The Victorian Age

1832-1901

The Light of the World 1854 by

William Holman Hunt
“The closed door was the
obstinately shut mind; the weeds
the cumber of daily neglect, the
accumulated hindrance of sloth;
the bat flitting about only in
darkness was a natural symbol of
ignorance…” Hunt
 Victorian Moods and Concerns

“The time for levity, insincerity, and idle

 Doubt
babble and play-acting, in all kinds, is
gone by; it is a serious, grave time.”
 Optimism Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

 Earnestness “The world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,
 Dichotomies So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
 Inequalities Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.”
“Dover Beach” Matthew Arnold
 Double Standards
Queen Victoria – Queen of United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland
1819-1901

 Acceded to the
throne at age
18(1837) and ruled
until death at 82
 63 years on throne
 Empress of India
(1877)
 The sun never sets
on the British
Empire
Queen Victoria's family 1846 by Franz Xaver Winterhalter left to right: Prince Alfred and the
Prince of Wales; the Queen and Prince Albert; Princesses Alice, Helena and Victoria
Queen Victoria
1899
“I mourn the safe and
motherly old middle-
class queen, who
held the nation
warm under the fold
of her big, hideous
Scotch-plaid shawl”
Henry James, on the
death of Queen
Victoria
 The Victorian Age
1832-1901
 Early Victorian (1832-1848)
Time of Trouble
 Mid-Victorian Period (1848-1870)
Economic Prosperity
 Late Victorian (1870-1901)
Time of Questionings
 Early Victorian (1832-1848)
Condition of England
1832 – Reform Bill:
 Extended vote to men who owned or
rented property worth £10 pounds or
more (about 18% of adult male
population)
 Included half of middle class, excluded
agricultural labourers and most industrial
workers, introduced word ‘male’ into
suffrage legislation for first time.
 The Condition of England
1834: Poor Law Amendment Act:
 No able-bodied person to receive money or
other help from Poor Law authorities except in
workhouse.
 Workhouses to be built in every parish
 Ratepayers to elect a Board of Guardians to
supervise workhouse, collect Poor Rate and
send reports to Central Poor Law Commission
 Conditions so harsh to discourage people from
seeking help
 The Workhouse
Stone -crushing
 Stones crushed by
pounding with a long
heavy bar of iron
about four feet long
(1.2 metres).
 The stones had to be
broken into small
enough pieces to pass
through the metal
grille in the window.
Oakum Picking

 Usually done by
children and the very
old
 The hands left
covered in blisters and
bleeding
 The Cry of the Children
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their
mothers---
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
The young birds are chirping in the nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west---
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!---
They are weeping in the playtime of the others
In the country of the free. …
 The Condition of Ireland – The Irish Question
 1845-52: the Great Famine (the Irish Potato Famine)
 One million people died from starvation and disease

A Scene by the Quay

Irish Poor Law and Immigration: Many entered
Workhouses to emigrate

Skibbereen 1847 by James Mahony

 Mid-Victorian Period 1848-1870

Economic Prosperity, Optimism, Stability

 Powershift from aristocracy to middle
classes
 Achievements of modern industry, science
 Creation of British Empire
 Expansion of empire moral responsibility
 Missionary societies flourished, e.g. in
Africa and India
Missionary work in India
 “Christianity
Commerce
Civilisation”
On Statue of David
Livingston 1813-1873,
Scottish Presbyterian
London Missionary Society
explorer in central Africa
The Crimean War 1853-1856
 Florence Nightingale 1820-1910
“The Lady with the Lamp” in the hospital at Scutari, Turkey
 The Woman’s Question
1857 Matrimonial Causes Act:
 Established secular divorce. Prior to this required act
of Parliament
 Court could order maintenance payment to divorced
or estranged wife
 Divorced wife could inherit or bequeath property,
enter contracts, sue or be sued, and protect her
earnings from a deserter
 Man could secure divorce on grounds of wife’s
adultery. For women, a husband’s adultery alone
was insufficient grounds – she had to prove
desertion, extreme cruelty, or incest.
 The Woman’s Question
1867: Second Reform Bill:
 Doubled electorate by extending vote to
almost all working men except agricultural
day-labourers
 Feminists’ amendment, presented by John
Stuart Mill, wanted to substitute ‘person’
for ‘man’ in description of eligible voters,
but overwhelmingly defeated.
 The Woman’s Question
1870: Married Women’s Property Act:
 Women to keep up to 200 pounds of earnings
 Inherit personal property and small amounts of
money
 Married women classed as ‘femmes covert’
personal property transferred to husband on
marriage
 Everything else (whether acquired before or after
marriage) belonged to husband
1884: Married Women’s Property Act:
 Women could keep all personal and real property
acquired before and during marriage
 Late Victorian 1870-1901
The Decay of Victorian Values
Cherry or the Gay Nineties
1906 by William Paxton
La Belle Époque
 Fin-de-siecle mood
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
“Wilde made dying Victorianism
laugh at itself, and it may be said
to have died from the laughter”
“One should always be in love. That
is the reason one should never
marry” A Woman of No
Importance
 The Picture of Dorian Gray 1890,
Salome 1891, The Importance of
Being Ernest 1895
 Aestheticism: superiority of art
to life
 Art should provide refined
sensuous pleasure rather than
moral or sentimental messages
 Key Ideas
 Utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham):
“The greatest happiness of the
greatest number is the foundation of
morals and legislation”, law judged
by their utility, their ability to
produce greatest good for greatest
number
 Thomas Malthus
Essay on the Principle of Population 1798
 Pessimistic, highly influential
views on population growth
 While population increases
geometrically, food supply only
increases arithmetically – only
way to avoid starvation and
suffering was through later
marriages, abstinence, or
contraception
 Against raising workers’ wages,
because they would only have
more children who would consume
more food
 Poverty and suffering of working
classes was inevitable aspect of
industrialization
John Stuart Mill 1806-1873
 Philosopher and political economist.
influential liberal thinker
 Eloquent advocate of individual
freedom, supporter of utilitarianism,
laissez-faire economics
 Society has obligation to correct
social injustices and redistribute
some wealth to assist the poor
 Believed in free, open exchange of
ideas
 Early advocate of women’s rights,
including educational opportunities
and right to vote

“Conservatives are not necessarily

stupid, but most stupid people are
conservatives”
 Charles Darwin & Darwinism
 English naturalist, rejected idea of
creationism, arguing animals
gradually evolved in response to
demands of environment
 Drawing on Malthus, argued there
was always a struggle for survival
within species for limited resources
 Genetic “variations” gave some
organisms better chance of survival
than others – characteristics are
passed on to offspring (natural
selection) – Over time, once
enough variation had occurred, new
species emerges
 Theories disturbed many,
suggested man just another animal
(not unique being), evolved from
primates, life simple about survival
rather than fulfilment of any higher
purpose
On the Origin of Species 1859
The Descent of Man 1871
 Social Darwinism
“Survival of the fittest”
 Philosopher, political theorist
 Applied Darwin’s ideas on
evolution of species to human
societies
 Stronger, more advanced
countries, races, individuals
thrive and endure while weaker
ones would not
 Result in better humanity (Social
Darwinism)
 Ideology used to justify
imperialist conquests of late 19th
century and neglect of poor at
home

Herbert Spencer 1820-1903

  Philosopher, political economist
Marxism – Karl Marx  “Workers of the world unite. You
have nothing to lose but your
1818-1883 chains”
 “Religion is the opium of the people”
 “In a higher phase of communist
society, after the enslaving
subordination of the individual to the
division of labor, and therewith also
the antithesis between mental and
physical labor, has vanished; after
labor has become not only a
means of life but life's prime
want; after the productive forces
have also increased with the all-
around development of the
individual, and all the springs of co-
operative wealth flow more
abundantly—only then can the
narrow horizon of bourgeois right be
crossed in its entirety and society
inscribe on its banners: From each
according to his ability, to each
according to his needs”
Communist Manifesto 1848
Das Kapital 1867
 Marxism
 History: series of struggles between “haves” and
“have-nots” – those who control “means of
production” (land/factories) and those who do not
 Society’s institutions designed to support interests of
dominant class (government, laws, religion,
education, philosophy)
 Drawing on Hegel, argued historical progress result of
conflict between opposing economic systems
(dialectical materialism). E.g: French Revolution =
victory of capitalism over feudalism
 Next conflict between bourgeoisie (capitalist factory
owners) and proletariat (factory workers), to result
in violent revolution establishing classless society
where all shared fruits of their labour
 The Victorian Woman
 “Angel in the House”
 Home: a sacred place, a vestal
temple
 Woman “enduring, incorruptibly
good, and instinctively wise”
(Ruskin)
 Madonna-whore complex
The Victorian Woman as Mother

The Children’s Holiday

1864 by William
Holman Hunt
The Victorian Woman as
“Temptress”

The Awakening Conscience 1853

by William H. Hunt
 Victorian Literature: The Victorian Novel

 “large loose baggy

monsters” Henry James
 Dickens: central
consciousness of the era
 Serial form, characterisation
 Caricature, poor female
characters
 Humour, grotesque,
macabre
 Social conditions,
benevolence, the poor,
children, the law, prisons,
wealth
“It was the worst of times, it
Charles Dickens 1812-1870 was the best of times …”
The Tale of Two Cities
Oliver Twist 1837-39, Hard
Times 1854, Great
Expectations 1860-61)
 The Brontë Sisters

Charlotte Brontë 1816-55 Emily Brontë 1818-1848 Anne Brontë 1820– 1849
Jane Eyre 1847: Wuthering Heights 1847 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
autobiographical - bildungsroman
 The Victorian Poets
 Alfred Lord Tennyson 1809-92: “The poet of the People”,
poet laureate after Wordsworth
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-61: influenced by
Wordsworth, Browning, Tennyson; influenced Emily
Dickinson, Virginia Woolf and Christina Rossetti.
 Christina Rossetti 1830-1894: Goblin Market (1862) =
moral allegory of temptation, indulgence, sacrifice,
redemption, with sexual undertones; critique of patriarchal
values and gender relations, beautiful and evocative poetry
 Matthew Arnold 1822-88:”Dover Beach” (1851),
reasonableness of temper and intellectual insight,
influenced T. S. Elliot
 Gerald Manley Hopkins 1844-1889: poetry of nature and
religion, “inscape” (design of individual identity) and
“instress” (recognition of specific distinctiveness of
individual identity), “The Windhover” 1877