Victorian Era

The VictorianAge

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen

Victorias reign from 1837 until her death in 1901. It was a long
period of peace, prosperity, refined culture, great advancements in
technology, and national self-confidence for Britain.

During theVictorian age, Britain was the worlds most powerful

nation. By the end of Victorias reign, the British empire extended
over about one-fifth of the earths surface. Like Elizabethan
England, Victorian England saw great expansion of wealth, power,
and culture. But as Victorian England was a time of great ambition
and grandeur, it was also a time of misery, squalor, and urban
ugliness.
Queen Victoria
The Growth of the British Empire
England grew to become the greatest nation on earth
Empire included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong,
Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, and India
England built a very large navy and merchant fleet (for trade
and colonization)
The Growth of the British Empire (continued)
Imported raw materials
exported finished goods tosuch as cotton
countries andthe
around silk and
world
By the mid-1800s, England was the largest exporter
and importer of goods in the world. It was the
primary manufacturer of goods and the wealthiest
country in the world
Because of Englands success, they felt it was their
duty to bring English values, laws, customs, and
religion to the savage races around the world
The IndustrialRevolution
It started at the end of the eigh teenth century, when theoretical
knowledge and practical technology were connected. Scientific
ideas were applied to the making of machines that transformed
the way things were made and dramatically changed peoples
lifestyles. A formerly agricultural nation was now based on urban
and industrial growth. Butas industry grew, it was accompanied
by a rapid increase in the numbers of the urban working-
classpoor. Workers in the cities lived in miserableconditions.
Urban squalor and misery were signs ofa massive change in the
English society.

The Age of Steam

Mass Production
 The Impact of the Industrial Revolutions :

I. The Emergence of Over crowded Cities One result of the

advance of technology was the unprecedented growth of cities.
People, in search of work left the country side to work in
factories in the different cities of Britain. They had to live in
very dirty and unhealthy conditions. There were too many
workers and not enough houses. People were living like
animals. Diseases raged, hunger, poverty, and deprivation
prevailed, crime accelerated, and misery increased.
II. Child Labor Children were expected to help to support their
families. They often worked long hours in dangerous jobs and
in difficult situations for verylittle wages. For example, there
were the climbing boys employed by the chimney sweeps, the
little children who could scramble under the moving
machinery to retrieve the cotton fluff; boys and girls working
down the coal mines, crawling through tunnels too narrow and
low to take anadult.
VictorianThinkers
a. John
who Stuart
created Mill (1806-1873)-philosopher
two ideas
Utilitarianism:
was to the
bring object of moral action
about the greatest good for the greatest amount of people
Liberalism: governments had the right to restrict the actions
of individuals only when those actions harmed others, and
that society should use its collective resources to provide for
the basic welfare of
others.
Also encouraged
equal rights
for women.
b. Charles Lyell (1797-1875):
Showed that geological features on
Earth had developed
continuously and slowly over immense periods of time
c. Charles Darwin (1809-1882): Introduced the
survival of
the fittest theory

Lyell Darwin
 d. John ruskin
The most Romantic prose of the Victorian (1819-1900)
Ruskins greatness is as striking as his singularity, an
instance of the effect of Evangelicalism and Romanticism
on an only child.
e. John Henry Newman
The master of Victorian Non-Fictional prose (1801-90)
f. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903): Applied Darwinism to
human society: as in nature, survival properly belongs to
the fittest, those most able to survive. Social Darwinism
was used by many Victorians to justify social inequalities
based on race, social or economic class, or gender
g. Adam Smith - 18th century economist, held that the
best government economic policy was to leave the market
aloneto follow a laissez faire or let it be policy of
little or no govt intervention
The Role ofWomen
The Woman Question
Changing conditions of womens
work created by the Industrial
Revolution
The Factory Acts (1802-78)
regulations of the conditions of
labor in mines and factories
The Custody
mother the Act (1839)
right to gavethea
petition
court forand
children access to of
custody herchildren
minor
under seven and later sixteen.
The Divorce and Matrimonial
Causes Act established a civil
divorce court
Married Womens Property Acts
Working Conditions forWomen
Bad working conditions
and underemployment
drove thousands of
women into prostitution.
The only occupation at
which an unmarried
middle-class woman
could earn a living and
maintain some claim to
gentility was that of a
governess.
 Literacy, Publication, and Reading
By the end
literacy wasofalmost
the century,
universal.
Compulsory
required to the national
age of educati
ten.
Due
an toexplosion
technological
of advance
things to on
read including newspapers,
periodicals, and books.
s,,
Growth of the periodical
Novels
published andinshort
serialfiction
form. were
The reading public expected
literature to illuminate social
problems.
 Victorian Literature
Novels: dominant literary form; social
problem novel,
domestic novel
Poetry: influenced by Romantic period;
dramatic monologue: a lyric poem in the voice of a speaker
who is not the poet
Drama:frivolous, romantic, witty; mocked
contemporary values (satirical)
Non-fiction: essays, criticism, history, biography,newspapers,
and magazines
The Age of Periodicals
The Age of Reading
1. Novel
A. EARLY-VICTORIAN NOVEL (or social-problem novel)
dealing with social and humanitarian themes
realism, criticism of social evils but faith in progress, general
optimism
The main representative was CHARLES DICKENS.
B. MID-VICTORIAN NOVEL (novel of purpose)
showing Romantic and Gothic elements and a psychological
interest. The main representative writers were the BRONT
sisters and ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
C. LATE- VICTORIAN NOVEL (naturalistic novel near to
European Naturalism) showing a scientific look at human life,
objectivity of observation, dissatisfaction with Victorian
values. The main representative writers were THOMAS
HARDY and OSCAR WILDE.
For the first time, women were major writers: the
Brontes. Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot

Emily Bronte

Charles Dickens Charlotte Bronte

2. Poetry
The greatest poets of the period are Alfred Lord Tennyson
and Robert Browning.
Other important poets are Matthew Arnold, Gerard Manley
Hopkins, Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Thomas Hardy is considered the best poet of the late
Victorians.

Browning
3. Drama
The theater was a flourishing and popular institution during the
Victorian period.
The popularity of theater influenced other genres.
Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde transformed British theater
with their comic masterpieces.
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