Scarica The Victorian Age- L'età vittoriana e più Schemi e mappe concettuali in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE VICTORIAN AGE The VICTORIAN AGE was an era full of CONTRADICTION arising from the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION of that period which bought both positive aspects, like the economic growth of England, and negative aspects involved the colonies (exploited for raw materials) and a new social class that was created in those years, the WORKING CLASS that was widely exploited and this situation became the raw materials of some writers, like Dickens, who took a CRITICAL ATTITUDE TOWARD THE SITUATION. Thus was created one of the literary currents of this era: the REALISM. Parallel to the industrial revolution, in almost all of Europe there were uprising of the working class because they wanted more rights, but to avoid this, the British government introduced social reforms: REFORM BILL: the right to vote was extended to the middle class; SECOND REFORM BILL: the Chartists asked with the People’s Charter that the right to vote be extended to the working class and so it was. Only rural workers were excluded; THIRD REFORM BILL: the right to vote was extended to all workers; MINES ACT: abolished the exploitation of children and women in mines or factory; EMANTIPATION OF RELIGIOUS SECTS: Catholics could enter in universities and could hold public offices; TRADE UNION ACT: trade union for workers were legalized; POOR ACT: were established workhouses that welcomed poor people. There were also some innovation in the economy with FREE TRADE and the GREAT INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF LONDON was opened by QUEEN VICTORIA to demonstrate the economic power of the Nation. The TRIUMPH OF INDUSTRY and the development of the locomotive allowed the construction of railways and the SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH deepened the studies of ELECTRICITY that led to the telegraph and there was gas lighting in the cities. THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE This is an important aspect of the patriarchal Victorian society, characterized by some episodes of female emancipation. The Victorian compromise consisted in hiding the negative aspects of society with prude, with a veil of respectability (strict moral value: hard work, religion ecc...) and false optimism. This created an hypocritical society. From here came the UTILITARIAN PHYLOSOPHY, whose philosophers argued that happiness came from the possession of material goods. THE EARLY VICTORIAN NOVEL In the first part there is the Mild Realism, a literary trend of the 19th century where the reality is filtered through the imaginative power of the writer. This movement has realistic description of society/social issues. The Early Victorian Novel we have: 1. SOCIAL NOVEL: the most writer is Charles Dickens and there is the analysis of social injustices. 2. SENTIMENTAL NOVEL: the most writer is Charlotte Brontё and there is the analysis of human feeling, passions, love, influence of Gothic Novel (mistery, horror). The main features of Early Victorian Novel are:
