The Industrial Revolution

 

The Industrial Revolution

During the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century British industry underwent great changes. This process is called Industrial Revolution. Before the Industrial Revolution, goods were produced in limited qualities by human hands in the houses of the workers, but after the Revolution goods were produced in large quantities by machines in factories.

The following are reasons why the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain earlier than in other European countries. i) the  availability of capital for starting necessary infrastructural facilities, ii) the absence of war and the existences of peace in internal matters, iii) the availability of cheap reap raw materials such as cotton and coal in England, iv) the availability of labourers at a cheap rate to work in factories, v) the network of England’s colonies which supplied raw materials cheaply to England.

John Kay invented the flying shuttle in 1733. This mechanical device increased the speed at which the weavers of cloth could work. In 1764 a carpenter named James Hargreaves made the spinning-jenny, which speeded up the making of yarn. In 1769, Richard Arkwright’s ‘spinning frame’ worked by water-power was an improvement of jenny. In 1779 Samuel Crompton combined the merits of both Hargreaves’s and Arkwright’s machines.  The power – loom made by Edmund Cartwright in 1785 helped to increase the speed of weaving.

The great development in the iron and coal industry took place in places like South Wales, South Yorkshire and Tyneside regions where coal and iron were found together. In 1705 Newcomen made a steam engine to pump water out of coal mines. In 1763, James Watt perfected this steam engine.

The Revolution took place in means of transport also to transport goods to cities and seaports. Telford made many miles of good roads and many large towns were reached by coaches. In 1815 Macadam taught the art of road draining and perfected the surface of the road. By 1840 there were 22,000 miles of good turnpike roads in England with nearly 8,000 tollgates.

Canalization of rivers was undertaken on a large scale in the eighteenth century. Bridgewater and Brindley constructed many canals. Canals were the principal means of transport for coal, iron and finished products. George Stephenson invented the first locomotive, and the first railway line between Stockton and Darlington was opened in 1825. Since that time there has been remarkable progress in all matters connected with ocean navigation.

The Industrial Revolution had good as well as bad results. Many large cities sprang up in different parts of England. Manchester, Lancashire and Sheffield were such new towns. England became the workshop of the world. The people clustered together in these smoky towns where lack of proper sanitation caused many kinds of diseases. Many Reform Bills were passed later to correct the harm done by the Industrial Revolution.

Coffee-Houses and its significance

 

Coffee-Houses and its significance

Coffee drinking was common among the Arabians in the end of the fifteenth century. It spread to England and became popular in the seventeenth century. In reign of Queen Anne, the coffee-house was the centre of social life in the city. In London there were more than five hundred coffee-houses. The unique feature of these coffee houses was their variety. There were different coffee-houses frequented by different sections of society.

Politicians’ Coffee-Houses

People of different political creeds visited different coffee-houses. Tories went to Cowa Tree Chocolate House and Whigs to St.James’s Coffee House. Naturally, political issues were discussed with extraordinary heat and energy.

Will’s Coffee House

Will’s coffee-house was the celebrated one among the learned literary men. It was situated between Covent Garden and Bow Street. John Dryden visited the coffee house often. Here discussed the literary matters. The seat near the fireside was reserved for Dryden in winter. In summer he went with his friends to the balcony.

Button’s coffee-House

Button’s Coffee-House was like a rival to Will’s Coffee-House. It was situated near Convent Garden. It was founded by Mr.Button, one of the old servants of Joseph Addison. It was visited by literary luminaries such as Dryden, Pope, Addison, Steele etc.

Doctors’ and Clergy’s Coffee Houses

Doctor’s favourite coffee-house was Garraway. It was founded by Thomas Garway. Dr.John Radcliffe the most famous doctor of Anne’s age, chose to visit this coffee house. Patients flocked here to seek his advice. The coffee house was situated in Change Alley, Cornhill.

Clergymen’s favourite coffee- house was Truby’s coffee house. There were separate coffee-houses for Roman Catholics, Puritans and Jews. Swearing was banned in the coffee-houses.

