PAPER-6 ASSIGNMENT

Victorian Literature

Compare The ways, in which Tennyson and Browning present the “Love”theme in their poems and the way they suggest about victorian social values.

To evaluate my assignment click here

Name:- Zankhana .M.Matholiya

Roll.No:-36

Paper No.-6- Victorian Literature

Class :- M.A. Sem-2

Topic:- Compare The ways, in which Tennyson and Browning

present the “Love”theme in their poems and the way

they suggest about victorian social values.

Enrollment No:- 2069108420180036

College:- Smt.S.B.Gardi Department of English

Email ID :- zankhanamatholiya96@gmail.com

Submitted:-Department of English M.K.University, Bhavnagar

Introduction:-

In 1837 when Victoria became queen of England, new era was begun in history of England. Beginning of 19th century is starting of ‘Victorian Era’ in England and new phase in history of English Literature. Very rich era of English Literature, named ‘Romantic Era’ was ended with it and so most of the people use to think that after death of Coleridge, Shelly, Byron, Keats, Scott and Wordsworth there were no writers to fill their places in England.

· Wordsworth himself wrote that:-

Like clouds that rake the mountains summits,

Or wave that own no curbing hands,

How fast has brother followed brother,

From sunshine to the sunless land!

These lines shows the sorrowful spirit of a literary man of the early 19th century who remembered the glory that had passed away from the earth in ‘Romantic Era of English Literature’ and it can be very difficult to fulfill place of that literary leaders. But English men are lucky enough to have some other able and powerful writers during ‘Victoria Era’ and those writers give new height to English Literature.

· Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning was the most remarkable and noticeable writers of ‘Victorian Era’ and they give new summit to this era with the help of their writing and here I am going to discuss them both in detail as per my knowledge. Throughout the entire Victorian Era Lord Tennyson stood at the summit of poetry in England. And same as, Robert Browning was the only figure of this age, who after thirty years of continuous work, was finally recognized and placed beside Lord Tennyson, and whom future ages may judge to be a greater poet, even, the greatest in literature since Shakespeare.

· After ending of ‘Romantic Era’ for a time no new development was appeared in English Literature but Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning construct a new period in Victorian Time with their poems. Though the Victorian Age produces two great and remarkable poets, Tennyson and Browning, the age as a whole, is remarkable for the verity and excellence of its prose.

· Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in

the absence but in the mastery of his passion.”

· These are the words written by Tennyson himself. He was not only poet but also voice of people on that contemporary society. He plumbs of the depth of his own consciousness while also giving voice to the national consciousness of Victorian society. He was appointed as poet laureate at the death of Wordsworth, in 1850 and because of it he felt the importance of his place, and honored and filled it. And after it for almost half a century Tennyson was not only a man and a poet but he was a voice, the voice of a whole people, expressing in exquisite melody their doubts and their faith, their griefs and their triumphs. In the wonderful variety of his verse he suggests all the qualities of England’s greatest poets.

“The dreaminess of Spencer, the majesty of Milton,

the natural simplicity of Wordsworth,

the fantasy of Blake and Coleridge,

the melody of Keats and Shelley,

the narrative vigor of Scott and Byron,

all these striking qualities are evident on

successive pages of Tennyson’s poetry.”

-W. J.Long

These are the words written by famous historian W. J. Long and these words shows real greatness of Lord Tennyson because we cannot find this type of rich mixture of quality in any other poet so we can easily said that Tennyson is the benchmark of Victorian era.

· Tennyson’s Poetry:

· He stared to write at the age of just seventeen and his first volume was published in collaboration with his brother in 1827 named as ‘Poems by Two Brothers’. His most famous volumes and poems are:

§ Volume of Poems – 1833

§ Poems, Chiefly Lyrical - 1830

§ Maud and Other Poems - 1855

§ Timbuctoo

§ Isabel

§ Madeline

§ The Lady of Shalott

§ The Lotos-Eater

§ The Palace of Art

§ Morte d’Arthur

§ Ulysses

§ Locksley Hall

§ In Memoriam

§ Idylls of the King

§ Enoch Arden

§ Locksley Hall Sixty Years After

He wrote short poems till end of his life and his last poem is ‘The Death of Enone’.

