Long Shadow: Victorian Themes and Forms in the Edwardian Provincial Novel – Arnold Bennett and D.H. Lawrence

Abstract

Anxious as it was to distance itself from the Victorian period, the Edwardian novel in fact makes extensive use of the themes and forms of the nineteenth-century novel. It draws on realist conventions of the previous period, even as it also adapts them. And novelists remained concerned with the legendary limitations on sexual mores and their expression in their writing. In two very different novelists, Arnold Bennett and D.H. Lawrence, the same concerns with form and theme can be traced, showing the extent to which the Edwardian novel remained haunted by the long shadow of its Victorian forebear.