Ch.

1 conceptual approaches on Victorian age

1.1.

Historical and cultural aspects of the time

Queen Victoria and the Empire Queen Victoria was only eighteen when she ascended the throne, and she ruled not only the world's most powerful nation but also an empire extending to Canada, Australia, India, and parts of Africa. After the death of her uncle, William IV, the young Princess Victoria was awakened from a sound sleep and brought down stairs in her dressing gown. Her diary forth at day records that on the staircase that morning she had felt quite prepared to be queen. She remained queen until her death sixty-four years late rat the age of eighty-two. Her long reign was a period of progress and prosperity forth en ation. Victoria's personal life was richal so She married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (an amen that their successors would eventually change to the more British-sounding Windsor).Victoria and Albert ad happy family life with four sons and five daughters, and they traveled of ten to visit royal relative son the Continent, especially in Germany. The queen's exemplary personal life, along with her famous honesty, sense of morality, and propriety, won a new respect for the monarchy. The Victorian Age did contain conflict, inevitable in an empire that can ned the globe, an empire upon which the sun literally never set. No matter how controversial the issues relating to the Victorian age may have been when the term Victorianism imposed itself as indispensable to the history of culture and civilisation in the nineteenth century, consensus has been reached that this period was one of unprecedented development in all the fields of Englands economic, social and political life. Referred to from the standpoint of the twentieth century, Queen Victorias age is undoubtedly perceived as a period of stability and equilibrium underlain by a solid and reliable value system, with the idea of God looming large at its centre. Far from being a period of perfect harmony, free of any conflicting states, Victorianism still enjoys the benefits of some strongholds on whose unquestionable stability one is invited to rely. The most important one is the figure of Queen Victoria herself and the institution the queen represented - the monarchy. The historical terms, Victorian Age or Victorian Era, referred to the things and the events that happened during the reign of Queen Victoria in England from 1837 to
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1901. Some adjectives to describe the people and things of this period would be prudish, strait-laced, and old-fashioned. Another characteristic of the Victorian society was that many of the upper class individuals were snobbish and that they looked down upon others, especially the lower class individuals. In addition, this era came before the Womens Suffrage Movement in the 1920s. Many women were still thought of as being inferior to their male counterparts, even if they were wealthy. Two examples of literary works that show some of the characteristics of the Victorian age are The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde and The Old Nurses Story by Elizabeth Gaskell. Queen Victoria was the longest reigning monarch in English history and she is primarily remembered for her having established the monarchy as a respected and popular institution. The monarchy the apex of the court and of polite society generally 1 flourished under Queen Victoria. The monarchy represented the timeless quality of what was taken to be a pre-industrial order. In an increasingly urbanised society, it balanced the Industrial revolution: the more urban Britain became, the more stylised, ritualised, and popular became its monarchy, for the values which it claimed to personify stood outside the competitive egalitarianism of capitalist society.2 Victoria gained enormous popular esteem for supporting the imperialistic policies and, in 1876, she also became Empress of India. Great Britain turned into one of the worlds most extended empires. It occupied a position in the world that engendered a feeling of self-confidence, of trust in the individuals power and in an unlimited possibility of progress, all the more so for Britain also being the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. Dictated by a tough competition with other European nations, the British Empire expanded with a view to establishing new spheres of influence and gaining control over previously unexplored areas that represented fresh opportunities for trade and new sources of wealth. A feeling of national pride was also associated with Britains expansionistic tendencies in the nineteenth century, which undoubtedly accounts for part of the apparent stability of the Victorian society. The Empire was, thus, another stronghold of the Victorian age, on whose strength much of the spirit of the period depended.
1

Morgan , Kenneth O. (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Oxford University Press, 2000, p.493 2 ibidem., p.496

On the occasion of the Great Exhibition of 1851, proudly opened by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in London, E. P. Hood, the inventor of the term Victorian stated with immeasurable pride. The Englishman lives to move and to struggle, to conquer and to build; to visit all seas, to diffuse the genius of his character over all nations. Industry, Protestantism, Liberty seem born of the Teutonic race that race to whom God has committed the conservation as well as the spread of Truth and on whom mainly depend the civilisation and progress of the world.3 The boom in wealth generated a boom in birth rate. In the public opinion, the traditional picture of the family reigned supreme. The large family was the rule in the Victorian society. Many children, gathered under the protective wing of a caring mother, materially depended on the effort, and consequent success, of the father, who could be seen as a dignified epitome of God on earth. Much of the stability and solidity of the Victorian age were given by peoples perceiving the family, the monarchy and the empire as solid, incontestable and wealth providing institutions. Although the Victorian prosperity was only one side of the coin, the other being the victims, the multitude of the crushed and the oppressed, few Victorian people ever seriously thought of contesting the beneficial role of these institutions in the Victorian society. Dissatisfaction may have been formulated with any other social, economic or political aspects. The monarch and the institution she led, the imperialist expansionism and the family as the basic social unit of the society were never questioned. Literature, and especially fiction, reflects the reality in a certain period of time. The Victorian novel, constructed according to the conventions of realism is, thus, expected to be in various ways a reflection, or better said, a representation of the Victorian society, with all its underlying values. Yet, one and the same cultural, ideological and axiological background will generate different distinct individual works. The main condition of existence of fiction is that it establishes a necessary relationship with the external referent. When a mimetic attitude to literature is adopted, the fictional work will create an illusion of reality, which can go from an apparent total overlap between fiction and reality, to subtly or maybe strikingly