Thus coffee houses served different people in different ways in Anne’s England. The greatest good that the coffee house did was that, it kept people away from drinking alcohol. The coffee-houses were closed down twice – during Danby’s time and later during the French Revolution. The heated discussions of political problems could not be tolerated and so coffee houses were closed temporarily during these periods.

The Darkling Thrush - Thomas Hardy

 

 

The Darkling Thrush  - Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy an English poet and novelist of 19^th century is the author of poem ‘The Darkling Thrush’. The poem describes a desolate landscape which is reflective of the poet’s own feeling of desolation and emptiness. It is written in December 1900. It reflects on the end of the 19^th century. The poem has two parts. The first part deals with the bleakness of nature in winter which inflects the poet who is looking on the scene. In the second part of the poem, the poet talks about the shrill song of the thrush. It symbolizes the indestructible energy of nature.

At the beginning, the poet is leaning on a wooden gate and surveying the surrounding landscape blighted by winter. The sun is setting. The atmosphere looks very bleak. The year has drawn to a close. Hardy uses certain apt images to describe the dismal condition of the time. He says that the year had died. He looks upon the dark clouds in the sky as a tomb containing the dead body of the year. The day is as pale as a ghost. The day is also described as the scum or dregs of the year. The howling wind is regarded as lamentation for the year that has died. Winter has paralysed nature. Hardy observes stagnation everywhere. He says that the cycle of birth and death has stopped. Nature seems to be at standstill. He compares nature to a lyre whose strings are broken with the result that no music is produced.

Hardy is in low spirits. He is ‘fervourless’. The dismal landscape around him reflects his inner emptiness. The poet is lost in sad thoughts. Suddenly the silence is broken by the melodies song of a thrush. The thrush is old. Its feathers have been damaged by a violent storm. Still, the thrush is not disheartened. It continues to pour out its song in the dark night. The poet wonders what could be the motivation or source of the bird’s gaiety. He says that the thrush is hopeful of a future. It is not depressed by the paralyzing effect of winter. It has ‘a blessed hope’ that a better time will be born soon. The bird has this cheerful hope but the poet is depressed.

Dover Beach – Matthew Arnold

 

Dover Beach – Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold, a Victorian poet as well a critic. He is the author of the poem ‘Dover Beach’. It was published in 1867. It is in the form of dramatic monologue, lamenting the loss of religious faith during the Victorian age. During the age because of the advancement of science, people lost their faith in religion. In this poem ‘Dover Beach’ Arnold says that true love is the only remedy for all problems. The ‘love’ addressed in the poem is Arnold’s newly married wife Frances Lucy Wightman with whom he visited Dover.

The Poet is the speaker, he is in his room. He begins to describe a calm and quiet sea out in the English Channel. The place is Dover Beach which is in a short distance from the French Coast. The poet asks his beloved to come to the window to watch the beautiful scene. The waves are ebbing and flowing. This to and fro movement produces crashing noise. The poet says that there is something sad about this sound. He feels that sadness is eternal. Even Sophocles, an ancient Greek tragedian might have heard this sound on the Aegean Sea. It reminded him of the emotions of ‘human misery’ and how they ‘ebb and flow’.

In this poem Arnold compares religion to sea. Once people had a strong faith but it dried up in the Victorian age because of the advancement of science. It is symbolically conveyed by the poet through the image of the sea withdrawing from the shore.

In the end of the poem, Arnold stresses the importance of love. Man had nothing to sustain him except woman’s love. He ends the poem with the cynical reflection that absence of religious enlightenment. People behave blindly and self – destructively like soldiers fighting in the dark and killing their own comrades by mistake. There is misunderstanding everywhere only sincere love can console distraught men and women.

Restoration England

 

Restoration England

By the term Restoration England, we mean England of the period between 1660 and 1688. All the practices which were suppressed during the Puritan regime were restored after Charles II was brought back of England as its king. Political monarchy, Parliament and Law were all brought back to their former status.

