Tennyson As A Victorian Essay Research Paper

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Tennyson As A Victorian Essay, Research Paper Tennyson as a Victorian The Victorian age was an age where many changes occurred socially, economically, and industrially. People began to explore into areas such as the earth, the human body, and how to benefit the daily lives of individuals. English literature was also something that was beginning to be developed. Historically, it began when Queen Victoria was anointed to the thrown in 1837 and brought a new prosperity to England. She held the throne for 63 years which is the longest monarch to hold the thrown ever in English history. To many people, she was a symbol of stability and prosperity as evidenced by the following feeling from her people. The Victorian age has been said to be a very diverse time. Historian T.B.

Macaulay in 1838 said that the English had become “the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw.” Yet, another man by the name of Benjamin Disraeli, who was a writer and a politician, disagreed with this statement and pointed out that the existence of an England of “two nations who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were … of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.” He further says that “these two nations were the richest and poorest.” It was a time when the rich were rich, and the poor people were poor. The poor or lower class of people went hungry and half naked throughout most

of their lives. Life and death went hand in hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side; repletion and starvation laid them down together. Such rapid change in industry destroyed jobs as it provided new ones. The population shifted and left thousands housed in urban slums with bad water, no sanitation, and little food. The depression left whole factories unemployed, and with no means of producing goods. Yet, some people believed that the only way to control population growth was through starvation or self-control. Men, women, and children accustomed to the community life of rural towns and farms to the varied and independent work habits of the farm, and the small shop, found themselves laboring up to sixteen hours a day, six days a week, in factories without any government safety

regulations, and with very low pay. People were not known as individuals only as “hands” with no control over their lives, hired, and fired at the whim of the owner or the fluctuation of the market. There was no way to make a better life for oneself because you were born into a certain social status, or you lived a life of poverty for the rest of your life or you were one of the privileged classes and were guaranteed the status of the royalty. The Victorian years also brought with them the increasing efforts to achieve political, social, and economic reforms that would change the structure of the country to meet the changes created by industry. The Reform Bill was passed in 1832 which increased the electorate by fifty percent. The bill made it impossible for workers and women

to vote, therefore, only one in five Englishmen could vote. These men were generally from the upper class and they controlled everything. To many people, this was a light of hope that England would improve, but during the 1840’s England saw the worst years of the century for unemployment, hunger, and disease. It brought radical working class agitation for the People’s Chapter, which demanded universal male suffrage and a Parliament in which any man could serve. The effects of these problems prompted a series of bills to be passed. Parliament repealed some of the more unjust laws, and began to legislate shorter working hours, industrial safety, and urban sanitary reform. Due to the economic prosperity, it reduced radical agitation and in 1867 a second Reform Bill, which meant