The Victorians

“British history is two thousand years old, and yet in a good many ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand years put together.”

Mark Twain, 1897

at Queen Victoria’s

Jubilee

Queen Victoriareigned 1837-1901

May 24, 1819: born at Kensington Palace – only child of Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III

1837: on the death of her uncle, William IV, she became queen at the age of 18

1840: married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 1861: Prince Albert died Nine children Presided over an Empire “upon which the sun never set” It was during Victoria's reign that the modern idea of the

constitutional monarch, whose role was to remain above political parties, began to evolve.

January 22, 1901: died after a reign of 64 years – longest in British history

Victoriaand

Albert

Prince Albert Son of Duke Ernest of Coburg, Victoria’s maternal uncle –

he and Victoria were first cousins, born the same year Became Victoria’s closest advisor A serious patron of the arts, a composer and a painter, an

architect and an educator As chancellor of Cambridge, he modernized the traditional

classics-and-theology curriculum with science and technology

Arranged for the design and building of experimental houses to better serve working class families

Organized and oversaw the Great Exhibition of 1851 -- the first World's Fair.

"Machinery, Science, and Taste…are of no country, but belong, as a whole, to the civilized world."

The Crystal Palace in Hyde Parksite of the 1851 Great Exhibition

Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition

The Royal Family

Print of the British royal family from 1880. Based on a painting by J. Archer.

Political Reform 1832: The Reform Bill extended voting rights to all

males owning property worth £10 in annual rent – lower middle classes

1832: redistribution of parliamentary representation – elimination of “rotten boroughs”

1838-48: Chartist Movement “People’s Charter” advocated universal suffrage, secret ballots and legislative reforms

1867: Second Reform Bill: extended right to vote to some of working class

1870-1908: Married Women’s Property Acts – granted women the right to own property –”women were legally recognized as individuals in their own right for the first time in history.”

Social Reform and Education 1846: Repeal of Corn Laws – elimination of tax on

grains – free trade 1833-78: Factory Acts – restricted child labor, limited

work hours, required public education 1839: Custody Act 1857: Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act Higher Education for Women

1848 – establishment of first Women’s College in London

By the end of Victoria’s reign, women could get degrees at 12 universities and study at Oxford and Cambridge

Technology

1830: Liverpool and Manchester RR – first public steam railway in the world

steam ships telegraph -- intercontinental cables photography high speed printing cast iron for building anesthetics -- ether Technology on the

Victorian Web

Gustav Doré, London Underground

J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam, Speed. 1844.

Science: Geology and Astronomy Geology

“the hottest science going” all accredited geologists agreed that the earth was millions of

years old, that strata were layers from different times and that Genesis was incompatible with the findings of modern geology or irrelevant

many discoveries about dinosaurs throughout the 19th c. http://rainbow.ldeo.columbia.edu/courses/v1001/dinodis3.html

Astronomy: new planetary and cosmic discoveries Geology “gives one the same sort of bewildering view of the

abysmal extent of Time that Astronomy does of Space.” – John Sterling, 1837

included first exhibition of

dinosaurs

The Great

Exhibition1851

Women Astronomers

Mary Somerville

Agnes Mary Clerke

Caroline Herschel

Science: Biology Charles Darwin (1809-82)

1859: On the Origin of the Species 1871: The Descent of Man, and Selection in

Relation to Sex 1872: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and

Animals Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95)

Populizer and advocate of Darwin’s theories On a Piece of Chalk influenced thinking about

education Huxley advocated broad primary school

instruction: reading, writing, arithmetic, art, science, and music.

The basic form of nearly every American college curriculum is what Huxley advocated more than 100 years ago: two years of more liberal basic studies followed by two years of specialization

Huxley emphasized doing and observing in science classes

The voyage of the HMS Beagle

Religion 1829: Catholic Relief Act – granted Catholics the same

political rights as Protestants 1835: Jews are granted the right to vote

1857: Sir David Salomons elected Lord Mayor of London 1868: Benjamin Disraeli, a convert to Anglicanism, becomes

Prime MinisterThe Church of England

Low Church – evangelical, highly individual, abolitionists, Puritanical ( Christian right )

Broad Church – open to modern advances in science, emphasized inclusion ( liberals )

High Church – emphasized tradition, ritual and authority – the Oxford Movement – resistant to liberal ideas (conservatives)

Biblical Studies

Linguistic and Historic: “Higher Criticism” Study of original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic

texts – history of composition Historical contexts David Friedrich Struass’s Das Leben Jesu –

translated by George Eliot as The Life of Jesus Biblical Archaeology vs. Mesopotamian

