context Flashcards
when was Rossetti born
Born in 1830 - 7 years before Queen Victoria came to the throne
did she come from an educated background?
Born into a very literary family - often known as the least literary member of the family
where was she educated and what was her religion?
Along with her sister she was educated at home and raised a devout Anglo-Catholic
what greatly impacts Rossetti?
the fact that her Father becomes critically ill 1842 - a year later she starts attending church services
what happens to Rossetti in 1845?
she suffered from poor health and a mental breakdown - suffered poor physical and mental health from the age of 14
what were Victorian stereotypes?
Prudish refusal to admit the existence of sex hypocritically combined with constant discussions of sex, thinly veiled as a series of warnings.
An era of strict social proprieties of which religious practice was an integral part.
what were the vital features of the victorian era?
Religion
Class based society
Hierarchical - the main organising principles of Victorian society were gender and class
Britain’s status as the most powerful empire in the world
Changing landscape
Growing number of people able to vote
Chartism - working class male suffrage
Suffragettes - a national movement
Growing state and economy due to industrialisation
Cities are growing rapidly as people leave the countryside in search of a better life
More people were being educated
Religion in the Victorian era
England is regarded as a Christian country throughout the 19th century
Religion was a very important part of victorian life and society.
Regularly visited church or went to chapel on sunday.
The Bible was read often
People were not only very religious but also were God fearing.
Church building and restoration - massive increase in the number of clergymen
More religious freedom for denominations that are not Church of England
Outward signs of religion were more obvious in Victorian Britain than today.
Churches were built in the new industrial cities and about half the population attended regularly.
In villages and older towns and cities, parishes continued to be centres of the life of the community, as they had been for centuries.
Even those who were not Christians or did not hold traditional beliefs would have recognized the Christian origins of the moral and ethical standards of the day.
Growing faith and doubt
Industrial revolution and the emergence of new scientific ideologies played a crucial role in challenging the old religious beliefs and superstitions
Charles Darwin and “The Theory of Evolution”
Shook the foundations of religious belief as many saw this as being contrary to the teachings of the Bible
His book “The Origins of Species” made people change their perception of religion as it challenged the origins of man
With scientific progress people gradually started to withdraw from traditional religious values
Study of the scriptures as historical texts, and scientific advances such as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (developed at Down House in Kent), made it more difficult for many educated people to accept the literal truth of the Bible.
The 19th century was also the first time in England that a substantial number of public figures openly declared that they had no religious beliefs.
It was in the cities that experienced a breakdown of religious practice and what amounted to a secularisation of social consciousness and behaviour.
Impact of religion on writers
Whether deeply religious or not, most nineteenth Century writers were strongly influenced by the King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.
From hearing readings and sermons week by week in church, they absorbed the language and rhythms of the Bible.
A characteristic of Victorian fiction is that there are many echoes and direct references to the Book of Common Prayer and to the Bible.
Gender
During the Victorian period men and women’s roles became more sharply defined than at any time in history.
Victorian gender ideology was premised on the “doctrine of separate spheres.” With men and women only coming together at breakfast and again at dinner.
The ideology of Separate Spheres rested on a definition of the ‘natural’ characteristics of women and men.
how were men and women different and meant for different things?
Men were physically strong, while women were weak.
For men sex was central, and for women reproduction was central.
Men were independent, while women were dependent.
Men belonged in the public sphere, while women belonged in the private sphere.
Men were meant to participate in politics and in paid work, while women were meant to run households and raise children.
Women were also thought to be naturally more religious and morally finer than men (who were distracted by sexual passions by which women supposedly were untroubled).
Marriage and sexuality
A young girl was not expected to focus too obviously on finding a husband. Being ‘forward’ in the company of men suggested a worrying sexual appetite.
Women were assumed to desire marriage because it allowed them to become mothers rather than to pursue sexual or emotional satisfaction. One doctor, William Acton, famously declared that ‘The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind’.
Girls usually married in their early to mid-20s. Typically, the groom would be five years older. Not only did this reinforce the ‘natural’ hierarchy between the sexes, but it also made sound financial sense.
Young and not-so-young women had no choice but to stay chaste until marriage. They were not even allowed to speak to men unless there was a married woman present as a chaperone.
The double standards
According to that double standard, men wanted and needed sex, and women were free of sexual desire and submitted to sex only to please their husbands. These standards did not mesh with the reality of a society that featured prostitution, venereal disease, women with sexual desires,
All the major cities had red light districts where it was easy to find a woman whom you could pay for sex.
Syphilis and other sexual diseases were rife, and many young men unwittingly passed on the infection to their wives.
The Contagious Diseases Act were instituted from 1860 which allowed, in certain towns, for the forced medical examination of any woman who was suspected of being a sex worker. If she was found to be infected she was placed in a ‘Lock Hospital’ until she was cured.
A reform movement led by Josephine Butler vigorously campaigned for a repeal of the acts, arguing that it was male clients, as much as the prostitutes, who were responsible for the ‘problems’ associated with prostitution
Many charities were instituted to help reform prostitutes. Charles Dickens even collaborated with the philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts to set up a ‘Magdalen House’ which would prepare girls for a new life in Australia.
The impact of social expectations on women who “want more”
Young Florence Nightingale longed to be able to do something useful in the world, but was expected to stay with her mother and sister, helping supervise the servants.
Elizabeth Barrett, meanwhile, used illness as an excuse to retreat to a room at the top of her father’s house and write poetry.
In 1847 Charlotte Brontë put strong feelings about women’s limited role into the mouth of her heroine Jane Eyre:
women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. (ch. 12)
This passage was considered so shocking that conservative commentators such as Lady (Elizabeth) Eastlake in a famously scathing review of Jane Eyre likened its tone to Chartism, the popular labour movement that advocated universal suffrage.