The Victorian Age: main questions and facts, Sintesi del corso di Inglese

Scarica The Victorian Age: main questions and facts e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE VICTORIAN AGE 1)​ Say what you know about Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria’s reign was the longest in the history of England. She became Queen at the age of eighteen in 1837. She ruled for 64 years till she died in 1901. Victoria married Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840. They had nine children and their family life provided a model of respectability. In 1857 Victoria gave Albert the title of Prince Consort, in recognition of his importance to the country. Albert will suddenly die in 1861 at the age of 42. 2) ​Why did the nation identify with the Queen? She provided her country with political stability, thanks to her sense of duty. Her strict code of behaviour and her way of life made her beloved, especially by the middle classes, who shared her moral and religious views and also respected strict cultural norms that were created, in order to achieve stability and order in daily lives. 3)​ What were the first years of Victoria’s reign like? It was a period of changes that had a great impact on society: material and technological progress, imperial expansion and also political developments and social reforms. 4) ​What were the main political parties during her reign? During her reign, the two main political parties alternated in government were the Conservatives and the Liberals (ex-Whigs). The last one promoted a campaign for free trade and repealed the Corn Laws, which were a strong protectionist policy. 5) ​Why is the Victorian Era an age of reforms? The Victorian age has often been called 'The Age of Reform' and much of the legislation that passed through Parliament at the time, successful or unsuccessful, was aimed at reform. Both the working class and the middle class demanded what they regarded as fundamental changes. Their discontents fused in the demand for Parliamentary Reform: ● 1832=THE FIRST REFORM ACT: voting privileges extended to the large industrial towns ● 1833=THE FACTORY ACT: prevented children from being employed more than 48 hours a week ● 1834=THE POOR LAW AMENDMENT ACT: workhouses became a deterrent (the government used Workhouses as an intimidating pretext to avoid the laziness of the poorest) against poverty ● 1846=ABOLITION OF THE CORN LAWS ● 1847=TEN HOURS ACT: limited working hours to ten a day for all labourers ● 1867=THE SECOND REFORM ACT: voting privileges extended to part of the urban male workers ● 1872=BALLOT ACT: introduction of the secret ballot 6) ​Say what you know about the British Empire. During foreign policy, England fought several wars to protect its trade. During the 2 Opium Wars (1839-42), Britain gained access to five Chinese ports and the control of Hong Kong. Britain was also involved on the side of Turkey in the Crimean War (1853-56), and then during Indian War the indian soldiers mutinied against Britain in 1857. But after that India came under direct rule by Britain and Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India in 1877. Through Queen Victoria’s reign, the British Empire expanded with some significant addictions: ● Western Canada, Australia and New Zealand ● parts of China – including Hong Kong in 1841 ● Burma in 1886 ● Egypt in 1882 ● Sudan in 1884 ● South Africa in 1902, after the Boer War Many people believed in “The great chain of being” that explained the importance between one thing to another. The Chain put God in the first place because was the most important and at the third place the humankind, after angels because was less relevant. The Chain organized also the importance of the humans. When english people drew the Chain, they were at the top and the other races were under them, like africans, asians,... British people believed that someone was destined to be led by others, that’s was a very racist idea. It was an obligation imposed by God on the British to impose their superior way of life, their institutions, law and politics on native peoples. 7) ​What made all the achievements of this era possible? The British Empire lasted thanks to the consistency of having just one ruler in charge for such a long time, while others states were changing more than one ruler after a short time. Whereas Queen Victoria granted constitutions, that made the ideal of a constitutional monarchy, in the almost rest of Europe there was still absolutism, that caused a lot of revolutions which spread all over Europe in 1848. The merits of these achievements belonged also the her neutrality in politics, avoiding contrasts between the two main political parties and providing stability. 8) ​What do you know about Chartism? In 1838 a group of working-class radicals drew up the “People’s Charter”. It was a political reform movement that demanded social reforms and the extension of the right to vote to all male adults. The House of Commons refused to provide reforms and the Chartist movement failed. DEMANDS: ● universal male suffrage ● equal electoral districts ● voting by secret ballot ● pay for Members of Parliament ● annual elections of Parliament 9) ​What were the Corn Laws? They were a series of laws which kept corn prices at a high level. This measure was intended to protect English farmers from cheap foreign imports of grain, that meant to protect the landed interests. 