5.

THE VICTORIAN AGE

Begins after 1882
It is a period of industrialization and there is an importance of machine upon human
being.
Many discoveries.
Expansion of England, the British Empire with Queen Victoria.
2 positions regarding the changes:
1. Optimistic: John Stuart Mill, stability, peace and the social faith. Victorians have
faith in individuals, in machines and in the progress.
2. Pessimistic: Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, John Risking or Matthew Arnold, who
criticised this age because people were alienated from their past. They paid a
high cost because they had lost their past. As a result, a debate was generated
and this period is also called the Debates Age.
Modernists also criticised the Victorian period such as D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf,
who both thought that this was the most negative period in the History of England.
Nowadays Victorian Period is regarded as the Golden Age.

Economic point of view:

1. London became the most important city in the world.
2. The population grew spectacularly because immigration  many people moved
from rural areas to the cities; there was no job for everybody in the cities and
this caused a lot of poverty and hunger.
3. Liberalism and laissez faire  Because of this situation Trade Unions began to
have importance at that period (Charles Dickens Hard Times).
4. The Corn Laws: These laws protected corn production and people had to pay
high taxes if they wanted to export corn.  this law caused a lot of hunger and
was abolished in 1896.
Victorian Period 3 stages:

1. A stage of complete isolationism: a lot of hunger, pessimistic period.

2. Government decided to intervene: abolition of the Corn Laws, more optimistic

period.
3. Fin de Siècle. It is period of reaction against ideas and ideals concerning
Victorianism. Age of decline. Women start to fight for their rights (no more “the
angel of the house”).

Politics:
1. First Reform Bill in 1832. It extended the right to vote to all males from the
lower and middle classes who had a property of ten pounds.

2. In 1867 the Second Reform Bill was passed giving the right to vote to the male
working class.

Religion:
In 1867 the Second Reform Bill was passed giving the right to vote to the male working
class. As a consequence, we have different doctrines:
1. Evangelicalism. They believed in a superior being and these are better citizens
and will make up a better society. strict life from a moral and social point of
 view; repression of you own feelings; abstention from worldly pleasures;
philanthropy…
2. Agnosticism: The idea of God was rejected. Moreover, they said that factories
rather than churches should be the exponents of this period.

3. Higher Criticism of the Bible: the Bible should be read metaphorically because
it is composed by myths.
4. In addition, we have a scientific debate because of Darwin’s theories of the
Origins of Species. Darwin’s ideas were quite influential in society and religion
at that time.

THE NON-FICTIONAL PROSE

1. Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold.

2. They criticised the evil consequences of the Industrial Revolution and went
against the establishment.
3. These authors were regarded as prophets because they anticipated many
problems that would exist in 20th century such as dehumanization or
alienation of human beings, the importance of the machine over individual in
the factories or the mechanization of society.
4. Their religion was evangelicalism: they wanted to help the working classes
through their writings.
5. They criticized the middle classes, the owners of the factories.
6. They also criticise the Victorian optimist in machines: machines cause
unemployment and alienation of the workers (because of the chain
system of production).
THOMAS CARLYLE.

1. He insisted in the concept of hard work and duty work hard to improve
the society.
2. The concept of hero: he did not believe in democracy because democracy does
not allow the existence of heroes (He wrote Heroes and Hero-Worship).There
should be a superior leader – (people started to say that he defended a
dictatorship)
3. Criticism against the evil effects of The Industrial Revolution.
4. Middle Classes= Mammonism (they worship money)
5. He also opposed to the utilitarianismit justifies human exploitation.
6. He considers history is not an inevitable chain of causes and effects, but
human beings decide on their history  we are responsible of our own
destiny.
7. Sartor Resartus: work he compares the system with fashion.(institutions are
temporary).
8. The Government should change the situation of Laissez-Faire but a democratic
government is unable to change it.
9. He compares workers in the Middle Ages with the workers in the Victorian
Period: In the Middle Ages workers although being beaten by their masters were
happy with their works they could see the result of their works. In the Victorian
Age the worker is degraded to a machine.
JOHN RUSKIN
 1. He established a comparison between arts, economy and morality: the better
the economy the better the art. E.g: Art in the Renaissance is bad because there
is a lot of luxury.  The Stones of Venice.
2. He idealised the Middle Ages.
3. He considered Victorian Art ugly because it was the product of an immoral
system in which some people enriched themselves whereas others were
exploited.
4. He compares the workers of the Middle Ages with the workers in the Victorian
period. Men in the Victorian Period are alienated from their work.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.
1. He defends the study of humanities over the study of science.
2. He idealised Ancient Greece and the Middle Ages.
3. He criticises the middle classes since their main concern is economic interest
and not culture. if they are enlighten about the importance of culture, they will
become the only hope of change.
4. Regarding literary criticism, he says that literary critics should be objective in
his opinions so that his feelings and personality should not appear in any critical
work.

THE VICTORIAN POETS

LORD TENNYSON
1. Poetry in the Victorian Period :melancholic, sad and pessimism tone.
2. He was appointed Poet Laureate.
3. At the beginning of his production, he is influenced by the romantics and
especially by Keats.Keat’s sensory language (we find it E.g in Lady of
Shallott)
4. Friendship with Arthur Hallam: when he died Tennyson felt desperated. He
wrote In Memoriam: long poem with a lot of changes of mood. At the
beginning we have a sad tone and at the end we find resignation.
5. He also wrote about the past. The past is a source of inspiration for him and it
is mentioned in a sorrow mood in different tragedies and sad stories : Lady of
Shallott, Mariana, Elaine.
6. Another source of inspiration is mythological figures and stories. In fact, he
wrote Ulysses, The Lotos-Eaters or Tithonus.
7. When he became poet laureate, he wrote social poems such as Maud and
Locksley Hall.
8. He distrusted democracy as an appropriate political system for the country.
. ROBERT BROWNING
He was influence by Romanticism, especially by Shelley, they shared their radicalism.
Browning rebels against religion, ecclesiastic institutions, society, tyranny and
authoritarianism.
Later his production will derived more to the Victorian style: sadder and melancholic
tone.
He also wrote a psychological poetry in which he shows a personal approach to art,
religion, love and other themes.
What made him famous were the dramatic monologues. In that monologues he
analyses different types of human’s behaviours and personality.
The difference between Joyce’s stream of consciousness and Browning’s dramatic
monologues is that in dramatic monologues the character speaks, whereas in the stream
of consciousness the character does not speak, but the writer writes what is thought by
the character and transmits to the readers.
In the dramatic monologues Browning uses real and imaginary characters. He uses his
characters in order to show his opinions and we can find very interesting aspects in
them such as the colloquial language they used.
His dramatic monologues are contained in the following collections:
1. Men and Women, 2.Dramatis Personae and 3. The Ring and the Book.