Late Victorian Era Research Articles

THE CONCEPT OF SPLENDID ISOLATION: A CONTEMPORARY APPROACH

The article deals with the concept of «splendid isolation», traditionally associated with British foreign policy in the late 19th century, refers to the period when Britain distanced itself from European alliances. This article examines the rationale and consequences of this policy through a contemporary lens, drawing on contemporary scholarship to reassess the motivations and outcomes of Britain's diplomatic posture in that era. Analyzing the concept of «splendid isolation», the study focuses on the political, economic and military factors that determined British strategy. The focus of the study is also the analysis of criticism of this strategy and its consequences for Great Britain in the context of changes in the international balance of power at the beginning of the 20th century. The question arises as to whether «splendid isolation» was really an effective strategy for protecting national interests and maintaining the status of a world power. The traditional view of British foreign policy in the late Victorian era emphasizes independence and avoidance of binding alliances. The article examines the changes in the international environment, especially the growing competition from France, Russia, Germany and the United States, and how they influenced the decisions of British politicians. The article also examines the transition from isolationist policies to strategic alliances at the beginning of the 20th century.

“She Feels not Half What We Feel”: Oriental Affect Aliens and the Unhappy Queers in Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse

In Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf’s portrayal of Lily Briscoe’s and Elizabeth Dalloway’s “Chinese eyes” has drawn critical attention, but the lack of affective expressiveness in these characters needs further examination. Borrowing Xine Yao’s term “unfeeling,” this essay explores the relationship between Woolf’s use of Oriental imagery and disaffection. It argues that Woolf’s depiction of Oriental unaffectedness critiques Victorian patriarchal conventions and their constructed notions of happiness. However, in doing so, Woolf simultaneously perpetuates the stereotype of Oriental inscrutability. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s critique of happiness and her concept of the “unhappy queer,” this essay first examines Elizabeth’s restrained affective expressiveness, suggesting that Woolf’s characterization challenges the white sentimentality linked to the heterosexual definition of happiness in the late Victorian era. Yet, through the lens of Yao’s analysis of Oriental alienness, the essay contends that Woolf’s narrative still subscribes to Orientalism. Likewise, Lily Briscoe’s negotiation of her capacity for sympathy—especially in contrast to Mrs. Ramsay—highlights Woolf’s critique of patriarchal norms. However, Lily’s artistic vision is ultimately realised through her alignment with the Western affective economy, suggesting the author’s acknowledgement of sympathy and affectability as universal concepts—yet ones that are underpinned by a racial hierarchy.

Lunatic Asylums: Their Organisation and Management, by Charles Arthur Mercier

SUMMARY Lunatic Asylums, published 130 years ago, is a fascinating insight into how these institutions were managed in the late Victorian era. This brief article considers what it reveals about the zeitgeist of the time and the book's author, the remarkable Charles Mercier.

Loosening the Stays: Victorian Shaw

ABSTRACT This article for the special edition “Victorian Shaw” focuses on the intersections across social issues in the mid- to late-Victorian era that influenced the writing and reception of plays by George Bernard Shaw and contemporaries Wilde and Pinero. Shaw was an advocate for workers’ rights, as well as women’s rights, and spoke out in writing and orally to abolish the Contagious Diseases Acts that went after women but not the men who transmitted the diseases. Shaw’s connections to women activists are also featured; key speeches/essays by women are included. Shaw’s role as a theater critic gave him the opportunity to show the impact of the social ills of the era. By the 1890s, he began to write plays; by the end of the Victorian era, he was an established playwright who gave women roles that went beyond the boundaries of nineteenth-century theater.

The Composition of the Imperial British Forces in the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902: A Military and Socio-Historical Overview

The British forces that served during the Anglo-Boer War (also known as the South African War) of 1899–1902 were an amalgam of several different types of soldiers. These men came from varying geographic and socio-economic backgrounds, and had different reasons for enlisting. This article discusses the composition of the British forces during the war, and adopts a military and socio-historical approach to understand who served in South Africa and why. To this end, the different types of British soldiers are looked at as separate (but ultimately intertwined) groupings, including regular (or career) soldiers, British volunteers, colonial volunteers, and “non-white” combatants. This represents a wide-viewed perspective of the British military system during the late-Victorian era. Keywords: Anglo-Boer War, South African War, British Empire, British Army, British Soldiers, Australian Soldiers, Canadian Soldiers, New Zealand Soldiers