10)​ What do you know about the Great Exhibition? (1851) The Great Exhibition represented the symbol of Britain’s leading industrial and economic position in the world. In this exhibition, all the goods from the different countries of the Empire and over Britain were exhibited. It was housed in the Crystal Palace, built by Joseph Paxton in Hyde Park (London). The Great Exhibition was the first exhibition of this kind. For this reason, it attracted huge crowds and all the profits were used for the establishment of new museums (Science Museum, Natural Story Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum). 11) ​What was life like in a Victorian town? During the first years of Queen Victoria’s reign, Britain lived an extraordinary industrial development (thanks to the Industrial Revolution). However, this fact led most of the people to move into towns, creating, by the middle of 19th century, an overcrowded urban environment. This represented the major problem of Victorian politics. For example, for the majority of the poor in Victorian cities, was overcrowded and squalid; they lived in slum districts, where there were a lot of diseases and crimes, a high mortality rate and terrible working conditions in polluted atmosphere, which affected people’s health. (Common Lodging House Act & Labouring Classes Lodging Houses Act, in 1851). Fortunately, there were also some significant changes, even if they were slow and gradual: - The first terraced houses were built, near slum districts and grand public buildings - In the medical field, professional organisations were founded to control medical education and research + modern hospitals were built - Introduction of other services, such as: water, gas, lighting, paved roads, places of entertainment (music halls, parks, stadiums), shops, prisons and police stations. - Metropolitan Police, a modern police force established by Prime Minister Robert Peel in 1829-30, in order to keep cities under control of law and order. 12) ​What do we mean by the Victorian Compromise? When we relate the term “compromise” to the Victorian Age it means “contradiction”. As a matter of fact, it was a contradictory era. On one hand, it was the age of progress, stability and great social reforms, on the other hand, it was characterised by poverty, diseases, injustice, faced by the working classes, and social unrest. For this reason, the Victorians, great moralisers, promoted a Code of Values, in order to find solutions or escapes from the large number of problems they had to deal with. It was refined by the upper and middle classes, which had political and economic powers, and it reflected an imaginary world, as they wanted it to be. It was based on 4 main important notions: 19)​Why Dickens criticize education? Charles Dickens took an intense interest in education and particularly in those charities and institutions that provided for pauper children. For Dickens, education had the potential to rescue working-class children from the ravages(devastazioni) of industrialisation.Charles Dickens believed in universal education. He objected to church intervention in education and objected also to certain education methods. The novel “Hard Times” reveals Dickens disapproval of the utilitarian education system, which involves teaching children nothing but facts.the educational system was influenced by Industrialization. Dickens uses Mr. Gradgrind a as examples of character who teach children only facts.Dickens further criticizes the utilitarian education system by using some techniques, as metaphor and repetition to emphasize that this is system base on facts and nothing is going to change. Dickens also uses sarcasm and exaggeration to show how this limits the children’s creativity and thus their quality of life. Dickens formed his opinions on education through his frequent forays(incursioni) into working-class neighbourhoods, visiting schools and exploring the forms of educational provision for local paupers(poveri). 20)​What was his didactive aim? Charles Dickens was the main representative of social and humanitarian novels. Dickens felt he had a moral and social responsibility: his aim was reflecting the social changes that had been in progress for a long time , such as the Industrial Revolution. he depicted society as he saw it. He denounced the evils of his society and his criticism was aimed at making aware of social injustices. 21)​Say what you know about British Empire​: When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1937 the empire of England was composed by: North America, South Africa,India and Australia. During her reign the Empire was extended significantly. In 1901 the territory of America included also West Canada; were established new colonies in Africa and the reign obtained new islands in Pacific Ocean like New Zelanda. 