The Victorian Age

1. The Victorian Age 1833-1901

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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.”

5. 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

6. The Empire, 1900

7. 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

8. Queen Victoria

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. “The Lady of Shalott” • Based on Arthurian legend • Indirectly, a commentary of the role of the creative artist in society

13. 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

14. “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…

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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”

18. 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)