Introductory lecture Dr Milena Škobo I Victorian Age Introductory lecture Dr Milena Škobo

VICTORIAN ENGLAND Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901); 1837 1901 1830 - the end of the Romantic period in Britain

The Victorians prudish hypocritical stuffy narrow-minded deeply conservative morality Generalization? the rise of the “middle-class“ the concept of “gentleman“

THE BRITISH IMPERIAL POWER the world’s leading power colonialization of Africa, India, Asia the increased use of English language

THE BRITISH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Strenghtening of the British pound the British fleet – control Industrialization building of factories and railroad tracks

THE VICTORIAN SOCIETY The upper-class The middle-class The working-class well-developed bourgeois society Goal: the civilized lifestyle

FAMILY Patriarchal values Father Brother Woman’s roles

FACTORIES Prisons Children under ten its employees Children sold to companies Bad conditions for workers

THE UPPER-CLASS King Queen Aristocrats Nobles Dukes other wealthy families working in the Victorian cours luxurious lifestyle

THE MIDDLE CLASS Large in number the women started working outside their houses, accompanied by their children

THE WORKING-CLASS Large in number The worst conditions Immigration Children forced to beg and live on the street Criminality and prostitution

REACTIONS The Oxford Movement - John Henry Newman (1801-1890) – leader of the movement -- Tennyson and J. M. Hopkins (followers of the movement)

REACTIONS 2. Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881) 3. John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) 4. Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888)

THE PROMINENT LITERARY FIGURES: John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) philosopher, political economist and civil servant ESSAYS: „On Liberty” „ What is poetry?” „The Subjection of Women”, 1869

John Ruskin (1819-1900) - an essayist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist „Modern Painters”, 1842 „The Stones of Venice”, 1852 „ Unto His Last”, 1860

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) an English poet, theoretician and critic „Dover - Beach” Essays in Criticism Culture and Anarchy The Function of Criticism, 1865. The Study of Poetry , 1888.

William Morris (1834 – 1896) Useless Work and Useless Toil „Chance for Socialists” News from Nowhere Walter Pater (1839 – 1894) - History of the Reneissance - Appreciations

THE VICTORIAN AGE: THREE PHASES 1. phase: 1830 – 1848 Time of Troubles 2. phase: 1848 – 1870 The Age of Improvement 3. phase: 1870 – 1901 Decadence of Victorian values

BRITISH CHARACTERISTICS conservative and isolated island; the concept of „gentleman”, Protestantism Tabu (ateism, rigid moral standards in terms of sexual morality);

LITERATURE VICTORIAN SPIRIT ROMANTICISM Racionality Practicality Puritanism Concept of freedom Poetry - narrative Prose - poetic style Creativity Exotics Subjective sensitivity Worshipping of nature Celebration of originality

POETRY Alfred Tennyson Robert Browning Matthew Arnold ***dramatic monologue

NOVEL the most important style the realism the observation of individual problems social relations Pride and Prejudice of Jane Austen

THE NOTION OF “ENGLISH” AND “ENGLISHMAN” models for proper behavior An urge to “civilize”the colonized nations a set of standards and codes of conduct the idealized notion of what is “English”