Student:
Negar Hossein
Profesor:
Vicente Fores Lopez
University:
University of Valencia, Faculty of Philology
Contents:
1.
The Victorian era, an
Inroduction
2. The
Industrial Revolution
3. Victorian
Imperalism
4.
Comparation of
Alfred Lord Tennyson´s poem "In Memoriam A.H.H." and William Wordsworth´s poem
"Influence of Natural Objects"
1.
The Victorian and Victorianism
"The
Victorian era of the United Kingdom was an important stage in the development of
the British Industrial Revolution and especially an imporant period for the
British Empire. Particularly, the Victorian era refers to the reign of Queen
Victoria from 1837 until 1901."1
"The
Victorian era was a very impressive and exciting era which is described as a
paradoxical age and it is well-known as the second English
Renaissance."2
"In
Victorian England people noticed a great expansion of wealth and power which
influenced the culture´s and literature´s growth. If one pays attention to the
people´s way of lives during the reign of Queen Victoria one can say that the
people were very prudish. The Victorians had ideas and attitudes which were more
traditional and not very progressive of that time. One was not able to have
feelings or desires that allow oneself to express or think the way they liked
without hide one´s feelings. People showed their disapproval and were very
easily shocked by topics relating to sex.
On
the other hand the Victorians were known to be very clever and had the ability
to think about new ideas. Their cleverness marked science and tecnology. The
people´s reputation depended on their activities in their past. One had a good
reputation if his activities deserved respect or admiration.
In
religion the Victorians experienced an age of doubt, e.g. institutional
Christianity was questioned.
Considering
oneself to literature and other arts the Victorians had a talent for invention.
They tried to creat something which seemed to be revolutionary. For instance,
"Victorians attempted
to combine Romantic emphases upon self, emotion, and imagination with
Neoclassical ones upon the public role of art and a corollary responsibility of
the artist."3
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era
2. The Industrial
Revolution
The Industrial Revolution
caused economic and social changes. The result was that large numbers of people
went to industrial towns, especially to find work. "Mill towns grew quickly in
central and northern England."5 The immigrants had to live in urban areas. For
instance, Manchester increased immensely in the years between 1760 and 1830.
"Families
lived in horribly crowded, unsanitary housing. Moved by the terrible suffering
resulting from a severe economic depression in the early 1840s,... ."4
"During the Victorian era
many writers showed an impressive interest in the working class. For instance,
Elisabeth Barrett wrote a poem about child labour and she described the
children´s
suffering, misfortune and misery. Friedrich Engels lived twenty month in
Manchester and described in his book of the year 1845 the industrial conditions
of Manchester which was fundamental for his cooperation with Karl Marx. Frierich
Engels and Karl Marx stressed that the industrial capitalist society is unfair.
In 1854 Charles Dickens described the rigidity of the industrial towns in his
writings. During the 1830s and the 1840s the parlimentary committees and
conditions investigated the industrial town´s working
situation of women and children and found out that they were working under
unhuman conditions. Additionally, it is important to mention that Poverty Knock,
a nineteenth-century British Folk song described the weaver´s
unpleasant work. One have to mention an important and interesting man who is
well-known as a travel writer, the reformer William Booth compares
England´s overcrowded industrial cities with
Africa´s jungle. William Booth compares
England´s urban slums with the jungle which is known as a
thick tropical forest with many plants growing very close together. Besides, C.
Duncan Lucas reports about the industrial situation of England and associates
the factories like a beehive."5
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5
forementioned
4. Victorian
Imperalism
"By the end of the 19th
century nearly 400 people were ruled by the Great Britain. The following
countries were under the political control of Great Britain in 1901, e.g.
Australia,
British Guiana (now Guyana), Brunei, Canada, Cyprus, Egypt, Gambia, the Gold
Coast (Ghana), Hong Kong, British India (now Bangladesh, India, Myanmar,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka), Ireland, Kenya, Malawi, the Malay States (Malaysia),
Malta, Mauritius, New Zealand, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somaliland
(Somalia), South Africa, the Sudan, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and Trinidad and
Tobago. Additionally, it is
remarkable to mention the crown colonies like Jamaica on which Britain had the
official power. One have to take in consideration Uganda which was protected and
controlled by Great Britain. It is important to know that Canada and Australia
became practically "self-governing" by its own organizatns.
One have to focus himself
to a more interesting development of England´s foreign
affairs between 1870 and 1900. It was very essential and important for Great
Britain´s economy to find "virtual partners" who did not
lose their authority for their own country. Great Britain tried to influence
other contries advantageously for its own economy."6
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Topic of my second
paper:
Comparation of Alfred
Lord Tennyson´s poem "In
Memoriam A.H.H." and William Wordsworth poem "Influence of Natural
Objects"
Alfred
Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
In
Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 56
1"So
careful of the type?" but no.
