Name: Trivedi Hezal K.
Roll No: 35
PG Reg. No. PG15101040
M.A. – English Regular, Semester-2
Year: 2016
Course No. 6: The Victorian literature
Unit-4 – Tennyson and
browning: a study of poets (1850 – 1890)
Assignments Topic- Comparative
study of Tennyson and browning
Submitted to: S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
(Gujarat – India)
Introduction:
 |
The period of 1820 to 1900 known as the age of ‘Victoria’. During this
period Queen Victoria developed the much literary forms. So, this age in
English literature known as the ‘Victorian Age’. During that period many great
writers gave their best contribution to English age as a gift. , Browning,
Dickens, Meredith, Carlyle, Macaulay and Ruskin there are some great stars of
the age. Tennyson the prominent poet of the age. The Victorian era of British history was the period
of queen Victoria’s reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.
The Victorian age is especially remarkable because of its period of its rapid
progress in all the arts and science and in mechanical inventions. It was long
period of place personality referred sensibilities and national self confidence
for Britain. Victorian as is also known for the age of newspaper, the magazine,
and the modern novel. The two main poets are Alfred lord Tennyson and Robert
Browning.
Alfred lord Tennyson:
He
was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's
reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at
penning short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "and The
Charge of the Light Brigade “,” Tears, Idle Tears “and” Crossing the Bar".
Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses,
although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur
Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was
engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain haemorrhage before they
could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of
the King, "Ulysses”. As a pictorial poet, he follows the example of Keats.
His all poems most probably based on imagery of nature and other natural
elements. His description of each line built our-selves to see the magic of his
art and surprisable deep and beautiful scene of the picture of the poem.
Tennyson’s Poetry:
His most famous
volumes and poems are:
Volume
of Poems - 1833
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical -
1830
Timbuctoo
Isabel
Madeline
The Lady of Shallot
The Lotos-Eater
The Palace of Art
Ulysses
Locksley Hall
In Memoriam
Idylls of the King
Enoch Arden
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After
Tennyson’s Plays:
Queen Marry - 1875
Harold - 1876
Becket - 1884
The Falcon - 1879
The Cup - 1881
The Foresters – 1892
Robert browning:
His first work is Pauline and it
was written in 1833.
:
Robert
Browning (1812 –1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of
dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost
Victorian poets. Browning was famous for his dramatic monologues and commentary
on social institutions. He truly observer of Renaissance period and he admire
for it. By talking about the Renaissance, Browning can make his cultural
criticism somewhat less biting. He also gains access to a wealth of sensuous
detail and historical reference, which he can then use to add vibrancy to his
verse. Browning aspires to redefine the aesthetic. The rough language of his
poems often matches the personalities of his speakers. Browning uses
colloquialisms, and rough meter to portray inner conflict and to show
characters living in the real world. In his earlier poems this kind of speech
often accompanies patterned rhyme schemes; “My Last Duchess,” for example, uses
rhymed couplets.
Browning’s Poetry:
His most famous and noticeable poems are as under:
Porphyria’s Lover
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister
My Last Duchess
The
Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church
Home-Thoughts, From Abroad
Fra Lippo Lippi
A Toccata of Galuppi’s
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
Memorabilia
Andrea Del Sarto
Two in the Campagna
Browning’s Plays:
His
plays like,
Bells and Pomegranates – 1846
Pippa Passes -1841
King Victor and King
Charles – 1842
The Return of the Druses
– 1843
A Blot on the ’Scutcheon – 1843
Colombes
Birthday – 1844
Luria; and a Soul’s Tragedy – 18
Comparative
study of Tennyson and browning:
Tennyson and Browning are the two literary titans of the Victorian age
who towered over all other poets of the period for about help a century.
However, as poets they have very little in common. While Tennyson was
completely a representative of his age who glorified the greatness of England,
its democracy and freedom, and dreamed of “The Parliament of Man, The
Federation of the World”, Browning kept apart from all the political and
religious turmoil of the age. In fact, Browning lived and wrote as if such
things as Reform Bills, Catholic Emancipation, The Crimean War, The Indian
Mutiny that never been. The only evidence we have of Browning’s patriotism is
furnished by two little poems, “Home Thoughts from Abroad” and “Home thoughts
from sea”. It is true that he lived in Italy after his marriage, and so had no
interest in the tendencies and movements in Victorian England. But he was quite
unresponsive to the Italian freedom struggle also even when Mrs. Browning was
so-sympathetic to it. It means that Browning had no interest in contemporary
history. His main interest was in the remote part, especially in the Italy of
the Renaissance.
