The Victorian Age Historical Context PDF

The Victorian Age When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, she was just 18 years old; this period was full of economic and scientific progress and social reforms and it was...

The Victorian Age When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, she was just 18 years old; this period was full of economic and scientific progress and social reforms and it was called ‘age of reform’: ↘ The First Reform Act (1832), also called the Great Reform Act, had transferred voting privileges from the small boroughs to the large industrial towns; ↘ The Factory Act (1833) had prevented children aged 9 to 13 from being employed more than forty-eight hours a week, and no person between 13 and 18 could work more than seventy-two hours a week; ↘ The Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) had seen the creation of workhouses, institutions where poor people worked and received back board and lodging. ↓ Life and conditions in the workhouses were very harsh; the poor had to wear uniforms and their families were divided. One was very devoted to work and this harsh regime was the hope for future progress; the idea behind the workhouses was that the knowledge of such a terrible life would inspire the poor to try to improve their conditions. Meanwhile, however, a severe crisis hit England and Ireland; bad weather and an unknown disease from America caused the destruction of potato crops in 1845. Ireland, whose agriculture depended on potatoes, experienced a terrible famine, during which many people died and many emigrated, especially to America, in search of a better life. Technological progress: the 19th century saw a second period of industrialization in England with economic, cultural and architectural changes. A Great Exhibition, organized by Prince Albert, showed Britain's industrial and economic might to the world. The exposition was hosted at the Crystal Palace, a huge glass and steel structure located in Hyde Park. More than 15,000 exhibitors from around the world displayed their wares to millions of visitors. At the same time, construction of the London Underground began, and railways began to transform the landscape and people's lives. + DICTATION GREAT EXHIBITION + LIFE IN VICTORIAN BRITAIN + VICTORIAN EDUCATION + THE ROLE OF WOMEN Foreign Policy: in the mid-19th century, England was involved in several wars:  the two Opium Wars against China, which sought to suppress the opium trade;  the Crimean War against Russia; When Prince Albert died, Queen Victoria spent the next ten years mourning at a time when the political landscape was changing: o on one hand there was the Liberal Party led by William Gladstone; → Gladstone was prime minister four times and his legislation focused on education and social organization: - the Education Act initiated a national system by introducing "board schools," especially in poorer areas of the cities; - By 1880 elementary education had become compulsory; - The Trade Union Act legalized labour unions; - With the Ballot Act the secret ballot was introduced; - The Third Reform Act extended voting to all male heads of households, of every class; o on the other side the Conservative Party affirmed its position under the leadership of Benjamin Disraeli; ↓ Disraeli governments were very important: several acts provided housing for the poor, guaranteed sanitation and running water, and limited the hours of work per week. The Victorian Compromise The Victorian Age was an era of change but also of great contradictions; ↘ " Victorian Compromise" It was a time when progress, reform and political stability coexisted with poverty and injustice. Here are some examples: - modernity was praised, but there were references to Gothic and classicism in art; - Victorians believed in God but also in progress and science; - increasing emphasis was placed on education and hygiene was encouraged to improve health care; -women controlled the household budget and educated their children; -the general attitude toward sex was a crucial aspect of respectability, with an intense concern for female chastity, and single women with a child were marginalized; - sexuality was generally repressed both in public and in private. + Boers Wars The Victorian Age came to an end with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. Early Victorian thinkers 5.3 Later Victorian thinkers 5.6 Victorian values find their basis in Among the thinkers of the late Victorian period, a significant role was played utilitarianism, according to which an action is by Karl Marx, who sought a different form of progress. ↓ morally right if it has consequences that lead to happiness, and wrong if it leads to its opposite. + evangelicalism + empiricism In the mid-Victorian age new challenges came from the fields of geology, biology, archaeology and astronomy. Charles Darwin presented his theory of evolution and natural selection, according to which: - all existing living things developed their The 1880s saw the rise of a middle-class socialist group whose members forms through a slow process of change and aimed to transform Britain into a socialist state not through revolution, as adaptation in a struggle for survival; Marx advised, but through systematic and progressive reforms. The - favorable physical conditions determine a Independent Labour Party was founded, and by the end of the century species' survival, unfavorable ones its patriotism was deeply influenced by ideas of racial superiority. extinction; - man evolved, like