THE VICTORIAN AGE

THE DAWN OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

QUEEN VICTORIA

Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 when she was 18yo,she ruled for 64y and it was an age of
economic and scientific progress and social reforms.She was the head of a constitutional monarchy bc
she remained apart from politics but she provided stability.In 1840 she married Prince Albert,later
Prince Consort.

The 1830 was an age of reform:

The First Reform Act 1832 (or The Great Reform Act) had transferred voting privileges from the
boroughs(gentry and nobility)to the industrial towns.
The Factory Act 1833 had blocked children 9 to 13yo from being employed more than 48h.
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 had converted the old Poor Laws with the workhouse.

WORKHOUSES

During the 1st decades of the 19th century, children were forced to work in factories under harsh
circumstances for 8/12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Children and orphans generally worked for food and
accommodation and did not work for compensation/salary. They had to follow its severe rules with a
system of regimentation,hard work and monotonous diet due to the Puritan virtues of duty.They had to
wear uniforms and they were also sold to their new employers for money.The aim was to inspire the
poor to improve their own condition and they were run by the Church.

CHARTISM

The Chartist, so cold because of the people’s charter ask for the extension of the right to vote to the
working class and to all male workers (universal male suffrage),demanding electoral districts,annualy
elected Parliaments and the abolition of the property qualifications for memberships.But this movement
failed but in 1867 a Second Reform Act gave town workers the right to vote.

THE IRISH POTATO FAMINE

Bad weather and an unknown plant disease from America caused the destruction of potato farming in
1845.Ireland,suffered a terrible hunger/starvation bc his agriculture depended on potatoes and a lot of
ppl died and emigrated.This Irish crisis forced the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel to abolish the Corn
Laws that imposed tarrifs on imported corn,keeping the price of bread high to protect the interests of the
land.

TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

For England the midyears of the 19century was a period of industrialisation,a second wave,with
economic,cultural and architectural changes,in fact in 1851 a Great Exibhition showed Britan’s power to
the world at the Crystal Palace.Money was invested in the creation of Museums(natural history
m,science m..)By 1848 much of the country is covered by railways,that transported large quantity of
materials and products quickly and the midle classes could live in suburbs and began the building of
London Underground.
FOREIGN POLICY

England was involved in the two opium wars against China,which was trying to suppress the opium
trade.The first was fought between China and England,while the second known als the AngloFrench
war was fought by Britain and France against China.
The most profitble colony of Britain of India,Briatin supported also the Italian Indipendence from
Austrians and fought the Crimean war when Russia became too powerful against Turkish Empire,bc
they wanted to limited russian powers in that aerea.

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE

Is so called bc was an age of progress,reforms and political stabily but also of poverty and
injustice,marked by complexity.Education and hygiene was encouraged to improve health care.The
respectability was a concept shared by middle classes and working and was linked with self help and
good manners.But was also morality and hypocrisy bc poverty and the horrible aspects of society were
hidden under this respectability.There was also the duty of men to respect and protect women bc they
controlled the family and children.Sexuality was repressed,this led to the denunciation of nudity in art
due to the prudery,

EARLY VICTORIAN THINKERS

Evangelicalism

It was a religious movement that influenced the Victorian.Inspired by the teachings of John
Wesley.They believed in the truth of the bible,a code of morality and dedication so social reforms and
humanitarian causes.

Bentham’s Utilitarianism
Was another movement that influenced the 19century social thinking based on Jeremy Bentham’s
principles. The origins can be traced back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus.An action is morally right
if it has consequences that lead to happiness,on the contrary wrong if it brings the reverse. It was
convenient for the interests of the middle class and the light of reason could overcome any problem.

Mill and the empiricist tradition

The utilitarian was attacked by many intellectuals of the time like Charles Dickens and John Stuart
Mill,an important figure in the british empiricist tradition.Educated according to principles of
Bentham,he found them insufficient and reformulated his belief:
-happiness is a state of mind and the spirit
-legislation should help men develop natural talents and personalities
-progress comes from mental energy
-he promoted education,trade union organization,cooperatives and the emancipation of women.

Challenges from scientific field

Charles Darwin in his work “On the Origin of species by means of natural selection 1859” presented his
theory of evolution and natural selection.According to his theory:
-all living creatures developed through a process of adaptation,man evolved from monkey and the
favorable conditions means survival of a species,otherwise the extinction.
He rejected the version of creation given by the Bible and the book of genesis.

