Satire in the Victorian novel

by Frances Theresa Russell

Wit is the diamond of the intellectual world, precious on account of its rarity, its brilliancy, and the sense of infinite time, matter, and compression that have gone into its transformation from common charcoal. Brevity is indeed an element of it; but its soul is perception, a vision at once quick and penetrating, the radio-activity of the mind.

Being such, it has the infrequence that marks all excellence, both in life and its mirrored reflection. There is much of an unsatiric and subintellectual order, the kind that comes from ingenuity and cunning, and takes the shape of pranks and jests for the fun of them; manifest in Diccon, Autolycus, and the Court Fools,—though these last often have much meat in them. Then there is the clever befooling for a purpose, as seen in Portia, getting her own ring by a subterfuge; or Kate Hardcastle, stooping to conquer. There is also the bitter temper which animates a Katherina, checkmated only by a Petruchio; this produces too a Thersites to be the cheese and digestion of Achilles; and Cleopatra, gibing at “the married woman.”

Wit, however, is something more than merriment or malice; and short is the list of its worthy examples. Lysistrata is not only a vigorous feminist but pungent on the theme. Pertelote and the Wife of Bath illumine masculine superstition and conservatism. Benedict and Beatrice sparkle by mutual concussion. The melancholy Jaques and the melancholy Dane are the finest of satiric philosophers. Subtle the Alchemist enjoys with a huge private relish the gullibility he exploits. Fra Lippo Lippi graces with gayety the professional pretense and policy he exposes. These compose a distinctive and exclusive company, and few there are who may be added unto them.

Within the novel the proportion is almost as small. The most noteworthy prototypes to Victorian fiction are Matthew Bramble and, in a girlish fashion, Evelina. (Lady Emily, in Susan Ferrier’s Marriage, might be included). But these, through the thin guise of letters, are Smollett and Burney as completely as Gulliver and Shandy are Swift and Sterne through the thinner guise of the dramatic monologue. More objective are Jane Austen’s Mr. Bennet and his daughter Elizabeth. The former particularly is a satiric soloist acting as Greek chorus to the follies of his wife, daughters, and certain young men.

This delightful relationship between father and daughter, a sort of satiric defensive alliance against the besieging army of silly exactions and vexations, finds a clear if fainter echo in that of Dr. Gibson and Molly (in Mrs. Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters), who plan in the temporary absence of the elegant stepmother to do “everything that is unrefined and ungenteel.”

The exponents of satiric wit in the Victorian novel may be thrown for convenience into three or four divisions.

There is the native or rustic type, whose shrewd observations are condensed into homely but poignant epigrams. That such characters have always existed is evident from the existence of a whole literature of proverbial philosophy, of anonymous origin, like ballads and fabliaux. Conspicuous in the van of the few who have been lifted from this obscure anonymity is the redoubtable Mrs. Poyser. It is no valid discount to George Eliot’s achievement to say she produced only one Mrs. Poyser. Indeed, it might add something to her luster to note that no other novelist has produced even one.

The only other deserving of mention is a countryman in Lytton’s What Will He Do with It, chosen in this case also because he illustrates the generic class of stage-drivers, whose brightest light is the American Yuba Bill. This one is described in the chapter heading[148] as “a charioteer, to whom an experience of British Laws suggests an ingenious mode of arresting the progress of Roman Papacy.” He discourses to his passenger:[149]

“My wife’s grandfather was put into Chancery just as he was growing up, and never grew afterwards—never got out o’ it. Nout ever does. There’s our church warden comes to me with a petition to sign agin the Pope. Says I, ‘that old Pope is always in trouble—what’s he bin doin’ now?’ Says he, ‘Spreading! He’s agot into Parlyment, and now he’s got a colledge, and we pays for it. I doesn’t know how to stop him.’ Says I, ‘Put the Pope into Chancery along with wife’s grandfather, and he’ll never spread agin.’”

The urban counterpart of this type is the child of the city streets, of which we have specimens in the sophisticated gamins, the Artful Dodger and Dick Swiveller. In this Dickens has a monopoly, such as it is.