Victorian age

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(9.1) Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne
During the reign of William IV (1830-1837) there were a lot of reforms:
1. The Reform Act (1832) with which he redistributed seats on a more equitable basis in country, and extended the franchise to male house-holder in property worth £ 10 a year or more.
2. The Factory Act (1833) that prevented children from being employed more than forty-eight hours a week and no person under eighteen could work more than sixty-nine hours a week.
3. Ten Hours’ Act (1847) limited the adults’ work to ten hours a day.
4. Poor Law Amendment Act (1834) refused outdoor relief to those people who could not support themselves by admitting them to a workhouse.
When William IV died, he was succeeded by Victoria (1837-1901). This reign was based on progress, imperialism expansion. This period was called Victorian era, and the exemplary family life of the Queen, the code of her behaviour was called “Victorianism”. The first decade of Victoria’s reign was based on two political tendencies: the liberal campaign for free trade and the birth of Chartism. The Tory Prime Minister Robert Peel was forced by the scarcity of food and by the Irish potato famine to repeal the Corn Laws in 1846. These laws were protective duties against foreign corn that had been imposed during Napoleonic Wars. The repeal of these laws caused a broke up of the Tory Party, due to the opposition of landowners, whose representatives held power in Parliament. “Chartism” was a working-class movement which came from popular discontent. In 1838 Fergus O’Connor, the People’s Charter, organised a program based on six points: universal adult male suffrage, equal electoral districts, the right for a man without property to be a member of Parliament(MP), secret ballot, annual general election and payment of members of parliament. All these points were refused. The Britain industries and economy was very efficient but the factory legislation was far from being sufficient. The liberal Lord Palmerston thought that tyrannies blocked free trade.
(9.2) The later years of Queen Victoria’s reign
After Palmerston’s death, English policy was dominated by two Conservatives, Disraeli and Salisbury, and a Liberal, Gladstone. When Gladstone became prime minister, he tried to solve Irish problem by sanctioning the equality of all religions in the island and by creating a system of peasant proprietorship, in order to prevent an agrarian revolt. In Ireland bore a nationalistic movement, that asked for the self-government, but without success. In 1870 the Elementary Education Act recognised the need for primary instruction; in 1872 the Ballot Act assured the secret vote. During these years the number of voters increased and other social reforms took place to clear the slums, to improve public health (Public Health Act in 1875) and to facilitate trade unionism. The Fabian Society, an association of middle class men and intellectuals, organised the “Labour Representation Conference”, held in London in 1900. In 1906 this society became the Labour Party. Another association was the Women’s Social and Political Union, whose adherents were called “suffragettes”, that asked for women’s right of vote.
(9.3) The British Empire
British colonial expansion, after the loss of the American colonies, began in the 1830s, with the “Opium War”(1839-1842), a war fought by Britain (and Coleridge) against China, in order to protect commercial trade. After this war Britain obtained 5 Chinese ports and the control of Hong Kong. During the 1850s Britain faced Russian expansion in Asia, with the war in the Crimea (1853-1856). Russia wanted to destroy the Ottoman Empire but Britain supported Turkey, to maintain the balance of power in Europe. Britain was also supported by France and Sardinia. Russia was defeated but lost no territory. In 1857 a revolt broke out in India, because British occupation of India had completely changed local life by destroying the bonds of loyalty between native rulers and their subjects, by redistributing the land into new administrative units and by imposing the English way of life. The revolt was put down and in 1877 Queen Victoria became “Empress of India”. In 1882 Egyptian nationalists brought down their ruler and so Britain to protect his trades, invaded Egypt. In 1884 Britain invaded also Sudan. From 1899 to 1902 there was a war in South Africa, for the control of gold and diamonds, between Britain and Dutch settlers, the Boers. Britain won the war after great difficulties; this war made Britain unpopular in the world and also at home. During the Victorian Age most citizen thought that imperial expansion would absorb too much goods, capital and population, but they were proud of their empire. This attitude was called “Jingoism”.
