Characteristics of the nineteenth-century English novel

Text/Ma Jiajun

In modern times, With the development of its capitalist relations of production, England became a literary power. In particular, in the 19th century, prominent critical realist novelists Such as Dickens, Thackeray, Charlemagne Brontë and Mrs. Gaskell appeared. Marx called them "brilliant school of novelists" and said they revealed many "political and social truths" (1). The 19th-century British novel occupies a prominent place in the history of world literature.

The English novel of the early 19th century developed along two lines: one was the realist novel of Austen, a well-known female writer in the English-speaking countries of the world. Her masterpieces, Pride and Prejudice and Emma, write about the daily turmoil and comedic conflicts between love and marriage, showing the class relations, social psychology, and customs in the countryside at that time. The other is Scott's romantic historical novel. His "Red Chief Robert", "Ivan he", etc., the plot is bizarre and twisted, the scale of the scene is magnificent, the depiction is colorful, and it has a profound influence on Dickens, Balzac, Hugo, Dumas, Pushkin, and Manzoni.

In the 1830s and 1840s, what Lenin called "the world's first broad, genuinely mass, political proletarian movement, the Chartist movement" (2). The contradictions in British society intensified, and the novel entered a golden age.

Dickens was Britain's greatest novelist. His "Dong Bei Father and Son" and "Difficult Times" have profoundly exposed the ugly features of the bourgeoisie and depicted the painful life and excellent qualities of the lower classes of the people and workers. Dickens's later novels had reformist ideas, but there was no shortage of satire on ugly things in the depths of seriousness. His autobiographical novel "David Copperfield", which wrote about the vicissitudes of the world, and "A Tale of Two Cities", which depicted the class struggle in the era of the French Revolution, are outstanding world masterpieces. The films "Orphans of the Mist" (i.e. "Oliver Tuist"), "Lone Star Blood tears" (i.e. "Great Prospects" or "Great Expectations"), "The Old Antique Shop" and "Our Mutual Friends" adapted into TV series were screened in China. It was welcomed by Chinese people.

Thackeray, who is also a master of critical realism, exposes the snobbers in Vanity Fair, and the irony is even stronger. His novel Vanity Fair is "a novel without heroes". In Western languages, "hero" and "protagonist" are one word. Because the protagonists in medieval legends are mostly heroes. The protagonist of "Famous Scraping Field", Xia Po, is a woman, and the novel has no male protagonist. But the subtitle says that there are no positive protagonists, but some negative characters, which reflects Gorky's definition when he named "critical realism".

In the middle of the 19th century, a group of British women writers also wrote the outstanding "Jane Eyre", "Wuthering Heights" and "Mary Barton" in the "Miracle Year of the Novel" from 1847 to 1848. Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë came from a poor clergyman's family and died young (aged 39 and 3O). In addition to "Jane Eyre", my sister also wrote "The Teacher", which reflected her personal experience, "Shirley", which wrote about the workers' movement, etc., and my sister only wrote "Wuthering Heights". "Jane Eyre" is a plain novel, and the emotional color is highlighted in realism. Wuthering Heights has the bizarre and romantic atmosphere of a Gothic novel. Jane loves this poor governess who is pure, kind, and strives for personal independence, and she strives for happiness with her personal struggle. Heathcliff in the cottage uses revenge to appease the wounds of the soul. The former novel highlights love, bright and fresh with a happy ending, the latter novel renders hate, gloomy and strange and ends in tragedy. The former novel is written in order, with strict and lyrical language, while the latter novel uses reverse order and storytelling form, which is a narrative poem composed of the language of the people. Famous English novels of this period include Mary Barton, a reflection of the Chartist movement by Mrs. Gaskell, Adam Bede, and Manan the Weaver, who wrote about the life of the people. Charles Reed's historical novels Church and Home Stove, Trollope's Township Neighborhood Dean, Kingscoe's novel about social reform, Alton Locke, Collins' influential detective novels The Woman in White and The Jewel of the Moon, and so on.

In the last 30 years of the 19th century, Europe and the United States entered the era of monopoly. The contradictions between the British Empire and the colonial peoples and with the working peoples of the country intensified, and English literature entered a new period. This period is famous for Shaw's plays. As for the novel, it presents a colorful scene, which is manifested in the expansion of the scope of the subject matter, and the creative method is no longer limited to critical realism. However, among the genres, realism is still dominated, and in realism, Thomas Hardy is the one who holds the bull's ear. Hardy's Homecoming, The Mayor of Custerbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and The Nameless Jude represent the highest level of British fiction after Dickens. These novels are praised on the one hand for their social criticality, their deep sympathy for the misfortunes of the laborers, and their artistic profundity; on the other hand, they also express the limitations of fatalism and pessimism. Hardy's novels are mostly set in the countryside, and even write about his hometown and call them "Wessex novels", revealing people's inner worlds in the beautiful nature. The more profound realist novels of this period are Also Metrices's "Egoism" criticizing British gentlemen, Lautherford's writer-craftsman's "Revolution in Pishi Alley", Botterer's satirical novel "Utopia" and so on.