Archaeology – Sumerian texts

Philosophy: Utilitarianism Philosophical Radicalism All humans seek to maximize pleasure and

minimize pain. Morality – that which provides the

greatest pleasure to the greatest number Religion – outmoded superstition Fails to provide for spiritual needs Attacked by:

Carlyle, Sartor, Resartus (1833-34) Dickens, Hard Times (1854) Ruskin, Unto This Last (1860) John Stuart Mill, Autobiography ( 1873)

Jeremy Bentham

James Mill

John Stuart Mill

Philosophy: Marxism Based on materialist interpretation of history Social change occurs

because of class struggle Capitalism leads to the

oppression of the proletariat

Inevitability of a proletarian revolution

1845: Engels, The Condition of the Working Class

1848: Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto

1867-94: Marx, Das Kapital

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in London, 1867

The British Empire

Imperialism: The British Empire 1853-1880: Over 2 million Britons emigrated to settle in British

colonies – especially Canada and Australia 1839-42; 1856-60: Opium Wars with China 1857: Parliament took over rule of India from East India Co. and

set up a civil service government 1867: Canadian provinces united into Dominion of Canada 1876: Victoria declared Empress of India 1880s – the Irish question – Home Rule 1899-1902: Boer War in South Africa By 1890, the British Empire contained ¼ of the earth’s territory,

and ¼ of the earth’s population.

Richard Redgrave, The Emigrants’ Last Sight of Home, 1858

Ford Madox Brown

The Last of

England, 1855

India

The British penetrated the Indian

governments, first as

advisors -- later as direct

rulers with military

and political control

The English were content to live apart, safe in their compounds

and strongholds

Government House in Calcutta1799-1803

As closely as possible, they duplicated life in England -- with certain luxurious additions

According to Lord Kitchener: “It is

the consciousness of the inherent

superiority of the European which has won for us

India”

Desperate to open up the rich ports of China, the

Europeans finally found a product they could sell

there

opium…“Opium is an imperious master and treats its subjects like slaves. It first

comes with a gentle touch...

...and then in a few weeks when it has got its grip upon the man, it shows itself to be the cruelest

taskmaster that ever drove man to a lingering death.”

When the Chinese government tried to

curb the opium traffic, the British

gunboats triumphed in the Opium Wars

(1839-42, 1856-60)

China was forced to open her ports and the interior to a flood of foreign merchants, soldiers and missionaries and to legalize the opium trade.

The Open Door Policy imposed by the Western Powers

created havoc in China: depredation by foreigners and internal rebellion

The Boxer

Rebellion1900

A secret society in northern China began a campaign of terror against Christian missionaries and Chinese converts.

Foreigners called them “Boxers” because they practiced martial arts.

Victorian Literature

The Novel

Dominant Victorian literary form Initially published in serial form in

periodicals Usually appeared in 3 volumes –

“three deckers” – in book form Focus on social relationships in

middle class world Ample opportunities for women

novelists although many chose male pseudonyms to be taken more seriously

Novelists

Thackeray Eliot Trollope

C. BronteDickens

Gaskell

Disraeli

E. Bronte

The BrontësCharlotte (1816-55), Emily (1818-48), Anne (1820-49)

Novels of Sentiment in which the characters, and thus the readers, have a heightened emotional response to events

Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre transcend sentiment into myth-making

Wuthering Heights plumbs the psychic unconscious in a search for wholeness, while Jane Eyre narrates the female quest for individuationportrait by Branwell Brontë of his sisters,

Anne, Emily, and Charlotte (c. 1834)

Social Realism Social novels deal with the nature, function and

effect of the society which the characters inhabit – often for the purpose of effecting reform

“ Condition of England” novels in 1840s and 1850s: response to the condition of laborers in the Industrial Revolution: Dickens’ Hard Times, Gaskell’s Mary Barton; Disraeli’s The Two Nations

Social and political realism: Trollope’s The Palliser Novels, The Barsetshire Chronicles, etc.

Satirical social commentary: Thackeray’s Vanity Fair

Probing psychological realism: Eliot’s Middlemarch

Non-fiction Prose

Instructional purpose: history, biography, theology, literary and artistic criticism

Centrality of argument and persuasion

Professional writers

Matthew Arnold

Walter Pater

Victorian Poetry Highly pictorial – “picturesque” – combines

visual impressions to create a picture that carries the dominant emotion of the poem

Narrative Long narrative stories – poetic novels: Tennyson’s

Idylls of the King, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book

Dramatic monologues – esp. Robert Browning Distinctive sound experimentation Poetry of mood and character

Poets

Elizabeth BarrettBrowning

Robert Browning

Aestheticism

“Art for art’s sake” A cult of beauty: Life should imitate Art Strong connection between visual and literary arts Anti-Victorian reaction, post-Romantic roots The Arts should provide refined sensuous pleasure,

rather than convey moral or sentimental messages Pre-Raphaelites and Arts and Crafts Movement

William Morris

Dante Gabriel RossettiWilliam Holman Hunt Aubrey

Beardsley

Algernon Swinburne

Christina Rossetti

VictorianDrama

Gilbert and Sullivan

Oscar Wilde

George Bernard Shaw

Melodrama: 19th C. Comes from "music drama" – music was

used to increase emotions or to signify characters (signature music).

