The Victorian Age

1
The Victorian Age

• p. 599-619

2
In the strict sense, what event marked the
beginning of the Victorian Age?

• The succession of Queen Victoria to the throne of
  England

3
As a result of the Reform Bill of 1832, who
emerged as a dominant force in English politics?

• The members of the middle class

4
In 1846 what helped England move toward greater
prosperity and improved living conditions?

• The repeal of the Corn Laws
• The introduction of a Free Trade policy

5
In 1851, how did England express confidence in
her present and future accomplishments?

• By holding the Great Exhibition, a display of the
  wonders of modern science and industry

6
Who was the most eloquent spokesperson for
Victorian progress and optimism?

• Thomas Babington Macaulay
• He thought that Britain was going through a
  period of justified optimism and progress.

7
During the Victorian Age, whose interests did the
Whigs represent?

• Those of the newly wealthy middle class

8
What Victorian writer introduced readers to the
world of romantic imperialism?

• Rudyard Kipling

9
How did Socialism show promise of becoming a
major force in British politics?

• By responding to the needs of those whose lives
  had not been improved by Victorian politics

10
What religious movement was the basis for many
Victorian attitudes?

• Evangelicalism

11
To what aspects of Victorian thinking did
Utilitarianism appeal?

• To those that were modern, progressive, and
  rooted in self-interest

12
Who was the dominant figure among the early
Victorian prose writers?

• Thomas Carlyle

13
Who was one of the most representative writers of
the Victorian Age?

• Matthew Arnold

14
What themes and attitudes were developed by the
Victorian poets?

• Those explored by the Romantics

15
Whose sometimes stylistic poetry pointed the way
to modern poetry?

• Robert Browning
• Gerard Manley Hopkins

16
Who was the leading novelist of the Victorian Age?

• Charles Dickens

17
What was the primary concern of George Eliots
novels?

• The free will and moral intelligence of her
  characters as they try to establish their roles
  in life

18
How long did the Victorian Age last?

• Twice as long as the Romantic Age
• Until 1900

19
List three effects of the Reform Bill of 1832.

• Increased franchise
• Reduced the power of the land-owning aristocracy
• Permitted the emergence of the middle class as a
  dominant political force

20
List the three influential moral or philosophical
movements of the Victorian Age.

• Evangelicalism
• Began as a result of the teaching of John Wesley,
  the founder of Methodism

21

• Utilitarianism
• Developed by Jeremy Bentham
• Sought to subject all human practice and
  institutions to the scrutiny of scientific
  reasoning to determine its utility or usefulness
• Basic standard for judging utility was whether a
  law, practice, or institution contributed to the
  greatest happiness of the greatest number of
  people

22

• Darwinism
• A movement started as a result of Charles
  Darwins 1859 release of Origin of Species in
  which he theorized that the various forms of life
  on earth, including human beings, had evolved
  over millions of years through the process of
  natural selection-survival of the
  fittest-evolution.

23

• Romantic Age
• Period of great poetry

• Victorian Age
• Period of great prose

24
Women during The Victorian Age

• Cannot vote
• Are oppressed and idealized

25
Which two figures of the Victorian Age raise art
and literature to a position of primary
importance, and why did they consider art and
literature so important?

• Matthew Arnold

• John Ruskin

They insisted that art and literature had a moral
and spiritual value.
26
Which literary form best adapted to the trends
and challenges of the period?

• The novel

27
What was the state of the industrial workers of
Victorian Britain?

• They were an oppressed class.

28
What did the major writers of the Victorian
period have in common?

• Very little apart from their common protest
  against smugness and hypocrisy