Victorian Age - Main Characteristics

Victorian Age: general political, economical, social and cultural aspects

The word 'Victorian' derives from Queen Victoria who ruled from 1837 to 1901 and became the symbol of the nation so that he gained the trust of lot of European countries.
In was during this age that the effects of The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) that brought pace, stability, an increment of economic activities, demographic growth, the enlargement of universal suffrage and the affirmation of liberalism.
As a matter of fact the end of XIX century was the beginning of Belle Époque in Europe.
The Victorian Age is remembered as complex and contradictory period, because England was a very rich and powerful nation, however, there was a very big difference between the living conditions of the rich and poor.
There were positive and negative aspects.

Positive aspects were: progress, stability, great social reforms and English colonial empire, in fact England colonized lots of countries like India and we can remember 'The book of the Jungle' wrote by Rudyard Kipling as an example of this phenomenon. Colonialism influenced patriotism and ideas of racial superiority.
Negative aspects were: poverty, injustice and social unrest, but also child labour. This contest let Jeremy Bentham develop his theory of Utilitarism which was a very important theory that said only things that produce happiness are useful. But Charles Dickens attacked the utilitarism in some of his novels where the main characters were poor children who lived in workhouses and had to experiment sufferings and oppressions.
An important scientific discovery made during this years was the origin of species by Charles Darwin.

Explanation of Victorian literature

During the Victorian Age for the first time there was a communion of interests and opinions between writers and readers. One reason of this was the spread of literature also with circulating libraries and various periodicals. Novels became the most popular form of literature, they were read aloud within the family. The novelist felt they had a moral and social responsibility so that they told about social changes like Industrial Revolution, the struggle for democracy and the growth of towns.
We can divide Victorian novels in three groups:
1) The Early-Victorian Novel, with writers like Charles Dickens who told about social and humanitarian themes in his works Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Hard Times, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol.
2) The Mid-Victorian Novel, was linked to the persistence of Romantic and Gothic traditions.
For example during the Victorian Age an important cultural aspect was the Gothic Revival which is linked to Medievalism and Romanticism and its tendency to not consider Middle Age a useless or dark as it was believed. Horace Walpole was the first artist to use the adjective Gothic as a synonym for vandal but as a way to remember and revitalise ancient glory of societies.
3) The Late-Victorian Novel, with authors like Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde whose fame mainly come from his masterpiece The picture of Dorian Gray. Here it is analysed the price of eternal beauty and youth and, transversally, the price of always being perfect for social standards. Morality and corruption are questioned, their limits are sought as well as the human’s individuality.