A Study of Poets: Tennyson & Browning

               Assignment


Topic

A Study of Poets:

      ◘ Tennyson &      ◘ Browning 




Name: Kaushal Desai

Department: M.A. English department

Semester: II

Roll No: 14

To be submitted to: The Department of English,
                                   M.K. Bhavnagar University



A Study of Poets:
          ◘ Tennyson &
          ◘ Browning


Preface :

The period of 1820 to 1900 known as the age of ‘victoria’. During this period Queen Victoria developed the much literary forms. So , this age in English literature known  as the ‘victorian Age’. During that period  many great writers gave their best contribution to English age as a gift. , Browning, Dickens, Thackray, Meredith, Carlyle, Macaulay and Ruskin there are some great stars of the age.Tennyson the prominent poet of the age.So, now let’s we discussing about Tennyson in detailed. Lord Alfred Tennyson was born in 1809.The son of a clergyman he was born at his father’s living atsomersby in Lincolnshire. After some schooling at Louth, Which was not agreeable to him. He was taken  education from the Cambridge.  University, at the university he was a wholly conventional person.
         
          We can also say about this period that The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 1837 until her death in 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined culture, great advancements in technology, and national self-confidence for Britain.  During the Victorian age, Britain was the world's most powerful nation. By the end of Victoria's reign, the British empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth's surface. Like Elizabethan England, Victorian England saw great expansion of wealth, power, and culture.  But as Victorian England was a time of great ambition and grandeur, it was also a time of misery, squalor, and urban ugliness.The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 1837 until her death in 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined culture, great advancements in technology, and national self-confidence for Britain.  During the Victorian age, Britain was the world's most powerful nation. By the end of Victoria's reign, the British empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth's surface. Like Elizabethan England, Victorian England saw great expansion of wealth, power, and culture.  But as Victorian England was a time of great ambition and grandeur, it was also a time of misery, squalor, and urban ugliness. But art is never be stop so in this era also we find foremost art. And we are going to discuss about two major poet who create a kind of influence in this era.


Alfred Lord Tennyson:



He was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain haemorrhage before they could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses", and "Tithonus".
During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success. A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplaces of the English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw", "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure", "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of QuotationsMost of Tennyson’s early education under his father’s direction. Even then he spent 4 unhappy years at the grammar school. His departure in 1827to join his elder brothers at Trinity College Cambridge. He was extraordinary handsome intelligent, humorous and gifted as charming personality, he was at the center of an admiring group of young men knows that then he was interested in poetry and conversation.The only mark he made was to win thechancellor’s medal for a poem onTimbuctoo. Then, He left Cambridge without taking a degree.The history of family is interesting in itself ,but some knowledge of it is also essential for understanding of the themes of his poetry. Madness, Murder, Miserliness, social climbing there are some main themes of the work of Tennyson.It was surprisable thing that he began writing poetry long before he was sent to school; as did most of his talented brothers and sisters. At the early age of18 his first volume published ‘poems by two brothers (1827)’. Now let’s studies further about both poets.

He left Cambridge before he was published a volume of mediocre verse. During the next 20 years he was passed a tranquil existence.During that time he met Arthur Henry Hallam.  This was the beginning of 4years of warm friendship between Tennyson and Hallam.
In 1844 he lost his unlucky speculation, but in nick of the time he received Government pension .He was appointedpoet Laureate (1850) in owner to Wordsworth married, and removed to freshwater. Then for the Tennyson ‘Isle of Wight’ became for the next 20 years.

Now let see the poetic career of the Tennyson. At the early age of 18 he collaborated with his elder brother Charles in ‘poems by Two Brothers got the prize.

