The Importance of Being Earnest

1. The Importance of Being Earnest Oh my Victorians!

2. How does this play fit in time? Victoria was queen from 1837 – 1901. Albert died in 1861.

3. A mini-time tour (lit) • Marx and Engles “Communist Manifesto” in 1848 • 1847 – “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre” • Dicken’s “David Copperfield” in 1849 and “Great Expectations” in 1861 • Darwin wrote “Origin of the Species” in 1859 • “Alice in Wonderland” was published in 1865 • 1886 – The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde published • 1887 – Doyle publishes 1st Holmes story “A Study in Scarlet” • 1891 – “A Portrait of Dorian Gray” • 1895 – “Importance of Being Earnest” • 1897 – Stoker’s “Dracula” published

4. Art • Romanticism ruled the day in the early half of the 1800s as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. • Gothic Revival (see Kohler Art Center and Paine Art Gallery!) Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818

5. John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott, 1888

6. Pre-Raphaelites were established in 1848. They thought that Raphael ruined art. • Hyper-realistic fantasy Rosetti. Lady Lilith.

7. William Holman Hunt's The Lady of Shalott

8. Ford Madox Brown. Work. 1865

9. The Aesthetics! • Art for Art’s Sake started in the 1860s. • James Whistler, Frederic Leighton, William Morris (kinda) Whistler Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea 1871

10. J.A.M. Whistler / Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room / 1876

11. Frederic Leighton, Flaming June 1895

12. Leighton, Cymon and Iphigenia, 1884

13. William Morris. Snakesheadprinted textile (1876) "Peacock and Dragon" woven wool furnishing fabric (1878)

14. William Morris King Arthur and Sir Lancelot, (1862)

15. Singer Sargent. El Jaleo. 1876

16. Mrs. Joshua Montgomery Sears. 1899 Madam X. 1884

17. Art Nouveau 1895-1905 • Natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants, but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment.

19. Beardsley. The Climax (Salome)

20. Social Timeline • 1838 – Railroad expansion (enormous!) • 1840s – Photography is invented • Vaccinations for the poor • 1848 – Bills restricting how many hours children can work in mines and factories (58 hours/week!) • 1851 – The Great Exhibition • 1853 – Livingstone discovers Victoria Falls • 1857 – 1st transatlantic telegraph cable laid • 1860s – Invention of the sewing machine • 1876 – Victoria becomes Empress of India • 1876 – Bell patents telephone • 1877 – Edison’s phonograph • 1878 – Law restricting children under 10 from employment. Children from 10-14 were restricted to ½ day employment.

21. 1880 – Children up to 12 were made to go to school. • 1881 – 1st electrified home • 1883 – Women earn rights to property and earnings • 1885 – The safety bicycle was introduced • 1888 – Jack the Ripper • 1895 – Wireless telegraphy • 1897 – Suffrage movement gains momentum

22. So what does all this information tell us about the Victorian era? • British commercial, industrial, and political supremacy • Imperial expansion and political reform • Romantic and fantastical art vs. industrial revolution • Highly moralistic, highly sentimental • Class system was rigid.

23. The Elite • The elite were 300 families that were in total control of British society and politics. They were made up of the hereditary land-owning class made up of aristocrats and gentry. • Aristocrats are hereditary nobility and gentry is one step below. • They generally hold vast tracts of land and control governmental structures. Upper class income came from land (rents and returns). Generally they made between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds a year. • BUT…

24. The Middle Class • Up and coming and growing in power. • They were being accepted into the gentry because of a symbiotic relationship: • The middle class was desperate to become gentry and the aristocracy (because of the new death tax) was desperate for cash. • We also see the rise of the self made man and of individualism.

25. The Working Class • Members of the working class are not very visible in most Victorian fiction or in popular conceptions of Victorian life, but ironically, three out of four people did manual labor. The majority of these workers were agricultural laborers, domestic servants, and factory hands. The remaining percentage of people had unskilled, semiskilled, and skilled jobs in mining, fishing, transporting, building, the garment industry, and other manual trades. • There was very little way for them to improve their lot – no education, no decent wages, no social services, poor food, poor health care.

26. TYPICAL ANNUAL INCOMES FOR THE VICTORIAN AGE • Wealthiest aristocrats £30,000 •  Other aristocrats • Wealthy merchants, bankers, and manufacturers £10,000 •  Smallest landed gentry • Some clergymen, physicians, barristers, businessmen £1,000-2,000 •  Most of the middle class: doctors, barristers, solicitors, civil servants, senior clerks £300-800 •  Lower middle class: clerks, head teachers, journalists, shopkeepers • Highly skilled mechanics and artisans £150-300 •  Skilled workers, including cabinetmakers, typesetters, carpenters, locomotive drivers, senior dressmakers £75-100 •  Average earnings for semiskilled working men and for skilled women in factories and shops £50-75 •  Seamen, navvies, longshoremen, some domestic servants £45 •  Farm laborers, soldiers, typists £25 •  Lowest ranked shop assistants, domestic servants, needleworkers £12-20

27. Victorians were full of contradictions • They were religious and moralistic but turned a blind eye to child labor and prostitution. • They were supremely conscious of social status and determined to keep everything status quo, but they were romantics and loved the explored, the pioneer (as long as they were white and of a certain class). • Women were madonnas or whores – and you couldn’t be both. It was an era of sexual repression and there was an obsession with female purity. • It was an era of dignity and restraint.

28. What does the Victorian Era look like? • Overdone, over blown, over stuffed. They were collectors and home artists (upper class and upper middle class women didn’t do much, so they did crafts). • Mass production, the development of mechanization, chemical dyes, and the importation of foreign styles led to an explosion of different (and I mean different) looks.