Victorian Age - Only Connect New Directions terza edizione, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Victorian Age - Only Connect New Directions terza edizione e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE VICTORIAN AGE This age goes from 1837 to 1901, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Victoria came to the throne in 1837, she was very young but her sense of duty made her the perfect monarch. She had nine children with Prince Albert of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha. Before her reign, the Whig politician had done some laws that avoided revolutions, like giving the vote to the middle class and the reformation of social and economic conditions, establishing laws about work and exploitations, and introducing the workhouses (1834). Workhouses where a place where poor people could be helped and help themselves to get out of that situations – because there was a widespread idea that all was a matter of pride and self-pride. During the Victorian age, the belief in progress, hard work and thrift and duty was widespread, together with puritan virtues, and this led to a huge influence in the behaviour of people, along with religion. In addition, knowledge became something to spread, gentlemen studied different fields and also the government commissioned many reports on health, poverty and education. Ordinary people searched information in cheap newspapers, magazines and books that were a mix of truth and fiction. In this period, even though Britain avoided revolutions, there were still political crisis, the middle class resented of the government’s law, and in 1846, after some moving, the prime minister Peel had to free the price of corn, because of the Irish Potato famine. From 1850 to 1875 british farming lived his golden era, with a big demand from home and no competition from outside. With the Chartist movement, middle class tried to improve its life, but they demanded too much democracy and the movemente failed, even in it lead to te second reform act in 1867, that gave skilled working men the right to vote. Revolution in Britain was avoided because everybody was almost wealthy, they could provide for themselves and also find cheap products, with the introduction of the underground middle class could move to the suburbs and different forms of communication were developed. Also steel steam ships were introduced and they expanded the Victorian word even further, like with the colony in India, from where exotic and global products came. This hegemony on the world was proudly demonstrated in the Great Exhibition of 1851, where the growing economy of Britain was showed to the world. With the goods, Britain also exported people, both civilians and administer of the empire. Britain wanted the free trade; it helped several causes of other countries but never too much to ruin the power balance. Britain watched the American Civil war, with many Britons that were involved, like Florence Nightingale. Prince Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria’s son were reigning in other countries, like Denmark, Prussia and Russia. She retired from the scene except for the Golden and Diamond jubilee. The political parts had regrouped themselves, and the government started a new vigorous life both with decision inside and outside the country. This new kind of government created problems with Ireland that wanted to be ruled by a self-government – called Home Rule; this was granted only after ww1. Britain had to battle up with the other European countries to divide the African continent, they won South Africa, and in 1877 Queen Victoria became Empress of India – the empire where the sun never sets. The empire was huge but t was also very difficult to manage, the idea of the burden of the “superior” way of life of white men became widespread and unwelcomed. With the third reform act (1884), the right to vote was extended to all male householders; they also started stopping corruption and opened the politic life to less privileged men. With the legalization of trade unions in 1871, working men could campaigned for salary and educate the members, creating powerful strikes to improve the overall condition. A socialist branch of the liberal party became the independent labour party and started to advocate also for women’s rights. With the spread of epidemics, the government had to provide clean water and sanitation to the population, with the Public Health act of 1875. Victorian cities had also light and rubbish collection. Along with the many public buildings, many private shops were born, and also theatres and public houses. Britain considered itself as a place where materials could be found, but with the new products such as petroleum, rubber and aluminium the competition started to grow. With many people working in institutions or private properties as clerks, work mobility was difficult to reach and women were still restricted to domestic life. New kind of jobs came along, with the telephone and telegraph, but also with the evolution of printing. Reading became a national leisure activity, and many different genres developed – even if intellectuals were facing a conflict between religious beliefs and scientific development denoting the sense of decadentism and melancholy of the new century. THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE The Victorian were great moralisers because of all the things they had to go through. They wanted to portrait the world not as the bad thing it was but as they wanted it to be. They lived by the notion of working hard, because from it all the progress would emerge. With the introduction of mandatory school, the values of punctuality, application, diligence and good behaviour were widespread and rewarded (often with books). These values were spread in all the population, even if they were refined in the upper and middle class that were distinguished from the lower ones by the idea of respectability. Respectability was a mixture of concept in contrast, like morality and hypocrisies or severity and conformity to social standards. It implied the possession of different things, like a comfortable house, and a moral view of life (charitable activity, good manners, church). During the Victorian time philanthropy also became widespread, especially to women of the middle / upper class, they wanted to be seen as good people and they believed that through their charity they could have saved and reform the object of their charity. In victorian families, the husband was the dominant figure. The man was the householder and the source of discipline, and the woman had to obey. Women, on the other hand, had a key role when talking about children and house managing. Women during Victorian times had to be chats and pure, and a single woman with children suffered the worst punishment from society. Sexuality was an avoided theme, it was repressed in both public and private forms and the Victorian decided to spread the idea of prudery, as something important and necessary. Patriotism was also widespread, but t was influenced by ideas of racial superiority, especially toward the end of Victoria’s reign, Britons decide that they were at the top of the racial hierarchy (because of the empire), and this because God decided this way (this attitude is known as Jingoism). After all this age was an era of compromise between contradictions, doubts and beliefs – like religion and science. THE VICTORIAN FRAME OF MIND The ideas and values of Victorians found their roots in some other ideals and movements that were spread in that era. For example, the moral conduct was inspired by the religious movement of the Evangelicalism. They believed in bringing enthusiasm and commitment to the established church and to humanitarian causes, obeying to a strict code of morality (some against the Sunday Observance Bill 1837), and reading and praying at home with the Bible. The other movement that helped for the mind of Victorians was Utilitarianism, where any action done through morality could lead to happiness, this suited the ideals of Victorians were every problem could have been solved by reason. Many intellectuals of that time condemned utilitarianism because of its lack of human and cultural values. The discoveries made by the development of science, made during Victorian age, started to plant the seed of disturb – disturb of knowing that the universe is not perfect and stable, on the contrary, it is moving and probably it is governed by the law of chance. In the second half of 1800 Charles Darwin presented, in two books (Origin of species and The descent of man), his theory of natural selections, in which he explains how every creature has to overcome the struggle of living by changing or otherwise by dying – also men, that came from other animals. His theory was totally, against what the bible said, and the answer of the Catholic Church was to go back to the old rituals – in England by the name of the Oxford movement. During the Victorian age, there were a lot of different ideals and way of seeing things.