Hood, E.P., The Age and Its Architects quoted in Bedarida, F., A Social History of England 18511990, Routledge, 1994

divergent paths of the two. No matter which type of illusion it creates, the work always is an original processing of the same material. It is the form and the choice of method and technique that gives the work uniqueness and differentiates it from any other individual work, even if the latter is inspired from the same referent. Starting from the historical delimitation of the Victorian period, it is interesting to see how different Victorian writers, or writers creating in the Victorian age, formulated their own standpoint and related themselves to the Victorian values and conventions. The paper will try to demonstrate that there is a clear relationship between the particular standpoint that a writer chooses to express and the technique that he opts for in order to carry into effect the intended representation. To this end, I have chosen for exemplification three novels by three novelists whose work displays a fairly wide range of references to the Victorian period, but which, by a different option in point of technique, produced a different representation of reality. The specific moment of time when the three novels I selected were published is also relevant. Charles Dickens Bleak House came out in 1852-1853, i.e. about the same time the Great Exhibition took place in London. The Great Exhibition marked a turning point in the history of the nineteenth century, delimiting the Hungry Forties from the Fabulous Fifties. Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland appeared in 1865, i.e. a moment when the Victorian values indicative of wealth and prosperity, success and self-confidence became the standard of the Victorian organisation. Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness was written in 1899 and published only three years later in 1902, i.e. in a period when the Victorian system, the Empire included, underwent a process of decline, when mans value system got relative under the influence of the turn-of-the-century scientific and technological discoveries. I will approach the three novels, starting from some textual instances that I consider relevant to the purpose of this paper. The three writers work will be dealt with in succession, given the fact that the view of the world and the modifications of technique can be also interpreted as time-dependent. Dickens confronts his reader with an image of the Victorian society rendered in the conventions of the realist novel. Without claiming that he would reform manners and morals, or that he would repair social injustice, Dickens constitutes himself, however, into a spokesperson of the realities of his time. He has a view of both sides of the Victorian coin, but he chooses to emphasise more the bad side of it, focusing on the
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deficiencies of the legal, social and political system. Dickens is a keen observer of reality and he decides to present it as truthfully and as accurately as possible. He chooses thus the narrative technique that could provide the proper birds-eye view of the Victorian panorama. The point of view that Dickens uses is the omniscient, which means that, no matter how sceptical about the values underlying the Victorian system he may be, he is not ready to essentially question these values. The omniscient narrator is a God-like presence in the narrative that parallels Gods central position to the Victorian mans system of values. Consequently, critical as Dickens is of Englands situation, the values underlying his thinking coincide to a certain extent with those underlying the thinking of any Victorian individual. Dickens may criticise the organisation of his contemporary England, but he will seldom, if ever, question the validity of this organisation, in a subversive way. Dickens criticism can be effected in tones ranging from mild irony, through satire to bitter sarcasm, but ultimately he will acknowledge the system as system, and thus his novel will be an artistic representation of a society which is, after all, stable and solid. Although England and the English political system are not too often the subject matter of Dickens novels in explicit terms, the chapter National and Domestic in Bleak House offers the reader an almost straightforward representation of the countrys political deficiencies. There is one ingredient that is purposefully avoided in the constitution of England the Queen. One may easily refer the two fictional characters in the fragment to the historical personages Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, both Prime Ministers having played a significant part during Queen Victorias reign. Yet the monarch does not appear, although Dickens openly satirises the performance of the two politicians, the former a Conservative, the latter a Liberal. Dickens message is that all political alternatives are reduced to mere irrelevance when the judicial system is so ineffective and so negatively reflected in the peoples life. Yet, the taboo subject of the queen, and implicitly of the monarchy, is not tackled, which is clearly indicative of Dickens essential standpoint. England had been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle would go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldnt come in, and there being nobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there has been no Government. It is a mercy that the hostile meeting between the two great men, which at one time seemed inevitable, did not come off; because if both
5

