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literature of the victorian age essay
literature of the victorian age essay
literature of the victorian age essay
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Culture is the explanation and sophistication attained through education and the revelation to the arts. Culture is not only ethnicity, but also and customs and philosophy. In Culture Learning: The Fifth Dimension on the Language Classroom Damen claims, “Culture is mankind’s primary adaptive mechanism”, to illustrate his personal definition of culture (Maximizing web). Culture can easily be effected by many things such as an idea. For example, Jeremy Bentham was the founder of Utilitarian which is the belief that actions are right if they achieve the happiness of many; numerous people opposed Bentham’s philosophy because minority interests were not included (Cruttenden 86). The culture of a time period can affect the future in many distinguishing ways such as with wonderful works of art, or with advances in technology and science.
The term Victorian exemplifies things and proceedings during the presiding of Queen Victoria; Victoria became queen of Great Britain and Ireland in 1837 (World Book 320). Queen Victoria’s control ended in 1901when she passed away (Holt 874). “The Victorian age was not one, not single, simple, or unified, only in part because Victoria's reign lasted so long that it comprised several periods” (Landow web). The Victorian age was a time of change because of the many advancements in science and technology (Cruttenden 4). Many of the cultural effects presented in the literature of the Victorian Era are philosophical, political, religious, and social. “The Victorians had unbounded confidence in progress—but this confidence led to uncomfortable questions” (Holt 878). The Victorians became skeptical about their spiritual and conventional principles (World Book 320-321). The culture of the Victorian Period has be...
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...s Historical and Social Contexts. New York: Facts on File, 2003.
Landow, George P. "Victorian Technology." The Victorian Web: An Overview. University Scholars Programme, 24 May 2011. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. .
"Maximizing Study Abroad." The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA). University of Minnesota, 21 July 2010. Web. 07 Oct. 2011. .
Swisher, Clarice. Victorian Literature. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 2000.
"Victorian England." Victorian England. University of Wisconsin. Web. 30 Aug. 2011. .
"Victorian Literature (1832-1901)." The World Book Encyclopedia. 2002 ed.
"The Victorian Period." Holt Elements of Literature British and World Literature Sixth Edition. Austin, Texas: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2008.
In America, the late 19th Century was known as the Victorian Era. It was a time when pro-private upper class culture dominated the nation, a time of liberation from the burden of the past and a time when the development of science and technology flourished. The Victorians believed that the advancement in science and technology served as a mean for protection, and could bring in an abundant of wealth and power, something they desired. The middle-class admired those from the upper-class, as they imitated the lives of the wealthy families. It was a period of competition and the survival of the fitness for the Victorians. While these neighbors, friends and families competed against each other for wealth, there was competition between workers and machineries in the cities, as labor was gradually being replaced by modern technology.
The Victorian Era was classified by a strict set of rules that every upstanding citizen must follow. These rules can be seen in “the behavior between sexes, tea at four-thirty each day, and a fascination with wealth that was suppressed by the good taste not to talk about it”
The Victorian Era started when Queen Victorian inherited the throne in 1837 and lasted till 1901. Over those years, England underwent “technological, commercial, and social developments that fundamentally changed English life, replacing the world into which Victoria was born with one that looks much more familiar to the twenty-first-century eye.” (Nelson 1). According to Houghton “never before had men thought of their own time as an era of change from the past to the future.”(1). England was in the period of transition, the change from the Middle Ages to the modern period. The old doctrines and institutions were attacked and modified and a new order was proposed. The Victorians had to live between two words,
Victorian Morality was completely adamant and strict. It can be best described as the principle that condoned sexual prudery, zero tolerance of criminal actions, and its social ethic, as it changed England. It was all based on behavior and conduct. Lifestyle practices in England were way different until Victorianism, as it correlates with morals and religion.
