1. The Victorian Age

2. Historical Context
England => world’s wealthiest nation, most influential colonial power
Large scale attempts to solve the problems of the industrial and democratic revolutions of Romantic Age
First Reform Bill of 1832 => rise of middle class in English politics
Progress, Prosperity, Problems (and Reform)

3. The Crystal Palace, 1851.

4. Victorian Attitudes Earnestness, Self-Satisfaction, Anxiety
Middle Class progressivism / conservatism
Evangelicalism
John Wesley
Puritanical moral code, Sabbatarians
Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham
Progressive- reason and science
“future shock”- psychological distress due to rapid social or technological change

5. New Ideas and Intellectual Controversy
1830: Sir Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology
1859: Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species
1867: Karl Marx’s Das Kapital

6. Ophelia, John Everett Millais, 1852.

7. The Lady of Shalott, John William Waterhouse, 1888