appunti sull'epoca vittoriana, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica appunti sull'epoca vittoriana e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE VICTORIAN AGE (1837-1901) The historical context The Victorian Age, that is also called the “Age of Empire”, starts in 1837, with Queen Victoria, who was only 18 years old and for this reason, she was quite inexperienced. In this period there was a real constitutional monarchy, in which the Queen worked with the Parliament that was composed of the Tories, who were the conservatories and the Whigs, who were the Liberals. At the beginning of this period the main problems concerned the bad working conditions in factories, the high price of bread and the economic depression. As a consequence, this situation caused the working-class movements that began in 1838 with the Chartists, who were a group of radicals and workers. They presented to Parliament a document called the “People’s Charter” that had the aim to bring democracy to the country, but it was rejected and the movement disappeared. The conditions of the lower classes continued to be negative, as a matter of fact, in Ireland the failure of potato crop, on which poor people depended for survival, caused a terrible famine. The situation began to improve with the Liberal Prime Minister Gladstone, who introduced several reforms, such as: “The Mines Act” in 1842, to forbid the employment of children and women underground, the repeal of “the Corn Laws” in 1846 to reduce the price of bread and the “Factory Act” to limit the hours of work of children in textile factories. Another important positive aspect was that England wasn’t affected by the revolutionary movements that hit Europe in 1848. But, the most important international conflict in which Britain was involved was the “Crimean War” in 1854. Concerning the Irish situation, this country was affected especially by a political problem, as the Irish Roman Catholics wanted the same rights of the Irish Protestants, but this question continued until the end of Victoria’s reign. The British Empire was developing, but when a competition with the United States and Germany began, the economy made worse and in the last twenty-five years of the century, the House of Commons became the legislative power and it provided some social services for their citizens. In 1901, Queen Victoria died. The social context The Victorian Age was a period full of contradictions, because on one side there was the rich middle class helped by the technological progress, while on the other side there were the poor workers in bad conditions. The “Age of Empire” was important, as it was characterized by a great prosperity, richness and technological innovations that were shown in 1851, during the great exhibition that was an event organized by Queen Victoria. Concerning the society, there was a great discrepancy between the middle class that had the only aim to gain money and the working class who wanted to improve its conditions. This struggle brought to a disappearance of lords and aristocrats in the importance of the society in favour of the middle class. Through this conflict, the workers showed their discontent for the low salary and for this reason a compromise at political and social levels started to be evident: each time the population began to rebel, the parliament created a law to calm down the situation. The main parliamentary reforms were the Mines Act, the Corn Laws and the Factory Act. In this period, also the urbanization was important, as in the North, many cities, towns and factories were created. The houses were mainly built side by side and back to back, but the sanitary conditions were poor because of the spread of typhus and cholera. Another problem of the lower classes was the exploitation of workers, as the children and the women were forced to work for about 16 hours in textile mills and mines. This desperate situation of the working classes was criticized by the writers Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, in their novels. The situation of the workers improved in 1870, because the Trade Unions were accepted by the government and after the Reform Bill of 1884 that gave the vote to agricultural workers, a few Labour candidates could be elected on the Liberal lists. Finally, the result was the creation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 which became the Labour Party in 1906. Though even if there was a struggle between the working class and the middle class, socialism never really appeared in Britain. Several socialist organisations asked for many strong changes in the society, but the Fabian Society preferred the conferences and the discussions to violent changes. In 1880, the middle class was