tirsdag den 8. maj 2007







Welcome to a general introduction to the Victorian Period





On this webpage you will find useful information and links about the Victorian Period.
Each group is responsible for a presentation on one of each theme:



  1. The history of the Victorian period


  2. The conditions of the poor in the writings of Dickens


  3. Evolution


  4. Imperialism


  5. A psycological approach to man




Group assignment (groups of 3): Introduction to the Victorian Period





  • Based on the material below and other information you find relevant, make an illustrated PowerPoint introduction to the Victorian Period (history, social conditions, inventions, industry, values etc).


  • You are not to write a continuous description or copy/paste from the sources but make a list of main points that you can develop further in your oral presentation.


  • All groups must hand in their introductions (Fronter folder Victorian England → Introductions), and two or three groups will be asked to make a presentation in class. The other groups add information.


  • For the first lesson you must all read The Victorian Period – a general introduction.

    You will be given 3 lessons to work on the assignment.



The Victorian Period 1832-1901 – a general introduction




Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901, and her reign corresponds roughly to what is called the Victorian Period. In cultural history this period follows after the Romantic Period and it comes before the Edwardian Period. More precisely the start of the period is considered to be 1832 when the Reform Bill (see below) was passed. The Victorian Period was one of enormous changes. Britain became the leading industrial nation and the banker of the world. The British middle class established itself as the ruling class, not only of Britain but of an empire in which one quarter of the population of the world lived.





The British Empire 1902


The Victorian Period was an age of contradictions. It was an age of prosperity with an increase of wealth first of all for the middle classes, but also for the working classes. Industry expanded so that Britain became the workshop of the world. And yet, it also was an age of poverty. There were the slums of London and of the industrial Midlands. There was laissez-faire capitalism, but also social legislation. It was an age of religious faith, and yet it also was an age of doubt with the gradual dissemination



of evolutionary thinking as it was expressed by Darwin. Our attitude to the Victorian Period is also contradictory. On the one hand there is the heritage industry with its nostalgia for all things of the past; on the other hand there is the reaction against everything Victorian that started with the Bloomsbury Movement in the 1920s, in particular Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians published in 1918. Here ‘Victorian’ was synonymous with smugness, hypocrisy, false respectability, sexual narrow-mindedness and materialism.




A Punch cartoon from 1849 illustrating the Victorian way of life





The Early Victorian Period 1832-1848

The passing of the Reform Bill of 1832 was a large step for the middle classes on their way to power. All property-owning men now had the right to vote. The working classes and women were still without this right. In the early 1840s a severe economic depression set in, and the conditions of the working classes were so bad that riots broke out. In this period, known as ‘The Hungry Forties’, the working classes organized politically in trade unions, and in particular the Chartists became powerful. The People’s Charter of 1838 demanded universal suffrage.With the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 food became cheaper for the working classes.





The Mid-Victorian Period 1848-1870



The period following the Hungry Forties was one of success and prosperity. Factory Acts by and by improved the conditions of the working classes so that child labour was limited and working hours were shortened. Trade, industry and farming prospered. Britain, which was industrialized by now, was able to make enormous profits by selling machinery and technology to Europe and America for their industrialization. The Mid-Victorian Period was peaceful. Britain managed to keep out of the wars on the Continent, and political freedom was such in Britain that political refugees from Europe, e.g., Karl Marx, found a safe haven here. The monarchy became a model of middle-class life.






Sir Edwin Landseer: Windsor Castle in modern times (1841-1845)



The Late Victorian Period 1870-1901




The late Victorian Period, which followed after Dickens’ death in 1870, brought an end to the progress and sense of stability of the previous 30 years. The middle classes met with crisis and problems on four fronts: military problems, economic problems, political problems, and sexual problems.
Bismarck’s Germany with its naval expansion meant a threat to Britain’s supremacy. Europe and America were by now industrialized enough to be competitors instead of markets, which resulted in an economic depression.
Internally the working classes organized in new militant trade unions and political parties. Even unskilled workers formed unions at the end of the century, and they won strikes. In 1889 the two great victories were The Match Girls’ Strike and the Dockers’ Strike. The Empire also created problems. It was the largest empire in history. It brought profits, but also brutal colonial wars, such as the Indian Mutiny and the Boer Wars in South Africa. Gender roles were changing, too. Middle-class culture had its heart in the home with its patriarchal head, but during the 1870s laws improved women’s position economically and also some kinds of higher education were opened up to women. It was not, however, until 1928 that women got voting equality with men in Parliamentary elections.

(Introduction based on Charles Dickens by Jørgen Riber Christensen, (Systime 1999))




1. The history of the Victorian period



2. The conditions of the poor in the writings of Dickens




From Queen Victoria’s diaries, 1838-39
(30 December 1838) 'Talked of Oliver Twist, which I must say is excessively interesting ....'
(1 January 1839) 'Talked to [Lord Melbourne] of my getting on with Oliver Twist; of the description of "squalid vice" in it; of the accounts of starvation in the
Workhouses and Schools, Mr Dickens gives in his books. Lord M. says, in many schools they give children the worst things to eat, and bad beer, to save expense; told him Mamma admonished me for reading light books.'
(7 April 1839) 'Lord M. was talking of some dish or other, and alluded to something in Oliver Twist; he read half of the 1st vol. at Panshanger. "It's all among Workhouses, and Coffin Makers, and Pickpockets," he said; "I don't like The Beggar's Opera; I shouldn't think it would tend to raise morals; I don't like that low debasing view of mankind." We defended Oliver very much, but in vain. "I don't like those things; I wish to avoid them; I don't like them in reality, and therefore I don't wish them represented," he continued; that everything one read should be pure and elevating. Schiller and Goethe would have been shocked at such things, he said.
Lehzen said they would not have disliked reading them....' (The extracts from Queen Victoria's diary were originally published in Viscount Esher, The Girlhood of Queen Victoria: a Selection from her Diaries 1832-40, 1912.)



From Queen Victoria’s diaries – detective work and interpretation


1. Visit http://www.victorianstation.com/queen.html and find out how old Victoria was in 1838 when she wrote her diary, what her personal situation was, how she can be characterized at this time in her life, who Lord Melbourne was, and which role he played in Victoria’s life, what the political situation was etc. Use this information to help explain what Victoria writes in her diary.

2. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beggar and find out what The Beggar’s Opera was, and use the information to suggest why Lord Melbourne did not like it.

3. Find out who Schiller and Goethe were, and why Melbourne believed they would have been shocked to read Oliver Twist, and why Lehzen disagreed. Who was Lehzen and what does Victoria’s reference tell us about her role and the relationship between them?
Which attitudes to literature are up against each other in this discussion?




3. Evolution





4. Imperialism






5. A psychological approach to man


Forlæg på basis af Lis Toft Simonsens materiale


















Indsendt af kl.
Abonner på: Opslag (Atom)