The Victorian age ranges from 1837 to 1901 respectively, in the year of the death of Queen Victoria of England. His kingdom - which is considered the golden age of nineteenth century English society - was characterized by a period of stability and progress, during which the economy experienced a phase of positive development, thanks to the improvement of living conditions for workers and the absence of political and social tensions.

The writers of this period touched on issues of common interest. Many writers incentrarono the themes of their works on the growth of democracy English, education of the masses, and the difficult living conditions of workers, the industrial progress.



The Victorian novel

At a time when the romantic aesthetic gave way to observation of social relationships and individual problems, the novel became the dominant form of literature within vittoriana.Con Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray began the process that leads to aging 'investigation of the reasons psychological, social conditioning and their interaction. The novels of Dickens (Oliver Twist, 1836-1839; David Copperfield, 1849-50; Great Expectations, 1861) show his ability to condemn in no uncertain terms the social problems while creating a universe of unforgettable characters, portraits with humor. The tendency to sentimentality, which often indulgeva Dickens, is less marked in the novels of Thackeray (The vanity fair, 1847-48), in which the author focused on the areas of media and high bourgeoisie, showing a considerable skill in creating characters and control of the style, talents, however, not allowed to establish with readers the immediate managed instead to establish Dickens.

Other important figures of the Victorian novel were Anthony Trollope, famous for his investigations of ecclesiastical circles and political circles; Emily Brontë, which can be considered un'erede romance in the way it was anxieties and passions in Wuthering Heights (1847) ; George Meredith, difficult and sophisticated writer, which is remembered today mainly selfish The (1879), Thomas Hardy, which in recent decades of the century wrote novels marked by a deep pessimism about the chances of man to change their destiny.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad are occupied narrative of action and adventure, exotic locales like choosing background novels training. True, decadentismo European manifesto is the portrait of Dorian Gray (1891) Oscar Wilde. Another trend was that of Enoch Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy, who represented their time with great accuracy realistic. Interest in the social problems common to these authors Herbert George Wells, today remembered primarily as a pioneer of science fiction.

Poetry

Like many of prosatori, including the three major poets of the Victorian, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning and Matthew Arnold, indagarono social issues. Tennyson faced problems of religious faith, social changes and political power, especially nell'elegia In memoriam (1850) and Idilli King (1859). Robert Browning, author of several poetry collections including Bells and pomegranates (1847), Men and Women (1855), Dramatis Personae (1864). Acuto literary critic as well as poet, Matthew Arnold compositions as expressed in Dover Beach (1867) a bitter and disillusioned pessimism, tempered by a deep sense of responsibility towards the human destiny in times of rapid transformation.

In antithesis position compared with the social, educational and cognitive decidedly closer to the aesthetic culture-decadent turn of the century, was a poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. The last two were also celebrated artists, preraffaellita linked to the movement, whose followers are proposing to liberate creativity by materialism and realism to it a learning authenticity. Theater

The political and moral commitment inspired works Irish George Bernard Shaw, who reported the theater in a lively and concrete representation of reality. Inspired also to economic theories and philosophical, hypocrisy and conformist mentality of the time.

In the last century occupies a place of particular importance the play by Oscar Wilde. Its four comedies The range of Lady Windermere (1892), a woman unimportant (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) are the best example of brilliant theater, not without social satire...quelle che sono in italiano lae devi trovare tu

Victorian era

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Victorian Era

Queen Victoria1837—1901

Preceded by English Regency

Followed by Edwardian period

Monarch Queen Victoria

The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians—actually begins with the passage of Reform Act 1832. The era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period. The latter half of the Victorian era roughly coincided with the first portion of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe and other non-English speaking countries.



Contents [hide]

1 Introduction

2 Culture

3 Social institutions

4 Events

5 Entertainment

6 Science, technology and engineering

7 Prostitution

8 See also

9 Sources and further reading

10 External links and references







[edit] Introduction

Queen Victoria had the longest reign in British history, and the cultural, political, economic, industrial and scientific changes that occurred during her reign were remarkable. When Victoria ascended to the throne, Britain was primarily agrarian and rural (though it was even then the most industrialised country in the world); upon her death, the country was highly industrialised and connected by an expansive railway network. The first decades of Victoria's reign witnessed a series of epidemics (typhus and cholera, most notably), crop failures and economic collapses. There were riots over enfranchisement and the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had been established to protect British agriculture during the Napoleonic Wars in the early part of the 19th century.





Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her ascension to the Throne, 20 June 1837) gave her name to the historic eraDiscoveries by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin began to examine centuries of the assumptions about man and the world, about science and history, and, finally, about religion and philosophy. As the country grew increasingly connected by an expansive network of railway lines, small, previously isolated communities were exposed and entire economies shifted as cities became more and more accessible.



