Context for the Victorian Era Flashcards
Long 19th century
Starts with the industrial revolution and ends with queen victoria’s death
Pax Britannica
Golden Age of Imperialism
Benefitted from:
- Tax
- Trade
- Capitalist
- Industrial boom
- Scientific theory
Rise of the middle class led to the spread of … values
bourgeois
- Hard work
- Material value
- Social stability
Growing religious factionalism between…
Anglican and Anglo-Catholic church
Examples of scientific theories:
- Darwinism (natural selection)
- Positivism (all real knowledge must either be true by nature or proven)
Who was Poet Laureate for most of the Victorian Era?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
- Patriotism
Realism:
portraying real life as accurately as possible
- Almost creates a running commentary along the narrative, as seen in Jane Eyre, when she addresses the reader saying ‘I married him’
Appearance of being true / real
verisimilitude
Social realism
Charles Dickens
- Uses hyperbolic characters to express the reality of society.
Naturalism
More extreme form of realism common in France (Gustav Ibert)
Thomas Hardy’s naturalist novels: Tess of the d’Urbevilles
pure woman Tess suffers a life of ruin as she was raped by immoral Alec
Evangelical
pertaining to or in keeping with the gospel and its teachings.
Private vs public personas.
George Elliot’s Silas Marner
Dunston immorally abandons his wife and child to peruse a marriage with a more socially compatible woman. Blackmailed by his brother to keep his immoral actions secret and maintain his reputation as heir of the Squire’s estate.
1818 Church Building Act
Bolstered the centrality of Anglican faith
The Oxford Movement and Tractarian conversion from Anglican to Catholicism
Led by Newman.
Led to mass conversion to Catholic faith.
- Including Rossetti’s fiancé Collinson
Who questions faith like Rossetti?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Society for Promoting the Employment of Women
Founded 1859
- Founded to promote economic independence for middle-class women
Married Women’s Property Acts
1870 (own money earned)
1882 (own property as unmarried women)
1893 (property acquired through marriage)
(From the Antique 1896)
Contagious Diseases Act
1864
Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act
1869 (was repealed 1886)
When was the female age of consent raised from 13-16?
1885 (In Goblin Market the siblings are neither adult nor child)
Word for spread across society
Dissemination