Theatre of sentimentality -- emotional appeal

Simplified moral universe: good and evil embodied in stock characters Heroes and villains -- and lily-pure

heroines Sensationalistic: fires, explosions,

drownings, etc. Episodic form: the villain poses a threat,

the hero or heroine escapes, etc.—with a happy ending

Wide popular appeal

George L. Aiken’s was the most popular--1853. Six acts, done without an afterpiece – established the single-play format. 325 performances in New York.

In the 1870’s, at least 50 companies doing it in the U.S. In 1899: 500 companies. In 1927: 12 still doing it. 12 movie versions since 1900. The most popular melodrama in the world until the First

World War.

Uncle Tom’s Cabindramatizations based

on novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Equestrian Melodrama

Nautical Melodrama

The Water Tank at Sadler’s Wells Theatre – 50,000 gallons of water

Gothic Melodrama

Comic or Light OperaPredecessors

Italian Opera BuffaFrench Opera ComiqueEnglish Ballad Opera:

Gay’s The Beggar’s OperaGerman SingspieleEnglish PantomimeViennese Operetta

ConventionsCombination of spoken dialogue and songsA frivolous, sentimental story, often employing parody and

satire Light, pleasant music sometimes including popular music of

the day

Richard D’oyly Carte and

the Savoy Theatre

1875: D’oyly Carte brought Gilbert and Sullivan together to write an opera afterpiece: Trial by Jury

1876: Formed the Comic Opera Company and leased the Opera Comique Theatre

1877-1881: Great successes with The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore, Patience and The Pirates of Penzance

1878 on: touring companies (A,B,C, D) throughout the UK, Ireland, North America, Europe, and South Africa

1881: Built the Savoy Theatre – the first London theatre to be lit with electric lights

Gilbert and Sullivan First collaborated in 1871 on

Thespis, an ‘Original Grotesque Opera’

After success of The Sorcerer and H.M.S. Pinafore partnered with Richard D’oyly Carte to form Mr. D’Oyly Carte’s Opera Company.

Success of company attributed to D’Oyly Carte’s business acumen and diplomacy as well as artistic control exercised by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Sullivan knighted in 1883 by Queen Victoria.

Gilbert knighted in 1907 by King Edward VII.

AuthorSir William Schwenk

Gilbert1836-1911

ComposerSir Arthur Seymour Sullivan

1842-1900

The Savoy Operas

Trial By Jury (1875) The Sorcerer (1877) H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved A Sailor (1878) The Pirates of Penzance (1879) Patience (1881) Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri (1882) Princess Ida (1884) The Mikado (1885) Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse (1887) The Yeomen of the Guard (1888) The Gondoliers (1889) Utopia Limited; or, The Flowers of Progress (1893) The Grand Duke; or, The Statutory Duel (1896)

Written by William Gilbert, scored by Sir Arthur Sullivan, produced by Richard D'Oyly Carte

Light 1817: first gas lit theatre

Smelled bad Very hazardous – many theatres

burnt down as the gas lighting set the wood and canvas scenery on fire

1826: limelight was invented A block of quicklime heated by

oxygen and hydrogen produced a bright sharp light.

Used in hand-operated spotlights 1881: London’s Savoy Theatre

opened with electric lights The auditorium was still lit for most of

this period, which also had an effect on the lighting effects on-stage.

Lighting control desk at the Paris Opera, 1893

The Well-Made Play1. A plot based upon a withheld secret   2. Slowly accelerating action and suspense sustained by such

contrivances as precisely timed entrances and exits, letters which miscarry, and mistakes in identity,  

3. A battle of wits between two adversaries  4. A reversal in the action followed by a climactic, "obligatory"

scene representing the nadir and then the zenith of the hero's fortunes as a result of the disclosure of the withheld secret 

5. A logical, credible denouement    6. Tendency to have the action center upon a stage prop, e.g. a

letter, a fan or a glass of water7. A nugget of morality which would appease the ordinary man's

sense of guilt at enjoying himself, e.g. the lesson that momentous consequences may follow from quite trivial events.

