REVISION QUESTIONS

1-The new political parties were the liberal party, which included the former Whig aristocracy,
some radicals, liberal anglicans, businessmen and middle class, and the conservative party
which included the formal tories, landowners and nobles.
2-The size of the electorate increased through reforms thanks to Disraeli and Gladstone.
Conservatives possessed the reform Act of 1867 (giving working class men the vote) and
liberals the reform act of 1884 ( giving agricultural workers the vote)
3-The main purpose of Imperial Expansion was to gain access to raw materials and to
conquer new markets for British products.
4-The empire offered raw materials, new markets and new places for emigration.
5-“The sun never sets on England” meant that England had grown to become the greatest
nation on Earth.
6-The Victorians thought the British empire was an obligation imposed by God on the British
to spread their superiority (jingoism).
7-“The white man’s burden” means that Victorians thought it was their moral duty to export
their culture to civilised lands.
8-This famous sentence was written by Rudyard Kipling in a poem.
9-Darwin’s theory of natural selection says that there is a slow process of adaptation in a
struggle for survival; it supports the survival of the fittest and it says that man evolved like
any other animal from an ape-like mammal.
10-This theory developed as social darwinism: individuals competed naturally and the
survival of the fittest applied to society.
11-The Opium Wars started after China’s attempt to suppress the opium trade.
12-The Crimean War started to stop Russian advance towards Constantinople, since the
British feared they might threaten control over the dardanelles damaging the connection
between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
13-The Boer Wars started to fight Dutch settlers in South Africa to keep control of territories
rich in gold and diamonds.
14-The “Indian Mutiny” was a rebellion of the Indian Soldiers working for the East India
company against their British commanders. They refused to use guns which were greased
with animal fat.
15-The “Scramble for Africa” was a period of rapid colonisation of the African continent by
European countries.

18-Domestic violence rarely came before the courts because there were problems with
justice and with how it was administered; there were problems with delays and it was not
equal, especially regarding women. For example in 1857 the Matrimonial Cause Act gave
men the right to divorce their wives on the ground of adultery but a married woman could not
obtain a divorce. Moreover women were submitted to men and respected the structure of the
family.
19-Aestheticism reflected the sense of frustration and uncertainty of the artist, his reaction
against materialism and his need to redefine the role of art.
20-The theorist of the Aesthetic movement in England was Walter Pater.
21-The main features of Aesthetic artists’ works were: the evocative use of the language of
senses, the excessive attention to the self, the hedonistic attitude, the perversity in the
subject matter, the disenchantment with contemporary society and the absence of any
didactic aim.
22-A “dandy” was a self-made man who behaved as an aristocratic but who came from the
middle class.