04. late romanticism and neo-classicism - matthew arnold and alfred tennyson

Course tutor: Dr. Adrian RaduOffice: M12Email: aradu@lett.ubbcluj.roWeb: www.lett.ubbcluj.ro/~aradu

Matthew Arnold

Arnold’s Poetry roots in the classical writings of the Greeks –

neoclassical

influences by the Romantics such as Wordsworth –late Romantic

his poems are melancholic, deeply personal (intimate), introspective, full of sentimental pessimism and nostalgia

cultivates the soliloquy / intimate confession

his poems are solitary meditations in evocative surroundings

‘Dover Beach’ meditation on the loss of public values,

the great ages are gone,

faith is lost

what is left is but private affections, the little society of love and friendship

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) one of the most influential

poets of the age (Poet Laureate)

melancholic figure –tendency to withdraw in the past and far-off lands

loyal subject – occasional poetry

lines which resound with music and harmony

creator of remarkable verse technique: the dramatic monologue the English idyll

Work direct prolongation of Romanticism

discipline of form

elaborate ornamental effects

intellectual refinement

‘The Lady of Shalott’ artistic creation and the condition of the artist

condemned to live in solitary confinement from everyday world

the Lady is an artist, a weaver – her real world is a mirror above her loom

her attempt to escape into the real world ends tragically

‘The Palace of Art’ about the condition of the artist – a sequel that

completes ‘The Lady of Shalott’

imprisonment in the world of spirituality and pleasure, symbolised by the Palace of Art

the message is that life in such a world is impossible

life has to be lived directly

‘The Lotos-Eaters’ explores the theme of withdrawal

the sailors express the will to escape into an euphoric and hedonistic world of sensations and pleasures

the land of the Lotos-Eaters is depicted as a terrestrial paradise

‘Ulysses’ a dramatic monologue

Ulysses is Dante’s Ulysses as he appears in his Inferno.

he is not willing to abandon active life even at old age –life has to be lived to the full at any age

In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850) series of elegiac poems of 131 sections with a Prologue

and an Epilogue

caused by the death of Arthur Hallam

self-therapy

the meaning of life and death

moves from the shadow cast by death to the light of hope – psychological recovery from despair to optimistic expectation

reflects the age’s crisis of belief and marks the poet’s coming to terms with God

Maud (1855) a monodrama – a study of gruesome psychology – that

provoked a storm of protest for its morbidity and violence

the exploitation of the theme of madness

reality is distorted by subjectivity

lyric passages and violent rhetorics

The Idylls of the King (1857-1889) the project of re-writing the legends about King

Arthur

12 interconnected poems: 10 central poems flanked by ‘The Coming of Arthur’ and ‘The Passing of Arthur’

the legends are wrapped in a poetical and hued veil

the theme is heroism, its dissolution and ruin after the introduction of evil to Camelot (adulterous love)

The Idylls of the King (1889) the passage is from warm colours in the beginning

to the mist and cold of winter

the form is the idyll written in blank verse

the form is not always appropriate: Tennyson cast romantic material into a Victorian moral mould

highly stylized and idealised – dignified attitude

remarkable is the musicality of the language and the images like coloured miniatures bathed in gentle light

‘The Passing of Arthur’Then Sir Bedevere cried: Ah my lord Arthur, what shall become of me, now ye go from me and leave me here alone among mine enemies? Comfort thyself, said the king, and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust for to trust in; for I will go into the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound: and if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul. But ever the queens and ladies wept and shrieked, that it was pity to hear. And as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of the barge, he wept and wailed, and so took the forest. (Th. Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur)

‘Crossing the bar’

written on the back of an envelope as Tennyson was crossing the Solent to the Isle of Wight

the poet’s epitaph

the last poem in each of Tennyson’s published volumes

Assessment continuator of Romanticism – of Wordsworth, Byron

and Keats

he is a master of creating a mood, communicating a state of feeling

lines of exquisite variety and melody

readership is educated middle-classes

his themes turn round the doubts and difficulties of an age when Christian Faith was questioned by science and modern progress