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Introduction to The Victorian Age (UBC ENGL 210)
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Introduction to The Victorian Age (UBC ENGL 210)
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Topic 13: The Victorian AgeJanuary 18th, 2023
Introduction to the Victorian Era
One of the ways to look at the literature of the period is the aesthetic resistance in literature.
● Before 1829, Roman Catholics throughout Scotland, Ireland, and England were not
allowed to hold public office or attend university, among many other things.
● Things started to (somewhat) get better for Jewish people in England.
● The emergence of children’s literature came in the Victorian Era.
Medievalism
Why did the Middle Ages rise to become a period of such social prestige and prominence for the
Victorians? We often think about this era as a period with new technology.
● At the same time, this is a period obsessed with the industrial past of the Middle Ages.
● A lot of Victorian writers “hit on” one particular way of thinking about the massive
changes that were characterizing their era (nostalgia was one way of doing that!)
○ “It used to be better,” “there’s something inhumane about this world”
○ There’s anxiety in this period about how to “fix” it.
○ How does a society overcome things that it considers “deficiencies?”
● This is a period before the disease of the Renaissance had begun. The beginning of the
Renaissance in western Europe was the “beginning” of the rot.
Carlyle: “Past and Present” (in the 1830s) explicitly contrast the present industrial state of
England to its past (often to the detriment of the present).
● The Oxford Movement: attempted to renovate Anglican doctrine by recovering and
reconciling it with earlier religious practices (emphasizing hierarchy in the Church)
● Gothic revival: when the houses of Parliament burned down in the 1830s, they were
rebuilt in the 1840s in a style which emulated nearby Westminster Abbey
The idea of the “gentleman” and the “lady” were extremely important for the Victorians:
● Often patterned on a version of a modern “knight” and “princess,” with chivalry as a
protective, paternity prevails.
● The idea that female innocence needs to be cherished and protected is double downed on
in the Victorian era – thus, a lot of writers turned to history to imagine alternatives to the
present England that they lived in.
Tennyson was a public poet insofar as he was widely admired and adored by the public.
● We’re not quite at a stage yet where the artist or the writer is a figure that is completely at
odds with the public (this is a post-Victorian idea)
● Tennyson is much more a “consensus poet,” the official poet for England at the time.
○ He was also a recluse! He lived in a remote part of the country. There’s a tension
between withdrawal from the world into one’s creative pursuits and active
involvement in the community (he has responsibilities as the court poet)
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