Constructing the Victorians

1. Constructing the Victorians HUM 2212: British and American Literature I Fall 2012 Dr. Perdigao October 3, 2012

2. Secrets and Lies • Elizabeth Barrett Browning • Sonnets from the Portuguese • “43” • Love for Robert Browning • Love, conventional style • Secret under surface • “Secret” relationship, marriage, nickname • Feigned translations, “too personal” for Robert Browning • Sleeping Beauty, fairy tale • Poem 43 out of 44 in collection • Italian, Petrarchan sonnet, 8 lines, 6 lines • abbaabba; cdcdcd • Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess” • Reconstructing Italian Renaissance • Religion, morality, ethics—as central concerns for the Victorians • Transgressions with “My Last Duchess” • Grotesque, Gothic • As more consistent with Victorian prose (Oscar Wilde) than poetry

3. Facebook: A Cautionary Tale • Couplets, iambic pentameter • Dramatic monologue Reader puts together the story, inside speaker’s thoughts • Persona poem • Enjambment Loss of control within the poem • Reveals secret • Disclosure, enclosures • “Rappaccini’s Daughter”: control of sexuality • Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s father • Male crisis, lack of control, over female “other” • Painting’s story, like The Castle of Otranto, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Picture of Dorian Gray

4. Assessments • www.victorianweb.org • Influence of Romanticism, questioning of the tradition • Bridging binary oppositions: self and society, personal and political, subjective and objective • Developing dramatic monologues, autobiography, autobiographical fictions • Individuality, originality, intensity, sincerity of Romantics but also social consciousness • (http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/abrams1.html)

5. Assessments • Victorian period, representative of the queen: earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic propriety (1019) • Poetry versus fiction as defining the period • Henry James’ characterization of the novel: “Large loose baggy monsters” • Many characters, worlds, plotlines • Poetry argued by others to be the high form • Story-telling in verse with long poems • Twentieth century assessments and characterizations of the Victorian—antiquated, removed, distant • Critics argue that the period shows the transition to the modern

6. Modernity • http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16424 • “Dover Beach” • Modernity • Sense of the past, fleeting time • Loss of faith, poetical crisis • Loss of centers: religion, science, politics • Elegy

7. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) • Modern industrial society • Periods of writing: 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s • Criticism and poetry • Wordsworth as influence • His lines about his poetry, indicative of changing world • Sense of being a “troubled individual in a troubled society” • Ideas about poetry from classical models, to bring joy (1371) • Unadorned poetry • Literary criticism and literature—making of a civilized society (1372) • Education and reform in his prose (1373)

8. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) • Reassessment of Tennyson’s life and character • Fourth of twelve children, family riddled by problems: institutionalization, drug and alcohol addiction • Undergraduates at Cambridge, “The Apostles” • Connection to Arthur Hallam, engaged to Tennyson’s sister, died in 1833; elegy in In Memoriam (1850) • As “character,” like Whitman, cloak and hat • The Idylls of the King—Arthurian legend, historical change, civilization’s rise and fall • Influence of science, questions about religion • Ideas of human progress vs. regression—barbarity, poverty • “poet of the countryside”: rural rather than urban life, poet of the past

9. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) • “The Lotos-Eaters” • Choric song—2, 6 (change) • 8—meaning • “Ulysses” last lines • No longer golden age of men

12. Pre-Raphaelitism • Cultural attitude—taste, style, belief • Movement of young artists studying painting at Royal Academy in late 1840s • Breaking form study of Renaissance painter Raphael (1483-1520)—secret society Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, signing work PRB • Dante Gabriel Rossetti as 1 of 3 founders • Bright colors, foreshortened perspective, medieval subjects—new ideal of naturalism • Raphael—rejected because of conventional perspectives • Paint from nature, in open air, photographic quality • Questions about representing sacred subjects with naturalistic models

13. Pre-Raphaelitism • Reconceiving artists’ relationship to society • Connecting paintings and poetry • Literary subjects for paintings