At the end of the 19th century, the crisis of capitalism gave rise to the decadent literature and art of the bourgeoisie. Wilde is a representative of aestheticism. His Paintings of Dowling Gray promote the idea of the supremacy of art. The adventure novel Treasure Island, written by the neo-Romantic writer Stevenson in pursuit of wealth, is fascinating.

With the development of the workers' movement in the 1980s, novels with socialist ideas emerged. William Morris describes the beauty of Communist society in England two hundred years later in The Tale of Utopia. The city girl, harkness, a female writer with Whom Engels associated, describes the misfortunes of the workers. The novelist Gissing was not a socialist, but his novel De Moss – The Story of Socialism in England depicts the lives of workers and expresses a strong dissatisfaction with capitalism.

There were also two more peculiar novelists of this period who were not much noticed by Western literary historians: one was Voynich and the other was Doyle. Voynich's husband was a Polish revolutionary born in Russia. They knew the Russian narodnik revolutionary writer Stepniac-Kravczyński. The latter's novel Andrea Koruhof inspired Voñitsch to write The Bullfly, a novel that shows the revolutionary movements of the 30s and 40s in Italy, influencing the growth of young people in later generations. Sir Conan Doyle, a former physician, focused on the fascinating image of Sherlock Holmes in The Study of Blood Letters and in many novels, with far-reaching influence.

By the end of the 19th century, many well-known British novelists of the 20th century had emerged. Golsworth published his debut novel The End of the World, Wells published the original science fiction novels Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and Interstellar War, Maugham also began his literary activities with the novel "The Lisa of Lambeth" about the lives of the poor, conrad published his first novel, "The Stupidity of Almeyer" and the masterpiece "The Black Guy on the Narcissus".

Throughout the history of the 19th-century British novel, it can be seen that:

The English novel exposes and lashes out at the capitalist system and its apparent prosperity, which breaks the illusion of the eternity of capitalism and makes people and future generations understand the ugly nature and insurmountable contradictions of the capitalist system.

British novels mostly depict the lives of lower working people and the working class, reflecting the contradiction between labor and capital, which constitutes a major feature of British novels. Many British novelists, from the people, expressed sympathy for the suffering of the workers and the lower classes. Make the British novel more popular. Most of the British novelists were humanitarians, sympathetic to the people, but could not point out a social outlet. Some novelists, who have beautiful ideals, are expressed in the novel as a utopian ideal state, or a utopian socialist picture.

One of the hallmarks of the prosperity of the English novel in the 19th century was the emergence of a large number of women writers. In Russia and Germany, there were no first- or second-rate women writers in the 19th century. The emergence of Mrs. Stowe in the United States and Mrs. Steyr and Georges San in France are also rare. And the British female novelists have Austin, brontë sisters, Mrs. Gasky Kyle, George Eliot, Hacknes, Voynich and so on. Female writers use their unique emotional delicacy and sensitivity to shape many heroines, profoundly reveal their psychology and feelings, and make literature enter a new world. The prosperity of women's literature and feminist literature has had a profound impact on future generations.

The 19th century British novel has made great achievements in art, whether it is analyzing reality, describing the environment, or shaping typical characters; whether it is describing natural features, or portraying the psychology of characters; whether it is the arrangement of the plot, or the lyrical discussion in the narrative, each novelist has contributed and created, and won people's praise.

Note: (1) Marx and Engels on Art, vol. 2, p. 402.

(1) The Complete Works of Lenin, vol. 29, p. 276.

(Note: The author of this article has authorized this headline)

(Ma Jiajun, a native of Qingyuan, Hebei, born on October 5, 1929, is currently a professor at the College of Literature of Shaanxi Normal University, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a member of the Chinese Filmmakers Association, an honorary president (former president) of the Shaanxi Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Russian Literature Research Society, a former president of the Shaanxi Provincial Higher Education Drama Research Society, a former consultant of the Shaanxi Poetry Society, and a former executive director of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Social Science Societies. Shaanxi Province to build socialist spiritual civilization advanced individuals, Shaanxi Province to teach and educate advanced teachers, etc., enjoy special allowances from the State Council.

He is the author of 12 kinds of "Nineteenth Century Russian Literature", "The New Stage of Aesthetic History", "Poetry Exploration", "Exploration of World Literature", etc.; 4 kinds of "The Essence of World Literature" and "History of Western Drama" co-authored with his daughter Ma Xiaoyi; 9 kinds of "History of World Literature" (3 volumes) and "Research on Gorky's Creation"; edited 4 kinds of "30 Lectures on European and American Modernist Literature"; co-edited and co-authored "100 Topics of Marxism-Leninism", "Cultural Research Methods", "50 Lectures on Oriental Literature", "Western Literature in the Twentieth Century", etc. and more than 40 kinds.

It has been listed in more than 40 kinds, such as the Dictionary of Chinese Writers, the Dictionary of Chinese Poets, the Dictionary of Chinese Social Science Scholars, the Cambridge Dictionary of International Biographies (27th Edition in English), the Directory of Experts in Russian Studies Abroad (Russian Edition) of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Classics of Shaanxi Century of Literature and Art. ）