VICTORIAN AGE
Historical context
From Queen Victoria
Britain--> most powerful country
Ruling classes introduce reforms
COLONIAL EMPIRE
India→Jewel in the Crown
East India Company→Closed
THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT
(political rights for working classes)
Britan conservative
Few people voted
People’s Charter for basic principles→rejected many times
Life in the Victorian Age
Upper and middle classes large profits.
Worker lived in slums
Spread of epidemics→ also in middle class→ improving sanitary and health
A PROBLEM CALLED POVERTY
Poverty was a normal problem
WORKHOUSE→provide work and shelter
Became prison systems.
Synonymous with the Victorian era
WOMEN IN VICTORIAN SOCIETY
An angel in the house
Rights almost nonexistent
Bronte sisters→different from Jane Austen
Novel
.
Narrator omniscent
Golden age
First novel: faith in progress. Last novel: alienated from society
Reflect the complexity of the world
Relationship between the individual and the society (realistic, injustice)
Middle class people could read (literate)
Novel formation
Novels in instalments
Charles Dickens
Move to london (child)
Father have depts→start working
Back to school and became journalist
Hard Times
Oliver Twist
A Christmas Carol
Mother die→orphans house→workhouse→escape
Themes of the novel
.
Horrible conditions in Institutions
Injustice
Children labour
Victorian idea
Poor law (workhouse)
Work for undertaker
Fagin’s house→pickpocket
Mr Brownlow take Oliver with him→captured by Mr Fagin
Burglary→Mayles adopt him
Monks(half-brother) and Fagin try to captur Oliver
Mayles (aunt), Mr Brownlow and Oliver go to live together
Themes
Critique industrial society and education methods
Utilitarianism and dehumanization
Gradgrind's method. Facts. No imagination→fails
Utilitarianism
Oscar Wilde
Dublin
Trinity College
Arrested (homosexual)
Move to paris (die)
Dandy→elevate aesthetics to a religion (aristocratic superiority)
Walter Pater→Aesthetics→art for art’s sake (no for political, didactic…)
a reaction to Utilitarianism
The Picture of Dorian Gray
.
Style and Technique→ 3rd person, identification between reader and narrator, use allegory (legend of Faust), duality→picture is dark side
The Preface→ Manifesto of the Aesthetic movement:
BEAUTY IS TRUTH
The Victorian Compromise
click to edit
Emily Bronte
Born in Yorkshire
Charlote's Sister (Bronte sisters)
Close with Anne (fantasy world)
Wuthering Heights
Themes:
Settings:
Blake: contraries togheter
Gothic novels
Australia: British model