The poets of the Victorian Age

M.K.B.U. Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English.

Assignment sub.: The poets of the Victorian Age

Paper no.6: The Victorian literature

Name: Drashti v. Dave

Roll no.                  Year: 2014

THE POETS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

Brief introduction about Victorian age: It is a modern period of progress and unrest. When Victoria became queen in 1837, English literature seemed to have entered upon a period of lean year in marked contrast with the poetic fruitfulness of the Romantic age.

Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats and Scott had passed away, and there were no writers in England to fill their place. Elizabeth Barrett had been writing since 1820 but not till twenty years later did her poems became deservedly popular; and Browning had published his Pauline in 1833.

It is an age of democracy; it is an age of education of religious tolerance of growing brotherhood and profound social unrest. It is an age of comparative peace. Victorian age is especially remarkable because of its rapid progress in all the arts and science.

Literary characteristic:  first it is the age produced many poets, and second this is emphatically an age of prose and poetry. Seems to depart from the artistic standard, art for art’s sake.

Victorian age is emphatically an age of realism rather than of romance.

Poets of the Victorian age: Tennyson, Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Charles Swinburne.

Novelists of the Victorian age: Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Mary Ann Evans, Charlotte Bronte, Blackmore, Thomas Hardy, Stevenson.

Essayists of the Victorian age: John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold.

Prose writers of the Victorian age: Dickens, Thackeray, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin.

POETS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE:

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

O young mariner,

You from the heaven

Under the sea-cliff,

You that are watching……

It is poem of ‘Marlin and the Gleam’ in it a suggestion of the spirit of the poet’s whole life. Throughout the entire Victorian period Tennyson stood at the summit of poetry in England. He was a voice of a whole people, in wonderful variety of his verse he suggests all the qualities of England’s greatest poets.

Life: Tennyson was naturally shy, restring, indifferent to men hating noise, and publicity loving to be nature, like Wordsworth. Tennyson published his first signed work called poem ‘chiefly lyrical’ In 1831 Tennyson left the university without taking his degree. His best known poem “crossing the bar”.

Works: Tennyson’s poetry is to be eternally young and fresh, wonderful and inspiring.

·       Crossing the bar, Idylls of the king, Akbar’s tomb, Each arden, The princess, In memoriam, Ulysses, Dora, Locksley hall, The lotus-eater, poems chiefly lyrical, poem by two brothers, palace of art, A dream of fair women, The miller’s daughter……

·       His earlier poems show too much of Byron’s influence.

Tennyson’s work ‘In memoriam’ which on account of both its theme and its exquisite workmanship. He wrote lyric after lyric inspired by this sad subject. The morality of human love is the theme of the poem. ‘The idylls of the king’ ranks among the greatest of Tennyson’s later works.

Characteristic of his poem:  Tennyson is essentially the artist no other in his age studied the art of poetry so constantly or with such singleness of purpose all the great writers of his age.

Tennyson’s characteristic of his age is the reign of order- of law in the physical world producing evaluation and of law in the spiritual world, working out the perfect man.

In memoriam, Idylls of the king, The princess,- three widely different poems. Yet the theme of each so far as poetry is a kind of spiritual philosophy.

Tennyson was plunged into a period of gloom and sorrow, little poem ‘Break break break’ his first published elegy for his friend for his poems he became best loved poet in England.

Robert Browning  (1812-1889)

Browning is led from one thing to another by his own mental association about Browning’s obscurity he is careless in his english.

Browning shows himself capable at times of writing directly melodiously and with noble simplicity. The spirit f his whole life is well expressed in his Paracelsus written when he was only twenty two year old. He is not like so many others an extraordinary poet.

Life: He was born in camberwell, he eloped with the best known literary woman in England. Elizabeth Barrett was fame for many years both before and after her marriage, much grater than Browing’s and who was at first considered superior to Tennyson.

·       His earlier work had been much batter appreciated in America than England; but with the publication of the ring and the book. He was at least recognized by his countryman as one of the greatest of english poets.

Work: Browning gave to his best known volumes- dramatic lyrics, Dramatic romances and Lyrics, Men and women, Dramatics persona will suggest how strong the dramatic element is I all his work. His poems may be devided into three classes – pure dramas like, Stafford, dramatic narrative like, pippa passes which are short poems expressing some strong personal emotions.

