Scarica VICTORIAN AGE, Performance heritage 2 e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! VICTORIAN AGE (1837-1901) - Queen Victoria came to the throne at the age of 18 from 1837 to the 1901 and she gave her name to an age of social, political and economic prosperity; - In 1840 she married Prince Albert (her German cousin). They had 9 children and they provided a model of respectability. In 1857 she gave him the title of Prince Consort; - He patronized the arts, he favoured culture and helped scientific and commercial development (railways), he supported the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London: it was held in the Crystal Palace built in Hyde Park, it was the first prefabricated structure in glass and iron/steel→ international event to demonstrate England’s economic power and to glorify its hegemony. It housed the manufactured products of England and of its colonies (Middle East, Far East, Africa, New Zealand, Australia); ➤REFORMS FOR VOTING ・1832: First Reform Act (or Great Reform Act): extended the voting right to the industrialized towns. Most male members of the bourgeoisie could vote, before it was a privilege of the nobility and the clergy. The voting right was extended to all householders with an income of 10£ a year; ・1867 the Second Reform Act: extended the voting right to male town workers, while miners had to wait until 1884 (Third Reform Act); ・1918: The vote for women over 30 was recognized; ・1928: the right to vote was recognized to women over 21 ・Only in 1969 was the Universal suffrage (for men and women) recognized →This was achieved thanks to the suffragettes, feminist movement led by Emmeline Pankhurst, they went on hunger strikes, they organized protest marches, they were imprisoned and they eventually committed suicide in defence of their cause ➤REFORMS FOR THE LOWER CLASSES ・1833 slavery was abolished ・the Factory Act said that children between 9 and 13 couldn't work more than 48 hours a week and between 13 and 18 couldn't work more than 72 hours a week ・1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act: the creation of workhouses, hospitals, boarding schools. Workhouses: institutions led by the perishes (meant to alleviate the sufferings of the poor) where the poor received food and lodging in return for work. They exploited the poor and the children, families were split and the poor were made to wear a uniform. This meant that everyone looked the same and everyone outside knew they were poor and lived in the workhouse. Because life in the workhouse was supposed to be humiliating and shameful, many of the rules focused on emphasizing this. Workhouses were based on the Puritan virtues of hard-work, frugality and duty, and on the belief that poverty was the result of laziness and that the awareness of such a dreadful life would inspire the poor to try to improve their conditions. Husbands and wives were separated into dormitories and not allowed to meet, and many children were housed separately from their parents. Often they could also find themselves sold to factories or mines. ・1846 the abolition of the Corn Laws: in 1845 Ireland suffered a terrible famine due to bad weather and an unknown plant disease from America, which caused the destruction of potato crops. As a result, many people died and many others emigrated (mostly to America). The laws imposed high tariffs on imported corn which was a burden to lower classes. The reforms introduced were meant to reduce the risk of revolutions and limit social tensions, they were meant to alleviate the sufferings of the poor but they did not change the social structure. ➤VICTORIAN COMPROMISE The Victorian Age was a time of unprecedented change but also of great contradiction, which is referred to as the Victorian compromise. It was an age in which progress, reforms and political stability coexisted with poverty and injustice. Social gap between the middle and upper classes and the working class.Changes and contradictions: - progress, wealth and reforms (railways → fast commerce; improved middle/upper classes conditions → liberalistic policies favoured economic benefits and colonial expansion) - poverty, injustice and misery (appalling conditions of the workers like hunger, diseases, exploitation, exhausting working hours, factory workers) ➤MORALITY AND WOMEN Victorians were moralists. They went to church, sexuality was a taboo, they condemned prostitutes and unmarried mothers. The category of “fallen women”, adulteresses or unmarried mothers or prostitutes, was condemned and emarginated. Society revolved around the family: - The family was a patriarchal unit - The man represented the authority - The women had the key role regarded the education of children and the managing of the house ➤RESPECTABILITY The idea of respectability distinguished the middle from the lower class. Respectability was a mixture of morality, hypocrisy and conformity to social standards. It meant: - The possession of good manners; - Religious committees - Charitable activity - Philanthropy was a wide phenomenon that absorbed the energies of thousands of Victorians. it created societies in which poverty was taken care of by voluntary middle-class women. The Victorians did believe in God but also in science, since it brought to progress. There was a growing idea that men had to protect women, since they were physically stronger; women were morally superior, seen as divine figures who inspired men by controlling the family budget and bringing up the children. Respectability also concerned female chastity, in fact, unmarried women with a child were marginalised and sent to workhouses. It was the Victorians’ attempt to hide/conceal their social responsibilities, the evils and wrongs of progress and industrialization under a mask of false morality and benevolence (hypocrisy) ➤CHILDREN Child labor →which refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially or morally harmful. Children didn’t receive a sufficient education to write and read; instead, they started working at the age of 12 in the local community as domestic servants and farm labourers if they were lucky. If they weren’t, they were sent to factories, mines, or had to do the heaviest work. In literature they were secondary figures, during the Victorian age, they played a central role and they were depicted wise and innocent creatures, virtues heroes who were corrupted by unworried adults, deprived by education and who were involved in mines, factories, domestic servants, flowers sellers and so children became moral teachers for the adults. In Charles Dickens’ novel, the main characters are poor/abandoned children who suffered until they were finally given to carrying families (redemption) mostly middle class and became rich and respectable members of society. ➤LITERATURE BACKGROUND The Victorian Age was the age of the novel: fictional, narrative in prose which voiced the values and the beliefs of the middle-class. Victorian novels were critical and inquisitive, characterized by - realism (since it represents contemporary life and imaginary events are narrated as if they were real, encouraging the identification of the reader) - didacticism (The aim of the novel is to distract and amuse, teach a moral lesson) The main characters are members of the bourgeoisie (middle class) who followed the Puritan principles of hard work, discipline, determination to achieve goals in life, practicality and pragmatism, religious devotion, self-reliance. Distinction early (Dickens) and latest (Wilde). EARLY They were entertainers, rather than social reformers. They did not openly attack the social system but they wanted to draw the public attention to the social issues (industrialisation, the degrading reality of the urban poor) and awake the public consciousness. They did not mean to cause rebellions. Setting: the city of London, the symbol of industrialisation with its underworld of crime and violence);