Conjuring Up a King

Conjuring Up a King

The Interior Other

Representations of monstrosity in literature reveal the cultural tensions of specific historical periods, as collective social fears become embodied by creatures intended to disturb their audiences. Gothic novels of the late Victorian Era rely on these representations of darkness in society, and the different monsters created by Victorian authors reflect various views of social norms, particularly in relation to gender. This essay focuses on Bram Stoker’s sexually threatening vampires in Dracula and Robert Louis Stevenson’s physically repulsive representation of the duality of humankind in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Portrayals of monsters in the late nineteenth century were not limited to literature, but also evident in visual works, such as Aubrey Beardsley’s renderings of Salomé for Oscar Wilde’s publication of a play by the same name. While Stoker’s engagement with monstrosity villainizes female sexual subjectivity, Stevenson’s depiction of corruption questions socially performative masculinity. An analysis of Beardsley’s images emphasizes the potential for sexually subjective female monsters like those in Dracula to contradict social gender norms much like Stevenson’s representation of Mr Hyde, rather than perpetuate the sexual repression of women as Stoker’s novel does. However, the exoticized nature of these drawings also highlights the association between imperial ideologies and representations of gendered monstrosity which both Stoker and Stevenson exhibit as they express anxieties about the colonial other in their texts. Studying these works allows insight into the connections between gender, sexual normativity, and the colonial other that continue to be relevant in contemporary media.

Minorities aiding minorities? British Jewish response to Armenian suffering in the late Victorian era

ABSTRACT This essay delves into the humanitarian response of British Jews towards the suffering of the Armenians during the Hamidian massacres (1894–7). The essay argues that this humanitarian act is a very early and hardly known attempt by Jews to aid members of other non-Jewish groups. This “external” humanitarian act perhaps fits the scholarly argument concerning the nineteenth century’s watershed of humanitarianism: the transition from an earlier more inward-looking based relief action, to aiding, in the name of all humanity, other, distinct religious or ethnic groups. Most importantly, as this essay argues, these Jewish humanitarian activities mainly derived from rational, practical reasons, primarily resulting from Jewish vulnerability. Rational rather than sentimental humanitarianism, hence, was the main cause for the humanitarian response of British Jews. Indeed, the essay argues, the endorsement of the Armenians was an influential affair in Britain, moving the public as well as British Jews into action. However, some British Jews, and interestingly also German Jews objected to any formal or even non-formal support that might endanger their Jewish brethren in the Ottoman Empire. The support of the Armenians, thus, was also controversial, arousing inner conflicts within the community and even between British Jews and German Jews.

Oscar Wilde’s ideal woman: Constructing Victorian upper-class female identity in Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan

Abstract This paper examines the definition of the Victorian upper-class woman in the context of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, in light of the prevailing gender roles and conventions of the late Victorian era. Drawing upon Judith Butler’s theories of sex and gender, this study investigates Victorian female subjectivity in terms of the power dynamics between men and women. Drawing upon Butlerian analyses of sex and gender, this paper has explored two divergent representations of upper-class female subjectivity in the Victorian period. The representation of intelligible-gendered identities in the Duchess of Berwick is a key point of consideration when examining Victorian upper-class female subjects. In contrast, Mrs. Erlynne serves as an example of an unintelligible-gendered character, allowing for an exploration of the ramifications of challenging the prevailing power structure. In this article, it is demonstrated that Wilde’s female ideal is neither definitively intelligible-gendered nor unintelligible-gendered; rather, she is a figure who resists power and reacts to any perceived threats to her social standing. This article posits that Wilde’s ideal woman is a semi-intelligible-gendered identity. Furthermore, it is suggested that, despite his advocacy of Women’s rights, Wilde still endorses certain gender roles and binary oppositions between the sexes, one of which is the role of motherhood. Wilde illustrates a scenario in which breaking away from these social conventions would lead to a tragic end which no woman is able to escape.

