The Victorian Age 1832-1900

1
The Victorian Age1832-1900

• An Introduction

2
Quotes from the Times

• Youth is a blunder manhood a struggle old age
  a regret Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby
• Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never
  to have loved at all Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In
  Memoriam, A.H.H.
• A mans reach should exceed his grasp,/ Or
  whats a heaven for? Robert Browning, Andrea
  del Santo

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General Info About the Time

• Enormous changes occurred in political and social
  life in England and the rest of the world
• The scientific and technical innovations of the
  Industrial Revolution, the emergence of modern
  nationalism, and the European colonization of
  much of Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East
  changed most of Europe
• Far-reaching new ideas created the greatest
  outpouring of literary production the world has
  ever seen

4
Queen Victoria (1819-1901)Reign 1837-1901

• She had the longest reign in British history
• Became queen at the age of 18 she was graceful
  and self-assured. She also had a gift for
  drawing and painting
• Throughout her reign, she maintained a sense of
  dignity and decorum that restored the average
  persons high opinion of the monarchy after a
  series of horrible, ineffective leaders
• 1840-Victoria married a German prince, Albert,
  who became not king, but Prince-consort
• After he died in 1861, she sank into a deep
  depression and wore black every day for the rest
  of her life

5
The Growth of the British Empire

• England grew to become the greatest nation on
  earth (think Heart of Darkness)
• Empire included Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
  Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, and
  India
• England built a very large navy and merchant
  fleet (for trade and colonization)

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The Growth of the British Empire (continued)

• Imported raw materials such as cotton and silk
  and exported finished goods to countries around
  the world
• By the mid-1800s, England was the largest
  exporter and importer of goods in the world. It
  was the primary manufacturer of goods and the
  wealthiest country in the world
• Because of Englands success, they felt it was
  their duty to bring English values, laws,
  customs, and religion to the savage races
  around the world

7
The Industrial Revolution

• Factory systems emerged
• The shift in the English economy moved away from
  agriculture and toward the production of
  manufactured goods
• Great Exhibition of 1851-Prince Albert-housed in
  the Crystal Palace (made of glass and iron)
  exhibited hydraulic presses, locomotives, machine
  tools, power looms, power reapers, and steamboat
  engines

8
Social and Political Reform

• 1832-First Reform Act-extended the vote to most
  middle-class men
• 1833-Britain abolished slavery/Factory
  Act-regulated child labor in factories
• 1834-Poor Law-Amendment applied a system of
  workhouses for poor people
• 1871-Trade Union Act-made it legal for laborers
  to organize to protect their rights

9
Religious Movement in Victorian England

• Evangelical Movement emphasized a Protestant
  faith in personal salvation through Christ. This
  movement swept through England. Led to the
  creation of the Salvation Army and YMCA.
• Oxford Movement (Tractarians) sought to bring
  the official English Anglican Church closer in
  rituals and beliefs to Roman Catholicism

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Other Thoughts

• John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)-philosopher who
  created two ideas
• Utilitarianism the object of moral action was
  to bring about the greatest good for the greatest
  amount of people
• (Classical) Liberalism governments had the right
  to restrict the actions of individuals only when
  those actions harmed others, and that society
  should use its collective resources to provide
  for the basic welfare of others. Also encouraged
  equal rights for women

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Other Thoughts..

• Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
• Showed that geological features on Earth had
  developed continuously and slowly over immense
  periods of time
• Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Introduced the
  survival of the fittest theory

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Other Thoughts

• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) Applied Darwinism
  to human society as in nature, survival properly
  belongs to the fittest, those most able to
  survive. Social Darwinism was used by many
  Victorians to justify social inequalities based
  on race, social or economic class, or gender
• Adam Smith- 18th century economist, held that the
  best government economic policy was to leave the
  market aloneto follow a laissez faire or let it
  be policy of little or no govt intervention

13
Victorian Literature

• Four types of writing were popular during the
  Victorian Era
• Realist
• Naturalist
• The Novel
• Poetry

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Realism

• The attempt to produce in art and literature an
  accurate portrayal of reality
• Realistic, detailed descriptions of everyday
  life, and of its darker aspects, appealed to many
  readers disillusioned by the progress going on
  around them.
• Themes in Realist writing included families,
  religion, and social reform

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Naturalism

• Based on the philosophical theory that actions
  and events are the results not of human
  intentions, but of largely uncontrollable
  external forces
• Authors chose subjects and themes common to the
  lower and middle classes
• Attentive to details, striving for accuracy and
  authenticity in their descriptions