The mid-Victorian period also witnessed significant social changes: an evangelical revival occurred alongside a series of legal changes in women's rights. While women were not enfranchised during the Victorian period, they did gain the legal right to their property upon marriage through the Married Women's Property Act, the right to divorce, and the right to fight for custody of their children upon separation.



The period is often characterised as a long period of peace and economic, colonial, and industrial consolidation, temporarily disrupted by the Crimean War, although Britain was at war every year during this period. Towards the end of the century, the policies of New Imperialism led to increasing colonial conflicts and eventually the Anglo-Zanzibar War and the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of gradual political reform and the widening of the franchise.



In the early part of the era the House of Commons was dominated by the two parties, the Whigs and the Tories. From the late 1850s onwards the Whigs became the Liberals even as the Tories became known as the Conservatives. Many prominent statesmen led one or other of the parties, including Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury. The unsolved problems relating to Irish Home Rule played a great part in politics in the later Victorian era, particularly in view of Gladstone's determination to achieve a political settlement.



In May of 1857, the Indian Mutiny, a widespread revolt in India against the rule of the British East India Company, was sparked by sepoys (native Indian soldiers) in the Company's army. The rebellion, involving not just sepoys but many sectors of the Indian population as well, was largely quashed within a year. In response to the Mutiny, the East India Company was abolished in August 1858 and India came under the direct rule of the British crown, beginning the period of the British Raj.



In January 1858, the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston responded to the Orsini plot against French emperor Napoleon III, the bombs for which were purchased in Birmingham, by attempting to make such acts a felony, but the resulting uproar forced him to resign.



In July 1866, an angry crowd in London, protesting John Russell's resignation as prime minister, was barred from Hyde Park by the police; they tore down iron railings and trampled the flower beds. Disturbances like this convinced Derby and Disraeli of the need for further parliamentary reform.



During 1875, Britain purchased Egypt's shares in the Suez Canal as the African nation was forced to raise money to pay off its debts.



In 1882 Egypt became a protectorate of Great Britain after British troops occupied land surrounding the Suez Canal in order to secure the vital trade route, and the passage to India.



In 1884 the Fabian Society was founded in London by a group of middle class intellectuals, including Quaker Edward R. Pease, Havelock Ellis, and E. Nesbit, to promote socialism. George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells would be among many famous names to later join this society.



On Sunday, November 13, 1887, tens of thousands of people, many of them socialists or unemployed, gathered in Trafalgar Square to demonstrate against British coercion in Ireland. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren ordered armed soldiers and 2,000 police constables to respond. Rioting broke out, hundreds were injured and two people died. This event was referred to as Bloody Sunday.





[edit] Culture

This inescapable sense of newness resulted in a deep interest in the relationship between modernity and cultural continuities. Gothic Revival architecture became increasingly significant in the period, leading to the Battle of the Styles between Gothic and Classical ideals. Charles Barry's architecture for the new Palace of Westminster, which had been badly damaged in an 1834 fire, built on the medieval style of Westminster Hall, the surviving part of the building. It constructed a narrative of cultural continuity, set in opposition to the violent disjunctions of Revolutionary France, a comparison common to the period, as expressed in Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History and Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Gothic was also supported by the critic John Ruskin, who argued that it epitomised communal and inclusive social values, as opposed to Classicism, which he considered to epitomise mechanical standardisation.



The middle of the century saw The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair and showcased the greatest innovations of the century. At its centre was the Crystal Palace, an enormous, modular glass and iron structure - the first of its kind. It was condemned by Ruskin as the very model of mechanical dehumanisation in design, but later came to be presented as the prototype of Modern architecture. The emergence of photography, which was showcased at the Great Exhibition, resulted in significant changes in Victorian art. John Everett Millais was influenced by photography (notably in his portrait of Ruskin) as were other Pre-Raphaelite artists. It later became associated with the Impressionistic and Social Realist techniques that would dominate the later years of the period in the work of artists such as Walter Sickert and Frank Holl.





[edit] Social institutions

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Britain had a very rigid social structure consisting of three distinct classes: the Church and aristocracy, the middle class, and the working class.



The top class, known as the aristocracy, included the Church and nobility and had great power and wealth. This class consisted of about two percent of the population, who were born into nobility and who owned the majority of the land. It included the royal family, lords spiritual and temporal, the clergy, great officers of state, and those above the degree of baronet. These people were privileged and avoided taxes.