The Oxford Movement

British catholics wanted to return to the ancient rituals,and there was a religious revival with this
movement headed by John Henry Newman.

THE LATER YEARS OF QUEEN VICTORIA’S REIGN

The liberal and the conservative parties

Queen Victoria was an important figure in the political panorama even if there was the regrouping of
the parties like liberal party included the former Whigs,some radicals and businessman led by William
Gladstone and the conservative led by Benjamin Disraeli.
He was prime minister,his government passed an Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Act that allowed
public authorities to clear the slums and provided houses for the poor,a Public Health Act that provided
sanitation and water and a Factory Act which limited the working hours.
His foreign policy was dominated by the Eastern question and the decay of the ottoman empire.

William Gladstone was a prime minister,he focused on education with the Education Act introducing
board schools in the poorer areas,other reforms were the legislation of trade unions and the Ballot Act.
The third reform act extended voting to all male householders.
The Irish Parliamentary Party led by Charles Stewart Parnell demanded self government,the Home Rule
to bring peace.

The Anglo-Boer Wars,Empress of India and the end of an era

In south africa,in the 1870s the british controlled two colonies while the dutch settlers,the Boers had the
republics of Transvaal and Orange Free State. When Britain took over Transvaal the Boers rebelled and
war broke out. The Boer wars ended in 1903 with British victory.

Queen Victoria was empress of India,bc was economically and strategically important for British control
of Asia .The imperial government destroyed farming and caused deindustrialisation. India became the
largest importer of England’s cotton.
The victorian era came to an end with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901,embodied stability.

THE LATE VICTORIANS

Society and women

In the later years of Victoria’s reign Britain was an urban society,there were public buildings,town
halls,railways station,libraries and museums,public houses and theatres.Middle class women became
involved in public life as leaders against prostitution,The Married Women Property Act gave women the
right to manage their own property.

Social Darwinism
Darwin’s theory of evolution became the foundation for ethical and social systems.The philosopher
Spencer applied Darwin’s theory to human society:races,nations and social classes were subject to the
principle of the survival of the strongest and that the poor didn’t deserve compassion.

Late Victorian thinkers

In the second half of the 19century there were ideological conflicts.Among the thinkers,a significant role
was played by those who protested against the harm caused by industrialism.Karl Marx based his
theories in Das Kapital upon England,the most advanced european industrial nation.He influenced the
artist William Morris,and together with the pre-raphaelite painters started a battle against the age.

The spread of socialist ideas

The foundation of the fabian society was a middle class socialist group who wanted a socialist state not
through a revolution as Marx but systematics reforms.The indipendent Labour Party set up in 1893 was
a non-marxist socialist party.They read John Ruskin’s criticism of industrial society.

Patriotism

was an expressions of civic pride frequent among the british.It was deeply influenced by ideas of racial
superiority,there was a belief that the races were divided by intellectual differences and it was an
obligation imposed by god on the british to spread their superior institution,law,political system on
native people.This attitude is know as Jingoism

VICTORIAN POETRY

During Victoria’s reign poetry was concerned with social reality and expressed the moral debate of the
age.It was a poetry linked to the myth,but also inclined towards disbelief and anti-myth.
The new image of the poet
He was seen as a prophet and a philosopher,who reconcile faith and progress with romance over
materialism of the modern life.The benefits of the progress could be reached without altering the
traditional social organisation or destroying the beauty of countryside

The most representative poets of the age were Alfred Tennyson,Robert Browing with his dramatic
monologues,Elizabeth Barrett Browing who wrote love sonnents,Gerard Manley Hopkins and Matthew
Arnold who used poetry to express dissatisfaction

Dramatic Monologue

is a narrative poem with a single character.It’s related to the soliloquy used in Elizabethan plays.The
speaking character is different from the poet,a non-speaking listener is present.So the poet doesn’t speak
with his own voice.There is an absent of unique truth,the opposite of certainties.The tone of the
language is argumentative and there was an interest in human psychology.

