SPOTLIGHT ON : VICTORIAN LITERATURE

           The literature is truly the defining trait of the Victorian Era.  It was a time of free speech and great love being sung from the characters.  Love ballads to their country, to their mate, to how they wish the world could be.  The major theme of Victorian Literature was the inequity occurring.  It was the first time "the people" started to exercise their voices and speak about the things that plagued them.

       Victorian literature was so important because it set the precedence for modern novels, how often is the story of a lost young man with the world working against him trying to find love and adulthood told in todays literature? Examples of that archetype include Stephen Chobsky's "Perks of Being a Wallflower" , John Greene's "Fault in Our Stars" and even J.D Salingers "Catcher in the Rye" - all arguably adapted version of Charles Dickens "Great Expectations."In this story, young Pip is born into a seemingly hopeless life, and lifted out of this faith with unwavering ambition.   Through his journey he meets love and loss and the struggle to assert himself as a young man... sound familiar?

      A few other authors from the time include The Bronte Sisters (pictured).  Each sister had a different bone to pick with the society of the time.  Charlotte was passionate about women's rights, portrayed in her famed story of Jane Eyre.  Emily, more interested in the worlds lack of love- voiced in Wuthering Heights.  And Anne, expressing that the world needed to rebel more from it's culture.  Three sisters, all on soapboxes proclaiming what they wanted in the future.

Victorian Religion

An example of religious jewellery in the Victorian Age

A vignette of Charles Darwin, the father of religious doubt

-       Victorian era is often considered a prudent age. The Religion of the time was the exact opposite, it was the first time British theologians began to voice their views and explore alternate ideas.  Theologians like John Henry Newman were the forefront of this new thinking. Through this change, history saw a rise of doubt and agnosticism within the religious views of this era challenging religious truth through Darwin’s theories and more scientific evidence being brought forth.  

The Division Between the Lower and Upper Class

There was a very wide class divide in Victorian England, almost two different worlds, with different cultures, language forms, etc. This is less true today in developed nations, but still vey much the case in many developng countries. Almost unimaginable gulfs exist, for example, between impoverished Indian peasants and the wealthy elite in that nation. Victorian England was much the same, with the lower classes numerous, powerless, and sometimes starving, while the wealthy elite, or 'Society" as it was called 
then, living lives of idle luxury. There was this unfair divide in which if you were rich life was easy but for the poor came a life of suffering and struggle to stay alive.  

The above three portraits display the living conditions for a "poor" Victorian child.  Overworked, underfed and deflated by the world around them 

Pictured here, an affluent Victorian family.  The son having means to buy a toy and a nanny.  Notice the boys stature in relation to that of the pictures seen above. 

An ad for Harrods in the Victorian Era.  See the frivolity displayed by each character.  

The Fashion of the Victorian Age

Victorian Fashion:

The Fashion of the Victorian age was very reflective of the mindset at the time.  It was much more about conveying oneself as affluent and established as opposed to the extension of creativity we know clothing to be today.  Women wore layers on layers of crinoline and pastel chiffon, rain or shine.  Where men wore charcoal to ash coloured suits.  There was a global uniform in the upper class at the time and everyone who could participated.