The Victorian Period

1830-1901

A Time of Change

• London becomes most important city in Europe
• Population of London expands from two million to six million
• Shift from ownership of land to modern urban economy
• Impact of industrialism
• Increase in wealth
• World’s foremost imperial power
• Victorian people suffered from anxiety, a sense of being displaced persons in an age of technological advances.

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Queen Victoria and the Victorian Temper

• Ruled England from 1837-1901
• Exemplifies Victorian qualities: earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic propriety
• The Victorian Period was an age of transition
• An age characterized by energy and high moral purpose

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The Early Victorian Period�1830-1848

• In 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened, the first public railway line in the world.
• By 1850, railway lines connected England’s major cities
• By 1900 , England had 15,195 lines of railroad and an underground rail system beneath London.
• The train transformed England’s landscape, supported the growth of commerce, and shrank the distance between cities.

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The Reform Bill of 1832

• Transformed English class structure
• Extended the right to vote to all males owning property
• Second Reform Bill passed in 1867
• Extended right to vote to working class

The Time of Troubles�1830’s and 1840’s

• Unemployment
• Poverty
• Rioting
• Slums in large cities
• Working conditions for women and children were terrible

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The Mid-Victorian Period�1848-1870

• A time of prosperity
• A time of improvement
• A time of stability
• A time of optimism

The Crystal Palace

• Erected to display the exhibits of modern industry and science at the 1851 Great Exhibition
• One of the first buildings constructed according to modern architectural principles
• The building symbolized the triumphs of Victorian industry

The British Empire

• Many Between 1853 and 1880, large scale immigration to British colonies
• In 1857, Parliament took over the government of India and Queen Victoria became empress of India.
• Many British people saw the expansion of empire as a moral responsibility.
• Missionaries spread Christianity in India, Asia, and Africa.

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Religious Debate

• Evangelical movement emphasized spiritual transformation of the individual by conversion and a moral Christian life.
• Their view of life was identical with Dissenters.
• The High Church emphasized the importance of tradition, ritual, and authority
• The Oxford Movement led by Newman
• The Broad Church was open to modern ideas.

Utilitarianism

• Derived from the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and his disciple James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill
• Rationalist test of value
• The greatest good for the greatest number
• Utilitarianism failed to recognize people’s spiritual needs

Challenges to Religious Belief

• Science
• Huxley
• Darwin- the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man
• Higher Criticism
• Examination of the Bible as a mere text of history
• Source studies
• Geology
• Astronomy
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The Late Victorian Period�1870-1901

• Decay of Victorian values
• British imperialism
• Boer War
• Irish question
• Bismarck's Germany became a rival power
• United States became a rival power
• Economic depression led to mass immigration
• Socialism

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The Role of Women

• The Woman Question
• Changing conditions of women’s work created by the Industrial Revolution
• The Factory Acts (1802-78) – regulations of the conditions of labor in mines and factories
• The Custody Act (1839) – gave a mother the right to petition the court for access to her minor children and custody of children under seven and later sixteen.
• The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act – established a civil divorce court
• Married Women’s Property Acts

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Educational Opportunities for Women

• First women’s college established in 1848 in London.
• By the end of Victoria’s reign, women could take degrees at twelve university colleges.

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Working Conditions for Women

• 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.
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Victorian Women and the Home

• Victorian society was preoccupied with the very nature of women.
• Protected and enshrined within the home, her role was to create a place of peace where man could take refuge from the difficulties of modern life.

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Literacy, Publication, and Reading

• By the end of the century, literacy was almost universal.
• Compulsory national education required to the age of ten.
• Due to technological advances, an explosion of things to read, including newspapers, periodicals, and books.
• Growth of the periodical
• Novels and short fiction were published iin serial form.
• The reading public expected literature to illuminate social problems.

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The Victorian Novel

• The novel was the dominant form in Victorian literature.
• Victorian novels seek to represent a large and comprehensive social world, with a variety of classes.
• Victorian novels are realistic.
• Major theme is the place of the individual in society, the aspiration of the hero or heroine for love or social position.
• The protagonist’s search for fulfillment is emblematic of the human condition.
• For the first time, women were major writers: the Brontes. Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot.
• The Victorian novel was a principal form of entertainment.

Victorian Poetry

• Victorian poetry developed in the context of the novel. Poets sought new ways of telling stories in verse
• All of the Victorian poets show the strong influence of the Romantics, but they cannot sustain the confidence the Romantics felt in the power of the imagination.
• Victorian poets often rewrite Romantic poems with a sense of belatedness.
• Dramatic monologue – the idea of creating a lyric poem in the voice of a speaker ironically distinct from the poet is the great achievement of Victorian poetry.
• Victorian poetry is pictorial; poets use detail to construct visual images that represent the emotion or situation the poem concerns.
• Conflict t between private poetic self and public social role.

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Victorian 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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Images of the Victorian Period