( 6 ) E a r l y V i c t o r i a n P o e t r y
(Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Matthew Arnold and Pre-Raphaelites)
T h e Vi c t o r i a n P e r i o d
[See Topic 5]
T h e E a r l y Vi c t o r i a n P e r i o d
[See Topic 5]
T h e Vi c t o r i a n P o e t r y
C h a r a c t e r i st i c s :
-developed in the context of the novel
-experimented with long narrative poems: A. Tennyson’s Maud, E. Barrett-Browning’s Aurora Leigh, R. Browning’s The Ring and the Book, & oth.
-function: accord. to public expectation poets should be sages with sth to teach x but: older generation poets discomforted with the public role: A. Tennyson, R. Browning, and M. Arnold > younger generation poets distanced themselves from the public, embracing an identity as bohemian rebels
F o r m :
-experiments with character and perspective: R. Browning’s The Ring and the Book with the plot presented through 10 different perspectives
-dramatic monologue
-visual detail = use of detail to construct visual images repres. the poem’s dominant emotion brings poets and painters close together
-sound = use of sound to convey meaning ‘where words would not’ (Arthur Hallam): the beautiful cadences of A. Tennyson and C. A. Swinburne x the roughness of R. Browning and G. M. Hopkins
Su b j e c t :
-heroic materials of the past: M. Arnold
-materials of the poet’s own age: E. Barrett-Browning
-< strongly infl. by the Romantics x but: lacked the confidence the Romantics felt in the power of the imagination
-> W. Wordworth’s “Lines Written a few miles above Tintern Abbey”, an address to his sister upon revisiting a landscape x M. Arnold’s “Resignation”, the same subject x but: his rocks and sky ‘seem to bear rather than rejoice’
-> J. Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” x T. Hardy’s “The Darkling Trush”, the nightingale becoming ‘an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small’
-Victorian reaction to the Romantic subjectivity:
(a)attenuated Romanticism = art pursued for its own sake: D. G. Rossetti, C. A. Swinburne, & oth.
(b)dramatic monologue = a lyric poem in the voice of a speaker ironically distinct from the poet, ‘lyric in expression’ x but: ‘dramatic in principle’ (R. Browning): R. Browning, A. Tennyson, & oth.
L o r d A l f r e d T e n n y so n ( 1 8 0 9 – 9 2 )
L i f e :
-appointed poet laureate in succession to W. Wordsworth (1850)
-awarded a peerage (1884)
W o r k :
-< admired Virgil (70BC – 19BC, = Publius Vergilius Maro, author of the epic Aeneid)
-< Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881, author of Sartor Resartus [1833] and Past and Present [1843])
-(a) a poet of the countryside
-(b) a poet of the past, esp. the classical past: Idylls of the King (1859)
-(c) author of poems on technological changes: confident in the evolutionary human progress x but: aware of the horrors of industrialism (slums, greed, etc.): “Locksley Hall” x but: “The Dawn”
-(d) author of ‘newspaper verse’ = his slow, ponderous, and brooding mind had no time to brood in the composition: “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
-> his lifetime: the most pop. of the poets x the Edwardian / Georgian period: repudiated x now: re-establ.
Early Period:
-= melancholic and self-absorptive
-employed hypnotic echoes, repetitions, and subtle lyricism
-embodied himself in characters and their moods, delineated objects vividly = linked states of mind to the scenery
-produced no ‘descriptive poetry’ x but: was ‘creating scenery’
-preocc.: death-like states, death = a releasing experience
-> “Mariana”, on a melancholy isolation through the consciousness of an abandoned woman
-> “The Kraken”, “The Ballad of Oriana”, “The Lady of Shalott”, “The Lotos-Eaters”, & oth.
Poems by Two Brothers (1827):
-in collab. with his brother
-> encouraged by a group of gifted Cambridge undergraduates = ‘The Apostles’, under the leadership of his friend Arthur Hallam (1811 – 33)
Mature Period:
-< the traumatic death of A. Hallam, and his consequential mourning, relig. uncertainties, and extensive study of science
-= no more simply debilitating melancholy x but: a desperate sense of exclusion by a private grieving, and a shift into the public realm
-the old mood of narcotic drowsiness balanced with:
(a)poems of urgent simplicity: “Break, break, break”
(b)poems of positive social direction: “Ulysses”, on the idea of progressive development; “Morte d’Arthur”, on a cyclic movement and historic renewal; & oth.
(c)poems of an implicit tribute to A. Hallam
The Princess: A Medley (1847):
-= a long narrative fantasy poem
-set in a medieval past x but: with a present-day prologue
-conc.: women’s higher education
-princess Ida experiments with a women’s college with all M excluded x but: repents of her Amazonian scheme to be united with the prince
In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850):
-= a long elegy, a tribute to A. Hallam as a friend and mentor
-conc.: our relation to God and to nature = both grief x belief in spiritual and physical evolution, exploration of doubts x assertion of faith, conflicting validities of the reasoning mind x feelings craving for present comfort, etc.