The middle class or bourgeoisie was made up of factory owners, bankers, shopkeepers, merchants, lawyers, engineers, businessmen, traders, and other professionals. These people could be sometimes extremely rich, but in normal circumstances they were not privileged, and they especially resented this. There was a very large gap between the middle class and the lower class.



The British lower class was divided into two sections: "the working class" (labourers), and "the poor" (those who were not working, or not working regularly, and were receiving public charity). The lower class contained men, women, and children performing many types of labour, including factory work, seamstressing, chimney sweeping, mining, and other jobs. Both the poorer class and the middle class had to endure a large burden of tax. This third class consisted of about eighty-five percent of the population.



Industrialisation changed the class structure dramatically in the late 18th century. Hostility was created between the upper and lower classes. As a result of industrialisation, there was a huge boost of the middle and working class. As the Industrial Revolution progressed there was further social division. Capitalists, for example, employed industrial workers, wh

Victorian L'età goes from 1837 to 1901: respective, year incoronation and that one of the dead women of Queen Victoria d'Inghilterra. Its reign - that gold one year of the nineteenth-century English society is considered - was characterized from a period of equilibrium and progress, during which economycrossed one phase of positive development, thanks also to the improvement of the living conditions of the workers and to the absence of political-social tensions. The writers of this period dealt topics of common interest. Many writers centralized the topics of their works on the increase of the English democracy, education of the masses, the difficult living conditions of the laborers, the industrial progress. The victorian novel In the moment in which romantica l'estetica it yielded the step observ of the social relations and the problems characterizes them, the novel divenne the dominant shape all'interno of the literature vittoriana.With Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray began the maturation process that door to surveying of the psychological motivations, the social conditionings and their interaction. The novels of Dickens (Oliver Twist, 1836-1839; David Copperfield, 1849-50; Great hopes, 1861) show its ability in denouncing with hardness the social problems, creating at the same time a universe of unforgettable personages, ritratti with humour. The tendency to the sentixmentalism, to which Dickens often indulgeva, it is less marked in novels of Thackeray (like the fair of the vanity, 1847-48), in which the author one concentrated sull'analisi of atmospheres of the average and high bourgeoisie, showing one remarkable maestria in the creation of the personages and the control of the style: dowries that, however, did not concur to it to establish with the readers the immediate relationship that succeeded instead establishing Dickens. Other important figures of the victorian novel were Anthony Trollope, celebre for its surveyings of ecclesiastical atmospheres and the political circles; Emily Brontë, that it can be considered un'erede of the romanticism for the way in which represented turbamenti and passions in stormy Tops (1847); George Meredith, difficult and sophisticated writer, of which today L'egoista (1879 is remembered above all); Thomas Hardy, than in the last few decades of the century wrote novels marks to you from a dark pessimism approximately the possibilities of man to modify just the destiny. Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad were taken care of novellistic of action and adventure, choosing the exotic acclimatizations like background to formation novels. True manifesto of the European decadentism is instead ritratto of Dorian Gray (1891) of Oscar Wilde. Un'altra tendency was that one of Enoch Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy, that they represented their time with great realistic accuracy. The interexst for the social problems joins these authors to Herbert George Wells, today remembered above all like pioneer of the fantascienza. Poetry Like great part of the prosatori, also the three greater poets victorian dell'età, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning and Matthew Arnold, inquired social topics. Tennyson faced social problems of religious faith, changes and to be able political, above all nell'elegia In memoriam (1850) and the Idilli of the king (1859).Robert Browning, author of numerous poetiche collections between which Bells and melograni (1847), Men and women (1855), Dramatis Personae (1864). Acute critic literary beyond that poet, Matthew Arnold expressed in componimenti like Having to Beach (a 1867) bitter and disilluso pessimism, moderated from a deep sense of responsibility in the comparisons of the human destiny in times of fast transformation. In antithetic position respect ai values of social, didactic and cognitive engagement, decidedly more neighbor alla aesthetic-decadent culture of fine century, was instead the poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. Last the two were also celebrate artists, legacies to the preraffaellita movement, whose adepts person proposed themselves to free the creativity from the materialism and the realism for ricondisy to one cognitive authenticity. Political Impegx theatre and moral dell'irlandese George Bernard Shaw inspired the works, that he brought back the lively theatre to one and realizes rappresentasion of the truth. Inspiring itself also to the economic and philosophical theories, false and to the conformist mentality dell'epoc. In the last end of century the teatrale work of Oscar Wilde occupies a place of particular relief. Its four commedi the fan of Lady Windermere (1892), a woman without importance (1893), an ideal husband (1895) and of important to call Ernesto (1895) are the best example than shining theatre, not lacking in satira social