FROM ROMANTICISM
WITH KEATS TO VICTORIAN
AGE WITH TENNYSON
INTRODUCTION
In this paper I am going to analyse two poems, a Romantic poem and a
Victorian poem. The Romantic poem is ‘When I have Fears that I may Cease to Be’ by John Keats and the Victorian poem is ‘Tears, Idle
Tears’ by Alfred Tennyson.
Firstly, I will make a brief introduction about the authors and then I
will analyse the poems.
Next I will talk about the socio- historical context of the authors.
Finally I want to make a comparison between the contexts and at the same time
relate them with the poems.
‘WHEN I HAVE FEARS
THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE’
The first poem about which I am going to talk is ‘When I have Fears that
I may Cease to Be’ by John Keats. This poem was
written in 1817 and published in 1818. It belongs to ‘Posthumous and Fugitive
Poems’. 1
It was sent in a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, a close friend of
Keats. 1.1 1.2
John Keats was a romantic English poet from a lower- middle- class
family and how it is said in the Encyclopedia
of World Biography 2 ‘his works are marked by rich
imagery and melodic beauty’.
I have chosen this poem because its subject is very moving: death and
poetry. Furthermore, he died very young; this was his main worry, to die too
young, without having realized his objectives and dreams. The most shocking of
this poem maybe is that Keats knew that what he had written would happen. On
the one hand, it is like a kind of prediction. On the other hand, diseases were
very usual at this time. So, he is conscious of death can come to him at any
moment.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
With regard to the external structure of the poem, it is an
Elizabethan sonnet. It consists on 14 lines (iambic pentameter, 10 syllables
per line): three quatrains and a couplet. And the rhyme is: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. (Taking still as a reference the Wikipedia:
3).
WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE (Text from Bartleby.com)
1 WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be A
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming
brain, B
Before high pil`d
books, in charact'ry, A
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd
grain; B
5 When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, C
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, D
And feel that I may never live to trace C
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; D
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! E
10 That I shall never look upon thee more, F
Never have relish in the faery power E
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore F
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, G
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
G
Analysis of the poem (To make the analysis of the poem I have taken
some information from the next websites: 3.1 3.2 )
First of all it is important to make reference to Keats’ theory of
‘Negative Capability’. We can see the application of this theory in the poem.
Keats describes the theory in a letter to George and Thomas Keats (from Wikipedia):
‘I had not a dispute but a
disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several
things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to
form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare
possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is
capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable
reaching after fact & reason’.
When I have fears that I may cease
to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pil`d books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
In this first quatrain the main idea is poetry. His true passion is
poetry and his fear is to lose this poetry because of death.
Keats doesn’t want to die before having shown all his ideas: ‘before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain’. Books have a very important value for him.
Keats uses a simile to talk about them: ‘Before high pil`d
books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain’. He compares the books with ‘rich garners’ and
its information with ‘full- ripen’d grain’. Keats
still wants to learn many things from the books.
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high
romance,
And feel that I may never live to
trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand
of chance;
Here Keats continues talking about poetry and him. He shows his
sentimental and melancholic facet. He beholds the stars in the sky and at the
same time, as a good romantic poet, he sees symbols. These symbols can inspire
him to write because each of them has a meaning for him: ‘When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance’.
Keats is sad because, if he dies, he will not be able to interpret the
‘symbols’ and write about them..: ‘And
feel that I may never live to trace Their shadows,
with the magic hand of chance’. Furthermore, when he says ‘with the magic
hand of chance’, he is maybe saying that the possibility that he has of behold
all these symbols, stars… is an opportunity that everybody couldn’t have. He
could have a feeling of impotence.
We can see in these lines the main characteristics of a romantic poet.
And when I feel, fair creature of an
hour!
That I shall never look upon thee
more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;
Now Keats makes reference to love. To understand this quatrain we have
to know external information. Having been looking information up in some web
sources I have found who is the ‘fair creature’ that Keats mentions in this
quatrain.
This fair creature is an undefined woman who also appears in other
Keats’ poems as 'Fill for me a brimming
bowl' and 'Time's sea hath been'.
