Unseen Prose 1880-1910

Question 1

Decadent movement

Answer 1

A late 19th-century artistic and literary movement, largely centred in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality.

Characterised by:
- self-disgust
- sickness at the world
- general scepticism
- delight in perversion
- employment of crude humour
- a belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and the natural world.

Question 2

Decadence

Answer 2

A period of decline or deterioration of art or literature that follows an era of great achievement.

Question 3

Darwinism

Answer 3

The doctrine that natural selection has been the prime cause of evolution of higher forms. Disintegrated the formerly held belief that man was distinct from animal.

Question 4

Boer War

Answer 4

Lasting from 1899 to 1902, Dutch colonists and the British competed for control of territory in South Africa.

Question 5

Scramble for Africa

Answer 5

Sudden wave of conquests in Africa by European powers in the 1880s and 1890s. Britain obtained most of eastern Africa, France most of north-western Africa. Other countries (Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, and Spain) acquired lesser amounts.

Question 6

Colonialism

Answer 6

Attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory.

Question 7

Fear of Invasion

Answer 7

Great Britain had the biggest navy in the world in the 19th century but new technologies made the empire vulnerable. Britain feared invasion from France, terrorists and aliens - “invasion in the tunnels”, hot air balloons
Because of technological advancements, other countries were becoming a threat.

Question 8

Aliens Act 1905

Answer 8

First law to define some groups of migrants as “undesirable”. Act was passed because of fears of degeneration, bad health, and bad housing conditions in London

Question 8

End of the world/degeneration

Answer 8

Late Victorian society was struck with anxiety about disease, peculiar weather, industrialisation, pollution, immigration. This manifested as apocalyptic literature.

Many Victorian people believed that society was coming to the end of its reign of brilliance. Many looked to Decadence as evidence of this because of this era of decline.

Question 9

Imperial Gothic

Answer 9

Most commonly refers to fiction set in the British Empire that employs and adapts elements drawn from Gothic novels such as gloomy, forbidding atmosphere.

Characteristics:
- Mysticism
- degeneration
- irrationality
- barbarism
- the “other”

Question 10

Fin de siecle

Answer 10

“End of a century,” mostly applied to the end of the nineteenth century (1890s). Artists and authors attempted to abandon old techniques and discover new ones.

Question 11

Aestheticism

Answer 11

Reverence for beauty; movement that held beautiful form is to be valued more than instructive content. Art for art’s sake.
- like in Picture of Dorian Gray

Question 12

The Wilde Trial

Answer 12

In 1895, the popular playwright Oscar Wilde was put on trial and charged with gross indecency which lead to moral panic and anxiety.
- link to rights

Question 13

Duality of man

Answer 13

Gothic fiction examined the sinister alter ego, apt since London itself had a dual nature, respectable streets existing side by side with areas notorious for their squalor and violence
- Jekyll and Hyde

Question 14

Biological criminology

Answer 14

A commonly held belief during the 19th century was that delinquency and violent tendencies were the result of biology and genetics, rather than structural factors. Had some involvement with eugenics.

Question 15

London

Answer 15

The largest city in the world between 1881-1925. Its labyrinthine geography and disorientating fogs were suited to fictions about modern life.
Persistently labelled as ‘liquid’, persistently aquatic and amphibious.
Urban life - mixture of classes

Question 16

Separate spheres

Answer 16

Nineteenth-century idea in Western societies that men and women, especially of the middle class, should have different roles in society:
- women as wives, mothers, and homemakers
- men as breadwinners and participants in business and politics

Question 17

Blue stocking women

Answer 17

Women regarded as having too much enthusiasm for intellectual goals, rather than their cultural goals as a housewife and mother.

Question 18

The New Woman

Answer 18

A woman of the turn of the 20th century often from the middle class who dressed practically, moved about freely, lived apart from her family, and supported herself

Question 19

Hysteria

Answer 19

Originating from the Greek word for uterus, historically referred to a uniquely female mental disease characterised by anxiety, insomnia, irritability and sexual audacity. There was a commonly held belief that a woman’s womb could move around her body.

Question 20

The rest cure

Answer 20

Prescribed to women who are agitated or depresses - given medication and not allowed to work or see people
- woman in the yellow wallpaper

Question 21

Irish question

Answer 21

The dispute initiated by Protestant Britain’s takeover of Catholic Ireland in the 1700s and Britain’s continued control of Northern Ireland has caused tension and violence between the two for centuries.

Question 22

British Raj

Answer 22

The name for the British government’s military rule of India between 1858 and 1947. Occupation of India brought industrialisation to the subcontinent, but colonialism also denied many Indians equal respect and economic independence.

Question 23

Indian Rebellion 1857

Answer 23

Indian rebellion against the English East India Company to bring religious purification, an egalitarian society, and local and communal solidarity without the interference of British rule.

Question 24

Edwardian era

Answer 24

The period of time when King Edward VII was on the throne (1901-1910)

Question 25

Christianity and religion

Answer 25

While the Church was still a major institution, especially as a means of maintaining social status, scepticism began to arise, largely inspired by human technological progress and Darwinism which undermined the plausibility of religion.

Question 26

Romanticism

Answer 26

A movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.

Question 27

Urbanisation

Answer 27

Following the Industrial Revolution, many moved to bigger cities to work in factories or make use of city infrastructure in other ways. This also produced a rapid population influx to these urban areas, resulting in social unrest.

Question 28

New Imperialism

Answer 28

Historians’ term for the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century wave of conquests by European powers, the United States, and Japan, which were followed by the development and exploitation of the newly conquered territories.

Question 29

Psychoanalysis

Answer 29

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Question 30

Sexology

Answer 30

The study of sexuality. During the era, more research was conducted into the nature of human sexuality, and the more perverse side of it.

Question 31

High and low culture

Answer 31

Art for elite, privileged, educated classes, versus cultural products that are mass-produced, available to anybody. Began to emerge during the end of the 19th century, with short stories published in newspaper columns.

Question 32

Deserving poor

Answer 32

Widows, orphans, and the handicapped; were worthy of the care of the community

Question 33

New Science

Answer 33

An emergence of astronomy, physics, biology, and mathematics during the 16th to 18th centuries, including logarithms, analytic geometry, and calculus. The emphasis was on experimentation and tangible proof.

Question 34

Realism

Answer 34

A 19th century artistic movement in which writers and painters sought to show life as it is rather than life as it should be

Question 35

White Man’s Burden

Answer 35

Idea that many European countries had a duty to spread their religion and culture to those less civilised

Question 36

Ennui

Answer 36

Dissatisfaction and restlessness resulting from boredom or apathy. Associated with the Decadent Movement and Mal de Siecle.