Il periodo Vittoriano

THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 1832 – 1901

❖ Dickens, “A tales of the two cities” => an age of paradoxes => he is referring to the Romantic period, but all he

said is true also for the Victorian period => foolishness, belief-doubt, light-darkness, hope-despair => TENSION!

❖ Transitional period => a lot of changes. They leave something behind, but at the same time they don’t know

where to go.

❖ Changes in the landscape are more and more evident. London -> From 2 million people to 6,5 in 1901!

❖ Contrast past VS present => present = industrialized, modern but it has a lot of problems connected to it.

❖ The train => speed of connections. Advantages but also disadvantages (= pollution). 1830: opening of the

Liverpool – Manchester railway.

❖ Britain => colonial power (exchange of goods mother land – colonies)

❖ London => wealth vs city slums (= poverty)

❖ “The White Man’s Burden”, Kipling => it celebrates imperial power.

❖ New movement against slavery => abolitionism (porterà all’abolizione della schiavitù)

❖ The new woman VS woman angel of the house. The new woman is a militant, active woman, who acts in order

to have her rights. She refuses to be described as a woman angel of the house. Anne Finch: her works anticipate

these battles.

❖ Sexual repression VS prostitution => sexual instincts = something we must repress.

❖ Arnold, preface to “Poems” => Victorian age = “ the dialogue of the mind with itself” => a period of tension. The

human mind interrogates itself.

❖ Hardy said the Victorian Age is an age of RESTLESSNESS (=irrequietezza)

❖ How should men react? Every artist proposes his personal solution and point of view.

❖ Victorian Period => very post-romantic (there’s not a violent change)

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

→ st nd rd

- 1832 The 1 Reform Bill (then 2 and 3 ). it allows the middle class the right to vote.

→

- 1833 abolition of slavery

→

- 1837 queen Victoria

→

- 1838 Chartist Movement (till ’48) = working class movement protest to have more political rights.

- Installation of the Cristal Palace, Hyde Park (1851: the great exhibition)=> ostentation of of the empire

→

- 1875 Trade Union Act

→

- 1876 queen Victoria empress of India

→

- 1901 death of queen Victoria => end of the Victorian age + opening of the Edwardian Era

VICTORIA = “The matriarch of Europe”; mother of 9 children and good wife. Symbol of the woman angel of the house.

BUT: he has power!

THE WOMEN QUESTION

Recognition of woman rights => steps:

• →

1857 the divorce and matrimonial causes act (the women have to prove the betrayal, so it’s not very simple,

but it exist!)

• →

1870/1908 women’s property act

• →

1918 women over 30 have the right to vote

• st

Education: discrimination! They were educated at home. BUT: 1848 1 women’s college in London (after

Tennyson in “The Princess” had predicted it! It was the 1847.)

• The figure of the governess (for the middle class unmarried women)

• Most lower class women still worked under appalling conditions in factories, mines, fields. + prostitution (the

fallen woman!)