1). ‘Timbuctoo’ (1829)
2). ‘poems, chiefly Lyricall’ (1830)

‘Isabel and Madeline’  the  pictorial work by Tennyson. His volume of ‘poems (1833)’, which is often referred to as ‘poems (1832)’.In this  collection there are some great poems-

1).’The Lady of shallot’
2). ‘Enone’                                         
3).’The Lotus-Eaters’
4).’The palace of Art’

This collection  through Tennyson got the renowned as a perfect poet. Then in1842 he produced two another volume of poetry  that set him once and for all among the greater poets of his day. It’s open with ‘Morte’d Arthur’
 And contains ‘Ulysses,  Locksleyhall.’And several other poems through he became star of the age. Later he wrote very long poem. Like-

1).‘The princess’ (1847)
2). ‘In Memoriam’ (1850)
3). ‘Maud and other poems’ (1855)
4). ‘Idylls of the king’ (1859-89)
5).Enoch Arden (1864)

Some major features of his poetic work.1830 to 1842 works lyric and legendry narrative type. And 1842volume based on ethical interest. His content of the works mirror of feelings and aspirations of his time.

As a pictorial poet, he follows the example of Keats. His all poem most probably based on imagery of nature and other natural elements. His description of each line built our-selves to see the magic of his art and surprisable deep and beautiful scene of the picture of the poem.
 Through his all poem he proved himself  as a best poet of the age. Hislyrical quality is also best-one. Famous example are-

1). ‘The splendor Falls’
2). ‘Break, break, break’
3). ‘crossing the Bar’ etc…

Through his lyrics he touches the heart of the reader. Let see one example of his great work

“Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, o sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The  thoughts that arise in me.”

                                                                               ~‘Break, break,break’by Tennyson                                                                                                     

Even he used Lyrical monologue, repetition, imagery, Alliteration there are some great elements of the work of Tennyson. He himself known as-

“The clamour of the cry.”

In 1884 he was created a baron, sat in the House of Lords, for a time took himself rather seriously as a politician. Then he died at Aldworth near Haslemere in surrey and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Really, through the study of poet we can say that he was ‘star poet’ of the age. He  was known as demigod of the age.His greatness and richness of his poems in very early age showed theintellectuality and scholarality in him. Hishigh place in the temple of fame in assured. Tennyson was not only the great poet of the “victorian Age”. But,today also he known as in the category of the best homogenized poet.

