1. A two-faced reality The Victorian Age Only connect ... New Directions
Performer - Culture & Literature
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2012
Only connect ... New Directions

2. An area of 4 million people more than
1. The British Empire
During the reign of Queen Victoria, Great Britain
ruled over a wide and powerful empire.
An area of 4 million people more than
400 million squares miles.
British Empire throughout the World,
19th century, Private Collection
Performer - Culture&Literature

3. Australia and New Zeland
1. The British Empire
1887 Golden Jubilee
1897 Diamond Jubilee
Blue countries already belonged to the UK
Orange new conquered lands
Boer war 1886
Hong-Kong
1841
Egypt
1882
Australia and New Zeland
1902
1877
Empress of India
1884
Sudan
1899
Burma
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4. 1. The British Empire After the 1857 Indian Mutiny
India came under direct rule
by Britain;
Queen Victoria was crowned
Empress of India in 1877.
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5. 1. The British Empire The British also occupied
Australia and New Zealand;
parts of China – including Hong Kong in 1841;
Burma in 1886;
Egypt in 1882;
Sudan in 1884;
South Africa in 1902, after the Boer War.
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6. 1. The British Empire The Victorians believed that
the ‘races’ of the world
were divided by physical
and intellectual differences;
some were destined to be
led by others;
it was an obligation imposed by God on the British
to impose their superior way of life, their institutions,
law and politics on native peoples.
Performer - Culture&Literature

7. 2. Rudyard Kipling: The White Man’s Burden
A poem written in 1899 to give advice to
the United States on the occasion of the
annexation of the Philippines
It contains the author’s famous phrase, ‘the white man’s burden’
The bard of the English Empire and came to symbolise the belief in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Performer - Culture&Literature

8. 2. Rudyard Kipling : The White Man’s Burden
‘Take up the White Man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captive’s need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild –
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.’
Speaking to an American, who recently colonised Philippines
Responsibility of coloniser: burden
Darwin’s theory
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9. 3. Charles Darwin and evolution
Charles Darwin published
On the Origin of Species.
Charles Darwin
His theory of natural selection discarded the version of creation given by the Bible, it seemed to show that the strongest survived and the weakest deserved to be defeated.
Stress on the godless element of chance involved in evolutionary
variation.
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10. 3. Charles Darwin and evolution
1871: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
Theory of 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 determine its extinction;
man evolved, like any other animal, from less highly organised forms, namely from a monkey.
Performer - Culture&Literature

11. 4. The Victorians and crime
The Victorians believed crime could be beaten
Prison acts (1865 and 1877).
Creation of new police forces.
Impact on small theft on the streets
Street robbery, called ‘garrotting’
There were occasional panics linked to particular appalling offences
The murders of Jack the Ripper (1888)
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12. 4. The Victorians and crime
Domestic violence rarely came before the courts: tolerated because committed in the private sphere.
publicising of such behaviour bad reputation to the family
The case of Jack The Ripper was the most famous case
of sexual violence.
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13. … 4. The Victorians and crime
Parliament responded to the problem with legislation which provided flogging as well as imprisonment for offenders.
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14. 4. The Victorians and crime
Violence, especially violence with a sexual connotation, sold newspapers.
The press created sensations out of minor incidents.
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15. 4. The Victorians and crime
The criminals
At the beginning of the century
criminal offenders individuals in the lower
reaches of the working class.
By the middle of the century
‘criminal classes’ social groups stuck at the
bottom of society.
Towards the end of the century
the criminal an individual suffering from some
form of behavioural abnormality that had been either inherited or encouraged by dissolute parents.
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16. 5. Aestheticism Developed in France with Théophile Gautier (1811–72)
It reflected:
the sense of frustration and uncertainty
of the artist;
his reaction against the materialism and
the restrictive moral code of the bourgeoisie;
his need to re-define the role of art;
the French artists withdrew from the political
and social scene;
‘escaped’ into aesthetic isolation.
Théophile Gautier
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17. 5. Aestheticism The bohemian’s protest against the monotony
and vulgarity of bourgeois life led to an unconventional existence, the pursue of sensations and excesses, and the cult of art and beauty.
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18. 5. Aestheticism Walter Pater (1839–94),
the theorist of the Aesthetic Movement in England,
rejected religious faith;
said that art was the only means to stop time;
thought life should be lived ‘as a work of art feeling all kinds of sensations’.
Aubrey Beardsley, front cover For ‘The YeIIow Book’, January ‘The YelIow Book’ was a eading Britìsh journal of the 1890s which was associated with Aestheticism and Decadence. The magazine contaìned a wide range of literary and artistic genres, poetry, short stories, essays, book illustrations, portraits, and
reproductions ofpaintings.
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19. 5. Aestheticism Art Eternal Art for art’s sake
No reference to life, morality
The task of the artist  to feel sensations, to be attentive to the ‘attractive’, the ‘gracious’.
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20. 5. Aestheticism
A number of features can be distinguished in the works of Aesthetic artists:
evocative use of the language of the senses;
excessive attention to the self;
hedonistic attitude;
perversity in subject matter;
disenchantment with contemporary society;
absence of any didactic aim.
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21. 6. The dandy Belonged to the upper classes  opposite to the bohemian.
Elegance as a reason of life and
‘life as a work of art’.
Interested in beauty and literary
works  opposite to the didacticism
of the Victorian writers of the first
half of the age.
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