-incl. seasonal and calendar events suggesting the movement and measurement of time independent on the human grief
-> early vol.: under hostile criticism as ‘obscure’ or ‘affected’ x but: I.M.: won him full critical recognition and the post of poet laureate (1850)
-> remarkable not ‘because of the quality of its faith but because of the quality of its doubt’ (T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot)
Maud: and Other Poems (1855):
-> “Maud”, orig. subtitled “The Madness”, a long experimental monologue poem, a love-poem x but: opens starkly with the words ‘I hate’; incl. both an exalted passion x a sense of a breakdown = displays the bitterness and despair its alienated protagonist feels twd society
-> “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, a public utterance, vigorously combines a protest against and a celebration of the Crimean War (1854 – 56)
-> “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”, a public utterance
Later Period:
-= accentuated mannerism
-dignified blank verse difficult to describe commonplace objects while retaining poetical elevation
Idylls of the King (1859):
-= a large-scale epic
-< uses the body of the Arthurian legend [King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table: (I) the legend of Camelot = a doomed utopia of chivalric virtue, undone by the fatal flaws of Arthur and Lancelot, (II) the legend of the quests of various knights to achieve the Holy Grail = a Christian relic, (III) the motif of courtly love: Lancelot + Guinevere, Tristan and Iseuld, etc.]
-conc.: a vision of the rise and fall of civilisation
-Arthur’s court and its decay due to sexual betrayal = a paradigm for the failure of an ideal
-women = inspiration for men’s highest efforts x but: also their destruction
Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1864):
-in a cultivatedly artificial = ‘Parnassian’ language (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
-> “Enoch Arden”, a long blank verse narrative poem on the everyday life in a fishing village
R o b e r t B r o w n i n g ( 1 8 1 2 – 8 9 )
L i f e :
-= ‘Mrs Browning’s husband’ = during his marriage known for his wife rather than for himself
-< P. B. Shelley > temporary atheism and liberalism, and permanent ardent romanticism [see his marriage]
-married Elizabeth Barrett, a 6 years older semi-invalid guarded by her tyrannical father, and eloped with her to Ita.
W o r k :
Content:
-= philos. + relig. ‘teacher’: resolved the doubts troubling M. Arnold and A. Tennyson
-God created an imperfect world, a perfect heaven, and an immortal human soul
-x but: aware of the existence of evil, preocc. with characters of murderers, sadistic husbands, and petty manipulators
-characters = connoisseurs (the Duke of “My Last Duchess”), artists, musicians, thinkers, and: manipulators
-characters of the past = bishops and painters of the Renaissance, physicians of the Rom. Empire, musicians of the 18th c. Ger. x but: problems of the present = problems of faith x doubt, good x evil, function of the artist in modern life, etc.
Form:
-= experiments with language and syntax: grotesque rhymes and jaw-breaking diction
-the incongruities of language = a humorous and appropriate counterpart to the imperfect world
-< John Donne (1572 – 1631, a Jacobean metaphysical poet) > often discordant style, unexpected juxtapositions, prosiness, and awareness of everyday realities x but: oth. Victorian poets, incl. A. Tennyson and D. G. Rossetti < J. Keats, J. Milton, E. Spenser, & oth. classical poets > elevated diction and subjects and pleasing liquidity of sound
-Victorian prose writers:
(a)prosiness
(b)the grotesque: “Holy-Cross Day” ( Dickens)
(c)psychological insights in devious ways in which our minds work, in the self-justifying contortions of the minds of sinners and criminals, and in the complexity of our motives: “The Bishop Orders His Tomb” ( George Eliot)
(d)‘subtlety’ and ‘tact of omission’ ( Henry James)
dramatic monologue poems:
-separates the speaker from the poet, makes difficult to discern the relationship of the poet x his speaker: “A Grammarian’s Funeral”, the central character = a hero or a fool?
-overhears characters in a self-revelatory, if scarcely truth-telling, soliloquy
-each character individual through his articulation, emphasis, pause, reiteration, and/or idiolect
-establ. a physical context through details, references, and objects
poems with an identified persona as narrator:
-conversational directness, familiarity btw the addresser x the addressee
“Pauline” (1833):
-= his 1st publ. poem
-< P. B. Shelley = the most personal poet
-> criticized for affliction with an ‘intense and morbid self-consciousness’
-resolved to avoid confessional writings
D r a m a :
Strafford (1836):
-= his 1st publ. play, a historical tragedy
-> all his plays failed
-resolved to write dramatic monologues to avoid explicit autobiog. through imaginary speakers, and to preserve the characters of drama
P o e t r y :
Dramatic Lyrics (1842):
-= his 1st coll. of dramatic monologue poems
Men and Women (1855):
-reflects his enjoyment in Ita. = picturesque landscapes, lively street scenes, and monuments from the past (esp. Renaissance past)
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1864)
Dramatis Personae (1864):
-> “Caliban upon Setebos”, one of his finest dramatic monologues, criticises Darwinism and natural (as opposed to supernatural) relig.
