The Victorian Age (1830-1901)
Things to Consider:
- Phases:
- Early Victorian Period (1830-1848): "Time of Troubles"
- Mid-Victorian Period (1848-1870): "Economic Prosperity,
Growth of Empire, and Religious Controversy"
- Late Victorian Period (1870-1901): "Decay of Victorian
Values"
- Industrialism
- The Woman Question
- Imperialism
Discussion Questions:
507:
- How much of the world was under Britain's power at the
height of Victoria's reign?
511:
- What, according to the editors, was
the significance of the Reform Act of 1832?
512:
- What, according to the editors, was the significance of the
opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830?
516:
- What
factors threatened the power of the British Empire during
the late Victorian Period?
517-18:
- Describe the aestheticism
movement.
518-19:
- Describe the three major
divisions of the Church of England in the mid-Victorian
period.
520:
- How,
according to the editors, did scientific
developments in the Victorian Age threaten religious
faith?
521:
- What did the Married Women's
Property Acts (1870-1908) accomplish?
522:
- Describe
the doctrine of the separate spheres.
527:
- What,
according to the editors, is the greatest achievement of
Victorian poetry?
Other Discussion Questions:
510:
- What, according to Gauri Viswanathan, was the original
purpose of the English literary curriculum?
513:
- Who were the Chartists?
- What were the Corn Laws
(repealed 1846)?
515:
- What was the Crystal Palace?
516:
- What were the consequences of the India Uprising of 1857?
519:
- What is Utilitarianism?
- What is the "Higher
Criticism?
522:
- Describe the position of a
governess during this period.
- Describe the doctrine of
separate spheres.
523:
- What purpose, according to
the editors, did "the image of middle-class domestic virtue"
serve?
523-24
- What, according to the
editors, is the focus of most Victorian realist novels?
525:
- What, according to the editors, was the influence of
periodical publications during the Victorian period?
526:
- What, according to the editors, was the significance of the
novel form during this period?
527:
- Explain: "Victorian prose writers were engaged in shaping
belief in a bewilderingly complex and changing world" (527).