stoop， and the head were massive and squarely outlined （Mrs Humphry Ward，1967：227）. Bronte sisters take an important part in English literature， their novels had caught many people heart from then on.

Even in today， The Bronte sisters and their works such as Wuthering Heights（Emily Bronte）， Agnes Grey（Anne Bronte）， Shirley（Charlotte Bronte） are still famous around literature circle. Another woman writer in this period is George Eliot， D.H Lawrence estimated George Eliot as “ the first novelist that start putting all actions in side”. Her novel The Mill on the Floss is definitely her most autobiographical novel， she told a sad story based on her own life by using realistic style. Like other novels of George Elliot， this novel articulated the tension between circumstances and the spiritual energies of individual characters struggling against those circumstances. Thomas Hardy is an naturalist writer. Naturalism is an extreme form of realism. Naturalist writers usually depict the sordid side of the life and show characters who are severely， if not hopelessly， limited by their environment or heredity. His novels are based on the countryside life background. His famous novel are Jude the Obscure， Tess of the D'urbervilles. In his novel， man is portrayed as not being able to control his fate. During this period， there is also another writers and their novels， like Oscar Wilde the representative of Aesthetic Movement with his novel Picture of Dorian Gray. No matter from which part， it is easy to find that the 19th century nourished many writers， novels and ideas about literature just as Elizabeth repeated in her paper “That they do so in novel form， using the metaphors of bodily frailty to underscore their scholars' sickness， shows the richness of nineteenth-century fiction's engagement with intellectual debate， and the power of the novel in nourishing the life of the mind.”（Elizabeth， 2010：243）

2. After world war I

Since World War I and World War II， the 1910s was the important time for British novels， it was the time that British novels changed into modernism form traditional realism， and the world war I in 1914 accelerated this change. At this time， there were many novelists， Woolf， Joyce， Eliot， Lawrence etc. The stream of consciousness novel are the main kind of novels. Stream of consciousness novels， from the angle of psychology， more show the characters inner world（Liu， 2012： 125）. Virginia Woolf， James Joyce， William Faulkner are three main representatives of stream of consciousness. Stream of consciousness novels boldly use the language variation means to reveal the characters inner world， is a sign of its creative use of language， is also a major contribution to world literature. Its an important symbol of stream of consciousness novel which is distinguished from other novel， and worth studying（Lai， 1997：130）. After world war I， the novels in this time， more or less， express the idea that the western people cannot control their fate in 20th century. Especially， Ulysses which was commented as “shows the entire life and history of modern western society” by some critics. Among contemporary literature， John Fowels The French Lieutenants Woman with many experimental factors（Parody， meta-fiction and the change of the novels narrative perspectives， also the open evaluation to the readers.

Many studies are just a small part about the literature， and this simple paper just takes a superficial conclusion on British novels， does not list all the British writers and their novels. In a word， the history of British is long and with high value to todays study about English literature， culture， even the western literature and culture.

References：

[1]赖招仁 英美意识小说的语言特征[J].Journal of Longyan Teachers College. 1997（15）： 130.

[2]劉凤 弗吉尼亚 伍尔夫 长篇意识流小说的语言特征[J].Journal of Chongqing University of Science and Technology. 2015： 125.