The Ring and the Book (1868 – 9):
-= his greatest single poem in 4 vol., the culmination of his experiment with the dramatic monologue
-< based on a legal record of a murder trial in the 17th c. Rome: a brutally sadistic husband accuses his young wife of adultery with a priest trying to rescue her from her husband’s tyranny, stabs her to death, and is executed
-employs a texture of voices: contrasts multiple points of view of participants and spectators, and opens up freshly complex vistas and new questions with each witness
-puts the reader in the role of an investigating magistrate probing the confessions and impressions
-> anticipates later novels such as Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim (1900)
also wrote following poems of distinction:
“My Last Duchess”:
-= a dram. monologue
-the duke speaks of his dead wife
“Two in the Campagna”:
-< opens with a questioning voice reminiscent of J. Donne’s
-speaks of distinctness x not union, and agnosticism in love x not ideal convergence
“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”:
-= an elusive and suggestive Gothic poem
-medieval in setting, ominous and disturbing in its precise evocation of horror
-< the title from Edgar’s song in W. Shakespeare’s King Lear (1605)
E l i za b e t h B a r r e t t - B r o w n i n g ( 1 8 0 6 – 6 1 )
L i f e :
-unusually educated for a woman of her time: studied Lat., Gr., history, philos., and lit.
-married R. Browning, eloped to Ita.: deeply involved in Ita. nationalist politics
W o r k :
-(a) early period: Romantic visionary narrative poetry
-(b) mature period = contemp. topics, esp. liberal causes of her day, treated with a fervent moral sensibility
-responded to the topical issues of history, tradition, and politics of the Ita. experiencing a painful evolution into a modern state x R. Browning’s retreat into historical perspectives
-(c) late period = the Risorgimento [= a movement to unify Ita. as a nation-state]
-> her lifetime: the most pop. woman poet x the modernists: criticised for the inappropriate didacticism and the rhetorical excess of Victorian poetry x now: re-establ.
The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838)
“The Cry of the Children” (1843):
-= a poem criticising the exploitation of children in coal mines and factories
-lit. = a tool of social protest and reform ( Harriet Beecher Stowe [1811 – 96])
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850):
-< supposedly a transl. from the Portug. language x but: her orig. creation
-= a sequence of 44 love-sonnets written during the courtship
-records the stages of her love for R. Browning and her private emotional awakening
Casa Guidi Windows (1851):
-= a poetic sequence
-on contemp. issues: the Ita. political flux and its often contradictory nationalist aspirations
Aurora Leigh: A Poem in Nine Books (1857):
-= a blank verse ‘novel’ = with its crowded canvas and melodramatic plot closer to fiction than to poetry
-the 1st work in E by a woman writer with the F protagonist identical with the author = a ‘female Prelude’
-on the growth of a woman poet’s mind, her conflict as an artist x woman, and her self-liberation by the poetry releasing ‘elemental freedom’
-(a) a F artistic career: the artists = a young woman committed to a socially inclusive realist art, passionately interested in social questions, and longing for knowledge and freedom
-(b) a M philanthropic career: the cousin interested in A. as a helpmate in his liberal causes
-(c) digresses into oth. lives, repres. social issues conc. women from the feminist POV
-A. refuses a marriage proposal from her cousin to pursue a poetic career; rescues a fallen woman, they settle in Ita. and confront the chastened cousin
-concl.: visionary optimism
-B.: the present = a fit subject for epic poetry x oth. Victorian poets, incl. M. Arnold: the present = no actions heroic enough, and A. Tennyson: the Arthurian legend to repres. contemp. conc.
also wrote: a transl. of Aeschylus’s (525 BC – 456 BC) Prometheus Bound (1833)
M a t t h e w A r n o l d
[See also Topic 5]
P o e t r y :
-at his best as a poet of nature, his settings work to draw the meaning together: “Thyrsis”
-A.: his poems repres. the ‘movement of mind of the last quarter of a century’ = a sick individual in a sick society
-conc.: his own experiences of the loneliness as a lover, a longing for a serenity not to be found, despair in a universe with humanity’s role seeming incongruous ( Thomas Hardy): “Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse”
-aim of poetry: to bring joy and make life bearable
-dissatisfied with his poems (“Empedocles on Etna”), attempted to meet his own requirements x but: failed (“Sohrab and Rustum”, “Balder Dead”, & oth.) and abandoned poetry after 1860
-aesthetic demerits: excessive reliance on italics instead of on meter, frequent prosy flatness x or over-elaborated similes when attempting ‘the grand style’
The Strayed Reveler (1849):
-= his 1st coll.