2
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
3
She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
4I
care for nothing, all shall go.
5"Thou
makest thine appeal to me:
6
I bring to life, I bring to death:
7
The spirit does but mean the breath:
8I
know no more." And he, shall he,
9Man,
her last work, who seem'd so fair,
10
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
11
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
12Who
built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
13Who
trusted God was love indeed
14
And love Creation's final law--
15
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
16With
ravine, shriek'd against his creed--
17Who
loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
18
Who battled for the True, the Just,
19
Be blown about the desert dust,
20Or
seal'd within the iron hills?
21No
more? A monster then, a dream,
22
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
23
That tare each other in their slime,
24Were
mellow music match'd with him.
25O
life as futile, then, as frail!
26
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
27
What hope of answer, or redress?
28Behind
the veil, behind the veil.
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2141.html
William
Wordsworth (1770-1850)
FIRST
STANZA
1 Wisdom
and Spirit of the universe!
2 Thou Soul, that art the
Eternity of thought!
3 And giv'st to forms and
images a breath
4 And everlasting motion! not
in vain,
5 By day or star-light, thus
from my first dawn
6 Of childhood didst thou
intertwine for me
7 The passions that build up
our human soul;
8 Not with the mean and
vulgar works of Man;
9 But with high objects, with
enduring things,
10 With life and
nature; purifying thus
11 The elements of feeling and of
thought,
12 And sanctifying by
such discipline
13 Both pain and
fear,--until we recognise
14 A grandeur in the
beatings of the heart.
15 Nor
was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
16 With stinted
kindness. In November days,
17 When vapours rolling
down the valleys made
18 A lonely scene more
lonesome; among woods
19 At noon; and 'mid
the calm of summer nights,
20 When, by the margin
of the trembling lake,
21 Beneath the gloomy
hills, homeward I went
22 In solitude, such
intercourse was mine:
23 Mine was it in the
fields both day and night,
24 And by the waters,
all the summer long.
25 And in the frosty
season, when the sun
26 Was set, and,
visible for many a mile,
27 The cottage-windows
through the twilight blazed,
28 I heeded not the
summons: happy time
29 It was indeed for
all of us; for me
30 It was a time of
rapture! Clear and loud
31 The village-clock
tolled six--I wheeled about,
32 Proud and exulting
like an untired horse
33 That cares not for
his home.--All shod with steel
34 We hissed along the
polished ice, in games
35 Confederate,
imitative of the chase
36 And woodland
pleasures,--the resounding horn,
37 The pack
loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.
38 So through the
darkness and the cold we flew,
39 And not a voice was
idle; with the din
40 Smitten, the
precipices rang aloud;
41 The leafless trees
and every icy crag
42 Tinkled like iron;
while far-distant hills
43 Into the tumult sent
an alien sound
44 Of melancholy, not
unnoticed while the stars,
45 Eastward, were
sparkling clear, and in the west
46 The orange sky of
evening died away.
SECOND
STANZA.
47
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
48 Into a silent bay,
or sportively
49 Glanced sideway,
leaving the tumultuous throng,
50 To cut across the
reflex of a star;
51 Image, that, flying
still before me, gleamed
52 Upon the glassy
plain: and oftentimes,
53 When we had given
our bodies to the wind,
54 And all the shadowy
banks on either side
55 Came sweeping
through the darkness, spinning still
56 The rapid line of
motion, then at once
57 Have I, reclining
back upon my heels,
58 Stopped short; yet
still the solitary cliffs
59 Wheeled by me--even
as if the earth had rolled
60 With visible motion
her diurnal round!
61 Behind me did they
stretch in solemn train,
62 Feebler and feebler,
and I stood and watched
63 Till all was
tranquil as a summer sea.
4. Comparation of Alfred
Lord Tennyson´s poem "In
Memoriam A.H.H." and William
Wordsworth´s poem "Influence of Natural
Objects"
The
poem "In Memoriam
A.H.H."
by Alfred
Lord Tennyson is written
in memory
of Tennyson´s friend Arthur Henry
Hallam "who
died suddenly of a cerebral
hemorrhage in Vienna
in 1833."1
He was a very famous an respected man. Arthur Henry Hallam was engaged with
Tennyson´s sister. Tennyson shows his feelings and emotions about his
friend´s disease. One gets the impression that Tennyson is
thinking carefully about his friend´s death in order to
reflect what had happened.
