VICTORIANISM
Victorianism is a period of Great Britain's history which symbol is queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901). At this time, Britain was very important in the world. It was the first country in making the Industrial Revolution. But industrialization didn't follow an homogeneous, lineal and uniform process, for long time coexisted innovations and traditionals tecnics. Efect wasn't the same for all the people and everywhere.
Every social state saw, soon or later, their life transformed. There were a new production system: a wild capitalism was tempered slowly.
One of the conflictivity signs was the delinquency; but rulers didn't understand the crime as a sign of social tension, but as an individual problem, so they treated it from the moral point of view, trying to finish with the "vices" through religious organizations. In this way, the powerful group gave the society some values.
In general, victorian society had very hard values which were reforced by puritanism. English Oficial Church, joined with conservative states of society, was losing power in this period because of the influence of dissident-on-workers churches, as Methodist, which emphasizes in devotion, inflexible moral and discipline.
It was in Victorian time (1832-1901) when novel reached the more popularity between English social states. This time was called "golden" because of the number and quality of the authors. Most of the victorian authors felt the need of copy the social reality of the person, in relation with the others and in its personal fight for autodetermination, that sometimes reached almost religious shades.
One of the precursors of the Victorian novel is Jane Austen. She could portray her society. She began to write when she was a child, trying to refute from literature the narrative-of-low-sentimentalism models. Her works, not destinated to publication, were appearing with some disaster of dates.
But the biggest figure in this period was Charles Dickens whose works, very popular, show a social and humanitarian worry.