pistols had taken effect, and Coodle and Doodle had killed each other, it is to be presumed that England must have waited to be governed until young Coodle and young Doodle, now in frocks and long stockings, were grown up. This stupendous national calamity, however, was averted by Lord Coodles making the timely discovery that, if in the heat of debate he had said that he scorned and despised the whole ignoble career of Sir Thomas Doodle, he had merely meant to say that party difference should never induce him to withhold from it the tribute of his warmest admiration; while it as opportunely turned out, on the other hand, that Sir Thomas Doodle had in his own bosom expressly booked Lord Coodle to go down to posterity as the mirror of virtue and honour. Still England has been some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well observed by Sir Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the marvellous part of the matter is, that England has not appeared to care very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage, as the old world did in the days before the flood.4 The irony underlying the text is evident. The names of the two great men come into derisive discrepancy with their indispensability to the fate of Britannia, as England is referred to some lines downwards by Dickens, in remembrance of the heroic days of the Roman province. The common noun doodle5 turned into a proper one and, more importantly, assigned to a person on whose shoulders the responsibility of a country lies suggests Dickens clear intention of mocking at the whole political system that both Conservatives and Liberals represented. The name Coodle is

only an invention to make political irresponsibility rhyme. Dickens has the same critical attitude when he considers the political discourse in the Victorian period. He points to the ambiguity and lack of coherence of this discourse, which may be mildly termed diplomatic, but which shows nothing but the indifference, lack of consistency, even rude manners of the politicians at that, and other coming, time. Similarly, he questions, by attacking it, the hereditary right of the aristocratic class to the government of the country. Yet what the reader discovers, in surprise is that, in the Victorian writers opinion, the country could manage without the two, which
4 5

Dickens, Ch., Bleak House, Penguin Books, 1994, pp.516 doodle: meaningless scrawls and scribbles, while one is or ought to be paying attention to something else

indicates, in an implicit way that the structure was seen as stable and strong enough to resist in absence of government. This is the reason why the Queen is not held responsible. She was a guarantee to the countrys stability and prosperity. Her privileged place in the Victorian mentality prevented Dickens from having her artistically involved. The Queen, just like the other institutions mentioned in the beginning of this paper, was a taboo subject. Adopting an omniscient narrators perspective, it would have been unlikely that Dickens should diverge from the main line of thought and mentality of the Victorian age. He formulated an individual viewpoint, without taking the risk of offending the public one. Just a few years later, Lewis Carroll represented the same Victorian period, but in a moment when Victorian issues had, in a way, ceased to be seen as points of controversy. Things had started to change for the better, and the Reform Bills relieved Great Britains political system. Under the form of a nonsensical story, anti cipating the twentieth-century literature of the absurd, Lewis Carroll enlarges upon various Victorian topics, in a joking and apparently superficial way. The form he adopts and the technique that he decides on selective omniscience- indicate more than a change in the tenets of literature. It was certainly difficult for Carroll to give an unbiased view of his times society unless he decided to free his reader from a too strict control on the part of the omniscient narrator. To be able to express a personal standpoint, he had to sacrifice the privilege of omniscience to the freer perspective of a character who should not necessarily hold the systems values in reverence. Alice is indeed a dignified representative of the Victorian society, but she is a child, so she has an incomplete and imperfect view of the society she was born in and educated to. For this reason, the action being filtered through her eyes, she has the capacity of coping with the topical issues of the Victorian age in a freer manner and thus formulating a viewpoint different from that of Dickens. Alices eye functions as a mirror, but due to the incompleteness of her knowledge, as an imperfect, sometimes distorted mirror. The impression of distortion is accentuated further more by the story being transferred to a realm of dream. Beside the narrative precautions that Carroll took to enable him to move more freely within the established value system, cherished by the Victorian public opinion, he also resorted to a method of demonstration borrowed from mathematics, the reductio ad absurdum one6. Thus all Carrolls story acquires an in6

reductio ad absurdum: the disproof of a proposition by showing that its conclusion can be only absurd

the-mirror quality. The imperfect and distorted mirror reflects the image of the Victorian society, without the writer committing himself to the sense and value of the mirror reflections. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that Alice admits the court and the queen in her representations of the Victorian society. She had had access to the incontestable meaning of this institution only through books, that is her discourse becomes a second degree one, and for this much less implicating. What Alice does in the encounter with the underground dream world is nothing but to assign appropriate roles, whose knowledge and linguistic labels she had acquired from books, to beings she meets. It is only through language that Alices whole world is constructed, which is not different from how fiction linguistically constructs itself starting from facts of the real. Due to this strategy, Carrolls criticism, if there is any at all, and his representation of the Victorian society are liberated from the constraints of the Victorian mentality. The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them []. Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. Thats the judge, she said to herself, because of his great wig. The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. And thats the jury-box, thought Alice, and those twelve creatures, (she was obliged to say creatures, you see, because some of them were animals, and some were birds.) I suppose they are the jurors. She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it all. However, jury-men would have done just as well.7