Study of Male Characters in Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray Based on Horney’s Conflict Theory

In the late Victorian era, due to the bourgeoisie’s profit-oriented material supremacy and the collapse of traditional religious value system, Wilde advocates aestheticism in order to find the meaning of life. At the same time, Wilde advocates a new hedonism in order to fit in with the crowd, expecting the world to liberate itself and to find the enjoyment of beauty. But in the process, Wilde’s heart is torn between two sides and his interpersonal relationships are disrupted. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, he creates three characters associated with him. And these three characters are also endowed with Wilde’s conflict. They make all kinds of attempts to resolve the conflict of inner opposition. By analyzing the inner conflicts of the three characters and their interpersonal relationships based on Horney’s conflict theory, this paper discusses the complexity of Wilde’s inner heart as well.

APA Library & Archives Receives Grant to Preserve Unique Collection

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article APA & MeetingsFull AccessAPA Library & Archives Receives Grant to Preserve Unique CollectionKatie O'ConnorKatie O'ConnorSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:25 Feb 2023https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2023.03.3.36AbstractThe APA Foundation’s Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Library & Archives boasts a unique collection of items, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities represents a major step to enabling the preservation of these treasures for generations to come.There are approximately 1,800 volumes in the APA Foundation’s (APAF) Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Library & Archives. The collection chronicles the history of the profession of psychiatry, the creation and advancement of APA, and the key figures that have shaped the field. To help preserve that history, the library has been awarded a $10,000 Preservation Assistance Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.Bexx Caswell-Olson, M.S.L.I.S., holds up a light meter to a shelf of antique books in the Melvin Sabshin, M.D. Library & Archives to measure the amount of visible and infrared light to which the books are exposed.KC Hodge“Our collection is incredibly valuable,” said Librarian and Archivist Deena Gorland, M.S.L.I.S. “This grant will allow us to understand what we need to do to preserve our volumes, which offer a unique window into the history of our understanding of mental illness over the centuries.”The grant allowed APAF to hire a conservator, Bexx Caswell-Olson, M.S.L.I.S., to assess the condition of the library’s collection and make preseveration and conservation recommendations. Caswell-Olson is the director of book conservation at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass. She visited the library in late January and selected titles to evaluate with an emphasis on the library’s oldest and rarest volumes. “I’m looking at a wide variety of elements, including the temperature, the humidity, the lighting conditions, and just generally the environment that the books are being stored and used in,” Caswell-Olson told Psychiatric News during her visit. “But I’m also taking a closer look at the collection as a whole to get a better sense of what condition the books are in and what the biggest needs are.” Preservation Assistance Grants are awarded to small and midsize institutions to help improve their ability to preserve and care for their humanities collections, with the help of conservators like Caswell-Olson. APAF’s collection boasts a wide variety of works, including 15th and 16th century volumes, which chronicle witchcraft, superstition, and demonology. It includes, for example, a copy of The Malleus Maleficarum, which is often translated as “The Hammer of Witches” and was originally published in Germany in 1486. Altogether, the collection includes rare books, personal papers and manuscripts, audiovisual media, and oral histories that document both the history of the field of psychiatry as well as APA’s origins, development, activities, and achievements. The collection provides glimpses into the earliest mental illness treatments, as well as examples of advocacy, Gorland said. Caswell-Olson is working on a report detailing her suggestions as to how APAF can ensure the library’s longevity. She called the library “a beautiful, well-designed space” and noted that some books could use some special attention. Not only do some of the oldest volumes need additional preservation work, but so too do the volumes that date back to the late Victorian era. “The quality of materials they used then was not particularly good,” Caswell-Olson explained. “The industrial era was all about trying to make things faster and cheaper, and those books tend to fall apart as they age.” Gorland said her hope is that Caswell-Olson’s assessment will provide a roadmap that APAF can follow to protect and preserve the collection for generations to come. APAF’s Adopt-a-Book program for APA members was developed with that same goal in mind—to support the preservation of specific volumes while providing funds for the library to maintain and conserve its collection. Caswell-Olson pointed to the frequently used adage “preservation is access.” Without preserving the volumes in collections like APAF’s, future generations will lose access to a wealth of knowledge and irreplaceable items. “This library is part of this organization’s history and cultural heritage,” she said. “Preserving these works and making them available for continuing use, not just for the present but for the future as well, is hugely important.” ■ResourcesTo learn more about APAF’s library and archives, schedule a visit, or view virtual galleries, visit legacy.psychiatry.org. ISSUES NewArchived

From “Pin Money” to Careers: Britain’s Late Move to Equal Pay, Its Consequences, and Broader Implications