(9.4) A nation of town dwellers
During the 19th century in England there was a great growth of population and people lived in small towns, rather than in the major cities. Victorian cities were horrible, with their massive size, their industries and the extreme density of population. The expansion of trade and industrialism brought much wealth only to the upper and middle classes, leaving poor people in his misery. There was also the growth of a very large lower middle class, due to the new forms of economy such as banking system, insurance, the profession and public service. In the second half of the century there was an increase of wages and a fall of food prices. In the factories women and children were still exploited and workers conditions hadn’t changed at all.
(9.5) The urban habitat
In Victorian cities poor people lived in the slums, appalling quarters characterised by squalor, disease and crime. Death rate was high and polluted atmospheres had a disastrous effect on health. In this period became organised campaigns against national ills, like cholera and tuberculosis. Professional medical organisations were founded, following Florence Nigthingale’s example, and there were also a development in nursing and pharmacy techniques, with the creation of modern hospitals. Overcrowding was another great problem in Victorian cities. In the end of the 19th century town living conditions improved with the development of trams and trains and the introduction of services such as running water, gas, lighting, paved roads and places of entertainment. Other Victorian institutions were prisons, hospitals, police stations, boarding schools, town halls and mental hospitals (in the old workhouses). Police stations were built close to the poorer parts of the cities, in order to control with the creation of Bobbies (the Metropolitan Police) the most dangerous parts of the towns. Discipline was severe and involved corporal punishments. Public executions continued until 1868.
(9.6) The Victorian compromise
Victorian men were great moralists, the idea of respectability dominated all society. They believed that material progress would emerge from hard work. Respectability was a mixture of morality, hypocrisy, severity and conformity to social standards. It implied the possession of good manners, a comfortable house with servants and a carriage, regular attendance at church and charitable activity (philanthropy was a characteristic of this age). Bourgeois ideals dominated family life: family was a patriarchal unity where the husband had the dominant role and his wife had to obey him, in managing domestics works and in educating children. Sexuality was repressed by extreme and bigot Puritanism. Patriotism was very spread and influenced by ideas of racial superiority: British race was superior and had the obligation given by God to spread their way of life, their institutions, law, politics on native people all over the world. This attitude was called “Jingoism”.
(9.7) The Victorian frame of mind
In Victorian period there were some new religious and philosophical movements. One of them was the religious movement of Evangelism, that influenced the extreme moralist attitude upon life conduct. It was inspired by John Wesley, whose principals teachings were:
• The need to bring enthusiasm and engagement into the established church.
• The dedication to humanitarian causes and social reforms.
• The obedience to a strict and bigot code of morality.
• The importance of the Bible reading and praying at home.
Another movement was Utilitarianism, derived from the Empiricism of Hume and Locke, and based on Jeremy Bentham’s principles. It said:
• Man’s actions are driven by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
• All institutions should be tested with reason and common sense, in order to understand their utility to provide material happiness for people.
• Religious belief is an old-fashioned superstition.
This movement suited middle classes’ interests with the idea that every problem could be solved with reason. Another thinker was John Stuart Mill, that developed Utilitarianism’s theories in this way :
• Happiness is a state of mind and of the spirit, not only a search for selfish pleasure.
• Legislation should help men in developing their natural talents and personalities.
• Good society: a free interplay of human character creates the greatest variety.
• Progress come from mental energy. Art and education have a great importance.
• A long series of reforms are necessary.
In the middle part of Victorian age, scientific discoveries began to disturb the old theory of the universe seen as stable and transparent to the intellect. The new scientific view of the universe was that it changes incessantly and it’s governed by the laws of chance.
An important scientist was Charles Darwin, who presented in this period his theories of natural selection and evolution:
• All living creatures have taken their forms through a slow process of change and adaptation in a struggle for survival.
• Favourable physical conditions determine the survival of a species, unfavourable ones its extinction.