The poem
"In Memoriam A.H.H." contains seven stanzas. One can investigate that the poem
is written in four-line ABBA stanzas of iambic pentameter. The first stanzas
emphasizes the following words like "scarped cliff", "quarried stone" and "care"
which has the effect that tennyson´s readers feel sympathy for his suffering and sadness. Tennyson is
thinking about his friend´s death and it seems that he is
very melancoly. The author´s intention is to get attenion
and that his readers feel sorry for his situation. One can notice that he
addresses his readers to help him emotionally. Tennyson describes specially his
sister´s sorrow. She has lost the man who she loved and
liked to marry with.
In the
following Tennyson says that "all shall go" that means that he begins to be
thoughtful and think like a way which makes him able to accept the lives rules.
Namely, that everybody will die sonner or later.
The first
stanza deals with the authors doubt about the God´s existence. One can refer himself to the Victorian era and relate
Tennyson´s thoughts to the fact that the people were
chianging his way of thinking about God and reflecting their moral norms. The
second stanza is about God and his power to creat life and the ability to take
this life away, e.g. " I bring to life, I bring to death". Tennyson is refusing
the traditional moral norms by saying "And he, shall he,... ." At the same time,
one can focus himself to William Wordsworth poem "Influence of Natural Objects"
who tried to express his moral point of view. Wordsworth regards nature as an
example to human beings. Nature is everything in the physical world that is not
contrilled by humans. The nature´s owner is God and
Wordsworth says that we have to respect and admire nature. We have to pray and
try to protect our world, beacuse it is God´s present for
the human being. We should not complain about our life and try to trust in God
and his "plan". On the other hand,
if one compare Wordsworth moral view one can say that Tennyson is not agree to
God´s freedom and power to decide and rule over his life
and over those of his fellow beings. His addresses God and expresses the
message, " I do not leave it to you." That is the reason why nature is not
perfect. In my opinion Tennyson shows that he is not string enough to put up
with his sad situation. He is losing his faith in God and his feelings do not
let him to be exuberant. If one trusts in God he will never doubt about his
decisions. Simultaneously, his sister expresses her anger and shows that she is
unsatisfied. To my mind, Wordsworth considers their behaviour as a sin towards
God. Wordsworth admires nature which is related to God and for him nature is
perfect and holy. One should not question why nature creats wild plants and
animals, earth and rocks, and the water. This shold be related as well to God
that a human being should trust in God and should not question his actions and
complain about things in life. The complaint and the human being´s dissatisfaction is seemed like an action that is against religious
rules an is considered to be an offence against God. For the Victorian era it
was remarkable that people began to be active psyhologically and reflected the
traditional way of life. Wordsworth is an famous and important author of
romanticism. Romanticism considered wild nature beauty as more important than
anything else in the world whose owner is God. Wordsworth´s
poem represents a contrast towards Tennyson´s poem.
Wordsworth is teaching his readers and explains what is for him a right or wrong
behaviour. The victorian era leaded to great improvements. The third stanza is
very interesting if we want to compare the two poems. Both poets, Tennyson and
Wordsworth, have something in common refering to their way to express their
sadness. They express their sadness and mourning by describing the nature and
relate their emotions to nature. For instance, in Wordsworth poem, "vapours
rolling down the valley." Additionally, i like to show another example in
Tennyson´s poem which supports my observation of the way
how both poets express their emotions in their particular time. Namely, Tennyson
says, "Such splendid purpose in his eyes, who rolled the psalm to wintry skies."
The forth stanza Tennyson shows his hatred for God by decribing the nature in a
ugly way, e.g. Tennyson talks about
a deep narrow valley like "ravine". He feels anger about God because of the
"final law" which Tennyson defines as the life´s price who
everybody has to pay, namely the people´s death and the
loss of the loved and the beloved.
