A twofaced reality Performer Culture Literature Marina Spiazzi

A two-faced reality Performer - Culture & Literature Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella, Margaret Layton © 2012

A two-faced reality 1. The British Empire During the reign of Queen Victoria, Great Britain ruled over a wide and powerful empire. An area of 4 million people more than 400 million squares miles. British Empire throughout the World, 19 th century, Private Collection Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 1. The British Empire 1887 Golden Jubilee 1897 Diamond Jubilee Blue countries already belonged to the UK Orange new conquered lands Hong-Kong 1841 1877 Empress of India Performer - Culture&Literature Egypt 1882 Boer war 1886 1884 Sudan Australia and New Zeland 1902 1899 Burma

A two-faced reality 1. The British Empire After the 1857 Indian Mutiny • India came under direct rule by Britain; • Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India in 1877. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 1. The British Empire The British also occupied • Australia and New Zealand; • parts of China – including Hong Kong in 1841; • Burma in 1886; • Egypt in 1882; • Sudan in 1884; • South Africa in 1902, after the Boer War. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 1. The British Empire The Victorians believed that • the ‘races’ of the world were divided by physical and intellectual differences; • some were destined to be led by others; • it was an obligation imposed by God on the British to impose their superior way of life, their institutions, law and politics on native peoples. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 2. Rudyard Kipling: The White Man’s Burden • A poem written in 1899 to give advice to the United States on the occasion of the annexation of the Philippines • It contains the author’s famous phrase, ‘the white man’s burden’ • The bard of the English Empire and came to symbolise the belief in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 2. Rudyard Kipling : The White Man’s Burden ‘Take up the White Man's burden Send forth the best ye breed Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captive’s need To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild – Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. ’ Performer - Culture&Literature Speaking to an American, who recently colonised Philippines Responsibility of coloniser: burden Darwin’s theory

A two-faced reality 3. Charles Darwin and evolution 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. • His theory of natural selection discarded the version of creation given by the Bible, it seemed to show that the strongest survived and the weakest deserved to be defeated. • Stress on the godless element of chance involved in evolutionary variation. Performer - Culture&Literature Charles Darwin

A two-faced reality 3. Charles Darwin and evolution 1871: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex Theory of evolution • all living creatures have taken their forms through a slow process of change and adaptation in a struggle for survival; • favourable physical conditions determine the survival of a species; • unfavourable ones determine its extinction; • man evolved, like any other animal, from less highly organised forms, namely from a monkey. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 4. The Victorians and crime The Victorians believed crime could be beaten • Prison acts (1865 and 1877). • Creation of new police forces. Impact on small theft on the streets There were occasional panics linked to particular appalling offences Performer - Culture&Literature Street robbery, called ‘garrotting’ The murders of Jack the Ripper (1888)

A two-faced reality 4. The Victorians and crime Domestic violence rarely came before the courts: tolerated because committed in the private sphere. publicising of such behaviour bad reputation to the family The case of Jack The Ripper was the most famous case of sexual violence. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality … 4. The Victorians and crime Parliament responded to the problem with legislation which provided flogging as well as imprisonment for offenders. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 4. The Victorians and crime Violence, especially violence with a sexual connotation, sold newspapers. The press created sensations out of minor incidents. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 4. The Victorians and crime The criminals • At the beginning of the century criminal offenders individuals in the lower reaches of the working class. • By the middle of the century ‘criminal classes’ social groups stuck at the bottom of society. • Towards the end of the century the criminal an individual suffering from some form of behavioural abnormality that had been either inherited or encouraged by dissolute parents. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 5. Aestheticism Developed in France with Théophile Gautier (1811– 72) It reflected: • the sense of frustration and uncertainty of the artist; • his reaction against the materialism and the restrictive moral code of the bourgeoisie; • his need to re-define the role of art; • the French artists withdrew from the political and social scene; • ‘escaped’ into aesthetic isolation. Performer - Culture&Literature Théophile Gautier

A two-faced reality 5. Aestheticism The bohemian’s protest against the monotony and vulgarity of bourgeois life led to an unconventional existence, the pursue of sensations and excesses, and the cult of art and beauty. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 5. Aestheticism Walter Pater (1839– 94), theorist of the Aesthetic Movement in England, • rejected religious faith; • said that art was the only means to stop time; • thought life should be lived ‘as a work of art feeling all kinds of sensations’. Aubrey Beardsley, front cover For ‘The Ye. IIow Book’, January 1895. ‘The Yel. Iow Book’ was a eading Britìsh journal of the 1890 s which was associated with Aestheticism and Decadence. The magazine contaìned a wide range of literary and artistic genres, poetry, short stories, essays, book illustrations, portraits, and reproductions ofpaintings. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 5. Aestheticism Eternal Art for art’s sake No reference to life, morality The task of the artist to feel sensations, to be attentive to the ‘attractive’, the ‘gracious’. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 5. Aestheticism A number of features can be distinguished in the works of Aesthetic artists: • • • evocative use of the language of the senses; excessive attention to the self; hedonistic attitude; perversity in subject matter; disenchantment with contemporary society; absence of any didactic aim. Performer - Culture&Literature

A two-faced reality 6. The dandy • Belonged to the upper classes opposite to the bohemian. • Elegance as a reason of life and ‘life as a work of art’. • Interested in beauty and literary works opposite to the didacticism of the Victorian writers of the first half of the age. Performer - Culture&Literature