Queen Victoria by Walter L Arnstein - Essay Example

?‘Queen Victoria’ by Walter L. Arnstein Table of Contents Introduction 3 Queen Victoria: An Engaging Study by Walter L. Arnstein 4 Conclusion 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 Introduction The lives at Buckingham Palace have always fascinated the entire world. The monarchy and the seat of imperialism which once showed enough power to rule the earth and laid the foundation of the colonialism across the globe is evidently full of romance and mystery. The first powerful Queen or Empress to evolve out from this all-pervading and omnipotent shrine of power, regime and prosperity is Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria has passed away a little more than hundred years and already she has become the subject of biography more than any other women born since 1800. Walter. L. Arnstein, the famous historian and writer also could not escape the charm, and enigma of the life of this great lady possessed and he also selected Queen Victoria as the subject of his biography. Arnstein tried his best indeed to captivate the political, social, religious and personal life of the Queen Victoria as much as possible. This biography is remarkably different from other works falling into the same canon in many ways. The work is commendable and it is justified too as the biography has been written by a renowned historian and so it is quite expected that the book contains many perspective of her life from the point of a historian. And in craving out the historical aspects and details of her life, Arnstein uses many research materials which focuses on the widely neglected aspects of the Queen’s life and reign which most importantly is presented in details maintained by relative brevity of an expert writer (Arnstein, “Queen Victoria”). This essay intends to portray the latest research material used in the incorporation of a biography which through the judicious use of these materials reaches the book to a different paradigm by providing enough information about the political, social and economic background of an important period in World History in general and European History in particular. Queen Victoria: An Engaging Study by Walter L. Arnstein The book by Walter L. Arnstein, more than being a mere biography, is a trajectory of Queen Victoria’s life which has a long lasting impression and importance in the world history and polity. This fact can be well perceived if one gives a close introspection into the anatomy of the book. The book, “Queen Victoria” is divided into nine chapters and an introduction. The chapters are culminated according to the events which took place chronologically into the Queen’s life or in other ways are neatly divided into different phases of Queen’s life. The chapters bear the following names which are very much relative to the events and phases of Queen’s life chronologically, ‘The Cloistered Princess’, ‘The Royal Teenager’, ‘The Model of Domesticity’, ‘The Reigning Partner’, ‘Britain’s Champion’, ‘The Reclusive Widow’, ‘The Guardian of the Constitution’, ‘The Imperial Matriarch’ and ‘The Paradoxical Monarch’ (Arnstein, “Queen Victoria”). The contents in these chapters are evolved from myriad sources that are centering round the political and personal life of the Queen as well. The sources include Victoria’s own writings published in many journals and unpublished letters (Christopher, “Aristocratic Whig Politics in Early-Victorian Yorkshire: Lord Morpeth and His World”). Here, the author provides the Queen with a wide scope to say her story in her own words. Arnstein does so by quoting Victoria at many places which finally clears her stand-point, contention and perspective on different issues. From these personal accounts, the readers are enabled to learn the perspective, thought and vision of the Queen regarding religion, gender, politics and connection with Ireland. The solidarity and preciseness with which the Queen is given the opportunity to unfold her life through her version differentiates this book from the other biographies (Lynn, “Biography of Queen Victoria Refutes Longstanding Misconceptions”). To construct a viable detail of Queen’s personal life, Arnstein used Queen’s letters those were mostly unpublished. The trajectory of the book initiates from the time since Queen Victoria sits on the throne of England in the year 1837 at the tender age of 18. The image of Queen Victoria as a Monarch is mostly misinterpreted or is surrounded by myriad myths. This is basically due to negligence of many areas which are closely related with the life of Queen Victoria like her religious views, her role pertaining to the constitution and her close affinity and connection with the army of Britain and Ireland. To sum up the facet of Queen’s personality, it is pertinent in this regard to quote Arnstein who tried to seek, “not only a personality and a symbol and an adjective but also a multidimensional human being and an active player in the domestic politics and the international relations of the nineteenth century” (Lynn, “Biography of Queen Victoria Refutes Longstanding Misconceptions”). To strengthen the document about the Queen, Arnstein used quite a few quotes from the mouth of Queen Victoria herself. This he views as, “as a key to understanding both her character and the manner in which she understood the world in which she lived”. The Queen, he observed, “is often worth quoting” (Arnstein, “Queen Victoria”, The Imperial Matriarch). To be more precise, Arnstein drew huge amount of correspondence from the Queen and her own journal. Therefore, Arnstein drew facts about the life of the Queen from both private and public sources. The public sources largely include official documents of state and in the engaging biography of the Queen by Arnstein; the readers will come to know that the Queen was a strong and capable woman with immense possibilities. The readers are also introduced to the great lady of England who was just less than 5 feet tall and with her increasing age, she became round. Queen Victoria not only lived a grand life but also manifested myriad attractive and fascinating paradoxes within her great span of life. The biography of the Queen by Arnstein also enable us to know that for a great part of Queen’s life she was healthy and the contention under which the historians associate the Queen with Victorian ‘celebration of death’ is negated by the