Satire in the Victorian novel

by Frances Theresa Russell

The spirituall agayne

Dothe grudge and complayne

Upon the temporall men:”

By the eighteenth, Voltaire could get a hearing, albeit a hostile and scandalized one. And by the nineteenth, we have not only Brontë and Kingsley censuring from within, but Meredith and Butler from without. So far as there is a new note in the censure, it is in harmony with the whole strain of the time. For the old crude gibes against the old crude faults of hypocrisy, sensuality, and greed, is substituted the criticism that a huge organization fails to utilize the tremendous power of its equipment, prestige, and authority, in the furtherance of general progress and the establishment of a genuine kingdom of God here upon earth. For from the spiritualte as well as the temporalte the new humanitarian spirit demands recognition and service.

These modifications in form and substance were induced by a modification, probably unconscious, of the idea of satire itself, and they in turn reacted on it to strengthen the changing conception. The two main elements,—a wider socialization in the point of view, and a firmer insistence on an understanding of conditions such as could not be secured under the old artless habit of accepting the premises,—stand for that union of feeling and intelligence which was the ideal of the nineteenth century. “Men,” says Meredith, “and the ideas of men, which are * * * actually the motives of men in a greater degree than their appetites; these are my theme;”[449] and again, “The Gods of this world’s contests demand it of us, in relation to them, that the mind, and not the instincts, shall be at work.”[450] The corollary of this is that though satire may be “a passion to sting and tear,” it must do so “on rational grounds.”[451] “Satire,” says Trollope, “though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed. Caricature may too easily become a slander, and satire a libel.”[452] Sympathy and intelligence have no objection to pungency and forcefulness, but they have no real need for truculence or unfairness. It is, as Garnett suggests, the unsophisticated man who regards satire as the offspring of ill-nature. Such was the intellectual status of Lady Middleton, who could not feel an affinity for Elinor and Marianne Dashwood:[453]

“Because they neither flattered herself nor her children, she could not believe them good-natured; and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical; but that did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily given.”

The vague notion that a satirist is something disagreeable will of course never quite be eradicated, at least not until people learn to like being ridiculed and criticised. But in manner he is undeniably growing less disagreeable than has been his wont. Another reason for this, in addition to the changes already noted, is the increased activity of that reflexive sense of humor which operates as an antitoxin to the vanity inherent in all critics. A wholesome fear of being absurd serves to reduce one’s chances of being that rich anomaly, a ridiculous satirist. The modern satirist may possess a mind conscious to itself of right and a conviction that he has a mission to perform. But he is more prone to conceal or even disclaim these things than to advertise them. Even Fielding did not proclaim, as he might have done, that he first adventured. Peacock trusted to his readers to discover that fools being his theme, satire must be his song. Since his time, satire, while questioning all things with a new penetration, has succeeded in taking on an air of unconcern and in realizing that neither promises nor apologies are necessary. Post-Byronic satire seldom vaunts itself, and, however superior it may feel, it pretends that it is not puffed up. A historian describes the change that takes place between the Age of Elizabeth, when satire “was the pastime of very young men, who ‘railed on Lady Fortune in good set terms,’” and the Commonwealth, when the combatants “left Nature and Fortune with their withers unwrung, and aimed at the joints in the harness of their enemies.”[454] To the Victorians, satire was neither a pastime nor a matter for deadly earnestness. Armored antagonists had gone out of fashion; and Lady Fortune was left to the metaphysicians.

It is, indeed, a matter of curious interest that one object of satire, life itself, which had drawn fire occasionally all the way from Aristophanes to Byron, should have been neglected by the Victorians,—though the neglect may be accounted for by their interest in the concrete and their generally optimistic outlook. On the other hand, one of the most philosophic and least optimistic of them devotes several bow-shots to a sort of counter attack, against those who consider the universe a fit subject for satire. The Prelude to Middlemarch identifies the heroine as one of those unfortunate women of deep souls and shallow circumstances, “who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action.” To this the comment is added:[455]

“Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude.”

The fact, however, that “Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing,” is not an irony of fate so much as a folly of society. Later in the story the philosophizing of one of the characters leads the author to the reflection: