Victorian England

By King Meera -
SUSHMA MA'AM

10 NOV 2014

INTRODUCTION TO VICTORIAN ENGLAND

Victorian: not necessarily of the age (1837 to 1901) but also about the sensibility

Tangible aspects:
1. extreme prosperity
2. height of imperialism
3. industrial revolution and agricultural revolution and their effect on daily life (railways, separation of private and public space, concept of town vs city or vs workplace (in an agrarian lifestyle, the workplace and home is the same - not so in an urban setting), "balance" of the two)
4. architecture (revival of medieval, Gothic - dark, secretive, cloistered)
5. inventions!!! (Queen Victoria first to be photographed)
The Great Exhibition is used as a metaphor for the age of inventions: all modern scientific inventions were put on display - camera, steam engine - but also a miniature iron-and-glass structure (apparently a building) which shocked the public who would not trust iron (as opposed to stone) as building material and who rejected glass entirely for fear of losing privacy and modesty. They resisted change, new ideas, transitions, reforms etc.

Personal life very principled, withdrawn (as seen in the fact that even the legs of tables were covered with the tablecloth)
Because private life was so confined and restricted, more women sought writing as a means of expression
There was also stifling class consciousness

One contradiction is that while people were so unwilling to change, Victorian England saw many "modern" reforms - labor welfare reforms
The government became more democratic as the Torys rose in power

11 NOV 2014

(repetitive, but not redundant)

"Victorian" = prudish, moralistic, repressed (esp. sexually), iron wall between private and public space and life, material, old-fashioned

Gothic-Romantic spaces

Major scientific breakthrough: Darwinism (evolutionary sciences), principle of Naturalism
These ^ affected writings:
1. belief that man is truly crown of creation since he is the most highly evolved being
2. every man has the power to evolve
3. respect, value, irresponsibility
4. crisis of faith and principles
5. Science took over as the new God and thus became the Devil
6. man's existence reduced to mere survival
7. it was, to them, more important t know how to survive than to learn how to live
8. crisis of science (man here to mate, procreate and further the species) and religion (must not kiss until betrothed)

Ideologies:
1. Darwinism and NATURALISM!!!
2. Democracy >
3. Feminism (the Suffragettes) >   Marxism -> Freud ("glorified pervert")
4. Unionization of workers >

Read up: 
1. William Thakrey - Vanity Fair
2. Great Expectations
Also, Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold, Huxley

DARWIN (1809-1882)

Darwinism: Science of evolutionary biology:
1. Chance and probability
Uncertainity that the individual will survive
2. Nature, power and scope of selection
Nature selects her citizens
3. adaptation and teleology
Cockroaches most adaptive (they do not die (why, god, why))
Teleology all about end result - evolution seen as natural progression toward extinction
Collective unconscious shaken up
4. Essentialism and nominalism
Essentialism is the attribution of functions based on biological characteristics (presence of uterus -> birthing function) 
5. Evolutionary change

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