·       Browning is often compared with Shakespeare. ‘The ring and the book’ is Browning's masterpiece. It is an immense poem twice as long as Paradise Lost and Leger by some Teo thousand lines than The Iliad.

·       Browning's place in literature will be better appreciated by comparison with his friend Tennyson. His resignation is art times almost oriental in its fatalism, and occasionally it suggests Schopenhauer in its mixture of fate and pessimism.

·       There is nothing oriental, nothing doubtful noting pessimistic on the whole range of his poetry.

MINOR POETS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

Elizabeth Barrett

Among the minor poets of the past century Elizabeth Barrett ( Mrs. Browning ) occupies perhaps the highest place in popular favor. In 1835 the Barrett family moved in London where Elizabeth gained a literary reputation by the publication of The Seraphim and other poems 1838.

In 1844 Miss Barrett published her poems which though somewhat impulsive and overwrought met with remarkable public favor. Such poems as “The cry of the children” which voices the protest of humanity against child labor.

              The Exquisite romance of their love is reflected in Mrs. Browning’s sonnets from the Portuguese (1850).Her Casa Guidi Windows (1851) is a combination of poetry and politics both, it must be confessed a little too emotional.

In 1856vshe published Aurora Leigh, a novel in verse, having for its hero a young social reformer, heroine a young woman poetical and enthusiastic, who strongly suggests Elizabeth Barrett herself.

Her last two volumes were poems Before congress (1860) and last poems published after her death.

Browning’s famous line “ O lyric half angel and half bird “ this is  shows her ability in writing so she is most famous than Browning in Victorian age.

Rossetti (1828-1882)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the son of an exiled Italian painter and scholar, was distinguished both as a painter and as a poet. He was a leader in the pre-raphaelite movement and published in the first numbers of the German his “ hand and soul “ and his famous “ The blessed damozel “, these two early works, with its simplicity and exquistic spiritual quality are characteristic of the ideas of pre- raphalic school.

In 1881 he published his Ballads and sonnets a remarkable volume containing among other poems,

                            The confession, the ballad of sister Helen, The king’s tragedy- a masterpiece of dramatic narration and the house of life- a collection of one hundred and one sonnets reflecting the poet’s love and loss.

Pre- Raphalic school of poetry :

Three english painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Maillais, and William Holman  found a society in 1848 and it called pre-raphalic brotherhood.

They didn’t believe in ‘ art for life sake ‘ these poets created pure art known as ‘ art for art’s sake ‘

Pictorial poetry- picturesque poems subject matter for their poetry was romance and mysticism of the middle ages.

Rossetti and Morris both’s paint pictures as well in their poems as on their canvases, and this pictorial quality of their verse is its chief characteristic.

William Morris (1834-1896)

Morris is a most interesting combination of literary man and artist.

·       The earthly Paradise is generally regarded as his master-piece. His interest in Icelandic literature is further shown by his sigurd the volsung, an epic founded upon one of the old sagas, and by his prose romances.

·       The houses of the wolfing, The story of the glittering plain, The roots of the mountains, The dream of john ball and News from nowhere , are the interesting as modern attempts at depicting an ideal society.

Swinburne  (1837-10909)

·       Algernon Charles Swinburne is chronologically, the last of the Victorian poets.

·       As an artist-having perfect command of all English verse forms and a remarkable faculty for inventing new he seems at the present time to rank among the best in literature.

·       Stedman says: “ before his advent we did not realize the full scope of English verse.”

·       He has written very large number of poems, dramas, and essays in literary criticism.  His Atalandu in Calydon (1864) a beautiful lyric drama modeled on the Greek tragedy is generally regarded as his masterpiece.

·       His poetry is always musical and like music appeals almost exclusively to the emotions.

Conclusion:

Mrs. Browning, D.G. Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne-as representative of the minor poets of the age. Their wide range of thoughts and feelings eager search for truth and freshness and vitality all things they have given to English poetry.

                        Arnold was one of the best known poet of the age, but because he has exerted a deeper influence on literature as a critic. We have reserved him for specially the essayists.

Comparative analysis of Wordsworth and Coleridge

M.K.B.Uni.   Smt.S.B.Gardi. Department Of English

Assignment sub: Comparative analysis of Wordsworth and Coleridge

Name: Drashti v. Dave

Paper no: 5 – The Romantic Literature

Sem: 2                             Year: 2014

Unit: 4                             Roll no: 7

·      Comparative analysis of Wordsworth and Coleridge

Introduction about Romantic age: The age of romanticism (1800-1850) It is the second creative period of English literature. It is known as an age of poetry and romantic enthusiasm.

