(b) Charles Darwin (1809–82) is one of the greatest names in modern science. He was born at Shrewsbury, where he received his early education, passing later to Cambridge. In 1831 he became naturalist in The Beagle, a man-of-war that went around the world on a scientific mission. This lucky chance determined his career as a scientist. The remainder of his life was laboriously uneventful, being devoted almost wholly to biological and allied studies.
His chief works are The Voyage of the Beagle (1836), a mine of accurate and interesting facts; The Origin of Species (1859), which is to modern science what The Wealth of Nations is to modern economics—the foundation of belief; and The Descent of Man (1871). We cannot discuss his theories of evolution, but as general literature his books possess a living interest owing to their rich array of garnered evidence and their masterly gifts of exposition and argument.
(c) Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) was one of the ablest and most energetic of Darwin’s supporters. He was born at Ealing, and became a surgeon in the Navy. His first post was on Nelson’s Victory. Like Darwin, he traveled abroad on a warship, The Rattlesnake, and during these four years (1846–50) he saw and learned much. Retiring from the Navy, he took enthusiastically to scientific research, and became President of the Royal Society and a prominent public figure in the heated discussions concerning the theories that were then so new and disturbing.
Huxley produced no work in the same class as The Origin of Species. His work consisted of lectures and addresses, which were issued in volume form as Man’s Place in Nature (1863), Lay Sermons and Addresses (1870), and American Lectures (1877).
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS
The Victorian epoch was exceedingly productive of literary work of a high quality, but the amount of actual innovation is by no means great. Writers were as a rule content to work upon former models, and the improvements they did achieve were often dubious and unimportant.
1. Poetry. (a) The lyrical output is very large and varied, as a glance through the works of the poets already mentioned will show. In form there is little of fresh interest. Tennyson was content to follow the methods of Keats, though Browning’s complicated forms and Swinburne’s long musical lines were more freely used by them than by any previous writers.
(b) In descriptive and narrative poetry there is a greater advance to chronicle. In subject—for example, in the poems of Browning and Morris—there is great variety, embracing many climes and periods; in method there is much diversity, ranging from the cultured elegance of Tennyson’s English landscapes to the wild impressionism of Whitman in America. The Pre-Raphaelite school, also, united several features which had not been seen before in combination. These were a fondness for medieval themes treated in an unconventional manner, a richly colored pictorial effect, and a studied and melodious simplicity. The works of Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne provide many examples of this development of poetry. On the whole we can say that the Victorians were strongest on the descriptive side of poetry, which agreed with the more meditative habits of the period, as contrasted with the warmer and more lyrical emotions of the previous age.
There were many attempts at purely narrative poetry, with interesting results. Tennyson thought of reviving the epic, but in him the epical impulse was not sufficiently strong, and his great narrative poem was produced as smaller fragments which he called idylls. Browning’s Ring and the Book is curious, for it can be called a psychological epic—a narrative in which emotion removes action from the chief place. In this class of poetry The Earthly Paradise of William Morris is a return to the old romantic tale as we find it in the works of Chaucer.
2. Drama. Nearly all the major poets of the period wrote tragedy on the lines of the accepted models. Few of these attained to real distinction; they were rather the conscientious efforts of men who were striving to succeed in the impossible task of really reviving the poetical drama. Of them all, Swinburne’s tragedies, especially those concerned with Mary Queen of Scots, possess the greatest warmth and energy; and Browning’s earlier plays, before he over-developed his style, have sincerity and sometimes real dramatic power. As for comedy, it was almost wholly neglected as a purely literary form.