The document discusses the Victorian period in England from 1833-1901 under Queen Victoria's reign. It was a time of rapid industrialization, economic growth, and expansion of the British Empire. New social classes emerged and Britain became the world's foremost imperial power. Science, technology, and social reform movements advanced society in modern directions while strict social norms around behavior, courtship, and gender roles were still prevalent. Literature, art, and thought also flourished during this era.

1. “THE SUN NEVER SETS
ON
THE BRITISH EMPIRE”
- Roby Vincent
The Victorian Period: 1833-1901
ARISE ROBY

2. Queen Victoria’s Reign
• 1837-1901
• Booming economy
• Rapid expansion
• Growth of two classes
– Industrial working class
– Modern middle class
• Imperialist Urge
• Expansion of British
Empire
ARISE ROBY

3. Victorian England
• Parent of the modern
• Sense of social
responsibility
• Common connotations:
– Prudish
– Repressed
– Old fashioned
• Considered second
English Renaissance
– Expansion of wealth,
power, and culture
ARISE ROBY

4. Modern Beginnings
• Science and technology
– Invented the modern idea of invention
• Religion
– Great age of doubt
• Ideology, politics, and society
– Democracy, feminism, unionization of
workers, socialism & other “modern”
movements took form
ARISE ROBY

5. Social Responsibility
• Victorians confident in
humanity’s ability to
better itself
• Reformers had great faith
that hard work could
make all right
• Writers exposed
problems of
manufacturing economy
• Two key issues: trade
policy & electoral reform
ARISE ROBY

6. Industrial Revolution
• Textiles, railroads, steel
• Changes in the making of
goods
• Created profound
economic and social
changes
• Migration to industrial
towns
• Wages were low and
hours long
• Stirred conflicting feelings
ARISE ROBY

7. Etiquette and Manners
• Influences on public
behavior
– Social background
– Religious beliefs
– Ethnic heritage
– Geography
– Profession
– Wealth
• Victorian Videos:
– Dance:
http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=FLV-WQfc8VQ
– How to buy a book:
http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=_WSrtNGQAmo
– Manners:
http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=jM9rAH4JnlY
ARISE ROBY

8. Courting & Marriage
• Dating was not free
and unregulated
• Couples had to follow
strict rules in all
aspects of their
relationships
• Young ladies would
use fans to
communicate with
gentlemen
ARISE ROBY

9. Victorian Women
• “The Woman Question”
• Industry created new
opportunities and
challenges for women
• Recruited to work in
factories
• Unable to vote until 1918
• Chastity and innocence
imperative
• Educated in social living
and decorum
ARISE ROBY

10. Victorian Literature
• Poetry
– A large and diverse body of poetry
– Tennyson, the Brownings, Kipling, Hardy
• Drama
– At first playhouses few in number, but by end of
century, theater showed some sparkle
– Oscar Wilde
• Fiction
– Novels became popular
– Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens
ARISE ROBY

11. Victorian Thinkers
• Romanticism
– Vestige of Romantic
Era
– Value in the individual
– Romantic view of
nature
– Optimism associated
with radical reform
– Seeks to find the
Absolute and the Ideal
by transcending the
actual Tennyson
ARISE ROBY

12. Victorian Thinkers
• Realism
– Reaction to
romanticism
– Describes the
common, the average,
the everyday
– Writing centered on
characters & common
actions of middle-class
society
– Finds values in the
actual
Rudyard Kipling
ARISE ROBY

13. Victorian Thinkers
• Naturalism
– Basic assumption:
everything real exists
in nature
– Strives to be objective
in the presentation of
material
– Humans seen as
victims of destiny or
fate
– Humans driven by
fundamental urges Thomas Hardy
ARISE ROBY

14. Victorian Thinkers
• Aestheticism
– aka Anti-Realists
– Art has no utility (“art
for art’s sake”)
– Separation of art and
morality
– The study of the
beautiful in nature, art,
and literature
Oscar Wilde
ARISE ROBY