Asher.p2.t1.Victorian Era

Asher.p2.t1.Victorian era

by Jane Lu, Christina Yang, Calvin Chan, Brianna Loo

In the previous period, the Romantic era, there was a huge turn towards imagination as the people “revolted” against reason and sense. But in the Victorian Era, people rebelled against such thoughts and were much more realistic, as evidenced by any typical Victorian novel such Hard Times (circa 1854) by Charles Dickens. While the novel does have a dramatized plot line and humor incorporated in it, but Dickens bluntly and truthfully portrays what urban life was like for those living during that time period. Not only that, Dickens uses the novel to demonstrate and highlight the economic and social pressures of the era.

The Romantic Era was also known for its heavy emphasis on the idea that nature is transformative and has the power to change people. But, the Victorian Era reacted to such ideas with realism and focused on the notion that a person, not nature, can create solutions to better a problem, and improve the individual lives of the people via those solutions. Mary Ann Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot, wrote novels well-known for their realism and insight into how to solve the social problems of the era. Similarly, another famous writer, Anthony Trollope wrote a series of novels that analyzed the social and political life of England during that era. Later, at the close of the Victorian Era, it was commonly understood that a primary method of analyzing problems and proposing solutions was through the novel.

ash.p2.t2 Victorian Era

The Romantic Era preceded the Victorian Era, and even a cursory look at both periods of time shows how different they are from one another. The Romantic Era was a time when emotions and fantasy were prized, and the rigid logic of industry was disdained. In contrast, the Victorian Era was known for its faithfulness to the hierarchy between classes and high moral values. The Victorian Era relied on etiquette and social pressure to maintain an expected standard of ‘civilization’ that was lacking in the Romantic Era.

An examination of literature from these periods immediately shows how much the Victorian Era was a reaction to what was seen as the immoral excesses of the era preceding it. Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley during the Romantic period, contains a plot fueled by the question of what man’s true relationship to nature and science should be. The characters are filled with powerful emotions and commit acts of rage and passion, but are not so concerned with propriety. In contrast, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is filled with characters whose troubles are caused by their social standing and their poverty. Their problems are real-world ones and require no suspense of disbelief. The humans are concerned not with their standing with nature, but with their standing with each other. When the stories written by Shelley and Dickens are compared, it is clear the Victorian Era, led by Queen Victoria herself, was a reaction against the ideals of the period in time before it.

Victorian Synthesis

The Victorian Era comes forth from a reaction of the combination of the two eras of Gothic and Romantic. These two previous eras coined themselves to uphold a secretive and outlandish trait. The Romantic Era would revolve itself around Nature, veiling themes and ideas where incredibly emphasized. An example of this would be Wuthering Heights, created by Emily Bronte, where the story line is revolved around characters that bring about an eerie sensation where as the story progresses onward and until the end, there was no clear distinction of what the purpose and author’s message. This time period also let creative minds let loose and create out of the box, unorthodox idea loose like magical creatures and gothic themed events and arts to flourish. Essentially this is where the Victorian Era comes into play. The Victorian Era was used to simply put a stop to all these ridiculous ideas that came out from the previous Eras. The Victorian era basically became a reset Era that had no connections with anything spiritual or grotesque at all. On the other hand this Era focused more on nature and logic, where scientist where given credit to their works only if backed by logic that was repeatable. An example of this would be the development of Charles Darwin’s theory of the Theory of Evolution. Which completely destroys the previous though that was implemented into everyone’s mind because of the Romantic Era. This Theory of Evolution also disregarded the famous novel at the time of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly. The Victorian era also emphasized honorable values, which referred to morality and one’s good conscious; also where the literature had a clear distinct message instead of shrouded ones like the Romanticism ones’ did. Oscar Wilde created a literary masterpiece, A Picture of Dorian Grey and The Importance of Being Earnest. These two works displayed their messages loud and clear; another message displayed at the time would be the role of women and how they became more reserved and shy. Women started becoming more concealed with themselves, wearing the most clothing as possible and bidding the commands of the man in the house most of the time. To sum up everything, the Victorian Era was used as an Era to close down any Romantic’s and close the old mysterious ideas and introduce a new straight forward way of thought.

Team 6 Period 2

Kevin Cheung, Raymond Yonami, Bryce Cheng, Alex Park

Ash.P3.T3

Victorian Era Synthesis

The Victorian Era, as indicated by the title of the era, was greatly influenced by ascension of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837. Under her reign, the British Empire reached unprecedented heights, entering a period of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Brittanica. Though it is a new era, not much had changed from the previous periods. Much like the Enlightenment and Romantic Era, the Victorian Era had a powerful middle class whose growth was fueled by the booming trade and dominance of the British Empire. As a result of more money, people could afford to pay for more works and kinds of art. Music, drama, and opera were all well attended, but literature truly flourished during this period. Authors like Charles Dickens and Arthur Doyle became widely popular, largely because people had both the leisure and the money to enjoy their books. Much like the last era, Dickens’s literary works were enormously popular during his lifetime, and many of them dealt with either problems of British society or the debaucheries of the preceding French. A piece of the work is his famed novel Hard Times, which was concentrated on the struggling lower classes of England, which exploited the flaws of society through literature. This mockery helped contribute to both the social advancements made during this era, and the Victorian mentality that developed. And though social advancements were made, many workers and children were still slaving away in sweat shops due the upper class rise in living standards. So basically Queen Victoria made everything seem great and wonderful, but really this era was a reflection of the previous two eras, with sprinkles on top to hide all the underlying social issues that continued to devastate the lower class.

