The Victorian Age which extended from 1837 to 1901 was an era of great social change and intellectual advancement. "The steady advance of democratic ideals" and "the progress of scientific thought" (Compton-Rickett, page 405) were the chief factors influencing the life of the times. The age was marked by "conflicting explanations and theories, of scientific and economic confidence and of social and spiritual pessimism, of a sharpened awareness of the inevitability of progress and of deep disquiet
In Melville's Moby-Dick, or The Whale, Ahab calls himself "madness maddened" and across the oceans he unleashes his madness in an unerring quest to wreak his hate upon the white whale, that agent or principal of the "inscrutable malignancy" lurking behind the phenomenal world. Milder asserts that by making Ahab mad, Melville found the means to present an apocalyptic act of a hero, free of the constraints of realism, that might express the disillusionment of the cultural moment that had witnessed
Men’s Fashion in Victorian London The first purpose of Clothes . . . was not warmth or decency, but ornament . . . -- Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Book I, Chapter 5. Men’s fashion was very formal and conservative, reflecting the mores of the Victorian era. Poor, cherubic Mr. Reginald Wilfer longs for the time when he is able to have an entirely new outfit. Men’s Undergarments * Flannel and wool underclothing prevailed through the Victorian age. * Vests and undershirts were the
he is laid back, simple minded, well fed, and financially well off. He reads but one newspaper and favors Sunday services that "allow him to sleep." "He never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular preacher, or read Tracts for the Times or Sartor Resartus." He is not bothered by his "inability to know the causes of things" and sleeps "the sleep of the irresponsible." Eliot describes Old Leisure more than New Leisure because today's readers are familiar enough with living a life as hurried and fast
After the great advances of what is now ancient Greece and Rome, also known as the “classics”; Europe fell into a period of darkness. Within it, learning was suppressed and knowledge didn’t advance. However, by a turn into the 1400’s, there was a “rebirth” of learning: the Renaissance. The Renaissance was marked by an intense awaking in the visible world and in the knowledge derived from the experiences rather than religion and wise tales. It turned away from the abstract speculations and interest