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U n i t
The literary scene
Early Victorian poetry: late Romantic tendencies.
In the
years from the accession of Queen Victoria to about 1850 two
outstanding poets emerged: Alfred Tennyson and Robert
Browning. They were to be fundamental models for the
poets of the second half of the century. Both owe a great
deal to their Romantic predecessors, in particular Shelley
and Keats. Tennyson, for instance, was indebted to Keats’
verbal sensuousness, while Browning owes much to Shelley’s
prophetic force. Unlike the Romantic poets, however, the
early Victorian poets
did not believe in a life vision
. Though
they were concerned with the age’s most pressing ethical
issues, they were less and less confident that they could solve
the scientific and religious problems which were widely
discussed in their time.
The dramatic monologue.
The early Victorian poets
privileged indirect ways of dealing with human and social
problems. Formally, the most typical example of this tendency
is the
dramatic monologue
– a fairly long poem in which
only one character, usually a historical figure, speaks about
himself or something important that has happened to
him. The best use of this form was by
Robert Browning
(1812-89), who wrote some of his best poetry in Italy. He also took the
subjects of many of his dramatic monologues from
Italian medieval
and Renaissance history
. Sometimes the character was a real historical
figure and sometimes he was an invented one – as the Duke in
My Last
Duchess
(1842). In speaking their minds, Browning’s characters reveal
their personalities through
unexpected mental associations
. In this
sense, Browning’s monologues present a very modern awareness of the
way the human mind works and it is no coincidence that his poetry
has had a great influence on modern literature (
➤
also
The dramatic
monologue
, p. 22
).
Poetry of sensual dreaming.
The most representative poet of the age
(he was made Poet Laureate, after Wordsworth’s death) was
Alfred
Tennyson
(
➤
p. 51
). He produced
verse of a musical grace
tinged
with sadness and a desire for a lost world, often set in a
dreamy past
.
Typical of Tennyson’s poetry is the dramatic monologue
Ulysses
(1842),
where the classical hero expresses a Romantic restlessness and desire to
break conventions but at the same time is sadly disillusioned about the
possibility or the necessity of heroism. For Tennyson’s Ulysses, as for its
author, the world of epic action is over. Tennyson is a
poet of sensation
Victorian poetry
The Choice
, by
George Frederic
Watts (1863-64).
Robert
Browning
(c. 1870).
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