Course tutor: Dr. Adrian RaduOffice: M12Email: [email protected]: 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