Revisionism, Victorianism And The Demarcation Of The Nineteenth Century

Maite Rodriguez
L-M 5:30
Character Role: Historian
Motivation: Revisionism, Victorianism and the Demarcation of the Nineteenth Century
Introduction

The following is me taking a stab at being a Historian. I will attempt to analyze and comprehend first the work of Richard Price in his revisionist “Historiography, Narrative, and the Nineteenth Century,” and subsequently compare it to variousresponses by three other historians; Margot Finn's “When Was the Nineteenth Century Where? Whither Victorian Studies?” Lyn Picket’s “Victorian Beginnings” and Joanne Innes’ “When did the Victorian Age Begin? Reflections on Richard Price´s British Society 1680-1880,”
The recurring themes of the debate, as I understand it, are primarily “change” vs. “continuity” (mostly discussed by Price) thehistoriographical demarcations in traditional eighteenth and nineteenth century studies compared to 21st century revisionism and the overall validity of Victorian Studies. The recurring questions between the different works here discussed are “When did the nineteenth century begin? And when did it end? Where if at all does the Victorian era come into play?”
Although not all are in agreement on allaspects of the narrative and some holes in Richard Prices theories are pointed out, I do not see a direct rejection of his work in any of the other three texts. I do not know if this would make them all revisionists but they are certainly of a like mind in that there must be an open dialogue on defining these subjects. Between the four texts there is a whole expanded view and I believe RichardPrice’s original postulate is better for it although maybe not with the conclusion he might have originally intended.
The recurring term “traditional view” that weaves its way either directly or indirectly through all four texts refers to the focus on the nineteenth century historiography that revolves around the Industrial Revolution and its immediate association with “change”. Such traditionalelements mentioned by Price are urbanism, middle class cultural and political influence, the rise of the working class, and the opening of the political system. Another traditional element is the stark separation between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where the nineteenth century is seen to be rising from a sort of Dark Age and changing into a modern more enlightened age. As Price himselfput it “the nineteenth century for traditionalists was the final showdown between the remnants of medievalism and the forces of modernity.”
The revisionist turn to continuity on the other hand concentrates on elements that encompass a larger spectrum that makes changes more gradual and seeks to prove that some elements ascribed to the nineteenth century weren’t as powerful as traditionalhistoriography suggests. As Pyckett points out revisionism has put in doubt the industrial-revolution as a changing force in 1780-1830’s Britain.
Richard Price
Richard Price delimits a historiographical view that seems to me to try and incorporate traditional views of change to the revisionist views of continuity. Along his discourse he uses various elements to move away from the idea of modernitybeginning in the Victorian age and shifts it back in a way that is more closely related to the eighteenth and seventeenth century. He begins with arguing through the traditional narrative of change and points out missing or skimmed over evidences of a continual process that begins before Victorian times. His second chapter or section points to the need for integrating continuity in order to “open newepistemologies and perspectives” he also points to some eventual flaws of the revisionist view of continuity. His last section gives account of various “proofs” of continuity that justify his view of a long century that begins in the late seventeenth century and ends far into the late nineteenth.
In addition to the before mentioned elements that define traditional views Price states that when...