1. An Era of Contradiction 1832-1900
The Victorian Era
An Era of Contradiction

2. How the Age was Named: Queen Victoria
took throne in 1837 (at 18)
Long reign, died in 1901 (at 82)
married her cousin, Prince Albert
when he died in 1861, she went into morning until her death

3. “… the head of our morality”
During the tumultuous time, The Queen ultimately came to represent:
England & Empire
Stability & Continuity
Duty, Family, & Propriety
A stern, conservative, durable symbol of her dynamic, aggressively businesslike realm.

4. Contradictions of the Era
An age of great achievement, deep faith, indisputable progress AND destruction, religious collapse, vicious profiteering
The “Good”
The “Bad”
Great wealth from industrialization
Brutal factory conditions
Rise of the middle class and urban living
Extreme poverty of the stinking slums
Britain – the Empire
Britain – the Tyrant
Prudishness and Decorum
Corruption and Sin
Great faith
Loss of faith

5. Industrial Revolution: The Light Side
Time of great invention
telegraph, telephone, sewing machine, steam engine, factory machines, printing press
Britain gained great wealth, and became the world leader in manufacturing
Factory towns
Middle class emerged as a result

6. The Crystal Palace
A “palace” of cast-iron and glass that epitomized the progress of the era
Hosted the Great Exhibition of 1851, where Britain showed off how amazing it was

7. Industrial Revolution: The Dark Side
Brutal factory conditions
Long work days, never less than 10 hours
Workers lived in slums
old decaying buildings with no sanitation, no water supply, old clothing, no law and order
Smog became an issue

8. 19th Century London
A darker view of the industrialization of England.

9. British Imperialism “the sun never sets on the British Empire”
Roughly 25% of the world’s population was British
Western “cultured” views imposed on unwilling people

10. Prudishness and Decorum
Stereotypically, “Victorian” social conduct is governed by:
Strict rules
Formal manners
Rigidly defined gender roles
Relations hampered by sexual prudery
Intense obsession with a public appearance of propriety (private facts were often the compete opposite!)
Euphamisms!

11. Great Faith vs. Loss of Faith
Charles Darwin
“natural selection”
theory of evolution that explains how species evolved over time
two schools of thought on this
those who tried to reconcile Darwin’s theory with religion
those who called Darwin a heretic and claimed his views went directly against The Bible

12. Reform and Revolutionary Fears
Every social sector fought for privileges and feared the unchecked rights of the others:
Campaigns to extend voting rights
Men
Middle class
Working class
Brought on fears of an armed insurrection
Feared class warfare
Arguments for and against trade unions
Women’s equality
Socialism
Separation of church and state

13. Literary Movements of the Victorian Age

14. Realism Realism shared the idea of the “ordinary man” with Romanticism
real people facing day-to-day problems
often used as reform literature

15. Naturalism Naturalism
shared the fascination with nature that the Romantics had
instead of nature mirroring human feelings and being a direct connection to God, however, nature was viewed as harsh and indifferent to the human suffering it caused

16. Themes of Poetry Themes psychology superficiality uncertainty
anonymity
loss of faith
loss of innocence
rejection of the social world
blindness to what is real (Plato’s cave)

17. The Poems “The Lady of Shallot” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
“My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria’s Lover”
Robert Browning
“Dover Beach”
Matthew Arnold
“Jabberwocky”
Lewis Carroll
“Sonnet 43”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“’No, Thank You, John’”
Christina Rossetti

18. THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CLASS
This is Ms. Grandchamp’s favorite literary era.
This is very important
You must remember it
It will be on the test
(seriously, don’t forget it)