The Victorian novel

During the victorian age there was a communion interests between writers and reader due to the growth
of the middle classes.Victorian writers often belonged to the middle classes that were consumers of
litersture thank you circulating libraries.The writer was in costant contact with his public bc essays and
noveles appearanced for the first time in periodicals.
They showed an interest in prose and novel became the most popular form of literature.The spread of
scientific knowledge made the novel realistic,the spread of democracy made it social and the spirit of
moral made it critical.
During the 18century novels dealt with adventures of outcast and virtuous hero.The idea of thematic
unity was brought by Jane Austen and by gothic writers who set their novels in a exotic past.Novelist
wanted to reflect the social changes like industrial revolution,democracy crisis,growth of town,the
terrible condition of workes and explotation of children.Didactism was a main features of victorian
novels because it could be seen as a vehicle to correct the weaknesses of the age.
There was an omniscient narrator that commented the plot with wrong/right opinions. we can found
Punishment in the final chapters.
The setting chosen was the city,the symbol of industrial civilization ad and the expression of lost
identities.The victorian novelist concentrated on the creation of realistic characters.

Types of novels

-The novel of manners:dealt with economic and social problems and described a class or situation.A
master was William Thackeray.
-Humanitarian novel:Charles Dickens novels combined humour and a request for reform for the less
fortunate.It’s also known as “novel of purpose” which could be divided into novels of a realistic fantastic
or moral nature,depends on the isseus they dealt with.
-Novel of formation(or education):The Bildungsroman became very popular with the publication of
Charlotte Brontes’s Jane Eyre and Dicken’s David Copperfiled.They dealt with the devolopement of a
character from early youth to maturity.
-Literaly nonsense:Aspect of Victorian literature,created by Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll,his famous
novel Alice’s adventures in Wonderland created a nonsensical universe without time,space,cause-effect
relationship..

Women writers: a great number of novels published during the victorian period were written by
women such as Charlotte and Emily Bronte and George Eliot,otherwise the state of subjection,but it
wasn’t easy to get published and some of them used a male pseudonym.

THE LATE VICTORIAN NOVEL

Described a society linked to moral and religious crisis.Darwin’s theory influenced the realistic novel
and the best representatives were Thomas Hardy,who presented a strong individuals manifestation of
the strong forces of nature opposed to social forces, and George Elliot focused on the psychological and
moral aspects.
The psychological novel like Robert Louis Stevenson’s The strange case of Dr jekyll and Mr Hyde,who
described the double nature of victorian society,where the aristocracy was superficially kind but hid
dark secrets.Most of the action takes place at nightin the poorer districts of London.Significant is the
metaphor of the back door,the evil that lies behind the beautiful facade of civilisation.Also the
protagonists are synonymous of multiple personality disorder.

Colonial Literature:The influence of the British imperalism can be found in the works of Kipling.His
novels are set in distant lands and he exalted british imperial poweras as a sacred duty in the poem The
white men’s burden bc it was a task of the white men to to carry civilisation.

AESTHETICISM AND DECADENCE

In the last decade of 19th century it developed in universities and intellectual circles .It began in France
with Theodore Gautier and reflected a sense of frustration,against materialism and the restrective moral
code of bourgeoise.French artist escaped into aesthetic isolation,into Art for Art’s sake.The bohemien
embodied his protest against monotony pursuing excess and sensation.
This movement was imported into England by James Whistler an amerian painter but the roots can be
traced back to the romantic poet John Keats and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.The main theorist of the
aesthetic movement es Walter Pater.His Studies in the history of the renaissance and his masterpiece
Marius the epicurean were successful.He rejected religious faith and the art was the only certainty,bc
the task of the artist was to feel sensations,art had no refernce to life,nothing to do with morality and
didn’t need to be didactic.His works influenced authors like Oscar Wilde and contribuited to the
yellowbook,a periodical reflected decadent taste.

The feature of aesthetic artist were:

-excessive attention to the self
-perversity
-disenchantment with contemporary society

The main representative of decadence in Italy were Gabriele d’annunzio,Giovanni Pascoli e Guido
Gozzato.

DANDY=probably derives from the scottish nickname for Andrew,was first used in the song Yankee
Doodle Dandy of the british troops during the american revolution.It standing for the american
rebel,riding a pony with a feather on his hat,so it referred to a man wearing odd clothes.The idea of
dandy deveoped thanks to Brummell the leader of fashion of extravagance and created dandynism as a
lifestyle and reappered with Oscar Wilde in England.