Regency vs Victorian

I was at yet another random (monotonous?) party this weekend, and I stumbled into a conversation where a girl was telling a guy about her favorite author: Edmund Spencer, an old British author I have no use for.

The guy was not familiar with old British authors, so he said, "Oh, did he know Jane Austen?"

*Is it safe to say that the general public only knows a handful of British authors off the top of their heads? (Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Jane Austen, for example, then later C.S. Lewis and even later J.K. Rowling)

And then the girl said, "Oh, no, he's Elizabethan. Jane Austen is Victorian."

And I said, "She was Regency, actually."

Which I'm sure did not endear me to her. Whatever her name was.

But if you are going to talk like you know what you're talking about, know what you're talking about.

The Victorian Era didn't start until 1837, when Queen Victoria...became queen. Jane Austen died in 1817, so she never saw a Victorian day in her life. Her adult writing career was largely marked by the extravagant rule of the Prince of Wales (the prince regent), who took over as proxy king when his father was deemed unfit to rule. As I said before, this period was called the Regency period. It went from about 1811-1820.

Austen's life overlapped significantly with the British Romantic period (Her contemporaries included William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, among others) but her writing doesn't fall into that category. Romantic themes--late Romantic themes anyway--included idealism, the idea of a utopia, a fascination with the supernatural, and a glorification or deification of nature. Austen's content and themes are very much more real and present; although she addresses the ideal of marriage, her stories have real people and real settings.

The Regency period is less of an artistic period than it is a political period, and it was significantly shorter (9 years) than the Victorian period (64 years). The official dates of the Romantic period are somewhat unfixed, but they stretched for several years before and after Austen's lifetime.

The Regency period was a period of playfulness and flamboyance. The Prince of Wales, standing in the place of his mentally ill father, spent exorbitant amounts of money while much of the country lived in extreme poverty. The Victorian period was much more restrained, much more concerned with duty and uprightness.

I know you wanted to know all that, right?

Well, in case you haven't gone crazy yet, here's a bit of context for Jane Austen's life:

1770 - William Wordsworth is born. (Romantic)

1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge is born. (Romantic)

1775 - Jane Austen is born. (Regency)

1776 - The Declaration of Independence is signed.

1795 - John Keats is born. (My favorite Romantic)

1805 - Joseph Smith is born.

1810 - Elizabeth Gaskell (North & South) is born. (Victorian)

1812 - Charles Dickens is born. (Victorian)

1817 - Jane Austen dies at the age of 42. (Way too young.)

1821 - John Keats dies of tuberculosis. (Too bad, really, he was a nice guy.)

1834 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge dies. (He lived a depressing life.)

. . . . .1837 - Victorian era begins. . . . .

1850 - William Wordsworth dies.

1859 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) is born. (Victorian)

1861 - The Americal Civil War begins.

1865 - The American Civil War ends, and Elizabeth Gaskell dies.

1870 - Charles Dickens dies.

1897 - My great grandpa White and my Grandpa Creviston are born.

1928 - Sliced bread is first sold.

1930 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dies.

 

It's amazing how short time seems when you put it in perspective.

But Jane Austen wasn't Victorian. That's the main point. :)

 

 

Comments

[L]

So why isn't Edmund Spencer on this timeline? :)

[Mahna Mahna]

I always wondered when sliced bread was invented.

[Darcy]

L: Because I don't care about Edmund Spencer

Mahna Mahna: Well, there you go.