Despite its importance to gender inequality, household incomes, and labor markets, the reasons behind Britain being one of the last major Western nations to introduce equal pay have been relatively neglected. This article first examines the campaign for equal pay from the late Victorian era to its eventual introduction in 1970. Economists predicted that equal pay would produce substantial female unemployment, but policy makers correctly doubted this—as data collected from early adopters in West Europe and North America showed no significant rise in female unemployment. Female employment rose substantially during Britain’s equal pay implementation—while, in contrast to broadly static earnings differentials from 1950 to 1970, there was a significant reduction in the gender pay gap, followed by a longer-term trend of narrowing differentials. This article explores why equal pay expanded female employment, given the absence of any sudden rise in women workers productivity or substantial acceleration of structural change in favor of female-employing sectors. The article finds that equal pay compelled employers to reevaluate the real worth of female workers based on their substantial relative human capital growth since 1945. This had not hitherto been reflected in relative earnings, owing to barriers such as segmented labor markets, monopsonistic employers, and collective bargaining procedures that fossilized traditional gender pay differentials.

Gold Standard

The subjects of these two books basically belonged to the same generation. Philip Rahv (1908–73) and Michael Gold (1894–1967) shared origins in the Jewish lower class, and rose to literary prominence during the Great Depression. But from the perspective of posterity, what especially links their names is the notion of “proletarian literature.” In novels and short stories, in sketches and poetry, in drama and reportage, the writers who generally accepted this label repudiated the genteel tradition that had crested in the late Victorian era. To be sure, that decorous era of belles lettres had always been contested. It had its outliers – most famously Mark Twain. The list of those who troubled the taste of the era also included, among younger writers, the barely housebroken Theodore Dreiser and Jack London.

ТРАДИЦІЙНЕ ЖИТЛО НЕПРИВІЛЕЙОВАНИХ ПРОШАРКІВ КОРЕЙСЬКОГО СУСПІЛЬСТВА НА МЕЖІ XIX–XX СТОЛІТТЯ (ЗА СВІДЧЕННЯМИ ІНОЗЕМЦІВ)

Until the middle of the 19th century, the world of the Far East was almost unknown to Westerners. Travelers, missionaries, diplomats and writers from Europe and America, exploring the world of the Far East, inevitably came across buildings radically different from European views about architecture. Curved tiled and straw roofs, paper walls and high fences forming a labyrinth of city streets – all this greeted foreigners who visited Korea at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. On the eve of the annexation of Korea in 1910, states from different parts of the world fought for hegemony over the territory of the peninsula, primarily the Japanese and Russian empires. When the world monarchies fought for influence on the Korean peninsula, elements of Western architecture, such as brick temples, high buildings, asphalt streets, etc., came to Korea. However, the effects of Westernization remained too weak to change the traditional landscape of the Korean city fundamentally in the late Victorian era. Traditional Korean «hanoks» were widespread on the territory of the Korean peninsula from the rise of the Joseon dynasty (end of the XIV century) to the post-war modernization of Korea in the second half of the XX century. We find many descriptions of this type of housing in the works of Western authors of the late XIX and early XX centuries, such as the American writer Louise Jordan Miln, the British researcher Isabella Bird, the American missionary Homer Hulbert, and the Russian Orientalist Dmitriy Pozdneev. In this article, we investigated the hetero image of traditional Korean architecture of the underprivileged part of the Korean population in the works of Western authors at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. Also, we analyzed the image of traditional Korean architecture through the point of view of travelers from Europe and the USA.

The Crisis of Liberati in George Gissing’s New Grub Street

George Gissing is a famous essayist and novelist in the late Victorian era. His masterpiece New Grub Street reveals the negative impact of literary marketization on literature and even culture by describing the different living conditions of literati. The novel depicts three different types of literati images, namely idealists who adhere to artistic standards, utilitarians who cater to the market, and female writers who are on the edge of literature, thus reflecting the writer's critical attitude towards the social reality that literature has become a commodity.

