Compare and contrast characteristics of Renaissance age with other ages
Comparison of Elizabethan Era with Victorian era.
Ans. To understand the context the Elizabethan Era was from 1558 to 1603 and the Victorian era was from 1837 to 1901. It is interesting to note that in 1918, the representation of the people act was passed in the UK allowing women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote
1. Timeline comparison:
The Elizabethan Era was during the pan- European Renaissance, which was before the Victorian era.
2. Literature comparison:
During the Elizabethan Era prose fiction was non existent. Fiction meant poetry or drama. It was the Victorians and the introduction of the printing press, that introduced the novel as a mefium. Some differences are as follows:
During the Elizabethan Era, it was only the very rich who could books. All the Litreture at the time catered to the upper class since no one else would be buying. When the Victorians came about, the growing power of the middle class, along with improved literacy and the printing press, meant there was a market for middle-class readers.
Most Victorian age novels thus dealt with very middle-class concerns, such as Dickens even dealt with working-class issues like poverty. This is very different from Elizabethan Era poetry, which tends to be less down to earth. Shakespeare had ghosts and witches, but you'll never find that in Austen, Gaskell, etc.
# Comparison of Victorian era with Elizabethan Era.
The Victorians believed that Litreture had to "instruct" society. It was the purpose of the writer to teach, through stories, the proper way to be a person. The Victorian novel wasn't as open ended as Elizabethan poetry or drama; there was a pretty clear message in every story (e.g. All the woman should be married). Just compare the plot of Emma with Romeo & Juliet; you'll see what I mean.
Victorians shied away from "supernatural" elements. This was a reation to Romanticism and the Gothic, which came just before them. They believed that Litreture should be a clear reflection of the real world, with no magic or vampires or what not. As I mentioned before, the Elizabethan had no trouble with fantasy. In stories like faust, a magician actually summons the devil, and he goes around playing tricks with his newfound powers.
# comparison of the language between the Elizabethan and Victorian era.
English was spoken in both eras, but we're more likely to pick up a book that Victorian era and understand it. Many Shakespeare books today will have modern English and the English of the Elizabethan and, early, Stuart eras.
So when you're reading one of his plays you may have to read it in its original form then look to the next page to understand it in the modern form. But pick up a Dickens book and you're more likely to understand what's written there.
# Difference between technology during the Elizabethan and Victorian era.
Another difference is lighting. A though electric lighting predates the Victorian era, it really began to take off in the late Victorian era. Though still a novelty at the time of Victoria's death, it was becoming a little more commonplace in major cities. But you also had gas lights, both in the home and on the street, which were commonplace.
Oil lamps were well used, with kerosene oil leading to a decline in whale oil, as we're candles, and of course fires in the Elizabethan Era, you were limited to three kinds of lighting sources, candles, fires and oil lamps.
Both eras had their pollution, but in the Elizabethan era, the pollution would have been more on the ground and in the water. The Victorian era happened during the dustrial age, thus you had smokestacks belching out smoke from the fires that ran the steam engines in the factories, trains, and ships and boats. Smog was something Dickens mentioned in his book, which gives us an idea what the quality of the air was like
# Comparison of role of Elizabethan and Victorian women in society.
Why should we know that even today?
To understand the context, the Elizabethan Era was from 1558 to 1603 and the Victorian era was from 1837 to 1901. It is in teresting to note that in 1918. The representation of the people act was passed in the UK allowing women over the age of 30 who met a property quality fiction to vote.
# The difference in who was allowed schooling?
During the Elizabethan Era, the education of women depeneded on which class they belonged to the women from rich and noble families were sometimes permitted to undergo education. Education was normally at home due to lack of girl's schools.
Victorian women also typically stayed at home. Education acts in 1870 and 1878 required compulsory education for girls, it did not help much. Working class girl was education in domestic skills, while some middle-class girls gotva more formal education. It was still believed that girls do not need advanced skills since their eventual rele would be to take care of a family.
# What did women learn during these two eras?
Elizabethan women typically learned languages which included Latin, Italian, Greek and French. Music and dance skills were also taught. Higher level university education was a strict " no - no" re-gardless of economic status.
'common' women did not get any formal education and the main focus was learning domestic chores.
Victorian women were typically taught singing. Skills learn were in line with their domentic role.
# Other social aspects for women:
Getting married was considered very important for a woman during the Elizabethan Era. Single women sometimes were looked down upon as witches or at least with suspicion. A woman was considered complete with was considered complete with a man.
Marriages could be at a very young age of 12 with parental consent followed by bearing children. Mortality rate was high.
The tradition of dowry also excited. Note that in some countries, this evil tradition still exists.
In general, all women in Elizabethan times were bought up inferior to men and that they were expected to obey any male member of the family, to which the punishment for disobedience was the whipping stool.
Victorian women were also treated as inferior to men and were deprived of education. They were also expected to focus on bringing up children.
Victorian women were not allowed to open their own bank accounts or conclude contracts without permission from their husband or father.
# Elizabethan vs. Victorian: Comparison summary.
If we have to summarise even though separated by 300 years, in both Elizabethan and Victorian era women were not treated equally to men.
Things somewhat started changing during the Victorian eras industrial revolution when industries demanded manpower. It further changed during the world with wars.
It is such a pity that even though it's 450+years since the Elizabethan Era and 100+ years after the Victorian era, you can as sociate all above evil's with many societies in the world even today.
** A brief introduction of Elizabethan age writer Edmund Spenser**
Born:1552 London, England
Died:13 January 1599 London, England
Occupation:poet
Alma Mater: Pembroke college, Cambridge
Period:1569-1599
Notable works:The faerie Queens
# Life:
Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552, though there is still some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. He was education in London at the Marchant Taylors' school and matriculated as a sizer at Pembroke college, Cambridge. His wife name Machabyas. Thet had a two children, Sylvanus and Katherine.
# Rhyme and reason:
Thomas fullar, in worthies of England, include a story where the queen told her treasurer, William cecil, to pay Spenser one hundred pounds for his poetry.
This is Edmund Spenser first major work, which appeared in 1579.
# The faerie Queene:
Spenser's masterpiece is the faerie Queene. The first books of the Faerie Queene were published in 1590, and a second vset of three books were published in 1596. It is allegorical work of Elizabeth 1.
#Short poems:
1. Complaints
2. Amoretti
3. Epithalamion
# list of works:
1569: Jan van der noodt's
1579: the shepherdes calendar
1590: the faerie Queene book 1-3
1591: complaints, containing sundrie small poems of the world vanitie
- The ruined of time
- The teared of the muses
- Virgil's gnat
- Prosopopoia, or mother hubberds tale.
Good Try beta
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