A brief introduction

1. The Victorian Era
Unidad Didáctica 3 – Complementos para la formación disciplinar en lengua
inglesa
a.a. 2014/2015
Arianna Marconi

2. The Victorian Era (1837-1901)
 Victoria’s reign began in 1837 and ended in 1901 with her death: this lapse
of time is generally agreeded to be the Victorian Era
 The name of the Queen was given to this historical period when she was still
living
 It was characterized by an incredibly rapid transformation that led Britain to
a cultural, scientific and economic boom
 The population and the cities grew, producing a noteworthy change in
people’s lives
 It is considered the beginning of Modern Times

3. “
”
[…] prudish, hypocritical, stuffy,
[and] narrow-minded
Murfin, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, New York:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003
This is the most common perception given by the Victorian Era, but it is not
accurate at all: members of the middle-class acted that way in order to join
noble ranks.

4. The British Empire
 Queen Victoria expanded her
colonial Empire all over Asia, Africa
and India, ruling a quarter of the
world’s population
 The English language increased its
popularity outside overseas for
commercial reasons
 Victorian were excited by these
important geographical
explorations
 They were still troubled by the Irish
situation

5. Cultural and scientific development
 Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
 Medicine: increasing of specializations and development of surgery
 Medical progress: anaesthetics and antiseptics
 Growth of hospitals, workhouses and nursery schools.
 Authors: Emily, Anne and Charlotte Bronte, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot,
Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Lord Tennyson, Lewis Carroll and Rudyard
Kipling
 Artists: William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, John
Everett Millais
 Transports: railways to travel
 Communication: telegraph, printing presses
 Politics: socialism

6. Population growth
 Families were usually big and patriarchal and their virtues were:
hard work, respectability and religious conformity
 Children survived more infancy
 Immigration from Ireland because of unemployment
 Increase of education and employment for women too

7. Cities’ growth and
search for employment
 People usually went to seek their fortune in cities where jobs were more
likely to be found
 The huge industrialization made people move towards cities in order to live
next to the place they worked in
 Jobs were hard and underpaid
 Sometimes people shared space into their room with others in order to
afford the rent, and these lodges were called rookeries
 In this context there were great wealth and huge poverty at the same time
 The working-class situation was bad, but the Reform Bills gave to vote to
most men over 21

8. Children
 The situation for children was anything but happy
 Families were large (usually each couple had almost six kids) because the
children were expected to support their families economically
 They were employed as chimney-sweeps, they could easily creep under
machinery to get the cotton bobbins and slip through the coal mines
 Some of them were matches, flowers or cheap goods’ sellers
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87eVOpbcoVo&index=2&list=PLwqH6
4PJb_qw48SuWuSfUEDu0lBdiPNZb&spfreload=10

9. “
”
[…] It is difficult to form an accurate estimate; but
from all the inquiries that I have been able to make—
and I can assure the House that no trouble has been
spared—I should say that the naked, filthy, roaming,
lawless, and deserted children, in and about the
metropolis, exceeded, rather than fell short of,
30,000.
Lord Ashley, Juvenile Population, speech of 1848.

10. Crime and prostitution
 The gap between rich and poor was huge
 Poor people died of starvation: to survive they committed crime
 Victorians thought that crime came by no-education, but as Henry
Mayhew wrote:
 “[…] since crime was not caused by illiteracy, it could not be cured by
education […]”
 When girls lost their father or their husband, there was a little choice
between being a governess or a prostitute

11. Middle-class
 The Reform Bill in 1832 consolidated the middle-class political power,
strenghtening their economic position
 Gentleman was a man who had received education
 Lady was a woman married to a gentleman
 Usually men’s status came from his family, while women’s by the man they
were married with
 Their values were: hard work, sexual morality and individual responsibility
 They were widely churchgoing

12. Middle-class
 There was such a diversity within the Middle-class that it is very difficult to
elaborate a specific and precise definition
 Middle-class is represented by large-scale merchants, manufacturers and
bankers who had achieved class mobility, becoming able to provide their
children's with education, but also by small shopkeepers and clerical
workers, who also needed education to work
 Only men provided family’s incomes

13. Upper class
 They came from wealthy families
 They did not work
 They focused their attention on material things such as clothing, clubs,
women and gambling
 Their lives were self-centred
 The popular dandy image reflected their lifestyle

14. Upper class: Women and Men
 Men used to court women with poems, sonnets, music, dance, gifts or
simply spending time with the woman
 Women could not introduce themselves, but they were to be introduced
by one friend
 Men usually wore dark and plain colours
 Women could not show legs or arms since it was not suitable for a lady

15. “
”
In this world there are only two
tragedies; one is not getting what
one wants, the other is getting it.
O. Wilde

16. Bibliography
 https://faculty.unlv.edu/kirschen/handouts/victorian.html
 http://www.victoriaspast.com/FrontPorch/victorianera.htm
 http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/Victorians/article.html
 http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/articles/poverty.html
 http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/entertainment/english-
literature-the-victorian-age.html
 http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/intro98/ray_student_page/group_2/class-M.htm
 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1848/jun/06/juvenile-
population#S3V0099P0_18480606_HOC_4
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/middle_classes_01.shtml

17. Bibliography
 http://community.artofmanliness.com/profiles/blogs/victorian-upper-class-
men-and-their-daily-lifestyle
 http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/VictorianEngland.htm
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87eVOpbcoVo&index=2&list=PLwqH6
4PJb_qw48SuWuSfUEDu0lBdiPNZb&spfreload=10

18. Images
 http://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/images/queen-
victoria.jpg
 http://takimag.com/images/uploads/victorianage.jpeg
 http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-a-man-who-moralises-is-usually-
a-hypocrite-and-a-woman-who-moralises-is-invariably-plain-oscar-wilde-
335190.jpg
 http://ndla.no/sites/default/files/images/42-29438669_0.jpg
 http://www.victorianweb.org/science/vicscience.jpg
 http://www.victorian-era.org/victorian-family-2.jpg
 http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48794000/jpg/_48794694_pro30-
69-1663(74)womendustmen(inayardoffvauzhall)1900-1909.jpg
 http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/victorians/children/work.jpg

19. Images
 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Anthony_Ashley-
Cooper,_7th_Earl_of_Shaftesbury_by_John_Collier.jpg
 http://rodriguez9-2.pbworks.com/f/PROSTITUTION.JPG
 https://femlitcake.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/27d42-home-sweet-
home.png?w=512&h=387
 http://www.blacktieguide.com/Supplemental/Clerical/Victorian_era_High_
Anglican_edit.jpg
 http://www.bookdrum.com/images/books/182697_o.jpg
 http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/02/11/s_2603.jpg
 http://a4.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fit,dpr_1.0,h_1200,q_80,w_1
200/MTI1MjM3OTAwMDM1MDA0ODk0.jpg