The Victorian Era

Queen Victoria

• Became queen at the age of 18
• Known for her poise and elegance
• Restored the public’s good opinion of the monarchy after a run of ineffectual leaders
• In 1840 Victoria married a German prince, Albert, who became Prince-consort
• After his death in 1861, she wore black every day for the rest of her life

Victorian Era 1820-1914

• Queen Victoria's reign 1837-1901
• Class-based society
• Rise of the vote
• Economic and state growth; industrialization
• Britain's Global Empire
• 3/4 of people were working class
• Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)

Victorian Stereotype

• Prudish
• Lack of knowledge of bodies & childbirth
• Men were sexual not women
• Reality: prostitution,venereal disease, sexual women

Gender in Victorian Society

• Hierarchical society based on gender & class
• "Doctrine of separate spheres" = not always the reality for working class families
• Gender stereotypes
• Men = public vs. Women = private

Class in Victorian Society

• Economic & cultural: income, occupation, education, family, sexual behavior, politics, leisure
• Working class = 70-80%
• Middle class = 15-25% (moral leaders w/some political influence)
• Upper class= titles, wealth, land (controlled politics)

Religion in Victorian Society

• Christian dominance
• Anglican Church of England, Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), non-Anglican Protestants (Methodists)
• Appreciated developments in science
• Theory of Evolution
• Eugenics
• Psychology & Physics

Government & Politics

• Constitutional monarchy = aristocrats
• House of Lords & House of Commons (representative govt)
• Liberal Party & Conservative (Tory) Party
• Only property owners could vote until 1884
• Women over 30 got the right to vote 1918
• Full suffrage 1928
• People made known their concerns via demonstrations, petitions, pamphlets

Important Political Events

• Abolition of slavery
• Working-class activism
• Rise of liberalism
• Workers' Rights
• Public Health Acts
• Elementary Education by the state
• Rise of Irish nationalism
• Women's Rights (property, disease, growth of education and employment options)

Dominance of British Empire

• Move of people and goods
• Colonialism
• Military service, missionary work, infrastructure
• Flow of money/profit
• Migration to India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa
• Railways & Telegraphy

British Economy

• Growth of wealth & despair
• Rise of standard of living
• Rise of pleasure economy
• Department stores
• Higher wages
• "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." -Charles Dickens

Victorian Culture & Art

• Britain cultural capital of English-speaking world
• Thriving theater: melodrama, sensation drama
• Music halls: birth of vaudeville
• Rise of print culture: magazines, newspapers, "new journalism" (crimes & scandals)
• Novels

The Rise of the Novel

• for all people, penny dreadfuls, sensation novels, long & complicated tales, serialized stories
• Charles Dickens: plight of the poor
• William Thackery (satire & middle class)
• The Bronte Sisters (gothic themes)
• George Eliot (social complexities of small town life)

Victorian Worldview

• Clash of Enlightenment & Romanticism
• Optimism of Enlightenment vs. Pessimism
• Emotion of Romanticism vs. Sentimentality
• Continued interest in classical myth, medieval legend, nature
• Concern with social problems & reform
• Gothic, supernatural, fantastic literature

Pluralism: Overlap of Worldviews

• Age of Reason: individualism and politics
• Romanticism: environmentalism and self-absorption
• Our age of Pluralism: Is there such thing as objective Truth?

Romans 12:1-2

• Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

1 Corinthians 1:19

• For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Natural Selection

• Charles Darwin: Origin of the Species: Idea of "progress" by natural selection; challenged Romanticists view of nature
• Rise of free-market capitalism
• Marx: class conflict, dream of classless society
• Eugenics & Fascism
• Survival of the fittest

2 Timothy 4:2-4

• Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Existentialism

• Human alienation & separation
• Powerlessness
• Personal choices
• Life has no meaning
• No purpose, no truths, no moral absolutes,
• Hopelessness, loneliness, anxiety, lack of direction

Materialism

• Freud: self is a monster that must be tamed
• Conflict & violence
• Nature is not a source of moral virtue
• Only the physical is real
• Humans are animals
• Bleakness of life without the spiritual in authors

Lord Alfred Tennyson: 1809-1892

• Despair vs. hope
• Future goals & faith vs. mortality and decline, extinction
• Contradictory emotions
• Melancholy & anxiety about our place in the universe
• Hated school; death of friend
• Became poet laureate

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

• Wealthy upbringing
• Rise of female writers
• Independence & courage of views
• Social injustice: slavery, child labor, oppression of women
• Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
• Self taught linguist

"The Cry of the Children"

• Problem of child labor
• Factory work
• Children long to be taken before their time
• They ask if God can hear them, since people ignore their cries
• Symbolism of the lamb
• Addressing social problems

Robert Browning 1812-1889

• Dramatic monologue = like detective fiction
• Character delivers a speech that reflects history, personality, and motives
• Reader receives part of the story, but to get the whole story the reader must fill in the blanks

I Thessalonians 4:13-14

• Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-5

• The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:“Meaningless! Meaningless!”says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go,but the earth remains forever.The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

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