Assignment

Pick 1 out of 3

1 research a figure or text that was mentioned but not studied in class (eg, The Black Pig by Umberto Notari, cited in Book I of A Farewell to Arms)

2- look up this artistic movement related to something we have studied in class (eg, Russian futurism)

3- compare something we have read in class to pop music, another literary work, or a work of art eg; the victorian age

The Victorian Age (1830 – 1901)

1837: Victoria becomes queen and reigns until 1901; an “age of transition” (John Stuart Mill), age of advancement
shift of global influence from Paris (formerly) to London. London is the new centre of the civilized world.
Increasing industrialization, increasing trade; education is compulsory
period associated with the personal attributes of its queen: earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic fidelity, exemplary behaviour (especially from women); artists no longer interested in Romantic introspection and turned, instead, toward moral responsibility
later writers will eagerly dissociate themselves from the Victorian era, thinking of it as a period of “superabundant energy” and “smothering profusion”
after an initial period of hardship, the Victorian age was prosperous (from 1848-1870), though some Victorian writers continued to attack England’s dissatisfactory social scene following Industrialization; Ruskin uses his treatise The Stones of Venice to demonstrate his distaste for Victorian industry and technological culture; during this middle period, the conditions of the working class improved
new philosophies: Utilitarianism (Jeremy Benthem — the greatest good for the greatest number); popularization of the theories of Charles Darwin (survival of the fittest)
last period of Victorianism: 1870 – 1901; serenity for some, reactionary period for others; melancholy becomes a dominant theme in literature (artists were aware of living at the end of a gr