There were many creative writers suddenly developed a new creative spirit which shows itself in the poetry.

·       Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and in the prose of Scott, Jane Austen, Lamb and De Quincey, a wonderful group of writers whose patriotic enthusiasm suggests the Elizabethan days.

·       Coleridge and Southey ( who with Wordsworth from the trio of so-called lake poets) wrote far more prose than poetry. In their partnership Coleridge was to take up the “ supernatural or romantic “ while Wordsworth was “ to give the charm of the novelty to things of everyday “

·       The whole spirit of their work is reflected in two  poems of this remarkable little volume ‘ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ‘; which is Coleridge’s masterpiece and ‘ Lines written a few miles above Titntern Abbey ‘; which expresses Wordsworth’s poetical creed.

William Wordsworth: (1770-1850)

·      In his book The prelude we find a dispassionate account of student life. His autobiographical poem ‘ The prelude ‘ William was allowed to run wild in nature, which became for him a kind of mother.

·       Another his most famous poem ‘ Daffodils ‘ opens with the line “ I wandered lonely as a cloud “, loneliness and creativity are at the heart of Wordsworth’s poetry.

·      In 1795, he had met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose both more philosophical and wilder than Wordsworth’s opium and Immanuel Kant,  first published in1798 Lyrical Ballads may be the most influential  book of poetry in English literature.

·      Wordsworth’s poetry is of stunning purity and power. One example that comes from the ‘ Lucy ‘ poem included in later reprints of lyrical ballads.

·      Wordsworth was England’s poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

Poetry of Wordsworth:

·       There is often a sense of disappointment when one read Wordsworth for the first time; like Wordsworth’s Lucy,

·       A violet by a mossy stone,

Half hidden from the eye;

Fair as stair, when only one

Is shining in the sky….

·       Wordsworth set himself to the task of freeing poetry from all its “ conceits “ of speaking the language of simple truth and portraying man and nature as they are.

·       No other poets ever found such abundant beauty in the common world. The natural pleasures which a man so easily neglected in his work, and the chief  means by which people expect permanent and increasing joy.

·       In Titntern Abbey, The Rainbow, Ode to Duty, and Intimations  of Immorality, anyone can hardly read one of Wordsworth’s pages without finding it slipped in unobtrusively, like the fragrance of a wild flowers. The truth of humanity, that is the common life which shares the general similes and only the subject of permanent literary interest.

·         Wordsworth continued it in Michel, The solitary reaper, The Highland girl, Stepping westward, The excursion, and score of lesser poems.

·       Joy and sorrow not of princes or heroes, but in widest commonalty spread are his themes.  The excursion, (1814) is the second book of The recluse; and the third was never completed, through Wordsworth intended to include most of his shorter poems in this third part.

·       Lyrical Ballads and in the sonnets, odes and lyrics of the next ten years though The Duddon Sonnets (1820) To a skylark (1825) and Yarrow Revisited (1831) shoe that he retained till past sixty much of his youthful enthusiasm.  Wordsworth’s poems fall into two categories: 1) Poems about nature &

                     2) poems about human life.

In his life his sister’s contribution is important, he gave so much important to his sister

“ She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;

 And humble cares, and dedicated fears;

A heart the fountain of sweet tears;

And love and thought and joy…”

Through this line we are shown that how he gave important to his sister Dorothy.

Wordsworth is the most representative poet and he is a “worshipper of nature”. In his all poems we are shown nature as a common thing and his simple language is understand all types of people.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

·       He was an extraordinary, before he was five; he read Bible and Arabian Nights. One of his association with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the Quantico hills, out of which came the famous Lyrical Ballads of 1798. Another was his loyal devotion to poetry fir its own sake.

·       With the exception of his tragedy remorse, whish through Byron’s influence was accepted at Drury lan theater in his poetry we find a note of human sympathy, more tender and profound than can be found in Wordsworth or indeed any other great english poets.

·       Works of Coleridge: The works of Coleridge devided into three classes- i) the poetic ii) the philosophical and iii) the critical..

·       Coleridge begins his “ Day dream “ with the line; My eyes make pictures when they’re shut…. The quality of this early poetry with its strong suggestion of Blake, may be seen in such poems, like; A day dream, The devil’s thoughts, The suicide’s argument, and The wanderings of Cain.

