1. Victorian Era
Describes things and events that happened during the reign of Queen Victoria ( )

2. "I turned half way around and saw Dorian Gray for the first time
"I turned half way around and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself” – Oscar Wilde

3. History: Timeline 1837-1901 Queen Victoria’s Reign
1848 Women began attending University of London
1843 William Wordsworth becomes poet laureate
1860 Florence Nightingale founds school for nurses
1861 United States: Civil War begins
1865 Lewis Carroll publishes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
1888 Jack the Ripper stalks London’s East End
1891 United States: Basketball is founded
1901 Queen Victoria dies and ends the Victorian era

4. What caused the movement
Disagreed on the crucial issues of the times
Shared a deep confidence in humanity’s ability to better itself
Industrial Revolution
stirred conflicting feelings among Victorian thinkers
Admired the material benefits industrialization had brought
Deplored brutality of factory life and industrial slums
Debate about business
allowed free reign
should the welfare of people and the government take a strong role in the economy
Theory of Evolution
proposed by Charles Darwin
stirred bitter controversy

5. Characteristics of the Time Period
Prudishness
Excessively modest in speech, conduct, and dress
Legs (gasp)
Old-fashioned
Having conservative behaviors, ways, ideas, or tastes of earlier times
Repression
The rejection from consciousness of painful or disagreeable ideas, memories, feelings, or impulses

6. Purpose of the movement
Produced diverse styles of literature
Entertaining, profound, scholarly, and humorous
Relevant to readers today
So close to modern times
Brilliant storytellers
Read for:
Literary appreciation
Historical understanding
Pure pleasure
Writers showed the horrible working conditions in the factory
Took steps to expand democracy
better the lives of the poor
Trade policy and Electoral reform
Dominated domestic politics during the first half of the Victorian era
Laws discouraged food imports
Kept food prices high
Angered lower classes

7. Queen Victoria Reigned for 64 years Born in London, England
Died on January 22, 1901
Cerebral hemorrhage
Reigned during British industrial progress, artistic successes, and political empire building
Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, died in 1861 from Typhoid
Affected her “psyche”
Went into seclusion for more than 25 years
Appeared during the Golden Jubilee of 1887:
her 50th year on the throne

8. Social Classes Starting to change Middle class growing Upper class
Simple heredity aristocracy
Changed to
Nobility and wealthy commercial class
Definition of “gentleman and lady” were changing
Working class
Slowly getting reform they wanted
Working conditions: Bad

9. Rise of Feminism
Women of the time were starting to become a power in society
No longer just confined to the home
Allowed to attend universities
Reduce the working day for women and children
Legalize trade unions

10. Male Reform Complete male suffrage Couldn’t vote if poor
Voters were tenant farmers and better paid male workers, before just for wealthy

11. Inventions Great engineers Created railways, trains, steamships
Built salt factory and sugar refinery
Built a lighthouse so ships wouldn’t crash along the rocks

12. Influential Writers of the time period
Appealed to people in the middle class
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
William Wordsworth
Matthew Arnold
George Eliot
Charles Dickens

13. Matthew Arnold
First Victorian poet to focus on “the bewildering confusion” of the Industrial age
The loss of individuals close ties to nature and with each other
Forerunner of the more pessimistic naturalist writers
Thomas Hardy ( )
A.E. Housman ( )
“Wondering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born…”

14. Madame Bovary 1856 Madame Bovary was first seen
1857 Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, was published
Author was taken to court on charges that he was endangering the morals of the very young
Book was banned
Attacked for obscenity, indecent, and banned on sexual grounds
Trial in January 1857 made story notorious
Important French novel
Signaled beginning of feminism

15. Movement of the Victorian Era
Mostly confined to Europe, specifically England and the United Kingdom
Interested in everything

16. Works Cited
(n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2010, from Abrams, L. (2001, August 09). Ideals of Womenhood in Victorian Britain. Retrieved October 22, 2010, from BBC: Landow, G. P. (2009, August 2). The Victorian Web. Retrieved November 2, 2010, from Victorian and Victorianism: Miller, I. (n.d.). Victoria's Pat. Retrieved November 2, 2010, from Collins, K. K. "Arnold, Matthew." World Book Advanced. World Book, Web. 5 Nov