A Psychoanalytical Reading of Female Madness in Selected Victorian Literature

This dissertation, A Psychoanalytical Reading of Female Madness in Selected Victorian Literature, argues that the patriarchal Victorian society, gave meaning to female madness using medical and psychological discourses. It examines how literary madwomen of the mid to the late 19 th century operated to reflect the ideological stereotype of the feminine and the female imaginary of the early to the late Victorian Era. A solid comparative study of Jane Eyre , The Woman in White , and Lady Audley’s Secret expose several inclinations in thinking about female madness during the 19th century. Chapter 1 of the dissertation concentrate on Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre , it examines the cultural and social context of the Victorian era in connection to Jane’s identity, dependency, and autonomy. It also builds a cultural context for Jane's development. Chapter 2 explores the Victorian discussions about the etiology of madness through a corresponding study of Willkie Collins's The Woman in White . The chapter recognizes that the Victorian era is marked by inquiries into the origins of mental illness in women, characterized by both heredity and environmental exposures. Chapter 3 devotes its analysis to the investigation of the asylum narrative. The chapter brings to life the histories of some of the women buried alive in madhouses and forgotten. A thoughtful critique of these accounts shows that a majority of these women were imprisoned in asylums for bravely asserting their religious and domestic rights. Keywords: Romanticism, Jane Eyre, Madness, Victorian DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/90-01 Publication date: July 31 st 2022

Representing the Poor: Interwar Documentary Film, Mass Observation, and Victor Gollancz Ltd.

This article explores the emergence of a new mode of representing the poor that became dominant in Britain in the early twentieth century—a mode in which the “point of view” of impoverished people themselves was increasingly foregrounded. Focusing on examples drawn from documentary film, Mass Observation, and the publications of Victor Gollancz Ltd., the article considers how, while marking a kind of formal shift away from a late Victorian discourse of poverty, this development maintains that earlier discourse’s disciplinary agenda. In examining three case studies—John Taylor, Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey, and Ruby Grierson’s Housing Problems; Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge’s Mass Observation Day Survey; and H. Beales and R. Lambert’s Memoirs of the Unemployed—it argues that the new point of view mode marked a continuation in the twentieth century of the outlook that shaped representations of poverty in the late Victorian era.

Flexible Workers: The Politics of Homework in Postindustrial Britain

AbstractThis article opens up a new perspective on market liberalism's triumph in the late twentieth century through an examination of the political battles that were fought in Britain over the regulation of homework. Ubiquitous in the late Victorian era, this form of waged labor was curtailed by Edwardian wage regulations but resurged in the 1970s as a result of competition from low-wage economies abroad and fast-changing consumer tastes. Alongside growing use of homeworkers in consumer industries, new information technologies made it increasingly possible for some forms of professional work to move into the home. This article explores the debates that swirled around these different forms of homework, pitting antipoverty campaigners, feminists, and activists against ministers, employers, and civil servants. It shows how Conservative and New Labour governments failed to recognize the structural similarities between Victorian-style “sweated” labor and the emerging world of telework, freelancing, and self-employment, and how the intellectual excitement generated by Britain's transition toward a postindustrial future dovetailed with the New Right commitment to deregulation and the creation of “flexible” labor markets. A brief comparison with homework in the United States underlines the value of local, particular histories to our larger understanding of ideological change in modern societies.

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Chinese Folklore for the English Public: Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 Translation of Pu Songling’s Classical Tales

Cambridge Women and the Professional World: Navigating Gender Conservatism in the Late Victorian Era

During the late nineteenth century, British women received better education, especially at the university level. In particular, the University of Cambridge opened two women’s colleges, Girton College in 1869 and Newnham College in 1871. The establishment of higher educational institutions greatly contrasted the traditions of the Victorian gender norms, which dictated that women should be feminine, nurturing, and supportive towards their husband and family. Due to this persistence of tradition, these conservative notions of gender influenced Cambridge women throughout their academic and professional lives. Although women may have been limited by gender conservatism in their careers, it is important to note that these limitations did not make their accomplishments less impressive. Furthermore, their strategic navigation of traditional gender roles aided them in successfully establishing their professional presence in their respective fields. Women such as Jane Ellen Harrison, Charlotte Angas Scott, Marion Greenwood Bidder, and Philippa Fawcett used various tactics to establish themselves as academics and help inspire other women in the process. Though exceptional in their upbringing and talents, other Cambridge women commonly practiced their methods of navigating gender conservatism and other social dilemmas. By skillfully conforming to certain gender norms, these women helped revolutionize women’s professional opportunities from within and ushered in the next generation of female academics. Keywords: feminism, gender, nineteenth century, twentieth century, University of Cambridge, university education, Victorian era, women’s history