Lecture Thirty-Six Voices of Victorian Poetry Scope: For most readers today, Victorian poetry is not as compelling as the fiction or even nonfiction prose of the age, but the Victorians revered their poetry and poets. In this lecture, we’ll look at three voices from the period that have stood the test of time: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Tennyson represents, perhaps, the culmination of Romanticism. Like Shelley and Keats, he was interested in the music of the English language and was a master of his instrument. Browning, more rugged and experimental than Tennyson, takes us to the cusp of Modernism with his dramatic monologues and the quality of intellectualism in his verse. With Hopkins, poetry becomes fully Modern; he sought to create poetry around stress, what he called “sprung rhythm,” rather than meter, and saw the future of English verse in the possibilities for experimentation with language within the form of the short lyric poem. These three poets represent a bridge for us from high Romanticism to Modernism, paving the way for the achievements to come in 20th-century poetry. Outline I. We tend to regard Victorian poetry as not as outstanding a literary achievement as the fiction of that age or even the nonfictional prose, such as that by John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, or Walter Pater. A. Walter Pater, an Oxford don and a patron of aestheticism, famously recalled the grandeur of the Renaissance and suggested that it should be incorporated into modern life: “To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.” B. Even though we do not regard their poetry as highly as they did, the Victorians revered poetry in all its manifestations, from the music hall song and street ballad to the lofty utterances of the poet laureate. In fact, when the laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson died, he was given what amounted to a state funeral. C. In the Victorian era, poetry was a bestselling commodity. Tennyson’s narrative poems, such as “Enoch Arden,” “Maud,” or Idylls of the King, sold as well as any novel of the 1850s. 1. The Victorians read these works like novels, although we have lost that knack. Elizabeth Barrett Browning actually composed a verse novel, Aurora Leigh, which is generally regarded as the best of its kind. 2. George Meredith’s sonnet sequence Modern Love is a narrative of the gradual breakdown of a marriage. D. The Victorian age had a galaxy of talent in poetry, including many names that we don’t remember, although most readers are familiar with Christina Rosetti, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily and Charlotte Bronte. E. In this lecture, we’ll look at three great voices in Victorian poetry: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. They represent the bridge from high Romanticism to Modernism. II. Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809.1892) carries to its furthest extent the quest of Keats and that other great Romantic, Shelley. The music of the English language has never been more skillfully composed into verbal melody and harmony than under Tennyson’s hand. A. Tennyson was obsessed with the Odyssey, but where other poets concentrated on the battles and ordeals, Tennyson was much more interested in the feelings of melancholy, world-weariness, and spiritual lassitude of Odysseus and his men. B. The Victorians exhibited an astounding dynamism and confidence that allowed them to build much of the infrastructure of modern Great Britain, but the reverse side of this was the melancholy that Tennyson eloquently captured. C. The “Lotus-Eaters” episode from the Odyssey, in which those who ingested the plant were overcome with lethargy, fascinated Tennyson. His poem titled “The Lotos-Eaters” opens with Ulysses exhorting his sailors to have courage and gives a beautiful description of the land they discover. D. Tennyson knew, from early life, that he wanted to be a poet. He achieved the pinnacle of his career when he became poet laureate, in succession to Wordsworth, in the 1850s. Tennyson was crowned again when Queen Victoria, who loved his poetry, made him a baron in 1884. E. Tennyson’s output was vast. Critical opinion would probably nominate as his greatest work the poem of religious faith and doubt, “In Memoriam,” that he wrote on the death of his friend Arthur Hallam. III. Another famous poem of Tennyson’s, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” demonstrates the public side of this poet. A. In 1854.1855, Britain was allied with France against Russia in the Crimean War. 1. This conflict was the first to be covered by war correspondents and photographers, who brought home the blunders of the war to the population in England. 2. The Times published a report of the futile charge of the English cavalry—what was, effectively, a suicide mission—that took place on November 13, 1854. This report included the words “someone had blundered,” which also appear in Tennyson’s poem. B. The command had been given to charge the Russian guns, which were firing into the cavalry as the men galloped forward. The guns were eventually taken, but 118 cavalrymen were killed, 127 were wounded, and 400 horses were destroyed. C. Tennyson’s famous poem was read by hundreds of thousands of people in England while the event was still reverberating, and he made no attempt to vindicate the military stupidity that led to the slaughter. Military history in Britain has repeatedly shown that commanders are unworthy of the men they lead. D. The poem is also striking for its connection with new media. Dispatches were telegraphed in from the field, and the poem was published in a newspaper a couple of weeks later, with accompanying photographs. IV. The partnering giant to Tennyson is Robert Browning (1812.1889), although these two figures were polar opposites in some ways. A. Browning is a more rugged and experimental verse-maker than Tennyson was. His early poem Sordello is so difficult that the Victorians liked to say that only God and Browning knew what it meant, and the poet had forgotten. B. If Tennyson put music into poetry, Browning put thought into it, a quality of intellectualism. He did unusual things on a large canvas. The Ring and the Book, for instance, his great novel in verse, looks at a 17th-century murder in Italy from 12 different viewpoints. C. Browning’s major bequest to successive poetry is the dramatic monologue, a voice-driven poetic form. One famous example is “My Last Duchess,” from his collection titled Men and Women (1842). 