also wrote following poems of distinction:
“Empedocles on Etna”:
-dissatisfied with it as too expressive of a ‘depression of mind’
“The Scholar Gypsy”:
-a joyful celebration of the freedoms of an Oxford student’s escape from routine:
(a)= a gypsy rejection of the consequences of the urban civilisation
(b)= a poet’s attempt to escape into an idealised history
“Thyrsis”:
-= an elegiac monody on the dead Arthur Hugh Clough (1819 – 61, poet)
-the soul of the dead poet required to act as an inspirer and bringer of joy to the world
-nostalgia for an idealised past: reminiscences of the Gr. and Rom. pastoral tradition
“Dover Beach”
“The Forsaken Merman”
P r e - R a p h a e l i t e B r o t h e r h o o d
-= a group of young anti-establishment painters
-against the establ. academic style of painting in favour of the superior directness of expression, simplicity, and pure colours of the pre-Renaissance artists before Raphael (1483 – 1520, a painter and architect of the Florentine school in the Ita. High Renaissance)
-founded by D. G. Rossetti (1848)
-incl. the painters D. G. Rossetti, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, F. G. Stephens (1828 – 1907), and James Collinson (1825 – 81), and the sculptor Thomas Woolner
-cultural heroes: Christ; G. Chaucer, W. Shakespeare, J. Keats, & oth.
-The Germ (4 issues in 1850) = their short-lived journal, an experimental amalgam of poetry, prose, and essay
D a n t e G a b r i e l R o sse t t i ( 1 8 2 8 – 8 2 )
-a painter and a poet of decorative and descriptive poetry = a poet in his painting and a painter in his poetry
-founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848)
-fascinated with the F face and body, idealised women both sexually and spiritually: woman = a supreme mistress, an object of desire and worship
-painting: women with dreamy stares as if breathless from visions of heaven x but: parted lips and voluptuous curves suggest an earthly kind of ecstasy combines spirituality + sensuality
-poetry:
(a)early poetry = in the less elaborate Pre-Raphaelite mode: “My Sister’s Sleep”
(b)mature poetry = in a stunning polysyllabic diction giving an effect of opulence and density to his lines
-R.: art should be conc. with the beautiful x not with the useful or didactic, ‘colour and meter’ should be superior to ‘all intellectual claims’
-> anticipated the later Aesthetic Movement of Walter Pater (1839 – 94), Oscar Wilde, & oth.
-< J. Keats and Dante
The House of Life (1870):
-= a sonnet sequence on the relationship of spirit and body in love
-Coventry Patmore’s (1823 – 96) The Angel in the House (1854 – 63), an adoring long poem idolising his wife in her domesticity
also wrote following poems of distinction:
“The Blessed Damozel”:
-= a fleshly x but: heavenly vision of a transfigured beloved from Dante’s Beatrice
-set in a heaven warm with physical bodies
“A Half-Way Pause”, “Autumn Idleness”, and “The Woodspurge”:
-= landscape poems of a striking intensity of vision
also wrote: The Early Italian Poets (1861), re-publ. as Dante and His Circle, a prose study of Dante
C h r i st i n a R o sse t t i ( 1 8 3 0 – 9 4 )
L i f e :
-daughter of an exiled Ita. patriot, younger sister of D. G. R.
-her father became a permanent invalid, the economic situation worsened, and her own health deteriorated involved with the Anglo-Cath. movement within the Church of En.
-spent the rest of her life bound with strict relig. principles and with charitable work
W o r k :
(a)early poetry:
-in an escapist, dreamy, Tennysonian mode
(b)mature poetry:
-in a distinctive F voice
-genres: a pure lyric, narrative fable, ballad, and devotional verse
-her consciousness of gender criticises the conventional repres. of women in the Pre-Raphaelite art: “In An Artist’s Studio”, a sonnet
-combines sensuousness and relig. severity in ‘an aesthetics of renunciation’ = a poetry of negation, denials, and constraints
-reduces the self with a coy playfulness and sardonic wit x but: preserves for it a secret inner space: “Winter: My Secret” Emily Dickinson (1830 – 86)
devotional poems:
-< George Herbert (1593 – 1633, a poet, orator, and priest in the Church of En.)
-> “Up-Hill”, a question-and-answer poem
-> “A Bruised Reed shall He not Break”, a dialogue poem