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Victorian Dogamatism as a Gift from the Romantic Age and Prior

Victorian Dogmatism as a Gift from the Romantic Age and Prior Houghton prefaces The Victorian Frame of Mind by noting, "the Victorian mind remains for us blurred and obscure. It appears as a bundle of various and often paradoxical ideas and attitudes" (xiii). Houghton acknowledges the "fragmentary and incoherent" (xiii) characteristics of the Victorian period, in contrast to general assumptions defining the period simply as morally rigid and intellectually dogmatic, for instance. Much of The Victorian Frame of Mind is devoted to an exploration of the complexities of the age in revealing established generalities as actually being not so clearly defined in terms of what they are assumed to represent. An example of this is the characterization of Victorianism as a reaction to Romanticism, Houghton demonstrates this as an oversimplification as he notes Romanticism's continuing, yet often subtle and paradoxical, influence over the Victorian age.While Houghton relies on the literature of the age as a means to illustrate the various characteristics of the "Victorian mind," he does not limit his analysis to what is most obviously conveyed by the writers of the time. Houghton examines the dogmatic framework behind the ideals presented by Victorian writers, as such dogmatism is often seen as one of the defining characteristics of the age. A profound difference between the Victorians and the Romantics, for instance, seems to be expressed when he writes:Paralleling his thought in other areas, Ruskin revived the tradition of absolute "rules" which the Romantics had challenged; and though he rightly took issue with those who thought there were no standards in art, what he meant by standards was "laws of truth and right...just as fixed as those of harmony in music, or of affinity in chemistry." (149) Houghton goes on to clarify, however, that while the ideals presented by Victorian writers may have been quite distinct from, or even at times...

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