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The Novel

• Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights
• Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre
• Charles Dickens Many of his novels were
  published in serial form. His comic and
  sentimental descriptions of the lives of people
  in diverse occupations and social classes made
  Dickens the most popular Victorian novelist. A
  Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, David
  Copperfield

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LITERACY and LITERATURE

• Literacy increased significantly during the
  Victorian Period.
• In 1837, about half the male adult population
  could read and write to some extent by the end
  of the century, basic literacy was universal.
• Compulsory national education was instituted in
  1880, requiring children to attend school until
  the age of ten.
• Steam-powered printing presses, paper made with
  wood pulp, and new typesetting machines allowed
  publishers to print more material more cheaply
  than ever. (Abrams 1057-1058)

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• Periodicals became the most popular form of
  literature. In the first 30 years of the
  Victorian period, 170 new magazines were started
  in London alone (sensational tales, religious
  monthlies, weekly newspapers, political satire,
  womens magazines, monthly miscellanies
  publishing fiction and poetry).
• The reputations of many of the major writers of
  the period were established in this magazines
  (Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot, Tennyson, Browning to
  name a few). (Abrams 1057-1058)

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• Novels and long works of nonfiction prose were
  published in serial form.
• Communities of readers grew as they followed
  their favourite stories, read aloud especially in
  family gatherings.
• A broad readership, especially middle-class
  readers, developed many readers expected that
  literature would not only delight but instruct,
  that it would reflect the world they lived in and
  illuminate social problems. (Abrams 1058)

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The Victorian Novel

• The novel was the most dominant form in Victorian
  literature.
• Victorian novels sought to represent their social
  world with the variety of classes and social
  settings that defined their communities, but with
  new emphasis on the possibility of social
  mobility (Jane Eyre, Great Expectations).
• For the Victorians, the novel was a principal
  form of entertainment and a spur to social
  sympathy as the heroes and heroines struggled
  within their living conditions to determine their
  social position and find love and happiness.
  (Abrams 1058-1060)
•  

21
VICTORIAN POETRY 

• Victorian poetry developed in the context of the
  novel.
• As the novel emerged as a popular form, poets
  sought new ways of telling stories in verse
  through the creation of long narrative poems that
  experimented with characterization, point of
  view, rhythm and meter.
• Victorian poetry also developed in the shadow of
  Romanticism. Poets such as Rossetti and
  Swinburne mirrored the Romantics in their
  expression of intimate thoughts and personal
  emotions.
• Others, such as Arnold, rejected this Romantic
  quality in his writing, preferring to write from
  a more objective point of view in order to
  comment on social and political issues.
• (Abrams
  1060-1062)

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The Dramatic Monologue

• The dramatic monologue, in which Browning
  specialized, seems an appropriate compromise
  between these two approaches. It allowed for a
  lyric poem (expressing personal emotion)
  presented by the voice of a speaker that was
  distinct from the poet himself. (Abrams 1061)
• Dramatic Monologue A type of lyric poem in which
  a character (the speaker) addresses a distinct
  but silent audience imagined to be present in the
  poem in such a way as to reveal a dramatic
  situation and, often unintentionally, some aspect
  of his or her temperament or personality.
  (Dramatic Monologue)

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Characteristics of Victorian Poetry

• A key characteristic of Victorian poetry is
  variety both in style and subject matter as poets
  responded to the complex social and political
  changes of their time. It is almost impossible
  to generalize a set of characteristics common to
  all writers.
•  
• FORM
• There was a focus on long narrative poems.
• The development of the dramatic monologue is
  often said to be the great achievement of
  Victorian poetry.
• Some poets stuck to traditional forms such as the
  sonnet, while others experimented with new or
  unusual forms such as free verse (such as Matthew
  Arnold). (Abrams 1060-1061)
•  

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• STYLE
• It is pictorial in nature in that it uses detail
  to construct visual images that represent the
  emotion or situation of the poem. For this
  reason, many artists illustrated Victorian poems,
  and poems were often inspired by paintings.
• Victorians use sound in a distinctive way. Some
  poems offer mellifluous rhythms, alliteration,
  gentle vowels, and liquid consonants, while
  others create rougher, harsher sounds. Overall
  though, Victorian poets use sound to convey
  meaning.
• Some poets wrote with a tone of pessimism and saw
  society and mankind in a period of doubt and
  degradation. Others wrote optimistically about
  the power of social change and hope for the
  future.
• Diction could present an elevated or lofty tone,
  but at times could also become colloquial and
  vulgar even within the same poem.