· Tennyson’s Plays:

Tennyson’s dramas occupied his later years. He wrote many plays like, historical plays, comedy plays and even plays based on Robin Hood theme. His noticeable plays are:

§ Queen Marry - 1875

§ Harold - 1876

§ Becket - 1884

§ The Falcon – 1879

§ The Cup - 1881

§ The Foresters – 1892

Ø Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)

“How good is man’s life, the mere living ! how fit to employ

All the heart and the soul and the sense for ever in joy!”

· This is a song by David from, ‘Browning’s Saul’, and after reading this line we can easily imagine the prominence of Browning’s works. He worked for more than thirty years and after this long phase of working he recognized by people and got a place besides Lord Tennyson, in ‘Victorian Era’. But critics of that time and even today’s critics also said the same thing about Browning’s work. They said that common people will find some difficulties in reading Browning and main difficulty about Browning’s work is it’s the obscurity of style. Tennyson also thinks the same kind of thing and so he

· said about Browning’s ‘Sordello’:

“ First line and last line are the only two lines in the whole poem that I understood, and that they were evidently both lines.”

· Some critics use to think that this is the humorous criticism of ‘Sordello’. And we can said that at some extent these critics are right about Browning’s obscurity and we can find some rezones about it also through study of work and language of Browning. He is not like other common and entertaining poet. One cannot read Browning in free time or for just time pass but must sit up, think and be alert while reading Browning.

· Browning’s Poetry:

His first work is Pauline and it was written in 1833. This poem also shows very strong influence of Shelley upon Browning’s writing. Browning held Shelley in great reverence. 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:

He wrote several plays but all his plays are without moments of drama, and all his plays shown considerable spirit in their style. But some of his plays contain fine songs. But Browning lacks the fundamental qualities of the dramatist. His amazing subtle analysis of character and motive is not sufficient for true and real drama because he cannot reveal character in action. He uses method of flash back and so he takes a character at a moment of crisis and after that by allowing him to talk, to reveal not only his present thoughts and feelings but past history or story also. 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

§ Colombe’s Birthday – 1844

§ Luria; and a Soul’s Tragedy – 1846

Ø Comparative study between Browning and 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 difference between poems of Alfred Tennyson's and Robert Browning is in their nature of expression. Browning's writings are always energetic but in Tennison'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.

· Alfred Tennyson sometimes made allusion in his poetry to the social and scientific issues that were so distressing to many Victorians, including Tennyson, related to the discoveries of geological and astronomical time and Darwinian theory. As a devout Christian, he added references in his poetry about how one might keep faith in God and yet acknowledge the "progress" of sciences understanding.

· Tennyson would use some poetic works to express opinion about social issues like fair treatment of women and women's right to attain higher education.

· Robert Browning, on the other hand, often took a psychological approach to addressing the ills of society. His poetry, often composed as dramatic monologues, told stories through various characters. Since Browning was therefore writing in a character voice and not his own, he was free to create characters that were capable of as much evil as good.

· In this way Browning could explore the psychology of crime and brutality as easily as he could explore goodness and beauty. He exposed the inner mind behind some of the situations of society and used his poetic stories to discuss philosophical points relevant to issues from art and beauty to materialism.

Ø Compared The poem "The Sisters" and "Porphyria's Lover" themes of love.

· The poems "The Sisters" by Lord Alfred Tennyson and "Porphyria's Lover" by Robert Browning involve the themes of love.

· The two poems are both stories of love and then murder.

· ‘Porphyria’s lover’ is a poem about two lovers, who can not be a couple, due to maybe social status, or other partners, when the woman declares his love for the man, he strangles her in an attempt to preserve the moment.

