Term 1, II English A Lecturer Dr.

Daniela Davidescu Brown

COURSE ON VICTORIANISM UNITS 1- 2 GENERAL PRESENTATION OF 19TH C. BRITAIN

A. Introductory notes 1. Any cultural period suffers distortion from a generalised indictment (accusation) however speciously formulated. (Jerome Hamilton Buckley)

So, Victorianism makes no exception. No matter how many studies have been written by who knows how many specialists, half true, half idealised perspectives on the 19th c. cultural period in Great Britain mingle in various degrees.

2. The aim of this course: An attempt to offer you a general themathic presntation of a complex controversial period of British culture which is mainly associated with the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901)

a./ The course is not meant to go into deep analysis of a particular literary text ( the seminar will) b./ The course will try to explain the British literary phenomena within the larger context of British culture:
2Dealing with influences from previous periods, dealing with socio historical events, religious fragmetations, philosophical doctrines and artistic style.

c./ Examples from the painting, architecture and photography will be provided for the literary event to be better understood as a part of a whole range of thoughts and occurrences contained within Victorianism . B. Social cultural context of the 19th c Britain a./ The influence of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). 1876- Empress of India. She brought to the British monarchy such 19th-century ideals as:
A devoted family life ,the idea of honesty, public and private respectability,obedience to the law ,Christian morality that put a stress on the virtues of family responsibility and happiness.In 1813 she married Prince Albert .He was the patron of the arts. In 1851 he patronized the Great Exibihion.

b./ Britain, the leader of the world (Afghanistan, Tibet, India, HongKong, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africaafter the 1890s). Between the 1830s and 1880s, the British were selfconfident in their economic and international political powers, but in the 1850s, their illusion of peace and confidence was broken by: the Indian Mutiny (1857-9) the Crimean War (1853-6) (the British and the French helped the Ottoman Turks fight against Russia.)

c./ The industrial revolution: environmental and technological changes, the success of the middle class: the invention of the telegraph In 1837 by American F. B. Morse and in Britain by the British physicist Sir Charles Wheatstone and engineer Sir William F. Cooke.1 generalisation of steam power, (James Watt started it in 1769)
4photography,the rotary printing press,the first railway system in the world and the electric bulb, THE VACUUM CLEANER

1"Telegraph," Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2000. 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

d./ The rise of the middle-class and of the working class. The factory system and vigorous capitalism offered these newly risen classes a few small domestic comforts and cheaper mass products which mimicked the artistically made objects of the aristocracy.

e./ The free market was based by the doctrine of laissez-faire which gave complete freedom to capitalistic enterprise (minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individual and society. The British economist John Stuart Mill was responsible for bringing this philosophy into popular economic usage in his Principles of Political Economy 1848)2

f./ England, the stage of cultural debate serialised novels scientific and religious debates mass literacy modernisation of education wide circulation of newspapers and magazines: the Edinburgh Review, Westminster Review, the Cornhill Magazine g./ Religious fragmentation and Charles Darwins Origin of Species (1859)
2

Encyclopedia Britannica 2000 CD-Rom

1.Thou shalt have one God only; who Would be at the expense of two? 2.No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency; 3.Swear not at all; for for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse; 4.At church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend: 5.Honour thy parents; that is, all From whom advancement may befall: 6.Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive Officiously to keep alive: 7.Do not adultery commit; Advantage rarely comes of it: h./ The utilitarian doctrine: Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and John Suart Mill Adam Smith was the 1st to assume that progress is linked to national wealth- 1776 treatise, The Wealth of Nations.
5Jeremy Benthans 1789 introduction to the principles of moral and legislators develops the prin. Which bring about individual contentment due to social checks and balancies. They allow for a system to limit its power by the presence of various types of power: The Executive Power -Government,the Judicaiary power Parlament.An action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness.It is possible for the right thing to be done for the wrong motive.The Utilitarian Doctorine refers to the Capital Endevour to convince business as a progress business- civilization.

John Stuart Mill: 1844Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, essays on the influence of consumption on production, the definition of productive and unproductive labour, and the precise relations between profits and wages.

i./ Reform Bills and Acts the Reform Act of 1832 enfranchised all male owners of property worth between 10 to 50 pounds in annual rent the Education Act by 1870- generalised literacy the Factory Acts-1833-1878 eliminated child labour and overworking Public Health Acts-1871-1875-some medical assistance to the poor)

j./ Social unrest (the Chartist Movement -1836-1854)

C. The undermining consequences of progress Urban crowds living in filthy slums. Polluted waters, smog. Professional diseases (of miners, chimney sweepers). Human misery. Family- an agent of oppression, especially for women The decay of religious belief and the obsession of scientific materialism Exploitation of children and women Advantageous laws for the rich in the detriment of the poor Unemployment and social pressure of the working class In the world of the novel, the serialised strategies made novels lack a coherent structure, plot and convincing characters

D. The Victorian literary world inherits previous artistic elements (see VIII), mirrors and is mirrored by whatever happened in the 19 th c.

I. Focus on town life and social classes in the novel (Charles Dickens in Hard Times, Our Mutual Friend, William M. Thakeray in Vanity fair, Anthony Trollope in Barchester Chronicles, Elizabeth Gaskell in Mary Barton, A Tale of Manchester Life- 1848 and in North and South- 1855) II. Poetry weaker then the novel III. Darwinian perspective in social life ( the idea developed by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species according to which the fittest will survive) and utilitarianism IV.
6False puritanism and examples are Arthur Cloughs poem the Latest Decalogue and Jan e Eyre.

V. Revival of a deep religious feeling (the poetry and creed of G. M. Hopkins) VI. The nostalgia for the pastoral setting seen as a Paradise Lost (Thomas Hardys Tess, George Eliots Mill on the Floss, Matthew Arnold looks back to a harmony with nature in his poem In Harmony with Nature, Hopkins finds the innocence and the sacredness of nature through religious faith and illumination.) VII. a./ The industrial revolution, scientific discoveries and access to technology worried the Victorian writer who felt that his contemporaries bore the miserable sometimes dangerous consequences of a new era or made him depict prophetic triumphs of the future (immediate gloomy realities of technology are described by Dickens or science fictional

perspectives of a dark technological future are represented by Louis Stevenson- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), or George Herbert Wells- The Time Machine (1985), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds 1898) VIII. The writers ironical attitude to the Victorians self-confidence and authority (Oscar Wildes Importance of Being Earnest, Bernard Shaws plays) IX. Neo-classical and Romantic features :
Neo-classical -the stress on reason and duty -society seen as a perfectible mechanism - the individual is responsible for the part he plays in society - the picaresque structure of the novel (Great Expectations, Jane Eyre) Romantic -7 -the past revisited(Medieval and Renaissance themes) -the stress on the irationall and feelings -the oresence of outsiders(outcasts,handicapped,thieves) -society seen as corrupted and the source of all evil -focus upon the individual as a unique being