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

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

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

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

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

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

8. FAMILY
Patriarchal values
Father
Brother
Woman’s roles

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

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

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

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

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

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

18. 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

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

20. 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.

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

22. 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

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

24. 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

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

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

27. 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”