14. Christina Rossetti(1830-1894) • Period of Victoria’s reign • Father, exiled Italian patriot, wrote poetry and commentaries on Dante • Deterioration of family: father’s health, economic situation, her health • Involvement in Anglo-Catholic movement in Church of England • Religion—discipline, broken engagements • Goblin Market: lyric, narrative fable, ballad, devotional verse (1489) • Moral fable for children • Connection to Coleridge’s Rime • Temptation, sin, redemption • Poetry of deferral, deflection, negation, denials, constraints

15. Christina Rossetti(1830-1894) • Like Dickinson, secret inner space in writing • “Song” • “The Solitary Reaper” • “In an Artist’s Studio”—about Dante Gabriel’s work

16. Victorianisms • 1830: Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened, first steam-powered, public railway in the world • 1832: The First Reform Bill • 1837: Victoria becomes queen • 1838: “People’s Charter” issued by Chartist Movement • 1846: Corn Laws repealed (abolition of high tariffs on imported grains) • 1850: Tennyson succeeds Wordsworth as poet laureate • 1851: The Great Exhibition in London • 1859: Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species published • 1861: Death of Prince Albert • 1901: Death of Victoria • First Reform Bill—changed class structure, extending right to vote to all males owning property worth 1- pounds or more in annual rent • Rights to middle class, not working class

17. Changing Cultures • 1830s, 1840s—Time of Troubles • 1837 crash • Corn Laws—led to exorbitant price of bread, scarcity of food Unemployment, poverty, rioting • Chartist movement—extension of right to vote, secret balloting, reforms • Social and economic problems due to rapid and unregulated industrialization • Working conditions • Reactions to changes within the writing • Ideas about civilization • Optimism about changes as well as anxieties about displacement (1018)

18. Prosperity • Time of prosperity under Queen Victoria and Prince Albert—“models of middle-class domesticity and devotion to duty” (1024) • Factory Acts—restricted child labor and limited hours of employment • “The Age of Improvement” • Crystal Palace: modern architectural principles—functionality rather than ornamentation • Technological progress and prosperity

19. The Great Exhibition, London, 1851

20. The Crystal Palace

21. The “Woman Question” • Limitations to women—could not vote or hold political office • Petitions for women’s suffrage introduced in early 1840s but not given right to vote until 1918 • Until Married Women’s Property Acts (1870-1908), married women could not own or handle their own property (1031-1032) • Could divorce only if adultery as well as cruelty, bigamy, incest, or bestiality were present

22. The “Woman Question” • The “Woman Question”—concerning inequalities • Educational and employment opportunities limited • Texts—novels and prose—advocating women’s new roles: Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1895), drawing on Mill’s On Liberty (1859), ideas consistent with Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) • The Custody Act of 1839 gave mother the right to petition the court for access to minor children and custody of children under 7 (raised to 16 in 1878) • The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857: civil divorce court, protection order for wife to allow rights to her property • Still only utilized by upper class due to expenses but changed laws concerning women’s rights (1032) • Factory Acts (1802-1878): regulated conditions of labor in mines and factories, reducing the 16 hour day and banning women from mine work • Prostitution, for some, only means, “The Great Social Evil,” “fallen woman”

23. Dualisms • Works as governess, popularity in fiction—Jane Eyre (1847) • “New Woman” by the 1890s • Emancipation of women • Changing ideas about the family—traditional roles of women as wives, mothers, and daughters (1607) • Characterizations of women: tenderness of understanding, unworldliness and innocence, domestic affection, submissiveness (1608) • The “angel in the house”(1854-1862): women’s purity and selflessness • John Ruskin’s “Of Queens’ Gardens” (1865), divisions between genders, difference • Mona Caird—marriage as socially constructed, could be reinvented to guarantee equality and freedom for both man and woman • Marriage as “Utopian impossibility” (1631); importance of economical independence (1631)

24. Bicyling into Oblivion • Mid-Victorian period—1/4 women in England had jobs; others worked as prostitutes • Domestics, seamstresses, factory workers, farm laborers, prostitutes • “New Woman” satirized as bicycle-riding, cigarette-smoking, mannish creature; “Gibson Girl” (Charles Dana Gibson) • Walter Besant in The Queen’s Reign, changing roles of women • Girls “go off by themselves on their bicycles” (1636) • Bicycles manufactured in late 1880s • No longer “a creature of sweet emotions and pure aspirations, coupled with a complete ignorance of the world, because she already knows all that she wants to know” (1636)