·       His later poems wherein see his imagination bridled by thought may best appreciated in Kubla Khan, Christable, and The Rime of The Ancient Mariner.

·       Kubla khan is a fragment painting a gorgeous oriental dream picture the whole poem came to Coleridge one morning when he had fallen asleep;

In xanadu did Kubla khan, A stately pleasure- dome decree;

Where alps, the sacered river, ran

Through caverns measurlel to man down to a sunless sea…..

He was interpreted after fifty –four lines were written and he never finished the poem. “ Christabel “ is also a fragment which seems to have been planned. The story of a pure young girl it is full of a strange melody and contains many passage of exquisite poetry.

·       The Rime of The Ancient Mariner is Coleridge’s chief contribution to the Lyrical Ballads of 1798 and is one of the world’s master-piece.

·       An orphans curse would drag,

To hell a spirit from on high;

But oh! How more horrible that that

Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!

--- The rime of the ancient mariner

Among Coleridge’s shorter poems there is a wide variety and each reader must be left largely to follow his own taste.

Ode to France, Youth and age, Dejection, Love poems, Fears in solitude, Religious Musings, Work without hope, and The glorious hymn before sunrise in the vale of chamouni.

The latter is one of the best poetical translations in english literature. His collected Lectures on Shakespeare 1849 and Aids to reflection 1825 are the most inserting from a literary view point. The first is an explanation and criticism of Wordsworth’s theory of poetry.

·       Coleridge’s prose work the Biographia Literaria in this prose work he criticize many points of Wordsworth’s work he differentiate like; two cardinal points of poetry, poetical creed, he also differentiate prose, poem and poetry.  In his philosophical work he introduce the idealistic philosophy of Germany into England. The aids reflection is Coleridge’s most profound work but it is more interesting to the student of religion and philosophy than to readers of literature. Hs collaborative work with Wordsworth is still famous in literature study of their work and comparison between them is a good practice.

Comparative Analysis:

·       Coleridge was also living in the Lake district at this time close by Wordsworth. Wordsworth’s famous one line creation of poetry is “ the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility “

·       Coleridge supplied the spontaneous power while Wordsworth offered the tranquility the reflection.

·       A perfect example of Coleridge’s spontaneity is found in “Kubla Khan” the short poem he began under the influence of a narcotic dream.

·       Coleridge in contrast, left in his chaotic wake a collection of fragments, short works, and prolegomena.

·       Like Wordsworth, he compiled an autobiography-prose, in his case-Biographia Literaria, the biography of a literary sensibility.

·       The work fuses Coleridge’s towering intellect, extraordinary powers of criticism, and feeling for poetry.

·       His greatest complete poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, was composed during his collaborative years with Wordsworth.

·       Coleridge’s agenda was different, in the Rime of The Ancient Mariner, the first work in Lyrical Ballads, he compacts into short-lined, four line stanzas an amazingly pregnant and mystical natural universe.

·       Un writing this poem Coleridge drew on gothic fiction and an extraordinary range of reading in theology, philosophy, and travel. His description of the arctic regions are almost photographic. The narrative of the Rime of the ancient mariner indicates the new directions that poetry would take over the next two centuries. A revaluation had taken place and arguably is still taking place in english literature as a result of Lyrical Ballads.

·       In Wordsworth’s poem we find an imaginative record of the pastoral life as well as the pastoral beauties of place he lived in, this is not so in the case of well Coleridge. He lived in a world of his own thoughts and fancies, and did not take care of the external suggestions.

·       One special thing about Wordsworth and Coleridge was that both of them always loved and appreciated nature Wordsworth saw the spirit of joy in nature and at least in the early poems of Coleridge the spirit of joy in nature represented.

·       Wordsworth felt in the divine spirit pervading the object of nature, Coleridge also noticed the spirit of god permanting the object of nature. Coleridge’s whole life- a sad, broken, tragic  life in marked contrast with the peaceful existence of his friend Wordsworth.  Wordsworth says of him that though other men of the age had done some wonderful things, Coleridge was the only wonderful men he had ever known of his lectures on literature a contemporary says: “ His words seem to flow as from a person repeating with grace and energy some delightful poem.”

Natural philosophy of Wordsworth adds a mystic element the result of his own belief that in every natural object there is a reflection of the living God. Nature is everywhere transfused and illumined by spirit. So both are the great poet of the romantic age.