Victorianism MA 9 The Popular and the Aesthetic
Periodicals 1 1780: 76 newspapers and periodicals in England and Wales between 1800 and 1809 154 new ones 1830s: 968 1860s: 1,639 1890s: 3,423 Steam press (The Times, 1814):up to 2,500 sheets per hour Rotary press (Lloyd s Weekly News; 1856): by 1904: 55,000 32-page papers per hour
Periodicals 2 Before1853: one successful provincial daily (Liverpool Telegraph and Shipping Gazette) By 1870: 60 by 1900: 171 Total circulation of all London newspapers: 56,000 in 1837 410,000 by 1874 680,000 in 1887
Books and religion Early 1800s: 300 book titles annually by 1842: nearly 3,000 by 1897: about 8,000 1814-46: religion: 20.3 percent; fiction:16.2 percent; early 1870s: reversed By1901: religion 8.6%; fiction 33.0% 1873, the ratio of secular to religious magazines: 60: 40 by 1902: 80: 20.
Literacy of the working classes 1841: jobs requiring literacy: 27.4 percent of male workers; 7.4 percent of female workers 1891: 37.2 percent of male workers 15.4 percent of female workers Literacy for leisure; second half of the century: their real incomes rose by 80-100 percent their working hours decreased
Popular/working class reading penny dreadfuls, shilling shockers The quarter educated Public libraries: between 1851 and 1862: 23 between 1868 and 1886: 98 between 1886 and 1918: altogether 584 1851: 610 mechanics institutes: 102,050 members; 681,500 volumes
Jane Austen: The Northanger defence of the novel we [novelists] are an injured body: Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. And what are you reading, Miss - - -? Oh! it is only a novel! replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda ; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.
Novel concerns Poisonous/dangerous reading Bovaryism Moral and political effects of mass literacy, of reading Three-decker cheap literature Serialisation warning: cliffhanger Uncategorisability of novels From 1860s: sensation novels crime stories
Shows Music hall vs opera/theatre Freak shows Zoos
Football, rugby Modern rules: 19th century Cambridge Rules: 1848: Trinity College Not universally adopted Football Association: 1863 Complete set of rules Rugby Football Union: 1871 Origins: Rugby School FA Cup: 1872 1st international football match: England-Scotland Rugby: more middle class Soccer: more working class
Travelling for leisure 18th c: Grand tour of Europe Aristocrats Gradually: upper-middle, middle-middle etc. Mass travel preconditions: Infrastructure (road/railway system) Leisure time Money Agencies
Thomas Cook (1809-1892) Midlands, Baptist, Temperance Movement (1820 on) 1st tour: 540 Temperance campaigners from Leicester to Loughborough 5 July 1841: deal with the railway company: passengesr: full price and food his share 1st publically advertised, but privately chartered excursion train 1851: 165.000 to Great Exhibition 1855: 1st excursion abroad: Calais 1856: 1st circular tour in Europe 1860: Egypt, US By 1888: over 3.25 million tickets sold
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Germ (1848): to germinate ideas Against the Royal Academy Pure colours Simplicity Accuray of details Freshness and directness Medievalism
John Everett Millais Christ In the House of His Parents
James Collinson St Elizabeth of Hungary
John Everett Millais Ophelia
John William Waterhouse The Lady of Shalott
William Morris Queen Guinevere
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Proserpine
Holman Hunt Claudio and Isabella
Holman Hunt The Awakening Conscience
Holman Hunt Our English Coasts
William Dyce Pegwell Bay
Dante Gabriel Rossetti La Ghirlandata
Dante Gabriel Rossetti Beata Beatrix
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Beloved
Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Wedding of St George and Princess Sabra
Edward Burne-Jones King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
Arts and Crafts Movement William Morris s The Red House designed by Philip Webb
William Morris Woodpecker tapestry
William Morris The Forest tapestry
Edward Burne-Jones Vision from the Holy Grail tapestry
Edward Burne-Jones A beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be [...] in a land no one can define or remember, only desire.
Christina Rossetti: In an Artist s Studio One face looks out from all his canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans: We found her hidden just behind those screens, That mirror gave back all her loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A saint, an angel -- every canvas means The same one meaning, neither more nor less. He feeds upon her face by day and night, And she with true kind eyes looks back on him, Fair as the moon and joyful as the light: Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim; Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright; Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
William Holman Hunt The Lady of Shalott