◘ Robert Browning



Robert Browning (1812 –1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. Browning was famous for his dramatic monologues and commentary on social institutions.He was married to Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  He truly observer of Renaissance period and he admire for it. The Renaissance saw a major shift in theories of art. As “Fra Lippo Lippi” discusses, a new realism, based on observation and detail, was coming to be valued, while traditional, more abstract and more didactic forms of art were losing favor. This shifting in priorities is analogous to the shifting views on art and morality in Browning’s time. The Renaissance, like the Victorian era, was also a time of increasing secularism (see “The Bishop Orders His Tomb”) and concentration of wealth and power (“My Last Duchess”. All of these aspects make the Renaissance and the Victorian era rather similar. By talking about the Renaissance, Browning can make his cultural criticism somewhat less biting. He also gains access to a wealth of sensuous detail and historical reference, which he can then use to add vibrancy to his verse. The historical connection, furthermore, lets him talk about his place in the literary tradition: if we still appreciate Renaissance art, hopefully future generations will still appreciate Browning’s poetry.
            I also want to say that Browning aspires to redefine the aesthetic. The rough language of his poems often matches the personalities of his speakers. Browning uses colloquialisms, inarticulate sounds (like “Grr”), and rough meter to portray inner conflict and to show characters living in the real world. In his earlier poems this kind of speech often accompanies patterned rhyme schemes; “My Last Duchess,” for example, uses rhymed couplets. The disjunction between form and content or form and language suggests some of the conflict being described in the poems, whether the conflict is between two moral contentions or is a conflict between aesthetics and ethics as systems. Browning’s rough meters and unpoetic language test a new range for the aesthetic.
            Here one more remarkable point is that Women, particularly for the Victorians, symbolize the home the repository of traditional values. Their violent death can stand in for the death of society. The women in Browning’s poetry in particular are often depicted as sexually open: this may show that society has transformed so radically that even the domestic, the traditional, has been altered and corrupted. This violence also suggests the struggle between aesthetics and morals in Victorian art: while women typically serve as symbols of values (the moral education offered by the mother, the purity of one who stays within the confines of the home and remains untainted by the outside world), they also represent traditional foci for the aesthetic (in the form of sensual physical beauty); the conflict between the two is potentially explosive. Controlling and even destroying women is a way to try to prevent such explosions, to preserve a society that has already changed beyond recognition.
            Actually he more known to be mark of seasons as his writing influenced with the part of stability and now talking about his work so first look on In March 1833, Pauline, a fragment of a confession was published anonymously by Saunders and Otley at the expense of the author, the costs of printing having been borne by an aunt, Mrs Silverthorne. It is a long poem composed in homage to Shelley and somewhat in his style. Originally Browning considered Pauline as the first of a series written by different aspects of himself, but he soon abandoned this idea. The press noticed the publication. W.J. Fox writing in the The Monthly Repository of April 1833 discerned merit in the work. Allan Cunningham praised it in The Athenaeum. However, it sold no copies. Some years later, probably in 1850, Dante Gabriel Rossetti came across it in the Reading Room of the British Museum and wrote to Browning, then in Florence to ask if he was the author. John Stuart Mill, however, wrote that the author suffered from an "intense and morbid self-consciousness". Later Browning was rather embarrassed by the work, and only included it in his collected poems of 1868 after making substantial changes and adding a preface in which he asked for indulgence for a boyish work.
His major works:
♣ Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833)
Paracelsus (1835)
♣ Strafford (play) (1837)
Sordello (1840)
♣ Bells and Pomegranates No. I: Pippa Passes (play) (1841)
♣Bells and Pomegranates No. II: King Victor and King Charles (play) (1842)
♣ Bells and Pomegranates No. III: Dramatic Lyrics (1842)
♣ "Porphyria's Lover"
♣ "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"
♣ "My Last Duchess"
♣ "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"
♣ "Count Gismond"
♣ "Johannes Agricola in Meditation"


Here I want to put few lines of his work,
“One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, tho’ right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are buffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.
                                    ~ Epilogue, Browning

In 1834 he accompanied the Chevalier George de Benkhausen, the Russian consul-general, on a brief visit to St Petersburg and began Paracelsus, which was published in 1835. The subject of the 16th century savant and alchemist was probably suggested to him by the Comte Amédée de Ripart-Monclar, to whom it was dedicated. The publication had some commercial and critical success, being noticed by WordsworthDickensLandor, J.S. Mill and others, including Tennyson (already famous). It is a monodrama without action, dealing with the problems confronting an intellectual trying to find his role in society. It gained him access to the London literary world.
As a result of his new contacts he met Macready, who invited him to write a play. Strafford was performed five times. Browning then wrote two other plays, one of which was not performed, while the other failed, Browning having fallen out with Macready. In 1838 he visited Italy, looking for background for Sordello, a long poem in heroic couplets, presented as the imaginary biography of the Mantuan bard spoken of by Dante in the Divine Comedy, canto 6 of Purgatory, set against a background of hate and conflict during the Guelph-Ghibelline wars. This was published in 1840 and met with widespread derision, gaining him the reputation of wanton carelessness and obscurity. Tennyson commented that he only understood the first and last lines and Carlyle claimed that his wife had read the poem through and could not tell whether Sordello was a man, a city or a book.
Browning's reputation began to make a partial recovery with the publication, 1841–1846, of Bells and Pomegranates, a series of eight pamphlets, originally intended just to include his plays. Fortunately his publisher, Moxon, persuaded him to include some "dramatic lyrics", some of which had already appeared in periodicals.
winding up:
            At last I just want to say that Victorian period is also a promoted through the English development and it’s connect their roots with Renaissance time. Tennyson & Browning both are distinguish poet that given their much promoted writing in this era.

Bibliography


 

Long, Wiiliam J. English Literature. Books way, 2009.

 

Wikipedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.<http://en.m.wikipedia.org>.

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