Oscar Wilde 1854-1900

Middle Class Satire1892: Lady

Windermere's Fan 1893: A Woman Of No

Importance 1894: Salome

1895: An Ideal Husband

1895: The Importance Of Being Earnest

Actor-Managers Star performers who held the license to the theatres, arranged

the performances and hired the other actors. Introduced reforms and innovations:

full rehearsals for the company raised status of actors revived Shakespearean plays toured extensively offered powerful management role to women

Demands of complicated technical effects (storms, fires, elaborate lighting) led actors to give artistic control to stage managers who could coordinate all production aspects

Stage manager's function became increasingly important until he was eventually elevated to the status of régisseur, or director.

Edwin Forrest, American1806-72

William Macready, English1793-1873

1849: competing productionsof Macbeth. Riot eruptedleaving 23 dead and 100wounded

Sarah Bernhardt, French, 1844-1923

Edmund Kean, English, 1787-1833Samuel Drummond (1765-1844)Edmund Kean as Richard III (1814)

Eleanora Duse, Italian, 1859-1924

Henry Irving, English, 1838-1905

November 25, 1864, "Julius Caesar," Winter Garden, New York:  The first and last appearance together of Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. (right) and two of his sons, John Wilkes (left) and Edwin (middle).  

Realism and Naturalism

Intellectual reaction against popular theatre

Theatre of social problems Influenced by emerging

disciplines of psychology and sociology

Emerging importance of director

Realistic stage conventions

Proscenium stage Audience as “fourth

wall” Change in acting

conventions Continued

improvement in stagecraft: electric lighting, set design, costumes, etc.

Independent Theatre Movement Led by young intellectuals, disillusioned with

the literary stagnation of the stage, the actor-manager system and indulgence with scenic spectacle

Wanted to promote new Realistic and Naturalistic playwrights

Often ran into trouble with censors Dedicated to bringing serious drama to the

working and middle class

Independent TheatresThéâtre-Libre founded by André Antoine in 1887 in

ParisFreie Bühne founded by Otto Brahm in 1894 in

BerlinIndependent Theatre Club founded by Jacob Grein

in 1891 in London The Stage Society founded in 1899 in LondonMoscow Art Theatre founded by Konstantin

Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko in 1898 in Moscow

The Abbey Theatre founded by William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory in 1903 in Dublin

Realism vs. Naturalism Middle class Pragmatic Psychological Mimetic art Objective, but ethical Sometimes comic or satiric How can the individual live

within and influence society?

“Well-made play” Henrik Ibsen, George

Bernard Shaw

Middle/Lower class Scientific Sociological Investigative art Objective and amoral Often pessimistic, sometimes

comic How does society/the

environment impact individuals?

“Slice of life” August Strindberg, Anton

Chekhov, John Millington Synge

Henrik IbsenNorwegian, 1828-1906

Romantic DramasBrandPeer Gynt

Realistic Social DramasThe Pillars of SocietyA Doll's HouseGhostsAn Enemy of the PeopleThe Wild DuckRosmersholmThe Lady from the SeaHedda Gabler

Symbolic DramasThe Master BuilderLittle Eyolf John Gabriel Borkman When We Dead Awaken

August Strindberg Swedish, 1849-1912

Naturalistic Plays : 1880sThe Father Miss Julie Creditors

Dreamplays : turn of the centuryTo Damascus A Dream Play The Ghost Sonata

Historical Dramas: turn of the centuryGustavus Vasa Erik XIV Charles XII

Anton ChekhovRussian

1860-1904

Physician, storyteller, dramatist Plays:

That Worthless FellowPlatonov On the Harmful Effects of

Tobacco IvanovThe BearA Marriage Proposal The Wood Demon

For the Moscow Art Theatre:The SeagullUncle Vanya The Three SistersThe Cherry Orchard

George Bernard Shaw

Anglo-Irish, 1856-1950

Fabian, Drama critic, Nobel Prize Winner The Quintessence of Ibsenism,

Playwright: Over 50 plays 1890s: Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant:

Widower’s Houses, The Philanderer, Mrs. Warren’s Profession ,Arms and the Man ,Candida, You Never Can Tell

1890s: Three Plays for Puritans: The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (1900).

Early 20th C: Man and Superman , Major Barbara, Androcles and the Lion and Pygmalion (My Fair Lady)

Later Plays: St. Joan, Heartbreak House, The Millionairess

John Millington Synge1871-1909

§ Irish poet and playwright discovered by W.B. Yeats.

§ Plays of Irish peasant life: § In the Shadow of the Glen, (1903), a comedy§ Riders to the Sea (1904), a tragedy§ The Well of the Saints (1905), a comedy § The Playboy of the Western World (1907), a comedy,

caused riots§ The Tinker's Wedding, published in 1908 but not produced

for fear of further riots§ Deirdre of the Sorrows, a mythic tragedy unfinished at the

time of his death