22)​R.L Stevenson’s biography: He was born in Edinburgh in 1850. He sent most of his childhood in bed, nevertheless he was fortunate in having a nurse Allison Cunningham, who read him religious and ghost story that stimulate his immagination. He was terrified of dark and tutored at home under the influence of his family’s Calvinism. In his adolescence his travelled a lot, he lived in the south of England, Germany, France and also in Italy. He took up engineer at university, following his father’s footsteps, who was a lighthouse engineers, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about it.He was in conflict with his social environment, the respect world of victorians. He grew his hair long, his manner were eccentric and became one of the first example of “Bohemia” in England, he rejected his family and their love for respectability. He graduated in law in 1875 and decide to devote his self to writing. He married an American woman and since his health was deteriorating, because he had tuberculosis , they moved to Australia and then to Tahiti. He died in 1894 for a brain hemorrhage, while he was talking to his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine. He was a popular novelist and his most important novels are: ● Treasure Island (1883) ● The strange case of dr Jekyll and mr Hyde(1886) ● The master of Ballantrae. 23)​The strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde: The story came to Stevenson in a dream in 1885. He wrote the entire novella in a few days. It sold more than 40000 copies in the first 6 months. this novel is a gothic horror fiction; means a concentration on death and irrational. The characters use mysterious tones. this novel also comments victorian morality, that means analysed its contradiction such as sex, poverty and crime. the novel also include an idea of evolution, especially Mr.hyde. ● setting​: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde takes place in London sometime in the 1800s. The Victorian Era, explosion of science and technology, and epic class disparity was the perfect setting for a story that, is an exploration of the duality of human nature.At the time London was a dark place, were a series of gruesome crimes had taken place, although it was the largest city and richest in the entire world, it contained extremes of wealth and poverty, it was almost as if there was a dividing line, as if was London two different worlds in one city. One side was wealthy and the residents were well mannered, the other side was dirty and mucky, Stevenson used this to help us understand the idea of one person with two identities. ● characters: 1. Mr. Utterson: The narrator of the book, Utterson is a middle-aged lawyer, and a man in which all the characters confide throughout the novel. As an old friend of Jekyll, he recognizes the changes and strange occurrences of Jekyll and Hyde, and resolves to further investigate the relationship between the two men. He is perhaps the most respected and rational character in the book. 2. Richard Enfield: Mr. Utterson's cousin, a younger man who is assumed to be slightly more wild than his respectable and sedate relative. While initially it is assumed that Enfield will play a large role in this novel as it is he who is witnesses Hyde's initial crime, Enfield only appears in two scenes. In both, he walks past Hyde's mysterious door with Mr. Utterson. 3. Dr. Henry Jekyl: he is a well-known London physician who was born into a wealthy family. He is a large man, fifty years old, with a smooth face with something of a sly cast to it. His primary personality characteristic is that although he appears grave and serious in public.Jekyll says that he is no more himself when he labors in the light of day at the furtherance(perseguimento) of knowledge and the relief of suffering than he is at night when he lays aside restraint and plunges into what he calls shameful( vergogno) behavior. Realizing that, like himself, all human beings are dual in nature, he seeks a chemical method of separating these dual personalities. 4. Edward Hyde: Dr. Jekyll’s evil side.Hyde gives a strong feeling of deformity, no one can specify the point of deformity. Although characters describing Hyde say that they can see him in their mind’s eye, they cannot find the words to account for his appearance.Hyde is the one person in the world who is pure evil. Dr. Jekyll begins to turn into Hyde even without the chemical he has created; moreover, he finds it more difficult to return to being Dr. Jekyll again. ● The plot​: is quite simple: the protagonists is a man, who is divided in 2 characters: 1. The first is the respectable dr Jekyll 2. The second is an evil genius : Mr Hyde. 3. These 2 are in a perpetual struggled.Once Hyde is released from hiding, he achieves domination over Jekyll, so the individual had only 2 choices: A. The man may choose a life of crime and depravity B. Jekyll must eliminate Hyde in the only way left—>killing himself. At the end Jekyll decide to suicide with a poison. The ​moral is that man’s salvation is based on the annihilation of one part of his nature, if he lives in a civilised society. 24)​How did Stevenson use the theme of the double? The latter, the deformed and repulsive Mr Hyde, slowly manages to prevail over the former and commits several wicked and criminal deeds. The novel represents the eternal struggle between good and evil, which, this time, live together in the same person: Jekyll and Hyde are the symbol of a double personality. 