victorian era - roby vincent arise robism
TRANSCRIPT
“THE SUN NEVER SETS ON
THE BRITISH EMPIRE” - Roby Vincent
The Victorian Period: 1833-1901ARISE ROBY
Queen Victoria’s Reign• 1837-1901• Booming economy• Rapid expansion• Growth of two classes
– Industrial working class– Modern middle class
• Imperialist Urge• Expansion of British
Empire
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Victorian England• Parent of the modern• Sense of social
responsibility• Common connotations:
– Prudish– Repressed– Old fashioned
• Considered second English Renaissance– Expansion of wealth,
power, and culture
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Modern Beginnings• Science and technology
– Invented the modern idea of invention• Religion
– Great age of doubt• Ideology, politics, and society
– Democracy, feminism, unionization of workers, socialism & other “modern” movements took form
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Social Responsibility• Victorians confident in
humanity’s ability to better itself
• Reformers had great faith that hard work could make all right
• Writers exposed problems of manufacturing economy
• Two key issues: trade policy & electoral reform
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Industrial Revolution• Textiles, railroads, steel• Changes in the making of
goods• Created profound
economic and social changes
• Migration to industrial towns
• Wages were low and hours long
• Stirred conflicting feelings
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Etiquette and Manners• Influences on public behavior
– Social background– Religious beliefs– Ethnic heritage– Geography– Profession– Wealth
• Victorian Videos:– Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLV-WQfc8VQ– How to buy a book:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WSrtNGQAmo– Manners: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM9rAH4JnlY
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Courting & Marriage• Dating was not free
and unregulated• Couples had to follow
strict rules in all aspects of their relationships
• Young ladies would use fans to communicate with gentlemen
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Victorian Women• “The Woman Question”• Industry created new
opportunities and challenges for women
• Recruited to work in factories
• Unable to vote until 1918• Chastity and innocence
imperative• Educated in social living
and decorum
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Victorian Literature• Poetry
– A large and diverse body of poetry– Tennyson, the Brownings, Kipling, Hardy
• Drama– At first playhouses few in number, but by end of
century, theater showed some sparkle– Oscar Wilde
• Fiction– Novels became popular– Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens
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Victorian Thinkers• Romanticism
– Vestige of Romantic Era
– Value in the individual– Romantic view of
nature– Optimism associated
with radical reform– Seeks to find the
Absolute and the Ideal by transcending the actual Tennyson
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Victorian Thinkers• Realism
– Reaction to romanticism
– Describes the common, the average, the everyday
– Writing centered on characters & common actions of middle-class society
– Finds values in the actual Rudyard Kipling
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Victorian Thinkers• Naturalism
– Basic assumption: everything real exists in nature
– Strives to be objective in the presentation of material
– Humans seen as victims of destiny or fate
– Humans driven by fundamental urges Thomas Hardy
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Victorian Thinkers• Aestheticism
– aka Anti-Realists– Art has no utility (“art
for art’s sake”)– Separation of art and
morality– The study of the
beautiful in nature, art, and literature
Oscar Wilde
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