1. The Victorian Era
An Overview of the ―Periods‖
Born 1819
Victoria reigned from 1839-
1901

2. A Time of Change
• London becomes the
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.

3. 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

4. The Georgian Period
• 1911-1936
• A reaction against the
achievements of the
Victorian Period

5. The Early Victorian Period
1830-1848 (Time of Troubles)
Dramatic change:
–Railroads
• 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.

6. Early Period 1830-1848 Cont’
• Reform Parliament
– 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

7. The Time of Troubles
1830’s and 1840’s
• Unemployment
• Poverty
• Rioting
• Slums in large cities
• Working conditions for women and children were terrible

8. The Time of Troubles
1830’s and 1840’s
Economic distress:
Even with the reform attempts, England's economic
troubles could not be entirely solved.
By the end of this ―Time of Troubles‖
The Chartists
A large organization of workers
Drew up a ―People’s Charter‖ in 1838
Advocated:
• Further extension of the right to vote
• Secret-ballot
• Legislative reform
Finally succeeded in introducing important economic
reforms:
• the repeal of the Corn Laws
• Introduction of a system of Free Trade.

9. Impact on Victorian Literature
• The novelists of the
1840’s and the 1850’s
responded to the
industrial and political
scene:
– Charles Kingsley- The
Water Babies
– Elizabeth Gaskell – North
and South; Life of Charlotte
Bronte
– Benjamin Disraeli- Sybil

10. The Mid-Victorian Period
1848-1870 (The Age of Improvement)
• A time of prosperity:
– general social satisfaction
– further growth of the empire
– Improving trade and economic conditions.
– the Great Exhibition of Hyde Park, & other events:
– celebrated with renewed vigor
• industry
• Technology
• Science
• A time of improvement
• A time of stability
• A time of optimism
The Great Exhibition of Hyde
Park 1851

11. 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

12. Religious Debate
• Evangelical
movement
emphasized
spiritual
transformation of
the individual by
conversion and a
virtuous Christian
life. Their view of
life was identical
with Dissenters.
• The High Church
emphasized the
importance of
tradition, ritual,
and authority
• The Broad Church
was open to
modern ideas

13. Rationalist challenges to religion:
• 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

14. – Theory of Natural
Selection
– Survival of the Fittest
– Vision of a microscopic
world
» Destruction/Competiti
on part of life cycle
– Independent, unique
individual species that
are nevertheless highly
interdependent
How do Darwin’s theories
challenge religion
assumptions of divine
creation? Notice also
where he acknowledges a
―Creator.‖

15. Further challenges to religious
belief:
– Science
• Thomas Henry Huxley (one
of first adherents to
Darwin’s theory of
evolution)
– "Higher Criticism"
• Examination of the Bible as a
mere text of history
• Source studies
• Geology
• Astronomy

16. Matthew Arnold’s ―Dover Beach‖
1867
Mysticism/Metaphysics/Narratives of the
Spiritual World vs Empiricism and Scientific
Evidence
• Begins with the challenges issued by
Galileo on through Newton in the
18th century to Darwin in the 19th
century and continues with
advances in biology and geology in
today’s contemporary world.
• Notion of Time expanded. Back to a
time before a universe. Man no
longer center.

17. 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.

18. British Domesticity and the Role of
Women

19. The Role of Women Cont’
• 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 Act
(1882)

20. Educational Opportunities for Women
• First women’s
college-Queen’s
College-established
in 1848 in London.
• By the end of
Victoria’s reign,
women could take
degrees at twelve
university colleges.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. Professions beyond marriage open to
women
– Upper/Middle Upper class:
goal marriage
– If not married—a spinster
(at the young age of 20
something!)
– Could become governess,
teachers at grammar
school level only, nurses—
all feminized and poorly
compensated jobs
– No access to university
education
– Discouraged from public
life and speaking (dogs,
idiots, freaks)

24. Separate Spheres: Private/Public
• Three Central Ideologies
shaped perception of British
Victorian Women
– 1. Women as Aesthetic
Objects:
• Beautiful objects; source
of poetic inspiration for
men
• Romantic love—objects
of male desire
• Dead, dying, consumptive
women especially
prevalent in 19th visual
art. i.e. Pre-Raphaelite
painters

