A study of poets Tennyson and Browning

Assignment

A study of poets Tennyson and Browning

Vanita P. Tadha

MA Sem: 2    Roll No. : 30

Year: 2014-15        Enrolment No. : pg14101029

Sub: The Victorian Literature (paper: 6)

Email ID: tadhavanita90@gmail.com

Guided By: Department of English [Heena mam]

A study of poets Tennyson and Browning

Tennyson and Browning are writing in defined poetic forms: Browning uses the classic form of the heroic couplet, and Tennyson uses the “In Memoriam” stanza structure that he has created specifically for this poem and that consists of four lines of iambic tetrameter rhyming ABBA. Both do not break their rhyme and meter.

Tennyson and Browning are Victorian period poets. Victorianism differs from Romanticism in dramatic ways. For instance, Romanticism presented an idealized view of nature and of the joys of simple rural living. For Victorian, nature became a cold hard reality. Tennyson even refers to nature’s bloodied claws.

The Romantic period, society was feeling the expensiveness class and the poetry of the Romantics reflected this expansive feeling, with a focus on individualism and self.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Born: 6 August 1809

Died: 6 October 1892

Occupation: Poet Laureate

Tennyson was born in England. He was born in to middle – class family but also had a noble and royal ancestry. His father, George Clayton Tennyson was rector of Somersby.

Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry and a collection of poems was published locally when Alfred was only 17.

Education

 Tennyson was first a student of Loath Grammar School for four year [1816-1820] and then attended King Edward 5th Grammar School, Loath. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827. Where he joined a secret society called the Cambridge Apostles.

At Cambridge, Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his closest friends.

In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, “Timbuctoo”. He published his first solo collection of poems, Chiefly Lyrical in 1830.

In the spring of 1831, Tennyson’s father died so it is necessary to leave Cambridge before taking his degree.

In 1833 Tennyson published his second book of poetry, which included his well – known poem, “The Lady of Shallot”.  Tennyson and his family were allowed to stay in the rectory for some time but later moved to High Beach, Essex, about 1837, leaving in 1840.

In 1850 Tennyson get high position with the publication of In Memoriam dedicated to his friend, Hallam. In the same year he married Emily Sellwood, whom he had known since childhood, in the village. They had two sons Hallam Tennyson named after his friend and Lionel.

After William Wordsworth’s death he was appointed to the position of poet Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Leigh Hunt had also been considered.

Tennyson was the first to be raised to a British peerage for his writing. A passionate man with some particularities of nature, he was never particularly comfortable as a peer.

Towards the end of his life Tennyson revealed that his “religious beliefs: also defined convention, learning towards agnosticism and pandeism.

Tennyson continued writing into his eighties. He died on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth, aged 83. He was succeeded as 2^nd Baron Tennyson by his son Hallam, who produced an authorized biography of his father in 1897, and was later the second Governor General of Australia.

Tennyson and the Queen

Tennyson was praise by Queen Victoria. His work, and in her diary that she was “much soothen pleased by reading”.

The art of Tennyson’s poetry

In his writing he used wide range of subject matter, from medieval to classical myths and from domestic situations to observation of nature as source material for his poetry. The influence of John Keats and other Romantic poets help him to reach richness of his imagery and descriptive writing. He also handled rhythm. Tennyson possessed the strongest poetic power, which his early readers often attributed to his.

Tennyson’s Poetry

“Marianne”

“The Lady of Shalot”

“The Lotos – Eaters”

“Ulysses”

“Tithonus”

“The Epic”

“Tears, Idle Tears”

“In Memoriam”

“The Charge of the Light Brigade”

“Crossing the Bar”

Tennyson’s Poetry

“In Memoriam”

The poem begins as a tribute to and invocation of the “strong son of God’. Man never seen God’s faced and has no proof of his existence he can only reach God through faith. The poet attributes the sun and moon to God, acknowledges him as the creator of life and death in both man and animals. Man cannot understand why he was created but he must believe that he was not made simply to die.

The Son of Gods seems both human and devines. Man has control of his own will, but this is only so that he might exert himself to do God’s will. All of man’s constructed systems of religion and philosophy seem solid but are merely temporal, in comparison to the eternal God.

The speaker asks that God that God help foolish people to see his light. He repeatedly asks for God to forgive his grief for “thy creature, which I found so fair.”The speaker has faith that this departed fair friend lives on in God, and asks God to make his friend wise.

Ulysses

Ulysses declares that there is little point in his staying home “by this still healthy” with his ode wife, doing out rewards and punishment for the unnamed masses who live in his kingdom.

He speaking to himself that he “cannot rest from travel” but feels compelled to live to the fullest and swallow every last drop of life. He has enjoyed all his experiences as a sailor who travels for everyone who wanders and roams the earth.

Ulysses declares that it is boring to stay in one place, and that to remain stationary. He wishes “to follow knowledge like a sinking star” and forever grow in wisdom and in learning.

In the final stanza, Ulysses addresses the mariners with whom he has worked, traveled and weathered life’s storms over many years. Ulysses and his mariners are not as strong as they were in youth, they are not as “strong in will” and are sustained by their resolve to push onward relentlessly; “To strive to seek to find, and not to yield”.

Robert Browning

Born: 7 May 1812

Died: 12 December 1889

Occupation: Poet

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic, verse, especially. He was the only son of Sarah Anne and Robert Browning. His father was a clerk for the Bank of England earning about $ 150 per year. Browning had one sister Sarianna.

By twelve, Browning had written a book of poetry which he later destroyed when no publisher cloud is a tutor. He had inherited substantial musical ability through his mother. His father sponsored the publication of his son’s poems.

In March 1833, Pauline, was published anonymously. It is a long poem composed in homage to Shelley and somewhat in his style. In 1838 he visited Italy, looking for background for Sordello, a long poem in heroic couplets. This was published in 1840.

In 1845, Browning met the poet Elizabeth Barrett, six years his elder, who lived with her father’s house in Wimpole Street, London. They began corresponding and gradually a romance developed between them, leading to their marriage and journey to Italy.’

The marriage was initially secret because her father disapproved of marriage for any of his children.

In the remaining years of his life Browning travelled extensively. Browning died at his son’s home Ca’Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December 1889.

Browning was awarded many distinctions. He was made LL.D.  Of Edinburgh, a life Governor of London University, and had the offer of the Lord Proctorship of Glasgow. But he turned down anything that involved public speaking.

Browning Poetry

“Porphria’s Love”

“Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”

“My Last Duchess”

“Home - Thoughts, From Abroad”

“Fra Lippo Lippi”

 “A Yoccata of Galuppi’s”

“Memorabilia”

“Two in the Campagn”

“Caliban upon Setibos”

“My Last Duchess”

This poem is loosely based on historical events involving Alfonse the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16^th century. The Duke is the speaker of the poem, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage (he has recently been windowed) to the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops before a portrait of the last Duchess, apparently a young and lovely girl. The Duke begins reminiscing about the portrait. His musings give way to a diatribe on her disgraceful behavior: he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his “gift of a nine - hundred - years - old name”. As his monologue continues, the reader realizes with ever – more chilling certainty that the Duke in fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behavior escalated: “[He] have commands; Then all smiles stopped together”.

Conclusion

The Victorian era, begin with, these poets writing. These both are considered monologues, to another persona within the poem. Both do not break their rhyme and meter. Browning the class from of the heroic couplet and Tennyson uses the “In Memoriam” stanza, a stanza structure that he has created specifically for this poem and that consists of four lines of iambic tetrameter rhyming ABAB. So we can say that they are extremely good Victorian poet because of their collection of wonderful.