1. Note the ambiguity of the word “last.” Does it mean my late wife or the most recent in a long line of duchesses? This question hovers over the monologue that follows. 2. The poem is based on a 16th-century aristocrat, the Duke of Ferrara, who may or may not have been an uxoricide, a wife killer, but was certainly a great patron and connoisseur of the visual arts. 3. In the poem, the duke is showing off his art collection to an unidentified visitor. Suddenly, he pauses at a particularly fine portrait and explains that it is his former wife. 4. As we read, we learn that the duke was insulted by what he sees as a lack of respect for himself from his duchess; we come to believe that he had her killed. At the same time, he has had her immortalized in a wonderful portrait. D. On one level, the poem seems to say that art is more important than love. When we study the Italian Renaissance, do we care that the Borgias were murderers given the riches produced by their patronage? At the same time, many might say that the duke is merely a sociopath, although the poem doesn’t make it clear that he had his wife killed. 1. “My Last Duchess” makes us think, and this is Browning’s great achievement as a poet. He introduces thoughtfulness into his poetry and induces thoughtfulness in his reader. 2. If Tennyson looks back to Shelley and Keats, from Browning, we can trace lines of connection forward to Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, and T. S. Eliot. 3. His command of voice and creation of what became known in Yeats’s terms as persona, the mask through which the poet writes, would be important instruments in the 20th-century verse. V. The last poet in this trio, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844.1889), takes us forward unequivocally in a great leap into Modernism. A. Hopkins, a Jesuit priest, was unknown to the public as a poet until 20 years after his death. His literary resurrection was thanks to his friendship with the 20th-century poet laureate Robert Bridges, who himself has now faded into obscurity. B. Working by himself, but with an awareness of the techniques devised by Tennyson and Browning, Hopkins broke through Victorianism into Modernism. 1. If we compare Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters,” for instance, with the lushness of one of Hopkins’ descriptions of landscape, we can see both his influences and his innovations. 2. The Hopkins poem “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire” contains one such description: “CLOUDPUFFBALL, torn tufts, tossed pillows ’ flaunt forth, then chevy on an air- / built thoroughfare: heavenroysterers, in gay-gangs ’ they throng; they glitter in marches.” C. Hopkins sought to create poetry around stress, what he called “sprung rhythm,” not meter. He freed English poetry from the chains of the pentameter: de-dum / de-dum / de-dum / de-dum / de-dum. D. Hopkins also realized that the form of the future would be the short lyric, which allowed for interesting effects in the English language. 1. Poetry must return to the short lyric, and it must conduct experiments with language while retaining a sustaining link with tradition, in this case, the subject matter. 2. Hopkins wrote, as many poets through the ages have written, about the natural world around him. E. Hopkins’s group of poems known as the “Terrible Sonnets” record the dark night of the soul, a well-known trial of Catholic conscience. Here, the poet feels some of the pains of Jesus, but can he endure them? Can he call on patience, a word that literally means “suffering,” to get through his trials and become stronger, as Christ did on the cross? 1. The poem “No worst, there is none” recalls Lear on the heath with the line “comfort serves in a whirlwind”; Prometheus on his rock, harrowed by harpies; and most of all, Christ. 2. What is the cause of this pain? Sexual temptation or frustration? Religious doubt? Innate melancholy? 3. The poem is a superb articulation of mood, but we don’t know where that mood originates. VI. These three poets constitute a line connecting the Romantic to the Modern period of literature. Victorian poetry, as we have seen, is not a static thing, but an entity, a continuum, a thoroughfare, taking literature 100 years forward and making possible the great achievements of the 20th century. Suggested Readings: Armstrong, ed., The Major Victorian Poets: Reconsiderations. Bristow, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry. Browning, Robert Browning: Selected Poems Ricks, Tennyson. Ryals, The Life of Robert Browning. Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson. Questions to Consider: 1. Tennyson and Browning, the two great poets of the age, have distinctly different poetic voices. How would one best describe those voices? 2. Why was poetry so overwhelmingly popular with the Victorians?