25. Three Central Ideologies Shaping Perception of
Women cont’
• 2. Woman as
Mother/Madonna: Women
conceived as pure, selfless
angels of domesticity. This
perspective of women was
influenced by Christian
Celibacy/theology/the
Madonna
• Idle status symbols for
husbands
• Trophies signifying
masculine
accomplishment/status
• To be desired but not
desiring
• Selfless guardians of
domesticity (Patmore’s
―angel in the house‖—
meek, selfless, ―it is
she that enobles man‖;

26. John Ruskin’s ―Of Queen’s Gardens”
– Man is active & progressive;
he is doer, creator, responsible
for invention
– Women’s power is ―for rule,
not for battle‖; her intellect is
to be used for domestic
ordering & arranging
– Women’s function is to praise
– She is to be protected from
danger & temptation (she is
more vulnerable to both
– Woman is guardian of the
home; the true place of
―peace‖ which must be
maintained for the man
– Home is man’s castle; sacred
place; woman is queen of the
castle; she is to be wise not
for herself but for her husband
– Her role is to be a supreme
wife, mother, and household
organizer

27. Three Central Ideologies Shaping Perception of
Women cont’
3). Woman as
Temptress/Whore: The flip
side of the previous two:
(the first being idealized
aesthetic object; the
second angel in the
house/Madonna)
– Belief that women are
inherently vulnerable to
temptation
– The can themselves be
temptresses
– Man must be aware of
woman as temptress—
(will see a fixation on this
image in Pre-Raphaelite
poems and images next
week)
– Beautiful Whore

28. Keats’ “La Belles Sans Merci”-Pre-
Raphaelite rendition by Frank Dicksee

29. What were the psychological effects of these
ideas on women?
– Middle/upper
middle class
women – boredom
– Isolation and
loneliness
– Illnesses: 19th
century famous for
its cases of ―female
hysteria‖ and
neurasthenia.
• Illness as escape
from oppressive
domestic roles?
• Or representative
of the physical,
psychological, and
emotional costs of
self-denial,
oppression, and
domestic
restrictions

30. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
• Formed 1848
• Founder: Dante Gabriel
Rosetti (1828-1882)
• Others: William
Holman Hunt; John
Everett Millais; sculptor
Thomas Woolner;
William Rosetti (Dante’s
brother)

31. Pre-Raphaelites Cont’
Identified the Italian painter
Raphael (1483-1520) with
scientific interests of the
Renaissance—which they felt
led to ―modern‖
technological advancements.
The PRE-Raphaelites then
aimed for simpler time
BEFORE Raphael. Reacting to
sterility of 19th c. English art
and materialism, which
followed the Industrial
Revolution.

32. Pre-Raphaelites aimed to:
• Study nature
• Emphasize the immediate
• the serious; the heartfelt
• Infuse art with literary
symbolism, bright colors,
and attention to detail.
• Subject Matter:
– pseudo medieval;
ethereal female
– beauties; fantasy/fairy;
literary figures from
– Shakespeare, Tennyson,
Patmore, Keats

33. Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”
William Holman Hunt

34. Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”
John Waterhouse

35. Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”
William Holman Hunt

36. John Millais’ “Ophelia”

37. Initial efforts condemned:
critic Robert Buchanan
dismissed the Pre—
Raphaelites as “The
Fleshly School of Poetry‖
accused them of
depicting
lewd sensuality.
The Pre-Raphaelites
disbanded in 1854.

38. Dante
Gabriel
Rosetti
1828-1882

39. “The Blessed
Damozel” 1850

40. Christina Rosetti’s ―Goblin Market‖ (1830-1894)

42. 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 in serial form.
• The reading public expected
literature to illuminate social
problems.

43. 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.

44. 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 between private poetic
self and public social role.

45. 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.

46. 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

47. The 1890’s The Fin de Siecle
• Breakdown of Victorian
values
• Mood of melancholy
• Aesthetic movement
• The beginning of the
modern movement in
literature
• Aubrey Beardsley’s
drawings
• Prose of George Moore and
Max Beerbohm
• Poetry of Ernest Dowson

48. The Late Period (1871-1901)
“Dying Victorianism” in literature: Melancholy spirit in the
writing of the end of the century (fin de siecle).
Oscar Wilde's making a pun of "earnest,” a typical and sincerely
used mid-Victorian word that gestured towards a dying sense
Victorianism.
1901 Death of Queen Victoria and succession of Edward VII1901-
1914 would be referred to as the Edwardian Era

49. Images of the Victorian Period