Victorian Period - Introduction

A. The Industrial Revolution (1780s to mid-19th century)


1. Major shifts


a. agricultural to industrial

b. rural to urban (shift in population in the cities)

c. aristocracy to working and middle classes

2. Technological advances


a. steam engine

b. cotton gin

c. print technologies

d. development of factories

3. Responses to the changes


a. Carlyle


i. External

ii. Internal

b. Marx and Engels


i. Marx – alienation of labor

ii. Engels – study of city life (rich/poor, anonymity)

B. Important dates


1832 First Reform Bill
1837 Victoria becomes Queen
1838-48 Chartism
1846 Corn Laws Repealed
1848 Strangely absent 1848
1851 Great Exhibition
1857 Matrimonial Causes Act
1859 Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species published
1867 Second Reform Bill
1870s Age of Empire
1901 Death of Victoria

C. Victorian Literature


1. Rise of the novel


a. Print culture

b. Realism vs. Romanticism

2. Poetry


a. Becomes more interior, almost as a space of refuge from the world.
b. Heavily Romantic (as opposed to the novel)

3. Common themes


a. Middle class ideology

b. Industrialization

c. Empire and colonialism

d. Gender differentiation

e. Religion and Darwinism (Fate and Chance)

f. Function of language