VICTORIAN AGE

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VICTORIAN AGE

• Historical context
• Social context
• Literary context

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Historical Context

• Queen Victorias reign (1837-1901)
• Longest reign in English history
• Period of unprecedented material progress
• imperial expansion
• political and constitutional
  development

HOME POLICY Political and Social Reforms
FOREIGN POLICY colonialism imperialism
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Queen Victoria

• worked for the peace and prosperity of her
  country
• was able to keep at bay any conflict over
  constitutional matters
• reigned constitutionally avoiding the storm of
  revolutions
• played a more active role
• became a mediator above political parties
• model for her people exemplary family life,
  strictly respectable and decent code of behaviour
  (Victorianism)
• beloved especially by the middle class who shared
  her moral and religious views

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Historical Context - Home policy

• 1832 First Reform Act
• 1833 Factory Act
• 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act
• 1838 the Peoples Charter
• (Chartism)
• 1842 Mines Act
• 1847 Ten Hours Act
• 1867 Secon Reform Act

• 1872 Ballot Act
• 1870 Elementary Education Act
• 1875 Public Health Act
• 1884 Third Reform Act
• 1880-1900 Fabian Society
• Womens Social and Political Union
• (Suffragettes)

POLITICAL and SOCIAL REFORMS
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Historical Context Home Policy
Britain was a model of industrial success,
individual freedom and constitutional
government Upper and industrial middle-classes
believed in a policy of laissez-faire ie.
non-interference with industry or with national
economy in order to promote free trade and free
competition (Liberalism) triumph of
industry (steam engine, steamboats,
shipbuilding, trains, iron
industry) scientific progress (electricity,
telegraph, gas-lighting, stamppostal
system, medicine)
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Historical Context Foreign Policy

• THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Imperialism territorial expansion, colonies
abroad
During the Victorian Age the British Empire
reached its largest extension it was called the
Empire where the sun never sets

• British Imperial power was sustained by
• willingness to protect British trade routes and
  interests
• against other nations to gain new terrotories
• firm belief in the excellence of English culture
  and
• institutions

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Historical Context Foreign Policy
1839-1842 Opium War against China 1853-1856
Crimean War 1857 Indian Mutiny 1877 Queen
Victoria was named Empress of India 1882
occupation of Egypt 1884 invasion of
Sudan 1899-1902 Boers War
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Historical Context Foreign Policy

• During the Victorian age most British citizens
  believed in their right to an empire and thought
  that imperial expansion would absorb excess
  goods, capital and population
• they were also extremely proud of their
  empire and of spreading their civilisation and
  culture to every corner of the globe
  (Jingoismaggressive patriotism)
• colonial expansion was seen as a mission
• this was the white mans burden

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Historical Context Foreign Policy

• But at the moment of its greatest power Britain
  also discovered that every conquered area or land
  had new dangers to be controlled or stopped
• Britain found itself involved in a contradiction
  between its imperial ambition and its liberal
  ideas
• This contradiction would lead to the collapse of
  the British Empire in the 20th century.

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Socio-cultural Context

• Urbanization
• Britain became a nation of town dwellers

Extraordinary industrial development
Overcrowding
Poverty appalling living conditions in slums
(squalor, disease, bad sanitation,
crime, high death rate)
Terrible working conditions (polluted
atmosphere, disatrous effects on health
especially on children)
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Socio-cultural Context

• VICTORIAN COMPROMISE

A set code of moral values that explained the
general tendency to be excessively puritanical
and to avoid taking definite positions
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Socio-cultural Context

• Material progress wealth emerge from hard work
• Appearance is very important
• Respectability a mixture of both morality and
  hypocrisy, severity and conformity to social
  standards
• Philanthropy charitable activity addressed to
  every kind of poverty
• Victorian family a patriarchal unit where the
  husband was dominant and the wife was the angel
  in the home
• (tha fallen woman)
• Patriotism
• Private life was separated from public behaviour

