It is my intention to trace in the poetry of England of the first
decades of this century, the course of the strong, deep, pregnant
current in the intellectual life of the country, which, sweeping away
the classic forms and conventions, produces a Naturalism dominating
the whole of literature, which from Naturalism leads to Radicalism,
from revolt against traditional convention in literature to vigorous
rebellion against religious and political reaction, and which bears
in its bosom the germs of all the liberal ideas and emancipatory
achievements of the later periods of European civilisation.
The literary period which I now proceed to describe is a vigorous,
highly productive one. It has authors and schools of the most
dissimilar types, sometimes not merely unlike, but antagonistic to,
each other. Though the connection between these authors and schools is
not self-evident, but only discernible to the understanding, critical
eye, yet the period has its unity, and the picture it presents, though
a many-coloured, restless one, is a coherent composition, the work of
the great artist, history.