renowned professor at the University of Illinois by putting forward the fact in his book that Queen Victoria remained healthy for the large part of her life. The dominant image of the Queen evolved after the death of her beloved husband Prince Albert at the age of 42, views Arnstein and he refutes the fact that after the death of Albert, Queen Victoria became increasingly self-reclusive and culminated out of this personal loss to become mostly a non-functioning monarch (Deploige & Deneckere, “Mystifying the Monarch”). Arnstein declares it to be one of the greatest myths about the Queen and exposes the true life of the Queen after the death of her husband. Deviating from rest of the biographies about the Queen, Arnstein takes the pain to mark the personal loss of the Queen as an event that evolved out to be one of the turning points in her public and private life. Anrstein notes that she became more engaged with the lives of her children and grandchildren and also maintained a close pace with the functioning of her cabinet and judiciously followed and participated into the forth-coming events that almost changed the entire course of world history reflecting into the events that took place in the form of unification of Germany, unification Italy and the American Civil War (Lynn, “Biography of Queen Victoria Refutes Longstanding Misconceptions”). However, Arnstein notes the “intense interest” of the Queen in organizing the memorials and funeral ceremony of her late husband. The corridors and the rooms of the Windsor Castle were literally wrapped with the black crepe to the extent that the national stock received a blow in the year 1861. And Arnstein also notifies that during the decades after the death of her husband the Queen suffered from the intense mood swing and it alternated between “calm resolutions” and “paroxysm of despair”. During these times, she dressed in mournful attire ranging from black robes with accompaniment of white caps or veils (Arnstein, “Queen Victoria”, The Reclusive Widow). Arnstein notes that Victoria was at the same time, “an exemplar and proponent of such Victorian values as character, duty, domesticity, and modesty, and yet she was fully aware that in this world, precept and reality did not necessarily accord” (Arnstein, “Queen Victoria”, The Paradoxical Monarch). The biography by Arnstein says that the woman was “prude” and that the term was well deserving in the “Victorian” context but Arnstein also notes the lusty nature of the Queen which is evidenced by among many other facts that she presented her husband, portraits of nude women on several occasions of his birthdays and Arnstein noted that, “Her sense of modesty did not extend to her marriage bed” (Arnstein, “Queen Victoria”, The Reclusive Widow). Arnstein very subtly quotes Queen, to explore her private life. Queen says that she was “a warm passionate nature” and this quote explains her flamboyant nature during the presence and absence of her beloved Albert as well. With the passing time Arnstein notes that Victoria became romantically related to a series of men. Among them Lord Melbourne, her chief advisor and Prime Minister; John Brown, her personal attendant; and Abdul Karim who was her Munshi, Hindustani teacher and mentor for Indian religious social custom are poignant. Her episode of love with Abdul Karim is a long drawn tale of loyalty from the side of Karim and resistance from all sides of the Queen (Lynn, “Queen Victoria opens Parliament: The Disinvention of Tradition”). In her career, she was guided by truthfulness and common sense during the time of the war and Arnstein notices, that the Queen thought and considered herself as the daughter of a soldier. She took interest in every campaign under her vigilance and the national defense topped her priority list. Arnstein says in this regard, “It is hardly surprising that she decreed a military funeral for herself”. The most important facet of Queen’s career that evolved out in the book, “Queen Victoria” by W. L. Arnstein is that she was a female ruler in the patriarchal society and she had a strong belief in the separate spheres occupied by the respective genders in the society, yet her very presence on the royal throne of England initiated and strengthened the modern movement of women in society. She was by temperament a “Warrior Queen” and Arnstein notably remarked, “Although the Queen sometimes described her own position as ‘anomalous,’ in practice she was compelled to concede that that position, and the spirit of responsibility that she brought to it, undermined the contention that women were by nature disqualified from exercising political authority” (Arnstein, “Queen Victoria”, The Paradoxical Monarch). Conclusion After closely following the public and private life of the Queen, Arnstein concluded in his book, “none proved fatal to her influence or to the dignity of her office” and Victoria with nine children among whom most of the five girls and four boys establishing matrimonial relation with royal families made Queen Victoria literally the “Grandmother of Europe”. She was actually the incarnation of modern women and women empowerment. At the same plane, she had the charm of a Queen, romance of a wife, responsibility of domesticity, cunningness and diplomacy of a monarch and strength and desperation of a military leader. Holding her hands entire Europe and the World saw a peaceful vision of prosperity and austerity. During her last phase, she became a staunch supporter of imperialism but at the same time she achieved a fervent championship of racial and religious diversity (Lynn, “Queen Victoria”). References Christopher, Gent David. “Aristocratic Whig Politics in Early-Victorian Yorkshire: Lord Morpeth and His World”. March 26, 2011. University of York, 2010. Deploige, Jeroen & Deneckere, Gita. “Mystifying the Monarch”. March 26, 2011. Amsterdam University Press, 2006. Lynn, Andrea. “Biography of Queen Victoria Refutes Longstanding Misconceptions”. March 26, 2011. University of Illinois, 2003. Lynn, Andrea. Queen Victoria opens Parliament: the Disinvention of Tradition. Wiley, 2007. Lynn, Andrea. “Queen Victoria”. March 26, 2011. Macmillan, 2005. Walter L, Arnstein. Queen Victoria. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Bibliography Hibbert, Christopher. Queen Victoria: A Personal History. Da Capo Press, 2001. Read More

 

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