The Victorian
era, spanning from 1830–1901, was
a period of dramatic change the world over,
and especially in England, with the rapid
extension of colonialism through large
portions of Africa, Asia, and the West
Indies, making England a preeminent center
of world power and relocating the perceived
center of Western Civilization from Paris
to London. The rapid growth of London,
with a population of 6.5 million by the
time of Victoria's death, evidenced
a marked change due to industrialization
away from a way of life based on the ownership
of land to a modern urban economy based
on trade and manufacturing. Dramatic changes
in manufacturing, rapid growth of the British
economy, and seemingly continual expansion
of England's colonized territories
resulted in mixed sentiments, with some
writers such as Thomas Babbington Macauley
applauding change and the superior civilization
of England and other writers such as Mathew
Arnold and Thomas Carlyle expressing more
trepidation and concern about this era
of change. In addition to general economic
and political change, there were advancements
made in the promotion of women's rights,
especially in terms of improving labor
conditions and their rights in marriage.
The Victorian
early period (1830–48) can be described
as a time of dramatic change with the improvement
of the railroads and the country's
first Reform Parliament, but it was also
a time of economic distress. Even
with the Reform Bill of 1832, extending
voting privileges to the lower middle classes
and redistributing parliamentary representation
to break up the conservative landowner's
monopoly of power, England's economic
troubles could not be entirely solved.
By the end of this Time of Troubles, the
Chartists, among others, succeeded in introducing
important economic reforms, such as the
repeal of the Corn Laws and the introduction
of a system of Free Trade.
The historian Asa Briggs
refers to the following period of the Victorian
era as "The Age of Improvement. Although
the mid- Victorian period (1848–70)
was not free of the previous period's
problems, it was a time of overall prosperity
and general social satisfaction with further
growth of the empire improving trade and
economic conditions. This was also
a period in which industry, technology, and
science were celebrated with renewed vigor
in such events as the Great Exhibition of
Hyde Park. By this point, however, the Church
of England had evolved into three major divisions,
with conflicting beliefs about religious
practice. There were also some rationalist
challenges to religion, including Utilitarianism,
developed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill,
and science in the work of Thomas Henry Huxley
and Charles Darwin. "Higher Criticism" had
a similar effect in its perception of the
Bible as a mere historical text.
The later
period (1870–1901) was a time of
changing attitudes about colonialism, industrialization,
and scientific advancement. Rebellions
and war in the colonial territories made
the public increasingly more aware of the
costs of empire. Various events challenged
the sense of England's endless prosperity
as a world power, such as the emergence
of Bismarck's Germany and its threats
to English naval and military positions
and the expansion of the American grain
industry, driving down the price of English
grain. Socialist movements grew out of
this discontentment, as well as a melancholy
spirit in the writing of the end of the
century. Oscar Wilde's making a pun
of "earnest," a typical and sincerely
used mid-Victorian word, is typical of
a dying Victorianism.
In addition to social and
economic changes, dramatically affecting
the content of literature during the Victorian
era, other technological changes in publishing
shaped literary production in other ways. The
conditions of publishing, including the prominence
of the periodical press, dramatically shaped
the form of literature. Serialization
of novels, for example, allowed for an author
to alter the shape of his narrative based
on public response to earlier installments.
In the later years of the era, authors started
to position themselves in opposition to this
broad reading public and serialization gave
way to three-volume editions. The Victorian
novel was primarily concerned with representing
a social reality and the way a protagonist
sought and defined a place within this reality.
The increased popularity of periodicals also
allowed nonfiction to become a widespread
and popular literary genre. Victorian poetry
was also published in periodicals and underwent
its own dramatic changes during the era,
with Victorian poets seeking to represent
psychology in new ways. Theater, on the other
hand, was a popular form of entertainment,
but did not flourish aesthetically until
the end of the Victorian era.