Victorian Age Cultural Context

The Victorian Age
Cultural context
(1837-1901)
Cultural context
• The prevailing moral values of the period
were those of the Middle Class, the social
class which was predominant at the end of
the century.
• These values were all dealt with in the Novel
• Reading novels became the main form of
entertainment of the Middle Class.
• It was not only a private but often a group
activity: novels were read aloud by one
member of the family while all the others,
servants included, listened.
Cultural context
• The demand for new novels had increased a
lot and a great quantity of books were
published;
• Many writers started to write novels which
were also serialised (published in
instalments) in the magazines of the period.
• Rich families often had their own libraries and
those who could not afford to buy books
borrowed them from the circulating libraries.
Circulating libraries.
• The high price of books in the 19th century
England led to the growth of circulating libraries
which, for a modest subscription price, supplied
to readers a continuous flow of popular novels.
• They became an important cultural institution in
Britain in the 1780s doing much to enable the
rising middle class to have access to a broad
range of reading materials, especially novels,
but also poems, plays, histories, biographies,
philosophy and travels.
The Novel
in the first part of XIX century
• During the first part of the Victorian age both novelists
and readers shared a common view of life.
• They both accepted the values, conventions and
structure of Victorian society.
• Novelists saw and denounced the evils typical of their
society, such as poverty , exploitation of children and
workers, the inadequate educational system, but they
considered them a temporary setback.
• They, in fact, never questioned the idea that the system
was fundamentally right and considered progress
inevitable. At best, they thought that such (social)
problems could be solved through a more generous
attitude of the upper classes, who had to help those who
were less lucky.
The Realistic Novel
• This first part of the century was characterized by the development of

the Realistic novel which represented life as it really was.
• The aim of the novelist was to create a fictional world which the
readers considered real and credible and to which they reacted
emotionally and rationally.
MAIN FEATURES
• Characters acted according to the rules of Victorian society and
were judged by an omniscient narrator that expressed the dominant
moral values and views of the time, making a clear distinction between
“right” and “wrong”.
• The stories were mainly set in cities, that represented industrial
civilisation and were a symbol of anonymous life and alienation.
• Plots were long with several subplots.
• Deeper analysis of the characters’ inner world
• The story generally ended happily or at least with good triumphing
over evil.
The Novel in the second part of XIX century
• During the second part of the Victorian Age the common set of values
shared by novelists and readers started to break down.
• Writers started to reject the Victorian moral view;
• their point of view was not only different from but often against that of the
prevailing moral code.
Naturalism - last three decades of the century
Main features
• Naturalist writers aimed:
• to write wholly realistic novels;
• to apply a detached and scientific objectivity in describing characters,
events, and social and natural settings;
• to be as impersonal as possible, but their narrators often betrayed a
sympathetic tone of voice;
• Deterministic view of life based on the belief that human beings are
controlled by the social and economic environment;
• Novels expose the worst evils, injustices and wrongs in society
• Novelists express the pessimistic vision of an age overwhelmed by
industrial progress and science;
• The positive endings are more and more often replaced by tragic
ones
Progress in the scientific fields
• This period saw a great progress in many
branches of science.
• By the end of the century some of the
discoveries made were applied to industry and
improved the industrial process.
• This scientific progress also implied a new
attitude towards faith and religion.
• Some religious certainties were deeply shaken
by the new scientific theories, such as those
formulated by Charles Lyell in 1830 in his
“Principles of Geology” or by Charles Darwin
in 1859 in his book “On the origin of the
species by Means of natural selection”.
Consequences of new scientific
theories
• Lyell clearly demonstrated that the age of the
earth was much older than that suggested in
the Bible and that there were natural
explanations for all the geological phenomena;
• Darwin showed that creatures evolved into
new species as part of their struggle for
existence.
• The extreme consequence of these theories
was that human beings and the universe they
lived in had not been created by God, but their
origins were natural.
Consequences of new scientific theories
• In this way the foundations of Victorian Protestantism
were undermined and many intellectuals developed a
sceptical attitude.
• However, the Middle Classes refused to see their
certainties and beliefs shaken and destroyed by the new
scientific theories so ….
• they went on believing that they were God’s creatures
and considering social success as a proof of God’s
benevolence towards those who were morally correct.
• Their Calvinist faith justified their privileged position and
allowed them to consider the poor as delinquents.

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The Victorian Age

• This first part of the century was characterized by the development of

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