The victorian age

The Victorian Age

The Victorian age took its name from Queen Victoria and was the age of progress.

index

Victorian values

The victorian novel

Patriotism...

Victorian compromise

Age of expansin...

Respectability

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Urban habitat...

Victorian Values

The Victorians promoted a code of values based on personal duty, hard work, respectability and charity. These values were of equal application to all strata of society, but were given their essential Victorian form by the upper or middle classes. The idea of respectability distinguished the middle from the lower class. It meant:•The possession of good manners; •The ownership of a comfortable house with servants and a carriage; •Regular attendance at church; •Charitable activity; the idea of family in the Victorian age was: •The family was a patriarchal unit; •The man represented the authority; •The women had the key role regarded the education of children and the managing of the house. The category of "fallen women", was condemned and emarginated and the Sexuality was generally repressed.

PATRIOTISM Patriotism was deeply influenced by ideas of racial superiority. The concept of "the white man's burden" was exalted by the colonial writers, like Kipling, and the expansion of the empire was regarded as a mission. EVANGELICALISM The religious movement known as Evangelism, exerted an important influence on Victorian code of values. The Evangelicals,indeed,believed in: Obedience to a strict code of morality; Dedication to humanitarian causes and social reform. UNILITARIANISM Utilitarianism contributed to the Victorian conviction that any problem could be overcome through reason. The key-words of this philosophy were: usefulness, happiness and avoidance of pain.

EMPIRICISM Utilitarian indifference to human and cultural values was attacked by many intellectuals including Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill. He thought: Legislation could help men develop their natural talents and personalities. the Progress promoted a series of reforms: popular education, trade union organisation, emancipation of women, the development of cooperatives, etc. DARWINISM Charles Darwin in his famous work "On the origin of species" argued that man is the result of a process of evolution and that in the fight for life only the strongest species survived. Darwin's theory discarded the version of creation given by the Bible.

THE AGE OF EXPANSION AND REFORMS

Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901) was the longest in the history of England. period of significant political, social and technological progress and expansion both economic and territorial. The merits of this positive period belonged to the Quenn, who, in marked contrast with the other European monarchs, reigned constitutionally. The Government had to face two major problems such: a strong campaign for liberal trade that led to the abolition of the Corn Laws.

THE GREAT EXHIBITION

The great exhibition of 185, held in Crystal Palace in London, celebrated British advances in science, technology and the Empire. In the meantime workers had begun to come together in Trade Unions.

THE URBAN HABITAT

The poor lived in slums, the conditions of life were very bad: there was an high death rate and terrible working conditions. The atmosphere was polluted and that caused a disastrous effect especially on children's health.The Government promoted an campaign against national ill health through : cleaning up of the towns foundation of professional organisations to control medical education and research. hospitals. A lot of services, such as water, gas, lighting, parks, stadiums, were introduced. Even new Victorian institutions like prisons, police stations, boarding schools, town halls.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

In America the political situation was tense because of the growing split between the North and the South. The civil war lasted four years and ended with the abolition of slavery. However the abolition of slavery did not grant the blacks equality and economic security. During the war many possession sparished , especially, in the South, but in the North big fortunes were made and financial empire was created by men who rose from nothing and embodied the American dream: the myth of the self-made man.

THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

During the Victorian Age the novels became the most popular form of literature and the main form of entertainment. They were first published in instalments in the pages of periodicals. The novelist denounced the evils of their society, however their criticism was not radical. The woman's novel was an realistic exploration of the daily lives and values of women within the family and the community. Also the majority of readers were women because they had more time than men to spend at home. It's possible to divideVictorian novels into three groups: * The Early-Victorian novel. Main writer was Charles Dickens. Themes: social and humanitarian. * The Mid- Victorian novel. Main writers: Bronte sisters and Robert Stevenson. Themes: Romantic and Gothic traditions and psychological vein. * The Late- Victorian novel. Main writers: Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde. Themes: sense of dissatisfaction with values of the age.

THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE

a complex age

The Victorian Age was marked by complexity. It was an age in which progress, reforms and political stability coexisted with poverty and injustice. Modernity was praised but there was a revival of Gothic and Classicism in art. Religion played an important role in people's lives; Evangelicalism, encouraged public and political action and created a lot of charities. The Victorians believed in God but also in progress and science. Freedom was linked with religion as regarded freedom of conscience.

RESPECTABILITY

Self-restraint, good manners and self-help came to be linked with respectability, a concept shared both by the middle and working classes. Respectability was a mixture of morality and hypocrisy, since the unpleasant aspects of society, were hidden under outward respectability. There was growing emphasis on the duty of men to respect and protect women, seen at the same time as physically weaker but morally superior, divine guides and inspirers of men. Sexuality was generally repressed in both its public and private forms, and moralising prudery in its most extreme manifestations gradually led to the denunciation of nudity in art, the veiling of sculptured genitals and the rejection of words with a sexual connotation from everyday vocabulary.

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Carla Maria ToscanoMicaela Micalizzi IV A