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The Victorian Age. 1833-1901. Background. “British History is 2,000 years old, and yet in a good many ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand put together.” Mark Twain (visiting London in 1897)
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The Victorian Age 1833-1901
Background • “British History is 2,000 years old, and yet in a good many ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand put together.” • Mark Twain (visiting London in 1897) • The period during the reign of Queen Victoria was a time of tremendous change in England.
Historical Context • During the Victorian age, England becomes the most powerful country in the world • London grows from 2 million to 6.5 million people • Shift from a land based economy to a trade and manufacturing based economy • Rapid industrialization
Rise Of Industry • Innovations: Steam railroads, iron ships, the telegraph, photography, anesthetics, universal compulsory education • England was the first country to become industrialized increase in both wealth and social problems • Unchecked industry led to horrible working conditions in factories, crowded cities and slums. • “The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”
Rise Of The Empire • Wealth growth of British Empire • Money allowed England to tap into markets all over the world • Increased manufacturing, shipping (early outsourcing) • Development of colonies – by 1890, England controlled more than ¼ of the land on earth • Canada, Australia, India, parts of Africa • 1 out of every 4 people was a subject of Queen Victoria – the English influence was enormous • “The White Man’s burden” – need to civilize and evangelize the “natives” of colonized countries
Queen Victoria • Namesake of the period • Reigned from 1837-1901 • Defined the values of the age: • Moral responsibility, propriety, domesticity • Mother to 9 children • Wore black mourning clothes for 40 years after her husband’s death
Social Changes • Age of Reforms • 1832 – right to vote to all men owning property • 1867 – restructuring of Parliament to include more middle class • Working classes still suffer • Women still largely ignored • 1859 – Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of the Species people begin to question faith and long-held beliefs about humanity
Victorian Literature • Realism • Romanticism now mainstream • Focus on ordinary people • Reflected trend toward democracy and middle-class audience • “The Lady of Shallot” by Tennyson: the artist must experience reality / critique of “pure” imagination • Naturalism • Scientific observation in the literary sphere • Texts full of nitty, gritty details, often with goal of promoting social reform • Nature portrayed as harsh and indifferent to human suffering • Vs. Romantics? • Pre-Raphaelites • Turned away from Realism • Embraced spiritual intensity of medieval Italian art
Alfred, Lord Tennyson • 1809-1892 • From a poor family • Attended Cambridge • When Wordsworth died, Queen Victoria named Tennyson the poet laureate of England and gave him the title of “Lord” • Considered by his contemporaries to be the voice of the Victorian Age • Time of rapid change poets look to past for inspiration and as a means of understanding the present
“The Lady of Shalott” • Based on Arthurian legend • Indirectly, a commentary of the role of the creative artist in society
Robert Browning • 1812-1899 • No formal education – made use of his father’s extensive library • Married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also a poet • Decided to be a poet as a teenager, but his poetry didn’t attract much notice until the 1860s • Late in life recognized as the equal of Tennyson among Victorian poets
“My Last Duchess” • Dramatic monologue • Poem in which a single character delivers a speech • The speaker indirectly reveals aspects of his character • There is a silent listener, addressed by the speaker • Browning’s poem based on the Duke of Ferrara, a 16th century Italian nobleman • In the poem, a man is addressing the agent who represents the father of the woman he hopes to marry • His first wife or “last duchess” is dead…
Charles Dickens • No writer since Shakespeare has been so hugely popular • Critical and commercial success • Worked in factory as a child • Ills of industrialization figure prominently in his work • The novel was the most popular genre during the Victorian period, and he was the most popular and influential novelist • Memorable characters • Novel: long work of fiction with a complex plot (often featuring subplots and multiple settings), major and minor characters, and a significant overall theme • Social Criticism: writing that calls attention to society’s ills
Matthew Arnold • 1822-1888 • Attended Oxford • Equally famous for poetry and prose – wrote essays of social criticism • Culture and Anarchy (1869): attack on Victorian complacency and materialism; argues that culture should open our minds to what is true and valuable • Poetry marked by cynicism and doubt
Matthew Arnold • More features of poetry: • p. 889: anxieties of Victorian Period • Focuses on the isolation of individuals from one another and from society • Feelings of loneliness and isolation • Insignificance of man in an uncaring universe • Desire for society to improve, but unsure that it can • Captures the doubts of the Victorian age • Sees himself as “Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head” (“Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse” 85-88) • “Dover Beach”
Matthew Arnold – “Dover Beach” • What is the situation of the poem? (What is the speaker doing?) • What sound devices are most prevalent in the first stanza of the poem? • What is suggested by the line “Gleams and is gone”? • Describe the imagery in the second stanza. What words in particular suggest this imagery? What is the mood of this stanza? • What did Sophocles “hear” in the sea? • What does Arnold mean by “Sea of Faith”? • How does the third stanza reflect the growing doubt and uncertainty of the Victorian period? • In the final stanza, what does the speaker propose as an answer to the doubt and uncertainty? How can we counter this anxiety? • What do the final lines suggest about the “modern” world? • Compare Arnold’s reaction to the ocean to Byron’s in “Apostrophe to the Ocean” (pp.720-23)