Carroll, L., Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Penguin Books, 1994, pp. 128-129

In Conrads case, the representation strategies are more complicated. Conrad is a turn-of-the-century writer. The Victorian value system starts to give way under the pressure of a new, not yet definite, one. Conrads works faces the crisis of the Victorian value system and so it represents a Victorian society that strives to preserve their feeling of self-confidence by giving prominence to the imperialistic values. The British Empire reached its climax in the last years of the nineteenth century and, as a matter of fact, its supremacy had never been contested before in the Victorian literature. It seems that it was only an exile, such as Conrad was, a man of Europe and not a British subject, to come to grips with the obvious controversial aspects of Britains imperialistic experience. The imperial idea, which reached its zenith between 1880 and 1914, was a strange compound of widely different ingredients: the will to power, the profit motive, national pride, Christian zeal, humanitarian feeling an extraordinary mixture of cold calculation and passion, reason and sentiment, all combined in one irresistible thrust.8 For all its civilising dimensions, the springs of the imperialistic experience were mainly material. However, the moral aspect had been always seen as inherent in the mechanisms and ideologies of the empire. Thus many considered it the duty and obligation of the whites to civilise the savages, to impart their knowledge to the uncultured brutes, to pass on the European cultural standards to the native inhabitants. With all this moral camouflage, it is not surprising that the imperialistic ideas were more often than not perceived as positive within the general framework of the Victorian value system. Dealing with such delicate issues in an age which had already announced its relativity, Conrad needed, from a narrative as well as from an ideological point of view, the proper detachment that could permit him to investigate the imperialistic discourse and to subversively assert his own standpoint. Both the narrative and the ideological detachment are ensured in Conrads novels by the adoption of a technique of indirectness, with Marlow as a narrator, observer, interpreter and experiencer of the story. References to the empire, a taboo subject in the Victorian novels, are always veiled and subtle. Meanings of the empire are interwoven with a deeper meaning of mans

Bedarida, F., A Social History of England 1851-1990, 1994, p.145

investigation of the self. There are, however, portions in Heart of Darkness, where ideas relating to the empire are clearly stated, although dealt with quite diplomatically. Conrad does not aim at shocking his audiences. He simply wants to question and subvert the existing value system, which he manages to do by an artful combination of acknowledged truths and ironically questioned ones. This flexibility of approach would have never been possible without his eye witness narrators mediation. As compared to his predecessors direct reference to Victorian aspects, in a more or less ironic tone, Conrad handles topics relating to the empire more subtly and with much more insight. He is more interested in the philosophy and ideology of the empire and their relevance to mans existence than in the institution as such. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, followed the sea with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queens Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith the adventurers and the settlers; kings ships and the ships of men on Change; captains, admirals, the dark interlopers of the Eastern Trade, and the commissioned generals of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had

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not floated in the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.9 The fragment synthesises Great Britains imperialistic experience from the times of the Renaissance, to whose name much lustre was added by historians as regards the exploits of brave lords-pirates such as Drake, to the modern times. Englands imperialistic history does not confine itself to the Victorian times. The expansionist tendencies of Britain are inherent in the medieval crusades, and the conquering of Canada and America. What Conrad suggests, by the way in which he organises the historical information and adds to it his subtle ironic comments, is that mans propensity towards destruction and self-destruction, translated in expansion and conquest, is inherent in human nature. What seems to be nothing but a sequence of events praising Englands uninterrupted presence in the history of the world turns out to be a subversive dismantling of the very building the text apparently puts up. Conrad gallantly refers to the Queen and her reassuring presence, it is true that he means Queen Elizabeth I, but he implies Victoria as well as any other monarch of England, while disclosing the monarchs implication in the imperialistic destructiveness. Conrads strategy is thus characterised by simultaneous assertion and subversion of a value system, which is part of the modernity of his enterprise. Nineteenth-century style is born after a lengthy and complicated process of transition of the meanings attributed to almost every artist relationship with reality. The ideal time to take Thomas Lawrence and William Etty vision of a conventional beauty, superficial and David Wilkie from an anecdotal petty. Iamginea first-century British art is a deterrent. Fusseli famous death and Blake (1920) and Constable's (the year Queen Victoria ntronrii - 1837) Turner's create them isolated status, becomes a kind decorative watercolor and only a few artists, such as Samuel Prout and Thomas Shotter Boys extant, in a minor tonality, the virtues of evocation of the picturesque. At this point, taste Victorians - insufficiently prepared to accept Turner's landscapes glow - inclined to Clarkson Stanfield's navies. But his on, Ruskin remarked: "Any painting of containing as many scientists focused on sea and sky, technical how-to dilute his masters"10 . Now turns romantic themes, as in literary forms, the mannerist forms. Exceptions are rare (eg Theodor von Holst).

