Concetti Chiave
- The Victorian age saw significant social reforms, spurred by movements like the Chartists, leading to expanded voting rights and laws such as the Ten Hours Act and Elementary Education Act.
- It was a period of contrasts, known as the Victorian compromise, balancing progress and poverty, with moral values emphasizing hard work, respectability, and philanthropy derived from Puritan traditions.
- The era was marked by a patriarchal society, where families were dominated by authoritarian fathers, and women were expected to marry and maintain a household, reflecting the era's prudery and repression.
- Literature flourished, with novels becoming popular among the middle class and women, often published in instalments and reflecting societal changes through a shared interest between writers and readers.
- The city was a central theme in Victorian novels, symbolizing industrial civilization, while authors focused on character development and explored themes of social justice, though criticism remained non-radical.
Indice
L'ascesa di regina Victoria
Victorian age was essentialy similar with the romantic society for the social problems that affected society.
In 1837 Queen Victoria ascend to the throne; she married prince Albert in 1840.
In 1838 People’s Charter calls for rights and social reform. The Chartist movement asked for a charter (list of rights) of social reforms: with the Reforms bill 1, voting right was extendend to all males citizen that owned an house; with the Reform bill 2 all the workers could vote.
Victorian age was an age of many reforms: both Victoria and the government started caring about social problems. Following People’s Charter, the Parliament issued the Ten Hours Act, that limited the working hours to ten a day for everyone. With the Elementary Education Act, that made elementary education compulsory for everyone, the government started caring about children. As a consequences of this acts, there was an huge spread of newspaper (with stories in istalments), circulating libraries and authors (more people had time to write). The Health Act established new hospitals, sewers, water distribution in the houses and the public gas lightning. At the time, only Puritans could enter universities and government; the Emancipation of all religious sects Act established that everyone can join university, regardless of religion.
The Great Exhibition was wanted in London (Crystal Palace, Hyde Park) by Prince Albert to show the most important British technological innovations from the colonies and to expand industry and trade.
Many people lived in town: there were problems connected to overcrowded cities and criminality. At the same time, hospital, social services and police were improved. The poverty was seen as a crime, and poor people went to prison. Children of poor families were separated from their families and sent to stay in parish and religious workhouses (like Dickens), in which children has to pay (with their work) in exchange.
Contrasti della società vittoriana
The victorian age can be considered an age of contrast: poverty and squalor on one hand, progress and reform on the other hand. This is known as the Victorian compromise. Victorian society was based on a set of moral values that could only be fulfilled by the middle and upper classes: hard work, respectability, good manners and education, patriarchal family, female chastity, repression of sexuality. Philantropy (charitable activity) was carried out by a lot of respectable women. These values derived from the Puritan tradition. All those who didn’t conform to these values were considered evil and immoral. These values can be resumed in the word “prudery” (bigottismo). So, the Victorian compromise is a mixture of hypocrisy and morality, the attempt to hide the unpleasant aspects of progress and the materialistic philosophy of life under a veil of respectability and optimism.
Famiglia e valori vittoriani
The ideal Victorian family was patriarchal: Victorian private lives were dominated by an authoritarian father. Women were subject to male authority; they were expected to marry and make home a ‘refuge’ for their husbands. ‘Victorian’, synonymous with prude, stood for extreme repression; nudity was denounced in art and even furniture legs had to be concealed under heavy
cloth not to be ‘suggestive’. Queen Victoria didn’t like to wear wonderful clothes and didn’t want to be pictured with colorful clothes, but as she was, with all ages’ signs and her dark clothes
Letteratura e società vittoriana
In the Victorian Age the writers and their readers shared the same interests and values. Novels became very popular, they were widely read by the middle classes (also in consequences of spreaded education) and especiallly by women. People borrowed books from circulating libraries; books were read aloud in the family. A lot of novels were published in instalments in the pages of periodicals. Novelists described society as they saw it, reflecting the social changes that were happening. They made people aware of social injustices but their criticism wasn’t radical. There were a lot of women writers (from Jane Austen to George Eliot, they explored the daily lives and values of women).
The voice of the omniscient narrator provided a comment on the plot and erected a rigid barrier between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (Dickens didn’t follow this scheme). 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. Victorian writers concentrated on the creation of characters and achieved deeper analysis of the characters’ inner life. Retribution and punishment were to be found in the final chapter, where the whole texture of events, adventures, incidents had to be explained and justified.
Domande da interrogazione
- Quali furono le principali riforme sociali durante l'età vittoriana?
- Cosa rappresentava il "compromesso vittoriano"?
- Qual era il ruolo delle donne nella società vittoriana?
- Come influenzò la letteratura l'età vittoriana?
- Qual era l'importanza della Grande Esposizione di Londra?
Durante l'età vittoriana, furono introdotte diverse riforme sociali, tra cui il Ten Hours Act che limitava le ore lavorative a dieci al giorno, l'Elementary Education Act che rendeva obbligatoria l'istruzione elementare, e il Health Act che migliorava le infrastrutture sanitarie.
Il compromesso vittoriano rappresentava un'epoca di contrasti tra povertà e progresso, con una società basata su valori morali rigidi che nascondevano gli aspetti spiacevoli del progresso sotto un velo di rispettabilità e ottimismo.
Nella società vittoriana, le donne erano soggette all'autorità maschile, ci si aspettava che si sposassero e rendessero la casa un rifugio per i mariti. Erano anche attive nella filantropia, ma la loro vita era dominata da valori di castità e repressione.
La letteratura vittoriana rifletteva i cambiamenti sociali dell'epoca, con romanzi che descrivevano la società e rendevano consapevoli delle ingiustizie sociali. I romanzi erano popolari tra le classi medie e spesso pubblicati a puntate.
La Grande Esposizione di Londra, voluta dal Principe Alberto, era importante per mostrare le innovazioni tecnologiche britanniche e per espandere l'industria e il commercio, rappresentando un simbolo del progresso dell'epoca.