Being a poet of the 19th century, Tennyson could not escape the
influences of Romanticism. In his poetry Nature always predominates. In fact,
it is nicely said that if Byron is the poet of the mountains and oceans,
Shelley of cloud and air, Keats of the perfume of evening, Wordsworth of the
meaning and mysteries of Nature as a whole, Tennyson is the poet of flowers,
trees and birds. In the words of Harrison, “Of flowers and trees, he must be
held to be the supreme master, above all who have written in English, perhaps
indeed in any poetry”. Moreover, he is a perfect painter of Nature because he
has portrayed it not only as benevolent, but also as cruel, “red in tooth and
claw”. Just like a scientist he has penetrated through the nature. No doubt,
Browning also loved Nature and also shows a keen appreciation of her beauties
is such poems as “Home Thoughts from Abroad”, “Soul” etc., but Nature was
nothing special to him. In fact, Nature except for a brief period in the 18th
century has been a perennial element of English poetry and especially after
Wordsworth it is inconceivable that any poet could do with it, to which
Browning is no exception. Browning interest in Nature is neither prominent, nor
persistent as in the case of Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning belong to
the Victorian age and they occupy a prominent place as a pre-eminent poet of
their age. Both the poets apply new techniques and styles in poetry writing.
But both these poets adopt their own style in their writing. Browning focuses
on the psyche of his frantic characters and tries to look into deep inside of
such characters in his writings. Browning tries to understand human nature,
religion, and society properly. He studies the innermost psychology of
characters. On the other hand, Tennyson draws material from external specific
realities, ideas, and objects and tries to express it through ornate language.
Another significant difference between poems of Alfred Tennyson's and Robert
Browning is in their nature of expression. Browning's writings are always
energetic but in Tennyson’s tone of expression is generally melancholic where
he tends to give touch of nostalgia. Their poetic concerns are hardly related.
Browning systematically depicts the essence of a character whereas Tennyson
gives importance in inducing and endorsing a particular mood.
Comparison and differences in there
poems
1) BROWNING’S : "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"
2) Tennyson's "Mariana".
Two
poems which perhaps have rather more in common are Browning's "Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came" and Tennyson's "Mariana". In both
these poems, the description of landscape indicates the state of mind of the
poem's central character. And neither poem is describing something beautiful or
attractive!
'Mariana'
is thickly atmospheric. The 'lonely moated grange' is from the outset a
neglected and isolated place, just as the person within is neglected and
lonely. The details of the landscape present a smoothly grey picture, but are
nonetheless lovely descriptions, such as:
"Hard by a poplar shook always
All silver-green
with gnarled bark"
The
girl herself is unchangingly dreary, as emphasized by the repetition of her
"I am a weary" statements with each stanza. No insight into her
character is offered—she reflects the landscape as much as it reflects her.
There is a strong sense of stillness conveyed within the poem,
everything—especially Mariana—is passive.
"Childe
Roland" by contrast has a very strong sense of movement and progress. It
is not possible to forget that this is a journey through a landscape. The
central character's reaction to the dreadful country through which he must pass
reveals his mood and expectation of death very clearly, and his emotional
reactions to what he sees become part of the description. Browning's jagged and
hideous landscape is reflected in the uncomfortable language he uses to convey
it, again contrasting with Tennyson's more mellifluous style.
These
two poets are, as can be seen, very different in their approach to the idea of
the narrative. Tennyson presents beautiful scenes, indeed he cannot help but do
so even when the subject matter is supposed to be dull, and he offers many
images which can be plucked from the poems and kept like little jewels on their
own. Browning's poems are less lovely but more lively, and his focus is far
less on conveying the appearance than on conveying the inner life of his
characters. His language is more complicated and less elegant, and it is hard
to extract a line or two from a poem such as 'My Last Duchess', partly because
the sentence structure is long and involved, and partly because the work needs
to be read as a whole.
Conclusion:
In the
and we can say that browning’s place in our literature will be better
appreciated by comparison with his friend Tennyson. Whom we just studied in our respect,
especially in their methods of approaching the truth, the two man are the exact
opposites. Tennyson is the first artist
and then the teacher, but with browning the message is always the important
thing and he careless, too careless, of the form in which it is expressed.
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