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• SUBJECT
• Subjects include love, nature, expression of
  intense personal emotion, and quest for the
  strange and exotic (like the Romantics) (Brown
  and Bailey xi).
• For some Victorian poets, the intimate
  disclosures of the heart were repulsive. The
  true poet was one who remained impersonal,
  presenting great ideas without being distorted by
  the poets personal values (Brown and Bailey xv).
• But poetry was also used to preach or teach
  addressing topics such as the conflict between
  science and religion and humanitys relationship
  to God, the problem of poverty and social
  inequality, and the social issues raised by
  capitalism, consumerism, materialism, and the
  industrial revolution.
• For many, realism was key. It was believed poets
  should speak frankly and realistically about
  society and human emotionally states, even if
  this involves revealing the darkest and most
  sordid aspects of human existence.
•  

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Victorian Poets

• Some of the most famous Victorian Poets were
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Robert Browning
• Matthew Arnold
• Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Edgar Allan Poe (American)
• Emily Dickinson (American)
• Christina Rossetti
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• B. in Dublin father physician mother writer
  (poetry/prominent figure in Dublin literary
  society)
• Excelled in classical literature (Trinity C.)
• Scholarship to Magdalen College (Oxford)
• Famous for brilliant conversation flamboyant
  manner of dress behavior
• Dandy figure based himself

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Student of aesthetic movement which rejected
  older Victorian insistence on moral purposed of
  art
• Celebrated value of art for arts sake
• Settled in London
• Mocked Victorian notions about moral seriousness
  of great art
• Treated art as the supreme reality and treated
  life as fiction

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• The Importance of Being Earnest (produced 1895)
  most famous comedy
• Complicated plot turns upon fortunes and
  misfortunes of two young upper-class Englishmen
• John Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff
• Each lives double life creates another
  personality to escape tedious social/family
  obligations

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Plot composed of events of the most improbable
  trivial significance
• Real substance of play witty dialogue
• According to Wilde, trivial things should be
  treated seriously and serious things should be
  treated trivially.
• -Title based on satirical double meaning
  Ernest is the name of fictitious character,
  also designates sincere aspiration

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Making the earnestness of his Ernest the key to
  outrageous comedy, Wilde pokes fun at
  conventional seriousness
• Uses solemn moral language to frivolous and
  ridiculous action

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• The Importance of Being Earnest uses the
  following literary devices
• Paradox seems contradictory but presents truth
• Inverted logic words/phrases turned upside down
  reversing our expectations
• Pun play on words using word or phrase that has
  two meanings

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Literary Devices continued
• Epigram brief, witty, cleverly-expressed
  statement
• Parody humorous mocking imitation of literary
  work
• Satire ridicules through humor
• Irony something you dont expect to happen
• Foreshadowing creates suspense through hints to
  the ending

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• The Comedic Ladder
• Comedy of Ideas (high comedy)
• Characters argue about ideas like politics,
  religion, sex, marriage.
• They use wit, their clever language to mock their
  opponent in an argument.
• This is a subtle way to satirize people and
  institutions like political parties, governments,
  churches, war, and marriage.

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Comedy of Manners (high comedy)
• The plot focuses on amorous intrigues among the
  upper classes.
• The dialogue focuses on witty language. Clever
  speech, insults and put-downs are traded
  between characters.
• Society is often made up of cliques that are
  exclusive with certain groups as the in-crowd,
  other groups (the would-be-wits, desiring to be
  part of the witty crowd) and some (the witless)
  on the outside.

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Farce (can be combination of high/low)
• The plot is full of coincidences, mistimings,
  mistaken identities.
• Characters are puppets of fate they are twins,
  born to the wrong class, unable to marry, too
  poor, too rich, have loss of identity because of
  birth or fate or accident, or are (sometimes)
  twins separated, unaware of their double.

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Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• Low Comedy
• Subjects of the humor consists of dirty jokes,
  dirty gestures, sex, and elimination
• The extremes of humor range from exaggeration to
  understatement with a focus on the physical like
  long noses, cross eyes, humped back and
  deformities.
• The physical actions revolve around slapstick,
  pratfalls, loud noises, physical mishaps,
  collisions all part of the humor of man
  encountering and uncooperative universe.