The fifth
stanza is about Tennyson´s past and his childhood. He remembers his illnesses and his sorrows. He
talks about his epilepsy attacks and that he had to stay under the control of a
doctor´s care. It is important to mention that his family
was ill and he had not a happy childhood, e.g. his brother suffered from
addiction and illness. To my mind, if one is not content with his life or
something had happened in his life which has affected him very badly you
automatically or probably will begin to remember yourself at all the bad
situations in his life. This is what is happening to Tennyson. Besides, there
are critical comments which affected Tennyson as well. "Glenn Everett comments
that Tennyson was very sensitive to criticism and reading those harsh comments
hurt him immensely. Tennyson stoped to publish his poems. I supose that he was
not very self-confident. He could not endure that his readers did not think well
of him and he thought that they do not like him. Tennyson´s
intention was to get help, sympathy and emotional support. He was not
emotionally strong enough to take part in arguments or to discuss about his
poetry. In addition to that, one can notice that his poetry could be seen like a
communication to his readers in order to describe and show his suffering. If his
readers him begin to let him suffer more he loses his pleasure for writing
poems. Besides, Worthwords is a very strong and self-confident poet. He is
teaching his readers and at the same time he has a superior position towards his
readers. Wordsworth was admired by his readers because of the fact that he had a
moral view which was shared by a majority of the society of that particular
time. The victorian era was more revolutionary that the romanticism. People
expressed their point of view more and in the time of romanticism the religion
had more values that in later times. That is because of the industrial
revolution and the scientific progress which influenced the people´s behaviour and rection to literature, art and politics. To my mind, it
is very revolutionary if Tennyson begins to behave himself in a way that shows
his readers that he does not apreciate God and that he is doubting his
existence. In my opinion, he did not intend to insult somebody of his unfaithful
behaviour. On the other hand, he should accept the societies´ reaction to his poetry.
The sixth
stanza supports furthermore his antipathy towards God because of the fact that i
suppose that he is talking of God when he is sayind, "a monster,
than
a dream...
." The next verse is an antithesis, namely, "dragons of the prime". A Dragon is
a large imaginary animal that has
wings a long tail and can breath out fire. That is very interesting to me that
Tennyson is talking about Dragons. One can read the exact definition of what is
a dragon and one can associate this description with Tennyson´s imagination of God. The reason for that is that Tennyson considers the
wings like the Angel´s wings and the tail like
devil´s tail. This association represents as well an
antithesis which in my opinion can be described as an metaphor. A metaphor
replaces the reality and is imagination and association of our ideas. In
addition to this and as i have already mentioned, the dragon has the ability to
breath out fire which is likewise a metaphor and comparation of the devil and
God. Nevertheless, the wings point out that the devil which is for Tennyson God
has a holy quality in his imagination. Actually, Tennyson trusted in God but his
anger and his sadness about losing his best friend Arthur did not let him to
think clearly. At the same moment, Tennyson has the hope that everything is a
dream but for him the situation is not a dream its reality. Aditionally, one
have to focus on the fact that he says, "a monster, than a dream." That means
that he is hoping that everthing was a dream, but does not have a sense if one
reads Tennyson´s
expression. He is talking of a person and describing him as a monster,
but a person cannot be confrontated with a dream. In my opinion one has to focus
on the semantical meaning of Tennyson´s expression and not
on the literal one. The semantical meaning is that Tennyson´s hope that his friend´s death is not just a bad
dream is for him God´s blame. As God has the power to
judge. If a lawer judges about somebody´s life it means
that he has thought carefully about all the informations and then he has the
oportunity to decide. Wordsworth thinks that one should accept and respect
God´s power. For instance, Wordsworth is talking of "Wisdom
and Spirit of the Universe". The Universe can be described as all space,
including all the stars and planets.
Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe can be regarded as the fact that the
Universe is created by God. In opposition to Tennyson, Wordsworth admires and
honours God in his poem.
The last
stanza is very interesting because Tennyson shows that he has lost all his faith
in God and tries to find other solutions to communicate with his best friend
Arthur. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any solution or posibility to
meet his fried Arthur Hallam again. He is talking about a "veil" which prevents
him from meeting his friend. The "veil" has a religious meaning which can be
analysed. Women have to cover their faces for religious reasons and only their
husbands are allowed to see them without their veil at home. This home is
considered to be a special place for the couple. If Tennyson is speaking of the
"veil" which prevents him to communicate with Arthur Hallam, it means that his
friend is near to God, e.g. "behind the veil, behind the veil".Therefore, God is
a rival for him. Tennyson is asking for "redress", because he does not
understand or does not like to accept that the death is the law of the life.
Otherwise, he is expecting that God gives him answers, for instance, "What hope
of answer, or redress?" Tennyson is thinking about what life means to him. He
says, "O life as futile, then, as frail!" That menas that Tennyson regards life
as useless, because for he thinks that he will not be happy or successful in
life. He does not have hope that his sadness will improve. Tennyson says that he
does not want to write poems in the future. To my mind he has lost his
happiness. Simultaneously, Wordsworth expresses his desire to retire, because of
a lot of noise, angry and protest of his poems. Tennyson and Wordsworth have in
common that they want to stop writing because their readers began to critizise
their poems. To my mind, Wordsworth feels insulted. If one reads his poem, one
can say that he is teaching. He does not want that people judge him.
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Memoriam_A.H.H.
2 http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/tennybio.html
, Glen Everett