10

Conrad, J., Heart of Darkness, Penguin Books, 1994, pp. 6-7 Dan Grigorescu, English Art (1989), Bucharest University, p.313

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Victorian taste in fine arts show more directly than any other area of British culture. Is a dark period, driven by violent confrontation in order to obtain political rights for the proletariat, held on the economic depression the country rocks. Depressing picture of Victorian England's Elizabeth Gaskell's books pencil, the Bronte sisters or Dickens. World perspective that emerges from their work is completed by the painter William Bell Scott memoirs - a framework suffocating feeling of helplessness overwhelmed by hypocrisy and lust hidden behind appearances pudice.Influena epigones on artists from the Victorian is an obvious, even if at first is ideological rather than stylistic order. An example is the "ideal community" (a phalanstery artists) created at Shoreham, in 1826 by Samuel Palmer and a group of friends who call themselves "the Ancients", whose enthusiasm was impelled by the ideas of Blake (whose disciple Palmer was very enthusiastic), although so far not known but a fragment of Blake's work - his woodcuts for Virgil's Eglogelor edition (published between 1820-1821). Palmer himself will work towards the end of life, the illustrations for his own translations of Eglogele vergiliene. He was attracted to the natural landscape, especially the light of the world, twilight, forests, streams, trees with strange shapes, delicate contrasts of light and shadow, geomerizate landscapes. Cycles of the landscapes are small works, of deep poetic vibration (wind clouds roll, apple blossoms in the moonlight) but lacking depth. More contoured, George Richmond and Edward Calvert (also "ancient") are deeply influenced by Blake and Palmer. Calvert's art and the more direct heavenly perspective, pastoral engravings by Blake, Palmer's youthful works and landscaping to Shoreham. But as he merged them, but betrays an essentially pagan poetry (and not Blake's philosophy). Palmer differs from the "lyrical erotic hunt" what works and crosses. Remarkably engraver, Calvert celebrates youth in the 11 works (1825-1831) natural fertility myth. George Richmond is closer to the style of Blake (Blake is said that some of the corrected drawings paintings), but lacks febrile communion with nature, he was defining his vision of Palmer and Calvert. Blake's influence extends the work of John Linnell. Student of humble but good professor John Varley, Linnell was encouraged to identify the nature of art all that is necessary. Together with his friend William Henry Hunt, Linnell noted dramatic views of the solitary lands such as houses in ruins, river banks and trees store France by storm. Realism landscapes in the first period of the nineteenth century collectors call perceived as "too cruel" and no sense of beauty. However echo Blake's ideas are
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found in Linnell's paintings, landscapes are imbued with a spirit that is pastoral associate with the strangely accurate representations of fragments of nature. Through Linnell, the echo will reverberate until the end of century.. Turner's followers failed to go beyond the classical landscape forms taken as a means of expression of romantic feeling. Among them stands John Martin (in the first half of the nineteenth century - he had originally learned the art of painting on porcelain and he will find the smoothness of lines, delicate tonal harmony of painting in oil. Under the influence of romantic, his compositions apocalyptic air releases: fantastic caves, flying demons and scenes of oriental stories. historical or biblical themes (destruction of Pompeii, Flood, Osul of Balthazar) are treated with ease but manierizare threatened, with the passage of time. popularity has increased through engravings, and illustrations of the 24 (the technique mezzotintei) from Milton's Paradise Lost, published in 1824. Victorian art remain indifferent to all the great conflicts of the time, following a quiet course, normal. Are characteristic topics John Frederick Lewis (with his harem scenes) aimed at the kind of beauty found in the journals of the time fashion and portraits of Thomas Lawrence. William Powell Frith, however, make exception ("Hogarth of the Victorian period") and its composition with scenes of life in time, it includes many landscapes found in railway stations, racing or promenade balneare.Dominant resorts in Victorian art, tend pictorial composition to make a favorite fable with many celebrities opting for themes such as sin and punishment. One of the most acclaimed artists of the time - Augustus Egg melodramas compresses his compositions, in the spirit vitorian moralizing allegories, like Robert Braithwaite Martineau.n '70s is prolific presentation of the emotional tone dezmoteniilor fate, Luke, noting the ivory, very popular at that time. Feature of this period is late review and ignoring the ideals of Classical Antiquity shows the contemporary reality. Artists in the second half of re-discover the Elgin and the regularity of classical Greek drapery robes composition and effect. Artists (Albert Moore, Frederick Leighton, George Frederick Watts) but not exceeding a certain didacticism.Printr-archaeological perspective rather than the classicist, the story with contemporary subject is reduced to anecdote (Frederick Walker, Edward Poynter, Alma-Tadema Lwrence - influential the mentality of the end is academist century
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and Alfred Stevens - furthers the "Grand Style" by Reynolds, extended until1875). Another feature of the Victorian period is the strange isolation of British painters of the world, content with the patronage of wealthy bourgeois. Becomes necessary to renew the art of the continent, which is made by an American in London - Whistler. He manages to recover, before long, the link between England and Europe. The end of Victorian era England picture is confusing, insipid, more can inglorious than other European powers. '80s And '90s brought the creation of various art colonies, the French model of Pont-Aven: Newlyn in Cornwall (1884), from Staithes in Yorkshire and in Scotland at Brig O'Turk (where are gathered so called "Glasgow Boys"). publishers began to publish photo albums that often recorded patriarchal endangered world. The new galleries promoting young work groups (The New Gallery, The Grosvenor Gallery - which opened Ruskin attacked Whistler's exhibition). In 1886 incurred Arts Club New English, an association aimed at promoting the organization of exhibitions participating artists and anticonservatori antiacademiti. In a short time but the club will betray the very least anticonservative trends, which will lead to the creation, within it, in 1889, the organization's "core Impressionist of NEAC (New English Art Club)", led by young Walter Richard Sickert and Philip Wilson Steer. Influenced early Whisler (Sickert was a student), then the two embraced Impressionism, with art meeting different Impressionists Degas and French. The most important work of Sickert's Impressionist Summer evening. If we consider the connotation it has in England the term "impressionist" painting that has the gift of new that surprised and irritated audience and critics, only Steer can be considered an impressionist and only during 1887-1894, when he paints scenes by the sea at Walberswick. Between Sickert and Impressionism on the continent, the only link is to investigate the uncertain distribution of light and shadows, while the delicate tone painting smooth surfaces rather claimed in Whistler. Exhibition "London Impressionists' Paris of the Goupil Gallery in 1889, attended by ten young people who form the core of the NEAC has puzzled French critics, for the term" impressionism "had another meaning.