every other animal, from a less organized form, the ape. Darwin's theory seemed to prove that the universe was not static but continuously developing, that the strongest survived and the weakest deserved to be defeated. The American Civil War The first half of the 19th century in America was characterized by economic expansion, social changes, the impetus for scientific discoveries and inventions, and an extraordinary moment of literary expression. o The North: it was industrialized and the white population increased, thanks to immigrants from Europe; o The South: economy was still based on vast tobacco and cotton plantations and slavery. There were about 4 million black slaves, who were after made free, but they were penniless and homeless. Some migrated to the industrial cities of the North, others stayed with their old masters in the South; The racist "Ku Klux Klan" movement was also born, which terrorized blacks and their families; blacks were segregated in schools, hospitals and transportation. In 1860, the Republican Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election. Lincoln refused to concede that any American state had the constitutional right to secede from the Union. The Civil War broke out in 1861 and lasted four years, after which President Lincoln was assassinated by a Southern fanatic. The poet Walt Whitman wrote O Captain! my Captain! under the emotional impact of his death, emphasizing how important Lincoln's leadership had been. The Civil War was the largest and most destructive conflict in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the beginning of World War I in 1914, costing some 625,000 lives. While the economy of the South had collapsed during the war, the northern factories had increased. At the same time expansion and settlement in the West were encouraged above all by the discovery of gold in California at the end of 1800s. The abolition of slavery didn’t grant the blacks equality and economic security. They were free but without money and a home, some of them migrated to the industrial cities in the North, others remained in the South. The Victorian novel Writers and readers → During the Victorian age, for the first time, there was a meeting of interests and opinions between writers and their readers. One of the reasons for this close relationship was the enormous growth of the middle class; people borrowed books from circulating libraries and read periodicals. It is important to underline that a great number of novels published during the mid-Victorian period were written by women and also the majority of novel-buyers and readers were women; middle-class women had more time to spend at home than men and could devote part of the day to reading. Aim → The writers wanted to reflect the social changes that had been taking place for some time, such as the Industrial Revolution, the struggle for democracy and the growth of cities. For this reason, they described society as they saw it, even in its negative aspects, such as the terrible conditions of workers and the exploitation of children; Style → All had to be explained and justified, that’s why there was a link between right and wrong behaviours, light and darkness; Setting and characters → The setting chosen by most Victorian novelists was the city, which was the main symbol of the industrial civilisation as well as the expression of anonymous lives and lost identities. Characters were realistic. Types of novels → The novel of manners: it deals with economic and social problems and described a particular class or situation; → The humanitarian novel: it combines humour with a sentimental request for reform for the less fortunate; → The novel of formation: it deals with one character’s development from childhood to adulthood; → Literary nonsense: these novels hadn’t a specific goal or a moral, they didn’t teach anything but they simply wanted to tell a story; → The realistic novel: it is linked to a crise in the moral and religious fields. Darwin’s evolution theory influenced the structure and the organisation of the realistic novel, which started to develop; → The psychological novel: it is characterised by illogical aspects of life and describes the duality present in every individual, but also the double nature of Victorian society; → The colonial literature: it exalted the British power, its civilisation and its progress; Victorian Drama Period: between the 18th and the 19th centuries The new Victorian theaters: during the Victorian age new theaters were built in London and other cities; these theaters were smaller, but comfortable and well lit, with the aim of producing more realistic effects. Since then, in fact, actors perform in full light in front of an audience hidden in darkness. Thus the spectator-viewer experience became an individual rather than a communal one. Theatre performances: going to the theatre became very important; performances were meticulously detailed, and the architecture of the theatre, the clothing of the audience and the stage reflected Victorian society. The new types of theatre performances were music hall, pantomime, farce and melodrama. Playwrights: Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw were the most important playwrights of the late 19th century. Wilde wrote brilliant comedies whose main feature was humour-filled dialogues with the aim of exposing the flaws and hypocrisy of his era. George Bernard Shaw regarded drama as a vehicle to present his views on social institutions and the human experience in a provocative form.