The Victorian Age (1837-1901)

The Victorian Age

(1837-l901)

Historical Context

The Victorian age usually covers in literary histories a period of time longer than the actual reign pf Queen Victoria, stretchinf from 1832 (the year of the first Reform Bill) to 1902 (the end of the Boer War).

This is a period of expansion and prosperity, of industrial development and unceasing scientific and technological progress.

Ø  Queen Victoria

When King William IV died, he was succeeded by his niece Victoria. She became soon very popular because of her strong sense of duty and her simplicity.

The constitution under Queen Victoria did not differ from the one we know today.

Her inexperience facilitated the British two-party system. The reign was politically administered by a series of grat Prime Ministers: Peel and Disraeli among the Tories (Conservatives), Palmerston and Gladstone among the Whigs (Liberals).

In 1867 the Liberals proposed the Second Reform Bill, who passed under Conservative Government, which gave the right of vote to the town labourers, but left the agricultural labourers and miners still unfranchised.

Only in 1884, with the Third Reform Bill, the electorate was extended to all male workers.

Il 1892 the Indipendent Labour Party was founded and became in 1900 the Modern British Labour Party.

Ø  Industrialisation

The process of industrialisation, started in the eighteen century, reached the height.

Ø  Chartist Movement

The Chartist Movement started in 1837 and ended in 1848. It aim was to obtain full democratic participation of the working classes in politics. This group was composed by radicals and workers, who in 1839 presented to Parliament a document called 'People's Charter'; in six points it asked for:

universal suffrage

vote by ballot

annual Parliaments

payment of members of Parliament

abolition of the property qualification (that comported a partecipation in Parliament for the working class)

equal electoral districts

But the Charter failed and his objectives were taken again by the Reform Bill (1867) and by the Trade Union Act (1875), which finally sanctioned the legality and importance of the Trade Union Movement.

Ø  Corn Laws

The Corn-Laws were reason of discontent in workers and middle-classe people, because they fixed a too hight price for the foreign corn. In 1846 the Corn Laws are repealed and the consequences were:

the Whigs replaced Tories to power; infact the repeal caused much discontent inside Conservative Party, because it represented a victory of the industrial interests agianst the agricultural ones of the landowners.

reduction of the bread price;

application of new techniques in agricolture;

the discontent reduced and England wasn't upset by 1848 movements.

Ø  Free trade

A policy of free trade was adopted by the Prime Minister Peel, and it was supported bt industrial middle class. Because of the limited foreign competition, there was no need to impose tariffs to protect English manufacturers.

Ø  The British Empire

British colonisation of East and West Africa dates back to the 1880 and at the end of the century covered a quarter of the earth's landsurface and a third of its population.

the Boer War

The Boers were the descendants of Dutch farmers who has settled in South Africa. In 1899 their interests clashed with those of the British: the conflict ended two years later with victory for the British

In British Parliament there were two different conceptions about colonies' treatment:

those who didn't want to give any freedom for the colonies;

those who prefered to grant the colonies some degree of indipendence to preserve the Empire.

The second one prevailed and colonies began to converting them-selves into self-governing states.

England also tried to enlarge Indian territories, but this caused the Indian Mutiny (1856): the consequences were that India passed under British Government and East India Company was abolished. So, in 1877, Queen Victoria became Empress of India.

Social Context

Ø  Oxford Movement

Great Britain underwent a gradual process of democratization, know as Oxford Movement, composed by a group of Catholics who asked some reforms in favour of the Church of Rome.

Ø  Evangelicalism

It was a religious movement who contributed to the abolition of slavery and to the First Reform Bill. But they had also a puritanic view of life, so they advocated the abolition of some public entertrainments.

Ø  Urbanisation

England passed from an agricultural country to an industrial one. This caused a migration of rural people to the industrial areas in search of jobs. People in cities lived in intolerable situation, in bad sanitary condition that contributed to the diffusion of typhus and cholera.

Ø  the Utilitarianism and Liberalism

Whigs' government under Gladstone, was influenced by the politcal philosopher John Stuart Mill. He agreed to the basic principle of Utilitarianism (the pursuit of the gratest happiness for the greatest number of people), but he also accepted a balance between individual freedom and state intervention.

A series of Parlamentary Acts that contributed to a modernisation in services and institutions.

Liberalism was a politic philosophy that defended individual freedoom from any external intervention in industry or commerce, and the free trade.

Ø  Exploitation of workers

Workers lived in extreme poverty and had to work sometimes up to 14 or 16 hours. Also women and children were employed in harmful and at hight risk occupations. There were two nations: one of the poors and the other one of the rich.

Ø  Victorian society

aristocracy (landowners);

middle class

working class

This period marked the triumph of the industrial middle classes, with their confidence in progress, their belief in the theory of laissez-faire in economics and utilitarianism in philosophy, their generic philanthropism and sentimentalism, their conventional religious faith and their morality observant of exterior forms and conventions characterised by a prudery that often bordered on the ridiculous.

This is what has been called Victorian compromise, that is the utilitarian compromise of a large section of English society that saw industrial development only as a source of prosperity and progress, while it tended to ignore the many social conflicts and problems raised by it.

Ø  The values

Their values were respectability, good manners, hard work, probity, family, the unquestioned father's authority.  'Respectability' was the key word of Victorianism: manners and language became very sober, and word connected with sex was considered a taboo.

Queen Victoria proved a very prolific mother (nine children) and encouraged big families. In family the father was more authoritarian than before and the mother was submissive.

Ø  Women's conditions

Middle-class women had to adhere to a strict code: they had to do only respectable jobs, as teaching, writing or doing social activities, learning to play the piano, to dress very formal clothes also in privicy.

Ø  Reforms

Several bills tried to improve lower classes' conditions:

Factory Acts (they regulated child labour in factories);

Ten Hours' Act (which limited the working hours to ten a day for both the sex);

Mines Act (it regulated employement of children und ten and women);

Public Health Act (wich improved health conditions);

Education Act (it provited a system of state primary schools);

Parlamentary Reform (about introduction of the secret ballot);

Emancipation of all religious sects (by which Catholics were allowed to enter universities and work in government jobs);

Adoption of the famous English week (by which Saturday afternoon was devoted to pleasure and entertainment an Sunday deprived of all sorts of amusement).

Ø  Philosophical currents

Charles Darwin: In 1859 it was published his book On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. His theory of evolution says that man has a natural origin from apes and that world is regulated by the law of natural selection. So he denied that man is the result of God's creation.

Karl Marx: He based his theories observating British economy. He advocated a new social organisation and an equal distribution of wealth.

Arthur Schopenhauer: He was a pessimist who believed that God and soul's immortality are human illusions.

Auguste Compte: He is the founder of Positivism.

Cultural Context

Ø  The genres

The novel is the most widespread genre in that period and also the most apprecieted by middle-class. Books' diffusion was favourited by :

circulating libraries;

better ways of communication, which made it easier to bring reading material;

the invention of new printing machinery, which made this material cheaper.