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The Victorian Age
The Victorian Age
The Victorian Age
1837 - 1901
a complex era
characterized by:
- progress and social reforms
BUT , at the same time, by great problems such
as:
- poverty, injustice and social unrest.
progress
Industrial Revolution: expansion of industry
and trade
Colonisation: Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
India, Africa (1876 Queen Victoria became
Empress of India)
FREE TRADE: unrestrained trade (no rules, no
limits, no taxes on goods bought from foreign
countries = imports)
SOCIAL REFORMS
- 1832: first REFORM BILL
- 1867: second REFORM BILL
- 1884: third REFORM BILL
Philosophical tendencies
POSITIVISM (Herbert Spencer: 1820-1903)
faith in science and progress: from a
humanistic to a scientifically-oriented world
view.
superiority of science over humanities
(languages and literature)
UTILITARIANISM
Theorist: Jeremy Bentham
The greatest good for the greatest number of
people
What is useful is good!
Whatever promotes material happiness is
useful. Consequences: exploitation of human
and natural resources, uncontrolled
competition.
SCIENTIFIC THEORIES
CHARLES DARWIN (On the Origin of the
Species 1858)
Evolutionism shook moral and religious
certainties, it discarded the version of the
Creation given by the Bible.
CULTURE
THE VICTORIAN FAMILY:
It was the stronghold of Victorian society
Strictly patriarchal: the husband represented
the authority and respectability.
LITERARY PHASES
1 EARLY VICTORIAN PERIOD
--The authors are critical towards their age, but
they still identify themselves with it.
- Charles Dickens
- William Thackeray
- Alfred Tennyson
- Robert Browning