25)​Summarize what happens in the text : “the story of the door” Mr.Utterson nurtures a close friendship with Mr. Enfield, his distant relative and likewise a respectable London gentleman. The two seem to have little in common, and when they take their weekly walk together they often go for quite a distance without saying anything to one another; nevertheless, they look forward to these strolls as one of the high points of the week. As the story begins, Utterson and Enfield are taking their regular Sunday stroll and walking down a particularly prosperous-looking street. They come upon a neglected building, which seems out of place in the neighborhood, and Enfield relates a story in connection with it. Enfield was walking in the same neighborhood late one night, when he witnessed a shrunken, misshapen man crash into and trample a young girl. He collared the man before he could get away, and then brought him back to the girl, around whom an angry crowd had gathered. The captured man appeared so overwhelmingly ugly that the crowd immediately despised him. United, the crowd threatened to ruin the ugly man’s good name unless he did something to make amends; the man, seeing himself trapped, bought them off with one hundred pounds, which he obtained upon entering the neglected building through its only door. Strangely enough, the check bore the name of a very reputable man; furthermore, and in spite of Enfield’s suspicions, it proved to be legitimate and not a forgery. Enfield hypothesizes that the ugly culprit had somehow blackmailed the man whose name appeared on the check. Spurning gossip, however, Enfield refuses to reveal that name. Utterson then asks several pointed questions confirming the details of the incident. Enfield tries to describe the nature of the mysterious man’s ugliness but cannot express it, stating, ”I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why.” He divulges that the culprit’s name was Hyde, and, at this point, Utterson declares that he knows the man, and notes that he can now guess the name on the check. But, as the men have just been discussing the virtue of minding one’s own business, they promptly agree never to discuss the matter again. 26) ​Talk about Walter Pater and the Aesthetic Movement Walter Pater(1939-94) was a theorist of the Aesthetic Movement in England. He wrote books about Renaissance and Epicureans that were very successful at the time. The message of these was subversive and demoralising because he rejected religious faith and said that art was the only way to stop time. He thought life should be lived as a work of art, feeling all kinds of sensations. The task of the artist is to experience beauty and transcribe the sense of the world. As a result art doesn’t have to have a reference to life and it doesn’t need to be didactic. Pater’s work had a deep influence on the writers of the 1890s, especially on Oscar Wilde. 27) ​What are the main features of Aestheticism? The main characteristics are: - an evocative use of language of senses - an excessive attention to the self - a hedonistic attitude - perversity in subject matter - disenchantment with contemporary society - absence of any didactic aim 28)​ Talk about O. Wilde’s life Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854, he attended Trinity College and then he went to the Oxford University where he studied Classics. He distinguished himself for his eccentricity, he was a fashionable dandy and dressed in an extravagant way. He became a disciple of Walter Part and accepted the theory of ‘Art for Art’s sake’. He settled in London where in 1881 he published his ‘Poems’ then he was engaged for a tour in the United States. On his return to Europe in 1883 he married Constance Lloyd who gave him two children, but he soon became tired of his marriage. At this point in his career he became popular and known as a great speaker. In the late 1880s he published his prose works: “The Canterville Ghost”, “The Happy Prince”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and the play “The Importance of Being Earnest” in 1895. These works damaged his reputation because the former was considered immoral. In 1891 he began a homosexual relationship with a young nobleman Lord Alfred Douglas. Because of this Wilde was convicted of homosexual practices and was sent two years in prison. When he was released, he lived in France under a pseudonym, as an outcast in poverty. He died of meningitis in Paris in 1900. 29) ​The Picture of Dorian Gray. Plot, characters, setting. Plot: The Picture of Dorian Gray is about a young man named Dorian Gray who has a portrait painted of himself. The artist, Basil Hallward, thinks Dorian Gray is very beautiful, and becomes obsessed with Dorian. One day in Basil's garden, Dorian Gray meets a man named Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry Wotton makes Dorian Gray believe that the only thing important in life is beauty. However, Dorian realizes that he will become less beautiful as he grows older. He wishes the portrait Basil painted would become old in his place. Dorian then sells his soul so he can be beautiful forever, but not on purpose. Dorian's wish comes true. However, every time Dorian does something evil, mean, or selfish, his picture ages. For 18 years, Dorian does not age. He does many bad things, while his portrait becomes more aged with each bad deed. Later on, Dorian decides to stop doing bad things in the hopes that this will make his portrait become beautiful again, but it only makes it worse. Dorian thinks that only a full confession will make the portrait beautiful again. However, he does not feel guilty for anything he has done. So Dorian picks up a knife and destroys the portrait. When his servants hear a scream from Dorian's room, they call the police. The police find Dorian's body on the floor with a stab wound in his heart. His body has become very aged. However, the portrait has returned to the way it was when it was first painted.