• Man evolved like the other animals, from less highly organised forms, namely from an ape-like mammal.
Darwin’s theories discarded the bigot version of creation given by the fucked church in the fucked bible, but on the other hand were supported by Herbert Spencer, that applied his ideas to social life, thinking that economic competition was the same that natural selection, where only the strongest survived and the weakest were defeated. This theories led to the idea that poor and oppressed people didn’t deserve any compassion. The development of new sciences(geology, palaeontology and Darwin’s theories) denied the credibility of one single creation and of the Flood. British bigots replied to these new theories by returning to the ancient doctrines and rituals; this movement of revival was headed by the cardinal John Henry Newman, which founded the “Oxford Movement”. This movement supported an uncritical acceptance of ecclesiastical authority and Christian truth by faith. Another group was that of Agnosticism, that was based on the Biblical studies. Other thinkers protested against the harm caused by industrialism in man’s life and in the environment. One of the sharpest critics of Utilitarianism was Thomas Carlyle that attacked the mass class society produced by industrialisation and said that mankind needs for some heroes to be guided along the path of duty. He also advocated a return to the society and the economy of the Middle Ages. The supreme Companion Karl Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, exposed his theories that he had elaborated after a research carried out in England: an historical method and an analysis of the proletariat’s conditions and prospects from a scientific point of view. He thought that in England a social revolution was necessary and imminent to improve workers’ life conditions. His works influenced some English writers: William Morris theorised a society based on the simplicity and the beauty of the Middle Ages and thought that only a massive movement of workers could solve the problems of industrial society; Matthew Arnold criticised the materialism of the middle class and assigned the task of regeneration to English literature, finding a close link between the way people live and think and the way they respond to literature. Of the three classes of society, the aristocracy, the middle class and the working class(which he called respectively Barbarians, Philistines and Populace) only the middle class could be saved by literature; John Ruskin fought against laissez-faire doctrines and against the dominance of the machine over man. He believed that a good art, in particular architecture, was the expression of the whole spirit of man and so it could improve the situation. He admired and advocated the beauty of the Gothic architecture.
(9.8) Victorian Literature
During the Victorian age, literature had penetrated into the big and various new middle class, that borrowed books from circulating libraries and also read a lot of periodicals. In this period had a great development the genre of the prose, with the novel that became the most popular form of entertainment of the bourgeois class. Women read more than men, because they have more time to spend at home, but to see their works published they had to use male pseudonym. The novel became realistic and analytical, social and humanitarian but also inquisitive and critical. The search for a thematic unit in the plot, after the precedent episodic structure, was brought in by Jane Austen, by Walter Scott and by the Gothic novelists. In the 1840s novels started to represent the social changes after the Industrial Revolution, the struggle for democracy and the great growth of towns. Victorian novelists were aware of the evils of their society, but their criticism was less radical than that of the other European writers. Didacticism was one of the most important features of these novels, because writers thought that literature could correct the vices and the weakness of their society. Another characteristic was the omniscient narrator, that commented the plot and distinguished bad from good. Retribution and punishment were always distributed in the last chapter, where all the events are explained and justified. The setting of most of these novels was the city, as the symbol of industrial society. Victorian writers created a lot of characters in 2 lines of development: analysis of character’s inner life or, like European Naturalism, a scientific look at human behaviour. The novels of this period can be divided into:
1. Social-problem novels: these novels dealt with the great social problems of the 1830s and 1840s. An example of these novels was Elizabeth Gaskell.
2. Novels of manners: it dealt with economic and social problems of one particular class or situation. An example was William Thackeray.
3. Humanitarian novels: could be divided in:
• Realistic
• Moral
• Fantastic
Some examples are the novels of Bronte sisters(linked to the Gothic tradition), and those of R.L. Stevenson(linked to a psychological vein).
4. Naturalistic novels: represented by the works of Thomas Hardy, that focused his attention on the isolation of the individual living in a world dominated by an indifferent fate, on rural passions and life, and by the works of George Eliot, that analysed the psychological and moral complexity of men.
