The Victorian Age appunti facili

CONTROVERSITY

1- Time of prosperity: even the Crimea War didn’t affect the situation.

2- The Queen and her Husband were esample of middle-class devotion to duty;

3- Aristocracy appreciated free trade > they enriched more.

4- Child labour was forbidden while the working hours were reduced.

5- 1851: Great exhibition in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park> occasion to display he

Great England> great in science and industry. Cryustal palace was an example of a

modern building > iron and glass!!

6- Immigration to Australia/ India becomes really a colony/ Canada… control on half

world.

7- Building of phone wires and railroads.

8- The expansion of the empire was seen as the white man’s role >> a BURDEN moral

and a duty! For guarantee progress and civilization

9- Debate on religion: church of England with split> Evangelical or Low Church, Broad

Chucrch; and High church.

The Evangelicals emphasized spiritual transformation of the individual thankes

a. to conversion and a moral Christian life. Dedicated to good causes (emacipation

of slaves) followed a Puritan code of morality . They became powerful.

The high church: was associated with the catholic side of the Church >

b.

importance of tradition ritual and authority : it took shape o a movement >

the Oxford movement called Tractarianism>> Church could resist to

liberal tendencies only defending its strong tradition .

10-Rationalists tried to challenge religion:

UTILITARIANISM: deriving from Bentham and James Mill : ‘all human beings

a. seek to maximize pleasure and minimize pain: an action is morally correct if it

provides greatest pleasure to the gtreatest number of people. If religion is

misured in this way it only can be an outmoded superstition!

HIGHER CRITICISM: bible should have been studied as a book > not as a truth

b. accepted.

THE STUDY OF GEOLOGY : the human being appeared a minuscule in front

c. of the millenary history of the Earth.

Darwin: evolutionism for many became synonymous of progress; for others it

d. conflicted with Bible and religion : the human being had no more a predominant

role

11-Anyway Victorian age was a period of great anxieties!

(1870-1901)

THE LATE PERIOD DECAY OF VICTORIAN

VALUES

a. For many it was a period of serenity and security > the age of long weekends in the

country and in London which was the center od civilization > commodities and

inventions > changing ion modern life.

b. The empire was increasingly problematic > rebellions of the colonized and

exploitation and massacres and wars. The Jamaica Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny,

the Irish Question .

c. The United States were recovering from the Civil War > they grew competitive, also

Germany with Bismack grew powerful.

d. Politically in England the Labor were growing in power > a second Reform Bill >

extension of the right to vote to the working classes ; the development of the trade

unions made tha Labor a great force , quite socialist.

e. Tory –socialim of Ruskin > the middle class economic and political system was

immoral and irresponsible . Marxs influenced other lbor leaders

THE NINETIES

• The stories of Kiplinbg and Conrad recalled the struggles and the situation of the people in the

colonies;

• In England Victorian stamndads were breaking down> Victoria’s heir > Edward was a

pleasure-seeking and easygoing person was the anthythesis of his father ;

• Melancholy because the artists were aware of being living at the end of a great century > fin de

siècle pose and decadentism.

• Conan Doyle in Sherlock Holmes describes a city divided between the increasing power of

police and investigation and the city decadence ;

• The nineties were also the moment of creation of the MODERNIST kmovement > YEATS,

HARDY, CONRAD, SHAW were already publishing.

• The words of the Victorian age comes back at end of the century to mock the mood and the

situation > EARNESTNESS is mocked in the IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNES –Wilde-

which it’s a critic of hypocrisy . THE ROLE OF WOMEN

I. Women didn’t share freedom> they couldn’ vote or held political office. They could vote only

on 1918.

II. Until 1908 women could not possess propriety

III. Men could divorce easily from their wives in case of adultery. While women could only in

case of adultery and cruelty, bigamy,…

IV. The WOMAN QUESTION> discuccion on women problems >> took over by the middle

classes for middle classes women.

V. Arguments for women’s rights were based on the same libertarian principles which formed

the basis of men freedom. In Jude the Obscure the heroine justifies her leaving her

husband quoting Mill’s On LIBERTY-1859.

VI. The CUSTODY ACT -1839 > right to custody children;

VII. DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES ACT -1857 > establishemnet of a civil court for

divorce > divorce was possible only fpor the very rich women because too expensive.