This history on Wilde brought a lot of new ideas into my head as we are getting ready to read some of his work in class. I am interested to see if there are any hints of homosexuality inside of his work. Some claimed that his work is what damned him as a gay because it was so evident within his writings. Others claim that there is no trace of homosexuality inside of his work and that he was able to keep his personal feelings out of his writings. I also thought it was interesting to read more about the community inside London and their knowledge of homosexuality. While it was something that was new, it wasn’t completely unheard of. There were bars and meeting grounds for men to come and meet each other: parks, bars, train stations, etc. The close relationship between men brings to mind the friendship between Robert & George in Lady Audley’s Secret. Had it been placed and published just a little bit later in history, I wonder if it would have been read in a more...
moreUVU Victorian Literature (Fall 2018) Dashboard
Description
This group is a collaborative effort of the members of Utah Valley University's "Victorian Literature" class. It will include a timeline, map, and blog posts related to our course materials. For our timeline, we will place a selection of key political, social, and historical events in conversation with our course texts. Timeline events will be chosen for their relevance to the content and context of our readings. These events will be complemented by a brief blog post/annotation exploring the relationship between literary and cultural history. Our map will help us visualize the spatial relation between our timeline events and course texts.
Galleries, Timelines, and Maps
The easy use of the railway is extremely evident in Mary Braddon’s, Lady Audley’s Secret. In this novel, Lucy is able to use the railway to move to a new city where no one knows her name or her past. She is able to use travel as a way to re-invent herself. The use of travel is also what helps her keep her secret. When needed to, she travels far to stay hidden from the character George. She also quickly runs to London to recover evidence from Robert’s apartment. She goes wherever she wants, usually alone, and no one thinks it weird or questions it. Ironically, the one thing that aids her lie, is also the one thing that helps Robert quickly uncover her secret. Through the use of the railway, Robert is able to travel everywhere needed: London, Audley Court, and the hometown of Lucy Audley. He also runs into Lucy in London, after she had recovered what she needed from his home. Because of the technology of the railway, Lucy is never able to fully out-run her past life.
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moreChristina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market” is intriguing because of its endless ways of interpretation. One such take on the poem is how it reads as a cautionary tale for fallen women. For example, in “Goblin Market,” Laura ends up eating the goblin’s fruit and becomes a fallen woman. Eventually, this consumption of the fruit makes Laura deathly ill and Lizzie worries her sister will die if she doesn’t receive more fruit. To save her sister, Lizzie goes to the goblin men to pay for their fruit. However, the goblins don’t want her money. They, instead, ty to force Lizzie to eat the fruit herself, thus turning her into a fallen woman as well.
The way the goblin men try to force the fruit into Lizzie’s mouth is analogous to a rape scene. The goblin men do everything in their power to wear Lizzie out and persuade her to eat the fruit. They mock her, beat her, and literally try to force her to eat by pushing the fruit against her mouth. Eventually, they give up and leave Lizzie in...
moreRise in popularity:
Dogs have always been a major part of English society, particularly for herding and hunting. However, it wasn’t until the Victorian Era that Dog Fancy, or having dogs as pets became an acceptable addition to Victorian homes. In 1862, the first dog show in London propelled dogs into a solid position in Victorian upper and middle-class society. Once dog shows reached London, dogs were added to the most elite circles. This popularity encouraged individuals to add dogs to their home and seek for the best breeding.
Dog Shows:
In 1859 the first “modern” dog show took place in a small town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne as an addition to an annual cattle show. This dog show mainly focused on traditional sporting breeds--setters and pointers---but the event grew in...
moreIn the early half of the 19th century, the Church of England was the authoritative voice on scientific matters. However, discoveries and books such as Charles Darwin’s, On the Origins of Species, resulted in a burgeoning divide between theology and science. For many Victorians this challenged their faith as these new scientific discoveries conflicted with the authority and dogma of the church. Many of the literary works of the second half of the 19th century deal with the relationship of theology and nature, including Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.”
The opening stanza in “Dover Beach” describes a calm sea and includes a beautiful description of the sound of waves crashing upon the shore. In the following two stanzas it transitions to describing “The Sea of Faith,” which, according to the narrator, was once “at the full” but is now “melancholy” and “retreating.” The parallels between the descriptions of a literal sea and a depleting Sea of Faith...
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This oil painting is called Vanity. It was painted by Frank Cadogan Cowper in the Pre-Raphaelite style in 1907. As a Pre-Raphaelite paining, the colors are quite bold, bright, dramatic. The painting itself looks highly realistic, another Pre-Raphaelite feature. Along with this, the painting is of a beautiful woman with pale skin, which was a common theme for Pre-Raphaelites to paint.
In this painting, the woman’s eyes are important to examine. For instance, the woman is shifting her eyes toward the hand mirror in her left hand. As she glances at her reflection in the mirror, she appears very well-pleased with herself and captivated by her own beauty. The sneaky aspect of her side-glance also insinuates how the woman can’t take her eyes off of herself, not even for a moment. She has to...
moreThe Illustrated Police News, alongside sensation fiction, are demonstrative of 1860's Victorian era pop culture. Such novels and newspapers were a product of the “cultural emergence of a ‘modern’ print culture in the mid-Victorian period, which saw a proliferation of printed material due to developments in technology and the abolition of taxes on knowledge. These changes meant that literature could be produced and consumed more easily and cheaply” (Palmer 86). The technological advancements that decreased the price of printing not only affected “print culture” but popular culture as well. Wilkie Collins, a popular sensationalist writer took up this issue in his 1858 article “The Unknown Public”. In the article he wrote, “Meanwhile, it is perhaps hardly too much to say that the future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public, which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad. It is probably a question of time only. The largest audience for...