· ‘The sisters’ is a poem about two sisters and an earl, the earl falls in love with one of the sisters, but the other one becomes incredibly jealous, so when the first sister dies, she makes the earl fall in love with her, until she has a chance to kill him and get revenge for choosing her sister first.

· The beginning of ‘Porphyria’s lover’ sets the scene for the rest of the poem. It begins with a description of the weather, it mentions the rain and the ‘sullen’ wind, but then it talks about it ‘tearing the elm tops down for spite’ this is personification of the weather, creating an angry, troubled effect, this can be related to the speakers own feelings, his depression and his building bitterness, it also shows his propensity to violence, which comes to a climax when he kills his lover.

· The beginning of the poem is quite dark and depressing when the speaker is alone in the cottage, however when the woman enters, she has the effect of brightening up the whole atmosphere, making the cottage feel warm, and more welcoming, or so the speaker believes m this is an illustration of how fond the speaker is of his lover, she has the effect of brightening up his life, this is maybe the reason why he becomes so obsessed with her.

· Pathetic Fallacy gives us a good idea of the mood of the poem. “The rain set early into night, the sullen wind was soon awake, it tore from the elm tops down for spite, and did its worse to vex the lake. ” Straight away this gives the reader a picture of an unsettled atmosphere, and also expresses the narrators mood as quite dark and disturbed. Porphyria also has a strong effect on the narrator. “She shut out the cold and the storm, and kneeled and made the cheerless grate, blaze up and all the cottage warm. ” It is like she has a warming effect on him, which shows how much he loves her.

· This is also the first we to hear of his obsession with her, this is because it is like as if she comes in and everything is better. The narrator has strong feelings for Prophyria. “I listened with heart fit to break. ” This is as if he is eagerly waiting for her. This is also another example of his obsession with her, because it seems he has nothing else to do but wait for her to come round for the odd visit when she can. Because she is higher in society she calls the shots in the relationship. The main reason why the narrator eventually kills Porphyria in the end is because they can’t be together. From pride, and vainer ties dissever, and give herself to me forever. ”

· In the quote it explains how Porphyria can’t be with the narrator because she would have to drop down classes to be with the lower class narrator. If she did this she would be a fallen women and would be disgraced. Therefore she doesn’t want to do this because of the harsh consequences that she would face. This could also where we can start to see the narrator being jealous of Porphyria because of her higher social standing. Again he is so obsessed that he doesn’t care what happens to her, he just wants to be with Porphyria.

· Eventually the narrator strangles Porphyria with her own hair. “Three times her little throat around, and strangled her, no pain felt she. ” This is where the narrator kills Porphyria. He kills her as a result of his jealousy and obsession. He is so obsessed with her that he wants to keep her there forever so she doesn’t have to lower herself. He is also jealous of Porphyria’s higher class, and the fact that he isn’t the man in the relationship, and now that he has killed her he is in control. After he kills her he unwrapped her hair from around her neck.

· Then says, “About her neck her cheek once more, blushed bright beneath my burning kiss, I propped her head up as before, only this time my shoulder bore. ” This is where the narrator is giving Porphyria kisses and cuddling up to her. It is like he is saying to her that he has got her forever. At the end of the poem the narrator gets over confident. “And all night we have not stirred, and yet God has not said a word! ” Here the narrator thinks that he has got away with the murder of Porphyria, and that he is again, so obsessed with her that he is just going to sit there all night with her.

· In `The Sisters ` one of the sisters is jealous of the other sister because she finds the other sister better looking than her. The result of this jealousy between them is the jealous sister kills the other sister. Then because the remaining sister is really obsessed with the Earl, she kills him as well! Because of these two murderings, it portrays the sister as psycho. Pathetic Fallacy, like in ` Prophyria’s Lover ` gives us the sound of dramatic weather “The wind is blowing in turret and tree. ” Again it gives us a view of a slightly unsettled atmosphere where it could get worse.

