![]() 4 A better choice would be Thomas Carlyle, that impassioned Victorian prophet who cried out against the growing materialistic atheism of his age and vigorously asserted his faith that man and the universe are “sky-woven” creations of God and that “the fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.” 5 And the best choice is Robert Browning (1812–1889), that robust optimist whose total affirmation of life here and hereafter makes him an ideal spokesman for liberalism. “For man is an immortal soul, God is real, and man’s destiny is an eternal beatitude in communion with his divine creator.” 2Īs the spokesman of liberalism one might choose Tennyson if his voice were not so sentimentally plaintive as he endeavors to make peace with his troubled soul and as he stretches “lame hands of faith” 3 and “hopes” (rather than knows or even firmly believes) that he will meet his Maker face to face. In mortal life happiness and goodness are richly attainable, and beyond death the promise is even more glowing. “Its theology defines man as good rather than evil, or at least as morally neutral with a high potentiality for goodness.” It affirms that man, both as an individual and collectively as part of the social group, is “inherently capable of achieving an abundant and happy life,” especially as aided and guided by God, his creator. Liberalism is “the conjunction of proximate optimism with ultimate optimism.” It is affirmative and optimistic with regard to man not only in this life but also in a life after death. 1 To see and feel these positions in conflict as voiced by the great writers of the era, a surging ideological tug of war for dominance, is one of the rewards of exploring Victorian literature. Significantly, in Victorian literature not only do we find a general heterogeneity and complexity of tone and philosophy, but we can identify in major works of literature of the period clear expressions of all four of the basic and contradictory religious positions which human beings may hold: liberalism, fundamentalism, humanism, and existentialism. ![]() Hence the appropriateness of the most famous figure of speech in nineteenth century poetry: Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” description in 1867 of the Sea of Faith, which had once encircled the earth so securely, as retreating with a melancholy and fading echo of withdrawal. And the greatest ideological issue of the age was faith versus doubt, with the latter seeming to emerge unsteadily triumphant. ![]() The Victorian Age began in early nineteenth century romantic idealism and ended a little over a half century later in modern naturalistic pessimism. In this age the great labor unions began their climb to power, and Freud with all his impact on life and literature was emerging on the horizon. In this age Darwin and his associates were challenging man’s traditional confidence in a God-created, God-controlled universe and on a different scientific front Marx and his associates were propounding theories that would prove equally shattering to western man’s traditional faith in divine teleology as well as to the economic structure of his comfortable world. But underneath it was an age of turbulence and of ideological revolution. On the surface this was an age of solidarity and even stuffy placidity, with its triumph as well as its tragedy arising from an over-confidence in things material. Unlike that of the Romantic Age preceding Victorianism, and of the Neo-classic Age preceding Romanticism, the literature of the Victorian Age-that is, English literature of the middle and later nineteenth century-is characterized, not by unity but by diversity, not by basic harmony in tone and philosophy but by basic contradiction.
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