moreRodrigo Borgia was elected Pope on August 11, 1492 and retained the papacy until his death in 1503. He most likely bribed his way into gaining the papacy. His elevation in status allowed him to elevate his illegitmate children as well. The most famous of these children being Juan, Cesare, and Lucrezia. Juan was murdered shortly after his father became Pope - probably because of a sexual liasion with the wrong woman. It is Cesare and Lucrezia who have perhaps received the most infamous reputations over history. Although Lucrezia was probably just trying to survive in a very public and sometimes hated family she has been painted over the years as a poisoner, a murderer, and a witch. She was married three times with her first marraige being dissolved on the grounds on non-consummation despite the fact that her husband's first wife had died in childbirth. Her second husband was killed on the orders of her brother Cesare - partly out of jealousy. She had numerous love affairs, and it...
moreMany of the colonial values seen in the life of Livingstone are reflected in the character of St. John Rivers, the pastor-turned-missionary of Jane Eyre. For example, in an early appeal, the London Missionary society asked for “messengers to the nations . . . to entreat [the foreigners] that they turn from their dumb idol to the living God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.” Similarly, Rivers says his “great work” is to give “religion for superstition, the hope of heaven for the fear of hell” (471).
However, what is particularly telling is the hybrid of imperialistic and religious goals that are conflated in Livingstone’s work and similarly reflected through the character of St. John Rivers. There is a sense that the missionary work and the exploration and expansion of Britain go hand in hand—and thus colonialism is endorsed by God. Livingstone himself writes that he was driven by the words of another missionary who said that in Africa was “the smoke of a...
moreOn the night of June 29, 1860 3 and 1/2 year old Francis Savile Kent was found brutally murdered. His nursemaid was first indicted for the crime, but no evidence was found to convict her. Soon after his 16 year old half-sister Constance Kent was held for questioning, but was let go. Constance was seen as something of a folk heroine and the police were criticized for accusing an accomplished, intelligent, and upper class lady for the murder. Constance later confessed to killing Francis in 1865. Constance told police she had had nothing against the boy, but had done it to get back at her step-mother. Her step-mother had been a governess in the family while Constance's mother was still alive, and had then married Constance's father shortly after his wife died. Even after she confessed many people still refused to believe she was guilty and instead believed she was covering for her father. This was the result of many people having a hard time believing that a pretty, young, high-class...
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On May 24th, 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse electronically transmitted the message "What hath God wrought?" While it took him many years, Morse was finally able to receive a grant that allowed him to build a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore. The telegraph would go on to revolutionize the world's communication.
Like the popularization of the railway in England, the telegraph helped to decrease distance across the continent. We see the difference even within two novels both written in the Victorian Era--Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret. In Bronte’s novel, set in the 1820s, Jane is dependent largely upon mail via stagecoach for her information and correspondence. Needless to say, sending letters across a long...
morePlans for King's Cross Station at its current location were drawn up in 1848, and the station opened with two platforms in 1852. The station acted as the London hub for the Great Northern Railway. Thus, King's Cross worked to decrease the distance between different areas of England as train travel was expanded in London.
As seen in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret, the railway was an important mode of transportation. The novel’s hero, Robert Audley, uses the train almost exclusively to travel around the country as he attempts to piece together the life of Lady Audley. Lady Audley traveled quite the distance as she fled from her past and toward a life full of luxury. However, because of the train, this is not the obstacle for Robert that it could have been a century beforehand. Train travel greatly...
moreBy the mid-1800’s, power-driven machines had replaced hand labor for manufactured goods. To work these machines, factory owners turned to children, as they could be paid a lot less than an adult. Soon, child labor became a major problem in England and the U.S. as children were exploited for their cheap labor. These children would sometimes work 12 to 18 hours a day, 6 days a week and would only earn a dollar. Many of these children were also quite young, even beginning work before age seven. At times, children would have to work underground in coal mines and became ill from being so over-worked and starved for food. It is estimated that by 1810, around 2 million school-aged children were working 50 to 70 hour weeks.
As teachers and church and labor groups became outraged by the cruel conditions these children were working in, child labor laws came into practice. Britain passed the first laws regulating child labor from 1802 to 1878. These laws gradually shortened work hours...
moreEast End was the "city" in Oliver Twist. Just like it said in my post, "the East End has historically been associated with poor areas, and it was the site of many notorious slums in the nineteenth century. The area has long been associated with the docks and industries related to shipbuilding and with silk weaving due to large groups of Huguenot weavers arriving in the end of the seventeenth century." I mean this gives so much more context. There was so much poverty in Oliver Twist and they sure did live in a slum from the descriptions in the book. Also, its interesting to hear about the silk weavers because silk handkercheifs were so popular and a very regular thing the peddlers would steal and resell. Also, Jack the Ripper is known for being from these parts if that doesn't solidify the sketchiness of the East End.
I found this article interesting for two reasons. First, after some research I found that Charles Dickens started working in a coal factory to help out his fmaily financially. This was oretty normal for this time of the industrial revolution Second, He included this aspect of child labor in his novel Oliver Twist. I think in Oliver Twist this is one reason he was treated much older than he really was. He had multiple jobs at such a young age. It's interesting to see how not only was Oliver put to work at a young age but almost all of the children in the lower classes had to work in order for their families to survive.
The East End of London is the historic area east of the City of London and north of the Thames. Its exact perimeters are informally defined, and the East End comprises parts of Central London, East London, and the London Docklands. The East End has historically been associated with poor areas, and it was the site of many notorious slums in the nineteenth century. The area has long been associated with the docks and industries related to shipbuilding and with silk weaving due to large groups of Huguenot weavers arriving in the end of the seventeenth century. The area has received several influxes of immigrant groups throughout its history.