Knowing what you know about the Romantic poets, can you determine how much of Tennyson's style is influenced by the poets that came before him? How would you characterize Tennyson's poetry? Do you think he stresses form? imagery? both? Does his narrative poetry ("The Lady of Shalott," e.g.) seem similar to or a departure from the narrative poetry of Keats, Wordsworth, and Coleridge?
I know we haven't had the chance to talk about his poetry yet, but we can start the conversation here.
As soon as I started reading Tennyson's poetry, it right away resembled the poetic works of the Romantics. His first poem, "The Kraken," engages in nature very greatly. A Kraken is a huge mythical monster and as such he is right away connecte to the power of nature and the control our surrounding exert over our lives. Tennyson most defenitely stresses both form and imagery. His poem, "The Lady of Shalott," is very similar in style to both Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes. That is exactly what came to mind when I started reading this particular poem. Like Coleridge, in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Tennyson tells a short story via a poem. Such a poem, enages the reader very much so. It is a closed from poem because throughout a particual rhyme scheme, meter, and style are followed. Tennyson starts out with a 9 line stanza and follows that throughout the entire poem. The poem is stylistical devided in to parts like the "Ancient Mariner" and like Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes" is associated with love and romace. For instance, he tells," There she weaves by night and day/ A magic web with colors gay/ She has heard a whisper say,/A curse is on her if she stay/ To look down to Camelot./ She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily,/ And little other care hath she,/ The lady of Shalott." The quoted stanza practically mimics what Keats exerted with Madeline's curisotity for and obsession of her future. Additionally, this particular poem seems to, in a way, again mimic the Romantic theme of innocence versus experience. This theme was very much developed by Wordsworth and it still retains contemporary existance and importance. In another poem, "Locksley Hall," he writes, "Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee restd./ Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast./O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due./Half is thine and half is his; it will be worthy of the two." The quoted verse tells coomunicates to the audience that our knowledge and more importantly our exeriences change us. Everything about Tennyson and his poetry resembles the five Romantics we had discussed in depth.
ReplyDeleteThese poems definitely remind me of the Romantics because they discuss nature and even speak to it, like earlier poems did. In "Sweet and Low", he speaks to the “wind of the western sea.” This reminds me of “Ode to the West Wind” because he is being very descriptive and showing beauty through nature. Tennyson also speaks about nature in "Splendor Falls", the name even implying that nature is splendorous and wonderful. Many of his other poems also include elements of nature, like "Flower in the Crannied Wall." He speaks to the flower directly, as if it were a living thing that could understand him, like many poets before him when making an ode to nature.
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DeleteI agree! These poems sound so much like the romantics. It reminds me of the feeling of innocence you get when reading the poems. For example, in “Flower in the Crannied Wall,” he speaks to the flower as if it is a living thing that can hear him. The flower can be linked directly with innocence and a child like state. It’s as if he is speaking to his childhood through the flower, making it a symbol for his innocence. In this poem he also refers to “[knowing] what God and man is,” which could be support for the claim that this poem is based on innocence.
DeleteNow that we have discussed it in depth (somewhat)in class, I see the link between the two eras of poetry. The Victorians most defenitely are inspired by the Romantics; however, they seem to leave a different impression of poetry on the contemporary audience. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelly, and Blake were more nature oriented where as poets like Tennyson seem to be more oriented toward the actions of people.It is very likely that the Victorians chose to focuse more on the people rather than nature. For instance, Tennyson in several of his poems focuses on the theme of love vs. loss. Thus far, this is the only theme that stands out. I, however, do feel that Tennyson will be our poet of the Victorian Era. He, like Wordsworth for the Romanitics, will set the foundadtion for the other poets that follow to mimic. I now somewhat understand his importnace during such an ear. He seemed to have appleaed to the common folk. I hope to learn more of this as we further discuss it in class; however, I do think that Tennyson is the Wordsworth of this era, and as such, we will continued to hear in depth about his accomplishments and influences during this time frame.
