The Victorian Age: 

-The Victorian era,  which covered most of 19th century in Britan.  

-On the one hand there was a fast development of the Industrial Revolution, the
rising wealth of the upper and middle classes and the expanding power of Britian and
its empire, on the other hand there was poverty, injustice of the wroking classes.   The
class distinction was a fact of life in jane austen .  In fact  in "Pride and Prejudice "
there was Mr Darcy  from the landed gentry class . Elizabeth freezed Darcy when he
was proud and pretentious but she warmed him when he used his power for good
actions. Mr Bennet was a gentelman of proprety . The aristocracy and the inheritance
of lend depended on the system of primogeniture. 

-The Inustrial Revolution brought a big change, towns and cities grew with new
industries, new source of energy (iron ), inventions like the railways, they were
created by George Sthepensons ,they  carried lagre quantity of products, people were
able to travel for work from side to side and for boats there were clippers, famous for
their speed.  People were forced to live in slums degraded and unhygenic. For urban
enviroment conditions the goverement made a campaign to clean up the cities that
were devasted by epidmics, so in 1829 the prime minister Robert Peel decided to
build new hospitals and estabilished the Metropolitan Police, policeman helped to
safeguard the law and control the urban poor .  

-Child labour was common and young children were employed in dangerous jobs
like coal mines, the author Charles Dickens for example , began working at age of 12
when is fathere was put into a debtor’s prison. In the workhouses poor had to wear
unforms, had to work hard and follow a monotonus diet (insiprie poor to improve
their own conditions).  

-The First Reform Act was called the Great Reform Act, the vote was transferred
from villages controlled by the nobiily to the large industrial towns and the Factory
Act, had prevented children aged 9 to 13 from being emplyoed more than forty-eight
hours a week.   

-Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, she was just 18 years old. She was to
rule for almost 64 years old and gave her nam to an age of economic and scientific
progress. In 1840 she married Prince Albert, they had nine children .  Prince Albert
was a smart man and Victoria always asked for his advice and help.  
-Under Queen Victoria values like family and home were important, the family was
based around the father and the mother had a submissive role. In the society
philantropy and charity were important ,. Prince Albert in 1851 organised a Great
Exhibition, a huge structure of glass designed by Joseph Paxton and erected in Hyde
Park, became a symbol of Britain’s domination , industrial and economic power 
There were more than fifteen thousand of exhibitors from all over the world and a lot
of objects as locomotives and a elephants from India.  
Oscar Wilde
Life:
He was born in Dublin in 1854, by a wealthy Protestant family , he attended the
college in Dublin and then in Oxford , following the lectures of the most important
members of the Aesthetic movement, Ruskin and Pater. He led an intense and
spectacular social life , and he adopted extravagant poses that made him famous.

-He was  accused of homosexual pratices and he was imprisioned for two years ,
when he was relased he was poor and unknown . The most important farytale was 
“The happy prince and other tales” . He became famous with a comedy  “The
important of being Earnest” , he wrote comedies of manners , challenging the
Victorian moral code with cynic dialouges . He died in 1900( one thoudand nine
hundred)  in a hotel in Paris.  His most famous work was “The portait of Dorian
Grey “, in this novel there was  the theme of dualism, and the contrast art-life , in the
end the portrait lived and the human body died , so there’s the triumph of art overe
human life . Dorian death can also meant  that nobody could live among pleasures
and crime without moral implications.  

-Concept of Dandy:
Oscar Wilde adopted the aestethic ideal , ad he affirmed “My life is a work of art”.
He lived the double role of rebel and dandy .Wilde’s dandy is an aristocratic, a
symbol of the superiority of his spirit , he is an indivisualistic who demands absolute
freedom. Wilde’s intrest are in beauty, clothes, words or physical beauty . In the
Preface of his novel he affirmed “ there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral
book. Books are well written or badly written “. In this way he rejected the
didactisicm that had charaterised the Victorian novel in the first half of this century. 
Art for art’s sake= Wilde believed that only Art as the cult of beauty could prevent
the murder of the soul. Wilde perceived the artist as an alien in a materialistic world.