1.2.

The literary scene in the Victorian age

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At the beginning of the Victorian era, about 80% was able to read. Even so, only a small part had time to do so and the money to buy books, for many people in that period buying a book was considerated a luxury. One reason for the expansion of the readers was that people were motivated to fight for their rights, an example is creating The Society for Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, inn witch people had the privilege to borrow books. Defining Victorian literature in any satisfactory and comprehensive manner has proven troublesome for critics ever since the nineteenth century came to a close. The movement roughly comprises the years from 1830 to 1900, though there is ample disagreement regarding even this simple point. The name given to the period is borrowed from the royal matriarch of England, Queen Victoria, who sat on throne from 1837 to 1901. One has difficulty determining with any accuracy where the Romantic Movement of the early nineteenth century leaves off and the Victorian Period begins because these traditions have so many aspects in common. Likewise, identifying the point where Victorianism gives way completely to Modernism is no easy task. Literary periods are never the discrete, self-contained realms which the anthologies so suggest. Rather, a literary period more closely resembles a rope that is frayed at both ends. Many threads make up the rope and work together to form the whole artistic and cultural milieu. The Victorian writers exhibited some wellestablished habits from previous eras, while at the same time pushing arts and letters in new and interesting directions. Indeed, some of the later Victorian novelists and poets are nearly indistinguishable from the Modernists who followed shortly thereafter. In spite of the uncertainty of terminology, there are some concrete statements that one can make regarding the nature of Victorian literature, and the intellectual world which nurtured that literature11. During the Victorian age, there were immense changes in society, advances in the sciences, and it was also the beginning of the Industrial Age. A number of the literature produced during this period reflected on these changes and celebrated them. Some literary works criticized the changes being made and made a mockery of them as well.

The literary genre, the novel, also came on the scene during the Victorian

11

Josh Rahn, Victorian literature, (1987), Morehead State University, p. 68

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Era. Some Victorian writers that also emerged are Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Oscar Wilde. Victorian writers always responded to the conditions around them. Queen Victoria influenced her world and she also influenced the literature that used conditions in the Victorian world as its subject. The literature of the period reflects the wide horizons of the Empire. Among historical writers, Parkman the American was one of the first and best to reflect the imperial spirit. In such works as A Half-Century of Conflict and Montcalm and Wolfe he portrayed the conflict not of one nation against another but rather of two antagonistic types of civilization: the military and feudal system of France against the democratic institutions of the Anglo-Saxons. Among the explorers, Mungo Park had anticipated the Victorians in his Travels in the Interior of Africa (1799), a wonderful book which set England to dreaming great dreams; but not until the heroic Livingstones Missionary Travels and Research in South Africa, The Zambesi and its Tributaries and Last Journals [Footnote: In connection with Livingstones works, Stanleys How I Found Livingstone (1872) should also be read. Livingstone died in Africa in 1873, and his Journals were edited by another hand. For a summary of his work and its continuation see Livingstone and the Exploration of Central Africa (London, 1897).] appeared was the veil lifted from the Dark Continent. Beside such works should be placed numerous stirring journals of exploration in Canada, in India, in Australia, in tropical or frozen seas,--wherever in the round world the colonizing genius of England saw opportunity to extend the boundaries and institutions of the Empire. Macaulays Warren Hastings, Edwin Arnolds Indian Idylls, Kiplings Soldiers Three,--a few such works must be read if we are to appreciate the imperial spirit of modern English history and literature. Victorian literatures temper is described as am eager of earness response to expanding horizon of nineteenth century life12. It reflected concerns about the effects of the industrialization process and the fear of the alienation. There also existed the desire of the part of readers to be guided and edified13. Problems of the daily life and also society and religion needed to be discussed and explained. 14