· The weather also reflects the effect that the Earl has on the sister. As the poem goes on the weather gets worse. “The wind is roaring in turret and tree,” “The wind is raving in turret and tree. ” This is reflecting the mood of the sister because when the wind is “roaring” that is when they slept together, and when the wind is “raving” that is just before she is going to kill the Earl. This shows how obsessed with the Earl she is because she progressively gets more obsessed to the point of killing him.

· The sister had strong feelings towards the Earl. “I hated him with the hate of hell. ” The sister could hate the Earl so much that she is obsessed with hating the Earl. This is similar to ` Porphyria’s Lover, ` because like in ` Porphyria’s Lover ` the narrator is obsessed with Porphyria, but because the narrator loves her so much. One of the reasons that could have lead to the Earl’s death could have been to the Earl not trusting the sister because she could have found it funny that she killed her own sister.

· “The wind is howling in turret and tree. The sister says this after she kills her sister for being too pretty. So the howling could be a form of laughter. In this she could be accused for being jealous of her sister and because of this she ended up killing her. But she only became jealous of her sister because she was so obsessed with the Earl that she found her sister as a threat. On the other hand in ` Porphyria’s Lover, ` the narrator is jealous of her higher standing in society. This isn’t the case in ` The Sisters, ` because “ancient blood” which suggests that they are the same class.

· It is like it has now all finished and she has finally calmed down a little, and she is sitting with the body of the Earl near to her. This could be because the sister is obsessed with the Earl that even after his death she still wants to be near him. The sister’s mood is again reflected in the weather. “The wind is blowing in turret and tree. ” Throughout the poem the weather has had a full circle of emotions. Similarly after the narrator kills Porphyria the mood seems to go calmer as well in ` Porphyria’s Lover, ` and makes the reader feel like the narrator believes that he has got away with it.

· At the end of ` The Sisters ` she ” Wrapped the body in a sheet, and laid him at his mothers feet. ” “His mothers feet” could be that the sister has put the body of the Earl underneath a painting of his mother in the house. Or that now he is dead he can now be looked after by his dead mother. Also “O the Earl was fair to see,” is used at the end of every verse. But even after the Earl is dead the sister still says this, which again shows how obsessed she is with him..

· Both ` Porphyria’s Lover ` and ` The Sisters ` dealt with love, Jealousy and Obsession as their main themes. ` Porphyria’s Lover ` is more involved in jealousy as its main feeling, this is because the narrator was always jealous of Porphyria’s higher social standing. Compared to ` The Sisters, ` where this concentrates on obsession. This is because the sister was so obsessed with the Earl that she would stop at nothing to keep he Earl hers forever. Also now that the Porphyria and the Earl are dead, the narrator and the sister are now in control.

· At the end of the poem I believe that these two poems are quite similar in content and carry the same sort of message as each other, even though there are parts which are quite different, there are also parts which are very similar, and both explore the themes of love.

Ø Conclusion:-

· Although both Tennyson and Browning are important Victorian poets, they differ in background and style.

· In the end we can say that browning 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.

· The murders in the poems were premeditated, the sister plans to kill the Earl when he went for dinner, and Porphyria's lover says,"While I debated what to do." This is especially chilling as he loves Porphyria and because of a brief moment of insanity, he kills her. I think that Browning and Tennyson make the murders premeditated as in the Victorian period they liked to read of murder and horror stories, they also liked the idea of melodrama which these two plays are. Melodramatic literature is stories poem etc... that deals with men and women at critical moments in their relationships. The poems are also dramatic dealing with events like murder, victims, rejected lovers etc... these two poems involve in murder and love, "The Sisters," in the woman is the murderer and the Earl is the victim, this especially enjoyable because normally poems, stories and other literature are stereotypical making the male the murderer.

· In conclusion Browning and Tennyson present the theme of love in their poems us

· ing dramatic monologues and melodrama which were greatly liked during the oppressive Victorian period.