After the death of Oliver Cromwell there was a confusion and chaos in England. Richard Cromwell came to power. He was incompetent. Unable to bear pressures so he retired from politics. The conventional Parliament was headed by General Monk. He sensed the growing discontentment of the people. He planned to bring Charles II to the English throne. Charles II accepted the Monk’s invitation to be the king of England.

The restoration of Charles II marked the restoration of Parliamentary democracy. The powers of Parliament were considerably weakened during the commonwealth period. During the restoration period the House of Lords was restored. The House of Commons was more powerful than the House of Lords.

The Convention Parliament (1660 - 61) placed Charles II on the throne. It was summoned without a royal writ. It passed many important Acts. The parliament was dissolved in 1661 and a new parliament was elected and continued for 18years. It was called Cavalier Parliament. During Charles II’s reign, divisions arose on religious grounds. Charles II was a staunch Catholic. After his death, his brother James ascended the throne.

The Puritan age was noted for its excessive restraint. The table turned in the opposite extreme in the Restoration period. Restraint was replaced by the utter abandon in the new age. All theatres were closed down in the Puritan age as they were believed to breed immortality. Theatres were re-opened in the Restoration age, with major changes. The Restoration theatre was roofed in. Plays were staged at night in candle light. Another major change was that women’s roles were played by actresses and not by boys.

Two great national calamities of the Restoration period were the Plague and the Great Fire. The plague of 1665 carried away nearly one-fifth of the London population. The Great fire of 1666 raged for five long days, destroying all the churches and other buildings of the city. The Great fire was in a sense a blessing in disguise because the reconstruction of the city on modern lines was possible after this calamity. The reconstruction of London was accomplished in a comparatively short period of four or five years.

 

God’s Grandeur - Gerard Manley Hopkins

 God’s Grandeur   - Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. He was also a Jesuit priest. He wrote ‘God’s Grandeur’ in 1877. It is an Italian sonnet. It contains fourteen lines divided into an octave and a sestet. The title word ‘grandeur’ from the French, means greatness, grandness. The poem explores the relationship between God and the world of nature and how the divine is infused in things and refreshes despite the efforts of humans to ruin the whole show.

 

 In the first stanza, the poet says that God’s grandeur is revealed to us in different ways. In one way it flames out with sudden brilliance, as when a silver foil is shaken and it gives out glints of light. Another way is that God’s glory manifests itself slowly over a period of time, so when the oil crushed from olives slowly oozes out and gathers into a thick pool. The poet then continues to say that it has been so in the past and it continues to be so in the present that people do not care for the authority of God. The reason, for people’s inattentiveness is that they have become fatalistic to their misfortune. Hopkins gives more reasons behind it. He says men have now become too much materialistic and business minded. Like a galloping horse, generations have moved onward, have worked hard to threshold an era of industrialization and commercialization. The poet further says that, the filth and dirt of human selfishness have spoilt God’s grandeur and thus have poisoned world of Nature. Men are so much busy at their work that they cannot even think about this decay for a little while. They are confined to their narrow circle of routine life and thus accepted their fate. Man has become quite indifferent to the loss of the beauty of the Nature and also his own natural beauty. As a result he has become too hard, too insensitive and too crude.

      In the second stanza, the poet says that inspite of all the oddities a bright dawn can be expected. Poet has faith in God and so he is optimistic; he thinks that the Holy Ghost is perpetually hovering and brooding over the earth and the mankind as a bird broods over an egg and sustains the life in it with its warmth. This beautiful imagery of the mother-bird brooding over its egg conveys to us a sense of living relationship. The poet expects that Nature can never be exhausted. Though people have become rude and indifferent to the Nature but Nature never betrays the man. She is too benevolent to give her all and thus become inexhausted. It is a perennial source of freshness with which the earth is renewed every time when spring comes; dark night and gloomy days are replaced by the new light of the sun of the horizon.