The Victorian era, as it became known, was the time of Queen Victoria’s reign. Victoria’s death signaled the end of an era. It was a rich and significant period in Britain, which had a positive influence on Australia also. It saw profound social changes culminating in the rise of the middle class, population growth, and an increase in wealth. Victoria was Queen and so it was seen as a product of her reign and so the love for her increased. Victoria’s death created a feeling of insecurity and uncertainty of what would result. However, it also created the feeling of opportunity and a new beginning. “There was a sense not only in London but in all the capitals of the world that an age had come to an end, a stronger sense than there had been when the 19th century itself drew to a close.” (1).
Buzard, James, Linda K. Hughes. "The Victorian Nation and its Others" and "1870." A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. Ed. Herbert F. Tucker. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 35-50, 438-455.
"The Condition of England" in Victorian Literature: 1830-1900. Ed. Dorothy Mermin, and Herbert Tucker. Accessed on 3 Nov. 2003.
"The Victorian Era." History of Human Sexuality in Western Culture. Word Press, n.d. Web. 03 Jan. 2014.
Thomas, Pauline W. "The Victorian EraFashion History." Victorian Era 1837-1901 Victorian Fashion History, Costume Social History. Fashion-Era.com, 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2012. .
One of the most interesting aspects of Victorian era literature reflects the conflict between religion and the fast gathering movement aptly dubbed the enlightenment. Primarily known for its prude, repressed, social and family structure beneath the surface of the Victorian illusion many conflicting, perhaps even radical, ideas were simmering and fast reaching a boiling point within in the public circle. In fact writers such as Thomas Hardy and Gerald Manly Hopkins reflect this very struggle between the cold front of former human understanding and the rising warm front know only as the enlightenment. As a result we as readers are treated to a spectacular display of fireworks within both authors poetry as the two ideas: poetics of soul and savior, and the poetics of naturalism struggle and brutality, meet and mix in the authors minds creating a lightning storm for us to enjoy.
Houghton, Walter E. The Victorian Frame of Mind. 1830-1870 (New Haven and London, 1985), pp. 348-353.
The Victorian Era in English history was a period of rapid change. One would be hard-pressed to find an aspect of English life in the 19th century that wasn’t subject to some turmoil. Industrialization was transforming the citizens into a working class population and as a result, it was creating new urban societies centered on the factories. Great Britain enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity at home and thus was extending its global reach in an era of New Imperialism. Even in the home, the long held beliefs were coming into conflict.
To start with, some information is in order about the Victorian Period itself. Queen Victoria, England’s longest reigning monarch, sat on the throne from 1837 to 1901. The span of time is referred to as the Victorian Period (Abrams 1860). At the death of Queen Victoria, her subjects reacted in such a way that they rebelled against many of the ideas put forward during her reign. Even her own country recognized her life and rule as a distinct historical period separated from the rest (Abrams 1861).
"History in Focus." : The Victorian Era (Introduction). Institute of Historical Research., Apr. 2001. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
During the time that Charles Dickens lived, which was during the Victorian Age (1837-1901), “...1837 ( the year Victoria became Queen) and ends in 1901 in ( the year of her death),” (UNLV 1). It is important to realize that the Victoria’s reign over Britain is the second longest reign in British history, lasting for 63 years, only behind that of the current Queen Elizabeth. Many historians consider 1900 the end of the Victorian Age, “...since Queen Victoria’s death occurred so soon in the beginning of a new century,..” (UNLV 1). Even though Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870, the Victorian Age is time period which most, maybe all, of his literature were published/read in. This era is often considered as “prudish, hypocritical, stuffy, and narrow-minded” (UNLV 2), because during this time, there were classes animosities between the “common man” and that of what was considered the “gentleman”, which was like as if they were two different species (Orwell 3.5). The advancement in literature during this period also was important, “...primarily financial, as in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations…marrying above one’s station, as in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre...[it] may also be intellectual or education-based,” (UNLV 4). Without the literature advancements, the Victorian Age wouldn’t have made such an impact on the world as it did literary-wise.