12 13

Abrams, 1993, p.906 Idem 11, p. 905

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Victorianism is understood that the image of British realism, bringing the same level writers sequences showing specific life-nineteenth century England territory. Dickens plays "Picture" universal child abandoned to their own devices, but finally manages to keep their innocence, kindness and trust in people. An Oliver or Pip seem to have been weird to find or maybe rather, to find the support just when are about to (be) lost. Not strong and self-confidence will keep them within the property, but rather agents destiny. Pip is "saved" the prisoner's confession time, the help given by Miss Havisham, the Magwitch, Herbert and perhaps finally meeting with Estella. In the case of Oliver scheme is almost the same, but backups are of two types: Rescue the and save a life despicable. Thackeray gives life to a powerful female Julien Sorel, Becky Sharp the image is used for any climber to climb the social hierarchy. The writer acid which skillfully manipulates his characters microcosm, whose center is snobbery, upstartism desire to be sheltered by a coat of arms. Bronte sisters are those female characters bring forward full force and determination. Is there growing heroine with each page of the novel, most times managed to overcome hard lines (Jane Eyre) or pretend to not understand the game of destiny, and finally be crushed by it (in crossroads of winds). In Emily Bronte when the first attempts to hide the omniscience 15 by interfering directly in the text as a minor character (At the crossroads of winds). Charlotte Bronte builds a character-narrator who is lost in moving scenery. Jane Eyre is a Gothic boarding school where he completes the education, removed from that environment, will become a gray spot color to Thornfield Manor or Marsh's End16. Thomas Hardy brings to the stage characters close to those of ancient tragedy by placing into an implacable destiny and fatality. He manages to put character against a given environment, so that eventually the reflector to be held on the internal structure of the hero. Image realism with which Hardy plays hard life class bottom of British society, work becomes a critique of it, especially the idea of British woman's purity. Like Flaubert, seems to love the heroine. Despite the constant failure, the writer gives
14

Kristin Simion, The diverisity of the Victorian literature, Seminar paper, Grin Publish & Find knowledge, 2005, p. 3 15 Olteanu, T. (1977). Morfologia romanului european n secolul al XIX-lea, Bucureti:Univers., p. 339 16 Galea, I. (1996). Victorianism and Literature, Cluj-Napoca:Dacia

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the image of the pure woman, finally managed to rehabilitate the readers and turn it into a woman who has the power to stand against games fate, even if defeated17. Oscar Wilde and sequence depicts real life, harsh and oppressive

with those less fortunate. The Happy Prince is writing of extraordinary load, with over-character generosity and magnanimity. Following the realist tradition, Wilde succeeds in the few pages to give life to the story types and paint in dark colors painting company end Victorian era. Flight brings the reader he-swallow a live picture of the abundance realm of the rich and gloomy picture of the world poor. Sorin Alexandrescu 18 if Henry James speaks of an American Victorianism a extension of British Victorianism thus to the European canon. In this case, realism equivalent to trying to give the canon, the tendency to lean on daily life through the detail, the veracity of that reproduced or social biography of the character. It off both the European models (Dickens, Thackeray), and the American Crane). in aesthetic influence current (pre-Raphaelite painters, Wilde) becomes adept superiority of art over

reality, taking it as a landmark on Flaubert.

1.3.

The status of women

The era of the Victorian women spanned 64 years and concluded several

changes in attitudes. The status of women in Victorian Age is often seen as an illustration of striking discrepancy between Englands national power and wealth and what many, and now considered that is appalling social conditions. During the era symbolized by the reigh of the British monarh Queen Victoria, difficulties escaladed for women because of the vision of the ideal woman shared by the most in the society. The legal rights of the married women were similar of those of children; they could not vote or sue or even own property. Also, they were seen as pure and clean. Because of this view, their bodies were seen as temples which should not be adorned with

17

Christiansen, R. (2000). The Victorian Visitors: Culture Shock in the Nineteenth-Century Britain, New York:Atlantic Monthly Press 18 Sorin Alexandrescu, Henry James or riddle poem, preface to H. James, Daisy Miller, for Ed. Lit., Pcs., 1968