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Socio-cultural Context

• It was a particular situation which saw two
  opposing
• aspects of life
• on one side PROSPERITY and MATERIAL SCIENTIFIC
• PROGRESS, ETHICAL CONFORMISM, MORALISM and
• PHILANTHROPY
• which opposed
• on the other side POVERTY, UGLINESS, CORRUPTION,
• MONEY and CAPITALISTIC GREEDINESS

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Socio-cultural Context

• VICTORIAN FRAME OF MIND
• contained a lot of contradictions caused
  among other things
• by the influence of new philosophical trends,
  religious
• movements, economic theories and scientific
  discoveries
• of the period
• Evangelicalism good moral Christian conduct
• Utilitarianism only what is useful is good, any
  problem could be overcome through reason
• Evolutionism theory of evolution of species
  governed by natural selection and struggle for
  survival
• Determinism theory which denies human freedom
  of action, everything is strictly governed by
  cause and effect

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Literary Background VICTORIAN NOVEL

• During the Victorian Age for the first time there
  was a
• communion of interests and opinions between
  writers
• and readers enormous growth of the
  middle classes
• who were avid consumers of literature, they
  borrowed
• books from circulating libraries and read various
  periodicals.
• A great deal of Victorian Literature was first
  published in
• instalments in the pages of periodicals, which
  allowed the
• writer to feel he was in constant contact with
  his readers.

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Literary Background VICTORIAN NOVEL

• The NOVEL became the most popular form of
  literature and also the main form of
  entertainment since thery were read aloud within
  the family.
• NOVELISTS felt they had a moral and social
  responsibility to fulfil
• they depicted society as they saw it (realism)
  and denounced its evils (criticism)
• they aimed at making readers realise social
  injustices

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Literary Background VICTORIAN NOVEL

• WOMEN WRITERS
• a great number of novels were written by women.
• This is surprising if we consider the state of
  subjection of
• Victorian women but at the same time they were
  the
• majority of novel-buyers and of readers.
• However, it was not easy to publish so some women
  
• writers decided to use male pseudonyms in order
  to see
• their novels in print.

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VICTORIAN NOVEL main features

• The narrator is obtrusive and omniscient
• he provides his comments on the plot and he
  establishes
• a rigid barrier between what is right or
  wrong (judge)
• retribution and punishment usually appear in
  the final
• chapter where all the events, adventures,
  incidents are explained and justified.
• Didactic aim
• Linearity (stories have a beginning, a middle, an
  end)
• Long complicated plots and sub-plots

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VICTORIAN NOVEL main features

• Urban setting the city was the most common
  setting the main symbol of industrial
  civilisation as well the expression of anonymous
  lives and lost identities
• Precise creation of characters and deep analysis
  of characters inner lives (psychology)
• Most popular genre Bildulgsroman (novel of
  formation)
• Main themes money, wealth, realistic portrait of
  society denouncing its injustices and iniquities

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VICTORIAN NOVEL
From a structural point of view we can divide
Victorian Novels mainly into three groups 1)
EARLY-VICTORIAN NOVEL (or social-problem novel)
dealing with social and humanitarian
themes realism, criticism of social evils but
faith in progress, general optimism The main
representative was CHARLES DICKENS


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VICTORIAN NOVEL
2) MID-VICTORIAN NOVEL (novel of purpose) showing
Romantic and Gothic elements and a psychological
interest. The main representative writers were
the BRONTË sisters and R.L.STEVENSON 3)
LATE- VICTORIAN NOVEL (naturalistic novel near
to European Naturalism) showing a scientific look
at human life, objectivity of observation,
dissatisfaction with Victorian values. The main
representative writers were T.HARDY and O.WILDE.


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VICTORIAN NOVEL

• Other minor forms of novel developed in this
  period
• 4) Novel of Manners
• focusing on economic problems of a particular
  class (W.Thackeray)
• 5) Colonialist Fiction
• presenting an exaltation of British imperialistic
  power (R.Kipling)
• 6) Nonsense literature
• dealing with fantastic adventures (L.Carroll)