Rudyard Kipling exalted British imperialism and justified the mission of civilisation as a task for the white men. The “nonsense” novel was created by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. Carroll, in his “Alice in wonderland”, creates a world where social rules and conventions were destroyed and time and space lose their function of give order in man’s life. Lear wrote a book of “Limericks”, five-lines poems with serious tone but absurd content.
Victorian poetry
Victorian poetry shifted from lyrical parts to narrative ones. It was closer to the fiction because used modern and realistic subjects. The tone of these poems was generally melancholic and sad, due to the loss of the old certainty and the contrast between old beliefs and present doubts.
(9.9) Moral and social criticism
Thomas B. Macaulay regarded the Industrial Revolution as the continuation of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and firmly believed that the 19th century was, in England, the most enlightened age in the history of mankind, due to the great prosperity and wealth of his country. With his “History of England” became the spokesman of the Liberal tradition of moderation and compromise.
Thomas Carlyle attacked Victorian hypocrisy and materialism and analysed the evils of industrialism and capitalism. In “Past and Present” commented the social situation and criticised positivist optimism and Utilitarianism. He also started a new method of writing history based on the psychological analysis of the great heroic leaders. He emphasised the power of great individuals sent by Providence and endowed with intuition and spirit of justice. These heroes love mankind and help men understand reality, even by the use of force. They can manifest themselves in every field of human activities.
John Ruskin wanted to create the awareness of the importance of artistic values in a civilised society. Artistic values have to be linked to moral values and great art depends from the way of life defined by seven principles: Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory and Obedience. He exalted Gothic style and fought against the degrading effects of the industrialism.
(9.16) Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Dickens’s plots are well planned and seem sometimes artificial and sentimental, but they were written in this way to conform to the public taste. London was the setting of most of his novels. In his firsts works the city is described only by the actions and words of the middle classes, chiefly in a comic way. Dickens gradually became aware of the material and spiritual corruption of the time, under the impact of industrialism, and he criticised more and more his society. In his mature works his attention was on public abuses, evils and wrongs of the industrial towns, mixing them to some amusing sketches. He was interested in describing characters habits and language, often of the lower classes of London; he was always on the part of poor people and working classes. In his works he created a lot of children, making them moral teachers and examples for the readers. Dickens’s task wasn’t to induce the lower classes to a rebellion, but to alleviate their sufferings with the help of all the other social classes. In his works he used a very effective language and accomplished powerful and graphic descriptions by a careful choice of adjectives, repetitions of words and structures, juxtaposition of images and ideas, hyperbolic and ironic remarks.
David Copperfield’s plot: is David’s narration in his maturity of the events and incidents of his life. David born in Blunderstone, with his mother Clara and nurse. When arrives his cruel stepfather, Mr. Murdstone, and his sister Jane, David is sent away to Salem House, a school. Here he’s tormented and brutalised by Mr. Creakle, the headmaster of the school. After his mother’s death, David is consigned to Murdstone and Grinby’s wine warehouse in London, where he works in terrible conditions of poverty and loneliness. He lives with Mr. Micawber, a man who is imprisoned for debts. David now decides to reach his aunt in Dover, that dismisses the Murdstones from their responsibility for him. David concludes his education and starts to work in London as a parliament reporter. Later he becomes a successful writer and marries Dora Spenlow. After her death, he marries Agnes Wickfield, his predestined wife and they live happily ever after.
David Copperfield themes: Dickens identified himself with David, also by speaking with the first person and using the same initials for his character. David is the narrator of his story, that is built as a fictional autobiography. David is always present and all the events and characters are revealed through his presence and consciousness. The characters of the novel are realistic and romantic; they are exaggerated and characterised by a particular psychological trait. The main themes of the novel are:
• The great importance given by the respectable Victorians to strict education.
• Cruelty to children who were exploited by adults.
• Bad living conditions of poor people.