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jewelry nor used for physical exertion or pleasurable sex. The role of women was to have children and tend to house. They could not have a job unless it eas that of a teacher or a domestic servant, nor they were allowed to have their own cheking accounts. The common thinking about women in the Victorian era was that a womans position was limited to domestic work and the care for her children. The stereotype of the distribution of roles was women staying by the hearth with their needles whilst men wielded their swords. Women had to bear a large family and to maintain a smooth family atmosphere whereby men did not need to bother himself about domestic matters. A gentlewoman ensured that the home was a place of comfort for her husband and family from the stresses of Industrial Britain. Victorian dresses show typical excessive style elements such as V-waists, layering of trims and bell sleeves. The Victorian head of household dressed his woman to show off family wealth. Additionally, there were great differences between members of society by the end of the Queen Victorias reign but the most instantly apparent difference was through the garments worn. Not only the dress code symbolized the status of a Victorian woman but also the circumstances she lived in. A wealthy wife was supposed to spend her time reading, sewing, receiving guests, going visiting, letter writing, seeing to the servants and dressing for the part as her husbands social representative. In contrast, for the very poor of Britain society it was common to wear fifth hand clothes and to eat the pickings left over in a rich household. Whether married or single all Victorian women were expected to be weak and helpless so that they looked like fragile delicate flowers incapable of making decisions. Besides, if a woman took a lover it was not made public because if that became the case she would be cut by society. Instead, men could amble along to one of their gentlemens clubs and always find a warm welcome. Relationships in 1887 were quite artificial. A married woman could not own property and became a chattel of the man. A divorced woman had indeed no chance of acceptance in society again. Most women had little choice but to marry and upon doing so everything they owned, inherited and earned automatically belonged to their husband. This meant that
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if an offence or felony was committed against her, only her husband could prosecute. Furthermore, rights to the woman personally - that is, access to her body - were his. Not only was this assured by law, but the woman herself agreed to it verbally: written into the marriage ceremony was a vow to obey her husband, which every woman had to swear before God as well as earthly witnesses. Not until the late 20th century did women obtain the right to omit that promise from their wedding vows. In 1890, Florence Fenwick Miller (1854-1935), a midwife turned journalist, described woman's position succinctly: Under exclusively man-made laws women have been reduced to the most abject condition of legal slavery in which it is possible for human beings to be held...under the arbitrary domination of another's will, and dependent for decent treatment exclusively on the goodness of heart of the individual master. (From a speech to the National Liberal Club)19 Every man had the right to force his wife into sex and childbirth. He could take her children without reason and send them to be raised elsewhere. He could spend his wife's inheritance on a mistress or on prostitutes. Sometime, somewhere, all these things - and a great many more - happened. To give but one example, Susannah Palmer escaped from her adulterous husband in 1869 after suffering many years of brutal beatings, and made a new life. She worked, saved, and created a new home for her children. Her husband found her, stripped her of all her possessions and left her destitute, with the blessing of the law. In a fury she stabbed him, and was immediately prosecuted. If a woman was unhappy with her situation there was, almost without exception, nothing she could do about it. Except in extremely rare cases, a woman could not obtain a divorce and, until 1891, if she ran away from an intolerable marriage the police could capture and return her, and her husband could imprison her. All this was sanctioned by church, law, custom, history, and approved of by society in general. Nor was it the result of ancient, outdated laws: the new (1857) divorce act restated the moral inequality. Mere adultery was not grounds for a woman to divorce a man; however, it was sufficient
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grounds

for

man

to

divorce

his

wife.

Fenwick Miller (1890) cited in Wojtczak

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Signs of rebellion were swiftly crushed by fathers, husbands, even brothers. Judge William Blackstone had announced that husbands could administer "moderate correction" to disobedient wives, and there were other means: as late as 1895, Edith Lanchester's father had her kidnapped and committed to a lunatic asylum for cohabiting with a man. As a Marxist and feminist, she was morally and politically opposed to marriage.

Among the rich, family wealth automatically passed down the male line; if a daughter got anything it was a small percentage. Only if she had no brothers, came from a very wealthy family, and remained unmarried, could a woman become independent. A very wealthy woman might make a premarital agreement for her wealth to be held in a trust fund, but in the majority of cases marriage stripped a woman of all her assets and handed them to her husband. At the end of Victorian times things changed and many women adopted the tailor made garment that showed their more serious concern to be recognized as thinking beings with much to offer society beyond being a social asset for a husband. New inventions such as sewing machine or railway and the capability to use those led to new thinking and women of all classes felt the dynamic atmosphere of change as much as men. Many women joined the Fabian Society, a group of non revolutionary thinking socialists and others sought reform for more practical dress, better education, the right to take up paid work and better employment prospects.

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