Page:Satire in the Victorian novel (IA satireinvictoria00russrich).pdf/67



"In the Victorian era, which we have found so neglectful of literary standards, Literature has been of greater social and ethical stimulus than ever before. * * * It throbs with a new sympathy for those who toil unceasingly in poverty, and a new bewilderment upon the realization that the world which is changing so rapidly is still so full of misery and hopelessness. the main characteristic of Victorian Literature became this great sense of pity for things as they are and of an imperious duty to make them better."
 * * * But, as the world went, the main impulse and

But the sense of pity was sometimes voiced with wit, and one of the sharpest weapons at the service of duty was the shaft of ridicule. With nothing to satirize, society would be a paradise. With no satirists, it would be rather a dull inferno. But it is our human world that is purgatorial.

Since the purpose of our present study is to discover the proportion and nature of the satiric element in Victorian fiction, to note its relation to the rest of the work, and to reach some conclusion as to the total effect of its presence and use, it might aid in clearness to subjoin a table of names and dates of the novelists with whom we are concerned.

Name    Birth  Period of Publication Death

Peacock     1785          1816-1861              1866 Lytton      1803          1827-1873              1873 Disraeli    1804          1826-1880              1881 Gaskell     1810          1848-1865              1865