ASHER P3 T4 Victorian Era Synthesis

The Victorian era was known for its high morals and proper decorum, as inspired by Queen Victoria.This was reflected in the different art movements that emerged from this time period. However the many styles found in Victoria era art was influenced from the previous time period, the Romantic era. The Romantic Era artists often employed Neoclassic styles to create a solemn and supernatural feel to their work. Paintings and drawings focused on the transformative aspect nature which often exaggerated or distorted natural phenomenas.

Since the Victoria era emphasized morality and truthfulness, artists now wanted to portray nature as it really was. Thus the Realism art movement emerged. Painters Dance and Rossetti and William Holman Hunt both shared the common goal to paint directly from nature. Together they formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. They rejected creative principles of art such as depiction of the supernatural, which was very popular in the previous era, to paint what they actually saw in real life. As a result their work was colorful, detailed, and almost photographic like depictions of nature.

The different sensibilities of the Victorian and Romantic Era made Victorian era made the art from each time period very distinct from each other. In the Romantic Era unrestricted emotions and spontaneity was emphasized while in the Victorian period prudery and the prim and proper was emphasized. Thus Victorian era art styles diverged from those of the previous era because of changing societal beliefs and practices.

Victorian Era P.1 T.5

The Victorian era is identified as a time, which broke apart from the romanticism’s deeper way of expression. With such an emphasis on wealth and social rank brought upon by the stern Queen Victoria, the previous era’s morals were replaced with a more superficial simple-minded way of thinking. The Romantic era concentrated essentially on man’s journey on finding a deeper significance in life. Often man would find these deeper meanings by having a close relationship with nature. Moby Dick by Herman Melville represents this time period’s values perfectly, as the story is constructed around the association with a whale and a sea voyage crew.

The new “proper” beliefs began to form the Victorian age and clashed with those of the romantic era. The Romantic era focused mainly on man’s development and rarely expressed worth towards materials and appearance. In contrast the Victorian age rebelled and represented the complete opposite beliefs by having society reflect a more cheerful simplistic attitude towards their way of living and focused on how others perceived them.

In literature authors such as Charles Dickens focused on entertaining the reader rather than have the reader perplexed and thinking about a deeper message as the romantic style did. In architecture, styles shifted from the previous gothic look, which showed little appeal, to a more intricate decorative elegance. Structures were often built in effort to look as high class as possible as did everything else in society during this time. This era idolized the upper class, which is why the Queen had such a great influence on the change.

ash.p3.t6 Victorian Era Synthesis Question Response

The Victorian Era was a time period of restraint and reserved sentiments. It followed the mystical and somewhat ominous romantic period, and because of this took much inspiration from the larger-than-life and entrenched gothic themes from the era and carried them into the Victorian period. However, the Victorian period showcased a clash between classical art, largely associated with the new flux of restrained culture, and gothic art from the era past. This was quite the contrast, as romantic and gothic pieces and ideals focus on freedom and separation from society’s judgements, while classical art focuses much more on structure and archetypal, typical works and messages. This clash was enhanced by the rapid move toward urbanization and industrialization during this time. Enhanced affluence and movement into cities led to enhanced exposure to culture and the arts. As more common people became involved in the humanities, the line between romantic and victorian sensibilities blurred despite their clear differences. For example, romantic literature such as Frankenstein and the works of Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne all had a touch of the supernatural, and required emotion and willing suspension of disbelief to elevate their stories. Victorian era literature bridges the gap between conventional story lines and the touch of supernatural that the romantic era introduced. Authors such as Charles Dickens wrote storylines that the masses of ordinary, low and middle class individuals were finally able to indulge in, and their works tended to focus on real issues but still take on some out of the ordinary themes or plotlines. Victorian literature also had a strong moral thread, a fact that is directly tied to the influence of prudery and upper class morality in the era. Art forms also displayed the ties between Victorian and Romantic sensibilities. Romantic era art often displayed images of awesome forces of nature and supernatural struggles, although the humans depicted were incredibly realistically presented. For example, Frederic Edwin Church displayed a scene of mystical ancient ruins in his romantic piece, Sunrise in Siria. Victorian era paintings tended to be more focused on real issues (this influence came largely from industrialization) and accurate depictions of humans and their surroundings. But they always kept a touch of mystery and other-worldliness in their drawings, and that was a result of gothic ideals. A significant change in art in the victorian era was the availability to the common people. Culture became more readily accessible. For example, Hunt’s Victorian painting, “Light of the World” was engraved and reproduced so more people could enjoy it at a cheaper price.