Victorians and the Future
In this session I would like us to consider late-Victorian attitudes surrounding the idea of
‘the future’: How did late-nineteenth century writers and artists construct visions of the
future, and for what possible purposes? The texts I have selected for us to look at in
relation to this theme are as follows:
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895) – Wells’ time-travel narrative deftly characterises
the heightened social anxiety and unrest that have come to characterise the Victorian finde-siècle. This novella encompasses a whole host of anxieties that played heavily on the
cultural imagination of late-Victorian Britain, including: gender boundaries, the railways,
evolution, empire, and of course, the future (just to name a few). Perhaps more
importantly it is such an enjoyable and gratifying read (it is funny, you will laugh!) and
by no means a long book: the newest ‘Penguin Classics’ edition of the novella is only 87
pages of actual story.
William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent - a Recollection of October 5th 1858 (1858-60) –
Dyce’s painting employs beachscape imagery in order to explore anxieties about the
future, primarily in the form of fears over religious decline and the threats emanating
from the natural world toward the Victorian era’s self-imposed sense of identity and
achievement.
The painting can be viewed online here:
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=4063 –
E.B. Tylor, Primitive Cultures (1871) – Tylor was one of the earliest practitioners of
anthropology, which, as a recognised discipline, emerged in the second half of the
nineteenth century. Although his influential text, Primitive Cultures, is not strictly about
the future, it does provide what I think is a very useful means of thinking through
characterisation, not only in The Time Machine, but in a wide spectrum of fantastic and
Gothic late-Victorian fictions.