DeleteTennyson’s poems definitely display influence from some of the Romantic poets. Tennyson’s poems are very detailed and narrated. Tennyson’s poems rely on story and description. The poet I can see the most similarity with is John Keats. Both Keats and Tennyson incorporate description of scenes in vast detail throughout their poems. Both “The Lady of Shalott” and “Mariana” are similar to Keats’s “Eve of St. Agnes” in that both poems follow a storyline and use both imagery and description quite extensively. Like Keats, Tennyson stresses the uniformity of form through out the poem. Tennyson keeps one rhyme scheme and stanza form through out a single poem. Unlike Keats, however, the form of Tennyson’s poems varies more from poem to poem.
ReplyDeleteArtists/writers of every developed area seem to share a sympathy with the working class. Tennyson and other Victorian poets extend Romantic sentiments towards this issue as industrialization increases the division between the aristocracy and the proletariat. Tennyson glorifies isolation from English society in both "The Lotos-Eaters" and "Locksley Hall", where characters rationalize between the conflict of busy civilization and the peace of the natural world.
ReplyDeleteIn Part VIII of The Lotos-Eaters, the mariners' compare and contrast the new people from familiar society:
"For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd / Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd / Round their golden houses, girdled with the glleaming world; / Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, / Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, / Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. / But they smile, they find a music centered in a doleful song, / Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong."
The new Lotos-Eaters then define themselves as the working class:
"Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, / Sow the see, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, / Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; / Till they perish and they suffer--some, 't is whisper'd--down in hell / Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, / Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. / Surely surely, slumber is more swweet than toil, the shore / than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar"
In "Locksley Hall," the speaker shares his personal ideal of a peaceful seclusion:
" . . . Ah for some retreat / . . . to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away, / On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. / Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, / Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. / Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, / Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag; / Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree -- / Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea. / There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, / In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind."
Though the speaker comes to accept the ever-changing world, the implied sympathy lies in the division of class. Tennyson similarly embraces traditional form as held true by a Romantic poet like John Keats, and the uses of natural imagery and working class sympathy are also shared with the Romantic poets. However, nearly all of Tennyson's content applies to concrete descriptions and feelings towards the real world, which seemingly escapes the overemphasized "romanticization," or exaggerated imaginative descriptions, of trivial moments and discovers an interpretively more profound voice in a less-personal/emotional context that appears more accessible and applicable to a wider audience with a broader worldview.
Proletariat! [proh-li-tair-ee-uht]! Wow. Until only just have I ever even seen the word "proletariat" before--still not sure about the pronunciation. Upon looking in my manually operated dictionary, I discovered that you had used the word perfectly. Likewise unflawed is your perception regarding Tennyson and other Victorian poet's shared sympathy toward the working class,especially when comparing rich vs. poor. Bravo sir.
DeleteHaving only read through page 27 of our (the class) new Victorian poetry anthology, I feel unequipped discussing Tennyson; but I will try. Keats' poetry like Tennyson? Absolutely, if we're talking about structure and form. In "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Keats' five 10 line stanzas is metered in precise iambic pentameter. With Keats, its not one poem that follows the rules, it all of them! Tennyson follows an incredible 97 couplets using trochaic octameter in Locksley Hall. Its no wonder why he was getting paid 10,000 pounds a year! One could ask, If not Tennyson, who else could have done it? Not I. Another very technical way to write poetry is in Spenserian Stanzas. Keats, the magnificent master, does it for 42 stanzas in "The Eave of Saint Agnes." Take a breath. 42. Tennyson's "The Lotus-Eaters" also employees Spenserian Stanzas at the beginning for 5 stanzas. Think about following an idea, but being confined to ABABBCBCC, then, as a bonus on the last line of each stanza, you have to switch meter to iambic hexameter--wow! I think that's about as far as the influence goes. Thus far, Tennyson's poetry doesn't seem to follow the romantics in theme. Theirs seemed more about nature, Christ, sin, death, and love. Tennyson's seem more, well, different.
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