THE VICTORIAN AGE

The Victorian novel reflects social changes, such as the industrial revolution, the struggle of democracy and the growth of towns. It became obvious during the 1840s that the first industrial civilisation in the history of the world had reach a state of acute, generalize crisis that was recorded and analysed that was according to analyze in all the institution of the new urban culture.

It is not surprising therefore, that the novel widely-read although not considered great art, should have found a new mentality and thanks to an important generation of writers began to have a real impact on legislators, opinion formers and those who could vote to change the world.

This happened thought the novelistic mixing of documentary and romance, sensationalism and prophecies.

The novel allied itself to parliamentary reports on industry, agriculture, health, prison condition and criminality. The most characteristic theme in Victorian fiction is class.

Although it would be over simplified to describe the Victorian novel and photograph of social reality, the problem of relationship between classes, the desire to rise and the fear of go down the social level and the problems that arose from the explanation of labour and corruption or inadequacies in the social services are all familiar and central themes in early Victorian novel. Up to the Great Exhibition of 1851

The problem was generally centred on the relationship between an individual and the group of society as a whole, and this relationship obviously had both a beside and a good one than the main character' s journey is usually between this two poles. It is in any case, a fact that between 1830 and 1855, the period under consideration, social history became a vital part of the novel functioning both has witness and commentary.

The reason for this are not only to be found in the juxtaposition of classes and the contrast between the reach and the pour. The spread of publishing of both literature and information, which began in the first year of the century and that increased with the increase of literary and of the reading public is also responsible.

This reading public was predominantly middle-class and in particular lower middle-class.

The most popular subject for working writers in the first half of the century was, not surprisingly, family life, especially middle aged middle class.

Dickens, Thackeray, Brontëës' sisters and Gaskell (industrial novel) all came from the middle-class. This ???? to another important and characteristic elements in Victorian's fiction. On the one hand there is the realism derived from the 18^th Century' s narrative of Richardson, Defoe and Fielding, a realism that caps its precarious equilibrium between two equal and juxtapose dimension, pathos and the grotesque, which, of the other hand a count for the exaggeration of the tones, characters and emotions which is most typically Victorian.