维多利亚时代The Victorian Age
英国文学史维多利亚时期文学背景及特点
Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) and Queen Victoria (1819-1901).
• The English people were proud of two queens in their history: Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) and Queen Victoria (1819-1901). There are similarities between the two queens. First, both queens were on the throne for a long period of time, Queen Elizabeth being on the throne for over forty years (1558-1603) and Queen Victoria more than 60 years (1837-1901).
• the last period 1880-1901, a period of decay of Victorian values.
• It can be divided into 2 periods:
– - Early Victoria Period （1832-1868）
– - Late Victoria Period （1869-1902）
• The Reform Bill of 1832 extended the right to vote to all men owning property worth ten pounds or more. This bill extended the right to vote to the industrial capitalists and the lower middle class, but not the workers (they had to wait until 1867 when a second Reform Bill was passed)
维多利亚时代TheVictorianAge
Factory Children
• Mill owners said that they had to keep their prices down. That was why workers' hours had to be long, and wages low. Women and children got lower wages than men, so the owners employed a lot of women and children.
• • Children as young as six or seven worked up to fourteen hours a day in the mills. Their pay
was about three shillings (15p) a week. Many were killed or injured by the moving parts of the machines they had to clean. Others were maimed by a foreman's fist or strap. Sadly, many of them were forced to work by their own parents. Their fathers were out of work, and the family needed the few shillings that they could earn. • • Some decent employers paid their workers a fair wage. Some even built good houses for them, and ran schools for their children. Some mill-owners took part in a movement for factory reform. Most mill-owners were against the reformers, though. They said that shorter hours for children would put up their costs, and bring them to ruin. • • Mill-owners did not obey Parliament's first acts cutting mill hours. But an act passed in 1833 said that inspectors would enforce the law. The act banned all children under nine from cotton mills. Children over nine were allowed to work, but there were strict controls on their hours. By 1847, ten hours per day was the limit for boys and all female workers.
维多利亚时代—搜狗百科
维多利亚时代—搜狗百科维多利亚女王维多利亚时代中期，英国达到强盛的顶峰，当时，它的工业生产能力比除其之外全世界的总和还要大，它的对外贸易额超过世界上其他任何一个国家。
英国的富庶已经使新老世界为之瞩目，1851年一个法国人参加了在水晶宫举办的博览会后说：像英国这样一个贵族国家却成功养活了它的人民；而法国，一个民主的国家，却只会为贵族进行生产。
所以，维多利亚中期的英国为他们的无可匹敌的地位洋洋得意，它这时是世界的贸易中心：北美和俄国的平原是我们的玉米地；芝加哥和敖德萨是我们的粮仓；加拿大和波罗的海是我们的林场；澳大利亚、西亚有我们的牧羊地；阿根廷和北美的西部草原有我们的牛群；秘鲁运来它的白银；南非和澳大利亚的黄金则流到伦敦；印度人和中国人为我们种植茶叶；而我们的咖啡、甘蔗和香料种植园则遍及印度群岛；西班牙和法国是我们的葡萄园；地中海是我们的果园；长期以来早就生长在美国南部的我们的棉花地，现在正在向地球的所有的温暖区域扩展。
真是烈火烹油，鲜花着锦之盛。
然而从70年代开始，英国工业独霸全球的地位却开始丧失了，其他国家迎头赶上，而以美国和德国最为突出。
以国民生产总值为例，在1880年～1890年的10年间，英国年增长率是22%，德国是29%，美国是41%。
1890年~1900年这10年英国是34%，德国也是34%，美国是38%。
但1900年～1913年，英国平均年增长率只有15%，德国却增长30%，美国增长了39%。
1880年，全世界制造品出口总额中有40%以上是英国的，到了1913年英国、德国和美国三个国家在制造品出口总额中的比例变成了29.9%、26.4%和12.6%，英国的下滑趋势是十分明显的。
当然这只是相对下滑，从绝对数字上看，英国仍是世界上最富有的国家，维多利亚时代最显著的特征之一就是它的富庶，直至它结束时都是这样。
然而这种富庶更像是一种罪恶，在维多利亚时代，财富的分配始终不均，贫富对比十分明显。
维多利亚时期背景介绍THE VICTORIAN AGE
THE VICTORIAN AGE (1832-1900)- Historical introduction and general characteristicsThe name of Victorian Age comes from Queen Victoria (1819-1901). She became queen of England and Ireland and the Empress of India when she was very young. She married with Prince Albert who was her cousin. They had 9 children and they married with other European royal families.In 1861 Prince Albert died and Edward, his son, became king when he was 60. Q. Victoria was admired and loved by British people because she introduced a period of stability to Britain, industrialisation and Imperialism.The way of life changed completely: A way based on the ownership of land to a modern urban economy based on trade and manufacturing. This was a time of progress: the telegraph, rail ways, photography, the sewing machine, great manufacturing cities (Manchester, the industrial north cities of England).The imperialism: this is a country of traders, new dominios appeared. More than a quarter of the world was British. Britain also had a very important fleet, which carry the goods to the metropolitan.- Periods:1.- Early Victorian (1832-1848):Technological development and the opening of the reform parliament.The Reform Bill: it was a response to the demands of middle classes, who were taking control of England's economy. It extended the right to vote to all males owning property worth £ 10 or more in annual rent.The State had a system of economic liberalism in which the State doesn't participate in the rules of economy, industry work. There were many abuses from industrialists and manufactures.Gradually there was a great conscious in the society of children's work. The state told that children between 9-14 years could only work no more than 12 hours a day. The working class lived in Slums (neighbourhood very poor).The abolition of the Corn Laws because there were high tariffs established to protect English farm products from having to compete with low prized products imported from abroad. This is the end of protectionism.T here were also a group of reforms who were called the Chartists, they wrote “the people'scharter” (1838). It was a kind of people rights. They asked for a Universal Manhood suffrage.2.- Mid Victorian (1848-70):Because of the new inventions this is a period of prosperity (agriculture, industry...). in 1851 was “The Great Exhibition” in the Chrystal Palace, London. It shows the new inventions and congratulations of English empire.In this period there were a confrontation of ideas:Utilitarianism: it is a theory based on the idea that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by whether its consequences are conductive to general utility. The main thinker was Jeremy Bentham (Wrote about social happiness. He believed that individuals acted by self-interest). The utilitarians applied this idea for all the institutions, for everything.Opposed to the utilitarianism: Thomas Carlyle, he thought that intellect had limitations and couldn't explain everything and he turned to the humanism soul, a sort of religious belief was necessary to explain things.It was a group of writers who were shocked for the condition of living in some parts of England and they wrote a series of novels, “condition of England Novels” they were about living in the slums and they critiqued the oppression of working class.Elisabeth Gaskell´s “North and South” and Benjamin Disraelis “Sybil of the two nations”3.- Late Victorian: (1870-1900):The U.K. had more competitors in trade, e.g. The United States and Germany which was becoming an empire.It is a period in which workers began to join in associations, which are called trade unions. The first workers who went together were miners and textile workers. A very important association until today is called The Trade Union Congress (1868), which is the assembly of all the associations. From here we have an order of workers and a political party, Labour Party (1906)GENERAL CHARASTERISTICS OF VICTORIAN LITERATURE1. - Prose: The beginning of a new kind of prose, the lyric prose, is a prose that not only communicate ideas, it express it beautifully. In this time the readers wanted for advice from authority and some writers provided advise, people needed a guide. E.g. Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman, Mathew Arnold. It's full of prepositions because of this didactic style and parallelisms.2. - Poetry: It was considered superior than prose, novel theatre. They said that the writing of agenius must be poetry. There were two main romantic inheritances in poetry:1.- the use of retrospective forms: archaic language. They revived many old forms (particularly the mixture of lyric and elegy which influenced others forms like epigram).2.- experimentation with genres. Some poets continued the movement of colloquial diction into poetry (Robert Browning)3. - Novel: The main theme is man in society (family, business, friends...). they don't speak abut the past, speak about things that were happening in that time. (Dickens, Brontës).4. - Drama: Theatre had a little importance (Oscar Wilde, George Bernal Shawn)THE BRONTËS- Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)- Emily Brontë (1818-1848)- Anne Brontë (1820-1849)Their father, Patrick Brontë was a clergyman in Yorkshire. He had six children, his mother died very soon. The four eldest were sent to a boarding school. The two eldest died of tuberculosis so the four children that remain were educated at home.He encouraged the children to learn by their own. Mr Brontë discussed poetry, history and politics with his children. The children themselves created a world of fantasy. Mr. Brontë gave his son a book of wooden soldiers, the soldiers became for them the centres of an increasingly elaborate set of manuscripts. They created new countries like Angria, Gondal. They wrote little novels of these imaginary countries.They worked as teachers and governess and they wanted to set up their own school. They wen to Brussels to study language.Branwell (the brother) was a very talented as a writer and painter, he took drugs and alcohol and died in 1848. In the funeral Emily caught a cold and it developed into tuberculosis and died in December, a year late Anne also died.- Charlotte Brontë: “Jane Eyre”, the novel examines many sides of the circumstances of women show a new move towards freedom ad equality.- Emily Brontë: “Wuthering Heights”, it is a novel of passion, an early psychological novel.- Anne Brontë: “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” With an unusual central female character andinvolving complex relationships and problems.CHARLES DICKENSHe was born in the south of England, his father was a clerk, he went to prison and Dickens had to work in a factory (blacking workhouse) when he was 12 years old. He lived in different parts of London and knew poverty and London slums. He used this material in his novels.He became a reporter, he worked in many magazines and published in one of these magazines several sketches of the life and manners of the time these were together in one volume “Sketches by Boz”.He was asked to write “The Pickwick Papers” in 20 monthly numbers. He published his novels by instalments, he had to maintain the interest of the readers in order they want to read the following chapters. While he was writing the novel knew how was the reaction of the people, what people preferred and he could change the direction of the novel. Many critics think that the novels published in this way have a loose structure.He got married Catherine Hogarth, they had ten children, the couple separated because he had an affair with an actress. He went to America twice making them read his novels. He left his last novel unfinished.Sentimental work:- “Oliver Twist” (1837-38): it shows a great concern about social problems. He had very strong opinions against the factories in which children worked. It is a story of a poor boy that worked in a factory and describes his situation. He went away and discovered a band of thieves who taught him to be a thief. The novel is a mixture of melodrama and realism.- “The curiosity shop” (1840-41):This is the story of little Nell, a girl who lives with her grandfather. Her grandparent borrows money to a miser who takes the shop because he can't pay. They have to go away because the miser persecuted them.- “A Christmas Carol”: Scrooge a very bad miser received the visit of 3 ghosts which show past, present and the following Christmas and showed how bad he is.- “David Copperfield” (1949-50): The hero David, becomes the kind of success which Victorians admired, he is rich, he marries, and a general sense of happy ending is given. This novel was based in part of Dickens's own childhood and his success.Works after 1850:- “Bleak house”: it is a satire of the delays of law. It's a process which never ends.- “Hard Times”: it is an attack on capitalism, society and industrial life.- “A Tale of cities”: historical novel on the French revolution.- “ Great expectations”: it is about an orphan who has a secret benefactor. He help a prisoner to escape, the convict later helps him.General characteristics:He saw the world as a fresh experience. He had an extraordinary range of language, he could use colloquial and formal language. Great characters and intense emotionalism.THOMAS HARDY: “Far for the Madding Crowd”The tittle comes from the poem “Elegy written in a country churchyard”. It was published in 1874 in a magazine in serial form. He had to write in the way the readers wanted to know what was going to happen in the next chapter. It had a great success. When it was published he was 33 years old and it was his 4th novel.All Hardy's novels are settled in Wessex (the south west of England where there are a lot of counties, it is an imaginary noun).Hardy was very pessimistic and the main theme of his novels is the struggle of man against the indifferent forces that rule the world, his novels are tragic.In the first chapter, there is an introduction of the two main characters: Gabriel Oak and Bathseba; it is located in the countryside, rural setting.The narrator is omniscient, he controls everything. They are confident, they are sure of them. He goes through the novel controlling the novel, he could also change the point of view.Man in society is the main characteristic of Victorian novels. Gabriel is seen from the point of view of others.The basic idea is that he was just an ordinary man: Hardy conveys these ideas offering images of behaviour.GEORGE ELIOT (1819-1880)Her name was Mary Ann Evans, she used a pseudonym for his publications. She was born in the Church of England. At the school she converted into Methodism, which is very strict in words. She was a very cultivate woman, she was agnostic because of her intellectual formation. She translated religious texts and the critic about it. She was strongly influenced by religious concepts of love, morals, duty and behaviour.She became the assistant editor of a magazine, “The Westmister Review”. She felt strongly in love with the editor but this love was not reciprocated. Later she felt in love with Herbert Spencer but again this relation didn't go well. She met another writer G.H. Lewis, they felt in love and they went to live together until Lewis' death(1878). When he died she married her financial adviser (two years later) and seventeenth months later she died.Works:She translated many religious books. She knew Italian, German... she translated Feverbach's “Essence of Christianity”. It is important because she agreed with Feverbach view that religious beliefs are an imaginative necessity of man and a projection of his interest.Her novels were published by instalments. She has been considered the first modern English novelist.In the first generation the writers considered themselves as providers of advise and public entertainers. They wrote books to enjoy and offer them some advice. The new writers of the second generation took their job very seriously, they considered themselves as novelists, professional writers.Eliot takes her works seriously as novelists, the structure has to be perfect. She was a moral writer in the sense that she believed that the responsibility for a man's life and fate lay firmly on the individual and his moral choices. The individual has to decide in every situation and has the responsibility of his life. But the individual decisions are not external.She wrote: “Adam Bede”, “The Mill on the floss”, “Silas Marner”, “Romola, “Felix Holt”, “Middlemarch”, “Daniel Deronda”.We can represent her novels in two circles:“Middlemarch”: It was published in a serialised for. It is considered a masterpiece. The tittle is the changed name of a city where the action happens, Middlemarch is the provincial of Coventry. This novel is set during the years of the 1st reform bill. It has a multiple plot, with many arguments, several interlocking sets of characters, so she created a network that enclosed the whole life of this city.One of the stories is the story of Dorothea Brooke and Mr. Casaubon. She is an intelligent idealistic young woman and married Mr. Casaubon (a pedant). She wants to share her husband's world. When she married she realized that her husband has plans but didn't worked at them, she loses the respect of him. She begins to fell in love with Ladislaw.Another history is Dr. Lydgate, a young and very ambitious man who had plans, he wants to stablish professionally. A very beautiful woman plans to marry him, her name was Rosamand.They married but it didn't go well because she is materialist and selfish. He gets involved in some problems. In a determined point, Dorothe sees Rosemand and Ladislaw together and she decides not to love him.All the characters Know each other, at the end all the plots have relation between them, it makes a perfect portrait.THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928)He was born in Dorchester. His father was a stonemason and he worked as an apprentice to several architects, learning the profession. He began to write poetry and in the period of 1870-3 he published his first three novels, his great success came with his fourth novel, “Far from the Madding Crowd” (1874). Then he left architecture for novel writer. The most important novels that he published are “The return of the native” (1878), “The major of Casterbridge”(1886), “Tess of the D'urbervilless” (1891), and “Jude de Obscure” (1896).He became a very well known figure in London. His works were very tragic. The critics criticised his two last novels, they said that they were very immoral and pessimistic and because of this he abandoned the fiction novels and wro te only poetry, such as “Wessex Poems” (1898). He called himself “meliorist” and said that the world could be better by human effort. He received a honorary degree from Cambridge University.Work:The main theme is the struggle of man against the indifferent forces that rule the world: how people suffer because of fate who are more powerful than him. The disparity between the things that people wanted to be and the things that actually they are, between human ambition and fate. The fate is completely eternal and is important, also the social conditions.The characters are not the masters of their own fate but they can achieve dignity by endurance. He offers some sense of human in the description of rural characters.“Wesssex” is the name he gave to the south west of England. He changed the names of the places, the villages are real but the name is invented.“Tess of the D'urbervilless” : Tess is a country girl who is seduced by Alec, a rich young man, she gets pregnant and Alec leaves her. The child dies so she is very miserable, she has to work as a maid. She meets another man, angel, who is the son of a priest and they married. In the wedding night, Tess told about Alec and Angel abandoned her.Tess has to accept to become the mistress of Alec because of her bad situation. Angel returns to look for his wife, but Tess and Alec are living together. Tess gets mad and kills Alec. She is hung because of this.OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)He was born in Dublin. His father was a very famous surgeon and his mother was a very well known poetess in Dublin. She was very controversial, provocative, excentric and Oscar had her influence. He was very estrange physically: tall, fattish, big dreamy eyes, too fleshy, big mouth, at the same time he was beautiful and awful. He dressed extravagantly because he didn't feel ashamed of his appearance.He learnt from his mother how to be funny courageous and he was a transgressor (to break the rules of society). He went to Oxford and he was a very good student. He caught syphilis from a prostitute. At the age of 29 he married Constance Lloyd. They had 2 children but soon Constance was a very sexual object for him. He convinced his wife to stop having sexual relationships, but they continued living together.By this time he wrote books of poems, tales, fairy stories. He was an excellent conversationalist, he speaks beautifully, funny, witty. Some writers said he looked like disgusted at first impression. Under this image, superficial, trivial, he was transcendent, he belonged to a poetical movement called Aestheticism whose motto is art for art sake.In 1891 Oscar met Lord Alfred Douglas (Basic) who was 21 years and Oscar 37. Basic was a young rich selfish, conceited, frivolous, cruel man. Oscar felt in love desperately in love with basic, who introduced him to the world of underground and make Oscar's life very awful. Oscar tried to leave him but he couldn't because he loved him and Bosie threatened Oscar to suicide if Oscar left him. Bosie's father was the marquis of Queensberry, he knew the relation between them and they became enemies.Meanwhile Oscar published his only novel “The portrait of Dorian Gray”, is a sort of gothic novel. Dorian wanted to be young forever. He wanted to try forbidden things.The real success came with his plays: “Lady Wardermere's fan” (1892); “A woman of no importance (1893); “An ideal husband” (1895); “The importance of being Earnest” (1895). ð Witty, funny, word plays, paradoxes.15 days after the streno of the last play Bosies's father left a note in Oscar's club accusing him of being sodomite. Oscar didn't want to answer. Bosie told Oscar to take his father to court because of difamation. The case was a hopeless case, because during the trial all the things they had done appeared and Oscar was arrested and taken to a jury. During this second case all the people he had met in the underground come to the court and told all the things they had done.He was sent to prison. Two years of force labour and his name was a matter of shame. His novels were retired of libraries; his novels never were represented again. His wife changed her surname and her child's. After 2 years he was a broken man and his friends took him to France. Oscar accepted to see Bosie again, who left him when discovered that Oscar didn't write and had lost his glamour.“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (1898) about his prison experience.The last work published after his death “De Profundis” (1905) is a letter to reproche to Bosie, a confession.ALFRED, LORD TENNYSONHe is the Victorian poet, he wrote the model of Victorian poetry. Queen Victoria was an admirer. She was a widow for 40 years and found consolation in Tennynson's poetry. He is the poet of love and loss.His father was a priest, he was the fourth of twelve children. Their father taught them privately: classical language, philosophy, reading. He went to Cambridge and became friend of a group of artists and writers. One of them was Arthur Hallan, who was his confident, adviser, closest friend. He became engaged Arthur's sister, but died at the age of 22 and this provoqued a great depression in Tennynson, it was the origin of the poem “In Memorian” (1850)Before 1850 he had written many books of poems although they didn't became famous. He became Poet Laureate; before this publication he had the recognition of his works and it gave him a lot of money.Works:“Poems, chiefly lyrical” (1830); “in Memorian” (1850);“The charge of the light Brigade”(1854): it is inspirited on a piece of news on the newspaper about the soldiers who died in the Crimean War.“Maud” (1855): It is a monologue and best seller“Idylls of King” (1859): It is about King Arthur.General characteristics of his literature:Great virtuosity of technique. He studied the poetry of his predecessors and achieved a great technique.He had a great capacity to link scenarios to states of mind. His vision of nature is not idealistic as romantics. He prefers rural things rather than urban.Preoccupation with the problems of his days: about technological changes, he thought that it was positive but he was very worried because of horrors of industrialism (slums, working conditions, working of the children).He was an admirer of Yeats.“In Memorian”He started it in 1833. It is a series of poems put together around the same theme: the death of his friend. More than an elegy is a group of poems about anxieties and doubts about the meaning of life, what a rule of a man was in the world and doubts because of the death of his friend. It is a poet diary upon his reflections on this matter.ROBERT BROWNING (1812-1889)/ ELISABETH BROWNING (1806-1861)Robert is admired for two things:moral toneinnovations in poetry- Robert browning was born in London, he was the son of a banker, and educated basically at home because his father had a great library and he read a lot.At the beginning he wrote personal poems. Some critics attacked his poems and he was embarrassed because of this, so he changed his way of writing( very personal), which became more obscure.After 1936 and during ten years, he wrote plays but without success, but it was a good practice for a new model of poetry which he developed; dramatic monologue. It was his best known kind of poetry because he could write in a personal way under a character.“Dramatics Lyrics” (1842) it was the first collection of this kind of poetry.After 15 years in Italy, he and his son came back to England. He wrote “Dramatis Personae” (1864) which was a monologue; “The Ring and the Book”.- Elizabeth was a very well known poet who was semi-invalid, under the control of her father. She was kept at home, she had a tyrannical father, she was very well educated.She published “Poems” (1844) and Robert read it and enjoyed it very much and they stablished a correspondence. After a time they became engaged secretly. In 1846 they got married secretly and eloped to Italy and stayed there for 15 years. There she discovered that she wasn't invalid and they were very happy. The product of their love is “ Sonnets from the Portuguese” (1850): a sequence of forty four sonnets in which she recorded the stages of her love for Robert Browning, a sequence she presented under the guise of a translation from the Portuguese language.“Aurora Leigh”(1857)Differences between Browning and TennysonTennyson was the Victorian poet who was worried with the topics of the age. But he explored the topics of the day in a different way: faith/doubt, Good/evil.The main difference is the style. Tennyson belonged to the lyrical tradition. Browning had a more colloquial, prosaic tone, his poems are like prose.The social world within which this dilema has to be resolvedThe centre of her novelsA small group of individuals involved in a normal dilema。
维多利亚时代
维多利亚时代1. 简介维多利亚时代是指1837年到1901年，女王维多利亚在位期间的历史时期。
维多利亚时代被认为是英国历史上的黄金时代，尤其是在工业、科技、文化和帝国扩张方面取得了巨大的成就。
在这个时期，英国成为全球最强大和最富裕的国家之一，也为现代社会的发展奠定了基础。
2. 社会和经济发展2.1 工业革命的影响维多利亚时代的英国经历了工业革命的兴起和发展。
工业革命带来了大规模的机械化生产，推动了制造业的发展。
工厂和工业城市的兴起吸引了大量农民和城市贫民流入城市，从而导致了城市化的加速。
大量的劳动力需求促使人们从农村迁往城市，改变了英国社会的结构。
2.2 帝国扩张维多利亚时代是英国帝国扩张的黄金时期。
通过殖民地的征服和控制，英国建立了一个广泛的殖民帝国，包括印度、非洲、加勒比海等地。
这些殖民地为英国提供了巨大的资源和市场，推动了英国的经济发展。
2.3 经济的繁荣维多利亚时代的英国经济出现了快速增长。
工业和农业生产的增加带动了国内市场的扩大，消费水平的提升。
此外，英国通过国际贸易赚取了大量的财富。
这些财富使得英国成为了一个富裕的国家，也为经济的继续发展提供了资金。
3. 文化和艺术3.1 文学的繁荣维多利亚时代是英国文学的鼎盛时期，出现了许多杰出的作家和作品。
查尔斯·狄更斯、威廉·莎士比亚、奥斯卡·王尔德等作家的作品广受欢迎。
小说、诗歌和戏剧等文学形式得到了极大的发展。
3.2 科学和技术的进步维多利亚时代也是科学和技术的重要时期。
许多科学家和发明家在这个时期做出了重要的贡献，影响了后来的科学发展。
例如，查尔斯·达尔文提出了进化论，詹姆斯·瓦特发明了蒸汽机，这些发明和理论对工业生产和交通运输都起到了重要的推动作用。
3.3 艺术和建筑维多利亚时代的艺术和建筑也达到了巅峰。
维多利亚女王的统治促进了建筑、雕塑、绘画等艺术形式的发展。
许多城市的建筑风格也受到维多利亚女王的喜好影响，出现了许多以维多利亚时代风格为主题的建筑。
维多利亚时代【英文】
The Age and Its Double
Lesson Outline
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Queen Victoria. Some common ideas about the age. Periodization: Conventional subdivisions. Diversity. Compromise. Contradictions. Victorian values. Poverty, unrest and reform Change and progress The Woman Question. Science. Religion High culture and popular culture. Architecture Art. The genres. The canon. The construction of Victorianism Modernist attitudes regarding the Victorian age and their influence on its construction.
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An Age of Contrasts
• • • • Named by extrinsic facts. Sinterogeneous age. No clear-cut features to characterize it. Actually, an age of contrasts
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter9 The Victorian Age 英国文学 维多利亚时期
during their long reigns England developed rapidly both politically and economically;
during their reigns, literature flourished. Queen Elizabeth-drama (William Shakespeare) & Queen Victoria-novels（a galaxy of brilliant ns of Victorian novels
1.The plot is unfolded against a social background which is broader than what is had been in previous novels. 2.The cause-effect sequence is much more striking than in previous novels. 3. Most of the Victorian novels were first published in serial form. 4. The Victorian novels were tainted by the spirit of Puritanism of the Victorian age. 5. The Victorian novels were characterized by their moral purpose.
2.Scholars always compare the merits and demits of the two writers.
Masterpiece
Vanity Fair (1848) – first major novel The school of Snobs (1846-1847)
The Victorian Age 维多利亚时代
Late-Victoria (1868-1902)
The predominant theme in the early Victorian literature.
The Progress of Reform
Political &Social Background
Charlotte Bronte
• Famous work: Jane Eyre
• Promoted the development of feminism.
• Pseudonym: Currer Bell
William Makepeace Thackeray
• Feature of his writing: His novels contain satirical portrayal of the upper stratum of society。
lawer’s clerk: full of self-conceit, prudishness, petty tyranny and ignorance Conclusion: They are pinned on that class, that it was
servile to its social superiors and despotic to its social inferiors.
• Works: Oliver Twist, The Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfeild, Great Expectations.
A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
街上落下一个大酒桶，磕散了，这次意外事件是在酒桶从车上搬下来时出现的。那 桶一骨碌滚了下来，桶箍散开，酒桶躺在酒馆门外的石头上，像核桃壳一样碎开了。
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Child labour in a textile mull. In the early nineteenth century children were often expected to work long hours in conditions which seem terrible to many people today.
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Until 1820, cotton exports went mainly to Europe and the U.S.A. After that, though, much more went to India and the Far East. By 1850, cotton cloth was Britain's biggest export, and India was her biggest market. Cotton was 'king' in Lancashire. The port of Liverpool thrived, importing raw cotton from the U.S.A., and exporting finished cloth.
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• •
Spinning with ‘mules‘ in a Lancashire cotton mill in 1834. The boy in the bottom right of the picture is sweeping beneath the machine while it is working.
A woman spinning by hand in her own home in the eighteenth century
• • • • •
Since the Middle Ages, making woollen cloth had been England's main industry. Most of the work was done by country people in their own homes. Labourers´ wives would spin and weave when they had time to spare. Their husbands helped when there was no work for them on the farm. Rich clothiers bought the raw wool, employed the spinners and weavers, and sold the finished cloth. Most of the time, they could sell all the cloth that was made. So they were glad when inventors came up with machines that could spin and weave more quickly. From the mid-eighteenth century, inventors brought about a massive change. John Kay´s "flying shuttle" made weaving much faster. Then James Hargreaves, with his "spinning jenny", gave the spinner the power to work sixteen spindles at once. By and large, though, spinners and weavers still worked in their own homes, making woollen cloth. Weavers in England had made cloth that was part-cotton and part linen for some time. (The yarn was not strong enough for pure cotton cloth.) But Richard Arkwright´s "water frame" spun strong cotton yarn. And the "water frame" was driven by a water-wheel, not by hand or foot. Arkwright and a partner started a water-driven cotton-mill near Derby in 1771. Samuel Crompton´s "mule" spun fine, smooth cotton yarn. Before long, British cotton cloth was the best in the world. It was also the cheapest, because the spinning was done on machines, in mills. The power in the mills at first was water. In the 1790s, though, came the first cotton-mills with machines that were worked by steam.
Until the 1830s, most of the weaving was done by handloom weavers, working at home or in their workshops. They were well paid - in 1805 they got 23 shillings (£1.15) a week. Then, after 1830, power looms and weaving mills began to take over. Handloom weavers' wages crashed to six shillings (30p) a week. The woollen industry also changed to machines and mills. But here the changes came later. Until 1830, most of the spinning and weaving was still done by hand. By 1850, though, spinning was done mainly in the west Yorkshire mills. Weaving took another 20 years to follow suit.
The Victorian Age 1837-1901
Queen Victoria and the Victorian Temper
• Ruled England from 1837-1901 • Exemplifies Victorian qualities: earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic propriety • The Victorian Period was an age of transition • An age characterized by energy and high moral purpose
Factory Children
• • • Mill owners said that they had to keep their prices down. That was why workers' hours had to be long, and wages low. Women and children got lower wages than men, so the owners employed a lot of women and children. Children as young as six or seven worked up to fourteen hours a day in the mills. Their pay was about three shillings (15p) a week. Many were killed or injured by the moving parts of the machines they had to clean. Others were maimed by a foreman's fist or strap. Sadly, many of them were forced to work by their own parents. Their fathers were out of work, and the family needed the few shillings that they could earn. Some decent employers paid their workers a fair wage. Some even built good houses for them, and ran schools for their children. Some mill-owners took part in a movement for factory reform. Most mill-owners were against the reformers, though. They said that shorter hours for children would put up their costs, and bring them to ruin. Mill-owners did not obey Parliament's first acts cutting mill hours. But an act passed in 1833 said that inspectors would enforce the law. The act banned all children under nine from cotton mills. Children over nine were allowed to work, but there were strict controls on their hours. By 1847, ten hours per day was the limit for boys and all female workers.