4
Keats saw this woman at Vauxhall, but they never talked or met each
other. He was obsessed with her and then he compared all women to her. 5
In this quatrain Keats talks to this woman. He calls her ‘fair creature
of an hour’. Maybe for the reason I said before, he never talked to her and, in
that way, she is ‘fair’ from him. He also says ‘of an hour’ because he would
have been observing her during this time.
We can see his obsession for her when he says ‘I shall never look upon thee more’. He was worried about a person
who he never met and talked to.
Keats is sad because he knows that this love is impossible and at the
same time because he never had lived the love he wanted. It was an unfulfilled
wish.
—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and
think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
In this last part of the poem Keats shows the insignificance of the
human being in the world ‘on the shore of
the wide world’. Maybe he is saying that death is the end of the things
that you really love. In this case love and fame were important aspects for
him, and at the end (with death) they become nothing: ‘to nothingness do sink’.
‘TEARS, IDLE TEARS’
The second poem I am going to analyse is ‘Tears, Idle Tears’ written in
1847 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Now, we leave the Romanticism and go to the
Victorian era with Tennyson.
(Following the Wikipedia 6) This poem belongs
to another long poem, ‘The Princess’, published in 1847. Concretely ‘Tears,
Idle Tears’ corresponds to the IV part of ‘The Princess’.
An important characteristic of this poem is that it does not rhyme
(blank verse; From Wikipedia: Blank verse
is a type of poetry,
distinguished by having a regular meter,
but no rhyme. In
English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic
pentameter.)
As the Wikipedia says 6: Tennyson was
inspired to write the poem by a visit to Tintern
Abbey in Monmouthshire,
He said that the convent was "full for me of its bygone
memories", and that
the poem was about "the passion of
the past, the abiding in the transient."
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
(To make the analysis of the poem I have taken some information from the
next websites: 8 9 )
TEARS, IDLE TEARS (Text from Wikipedia)
1 Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
5 And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
10 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
15 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
20 O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they
mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
First of all, in the first stanza, Tennyson talks about the origin of
tears. He is completely confused; he does not know what they mean. However,
what he has very clear is that these tears have a lot of feeling: ‘Rise in the heart’. Tears are the way
he shows to the world his sadness and gloominess.
Then he continues talking about ‘the happy autumn- fields’. Here we have a
better example of gloominess; when someone says the word ‘happy’ in a context
like this is because this person is not sad, is gloom.
The autumn fields could have many interpretations for the poet, but I have
my own interpretation of it. Tennyson maybe remembers the days that spent with
his close friend Arthur Hallam. Hallam
died practically in autumn and when Tennyson looks the autumn fields he
remembers his friend and those days that never will return.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a
sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
In the second stanza Tennyson is talking about death. He talks about the
‘boat’ of death. In the two first lines he seems optimistic; he is using the
word ‘fresh’. Here maybe he believes on the story of the boat that brings dead
people to the underworld. But he is saying the contrary, in these lines he says
that the boat brings them FROM the underworld. This would be the reason why he
seems more optimistic.
On the contrary, then he continues and uses the word ‘sad’. Tennyson
explains the return of his dead friends, those who he loves: ‘That
sinks with all we love below the verge’.
And in the last line he makes a little conclusion of that stanza: ‘So sad, so fresh, the days that are no
more’.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark
summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
This stanza is difficult to interpret, but I have tried to find a meaning.
The first line is clear; a dark down in summer is something that makes we feel
sad. Everybody expects a sunny summer down and when we have this dark summer
down we feel as Tennyson says: ‘sad and strange’.
Perhaps the next lines describe the way Tennyson is feeling in front of
this situation. He feels sad and he perceives things in a different way. With
his dying ears he hears ‘The earliest
pipe of half-awaken'd birds’, birds are not
completely awake for him. And his dying eyes see the casement that slowly grows
a glimmering square.
And finally always he ends making reference to the days that he already
doesn’t have.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no
more!
In the last stanza Tennyson talks about love. Tennyson can be telling his
own experiences in love. Maybe he remembers his first love that could be very
important for him: ‘Deep as first love,
and wild with all regret’.
The last line ‘O Death in Life, the
days that are no more!’ sums the whole stanza up. He feels himself like if
he was dead: ‘Death in life’.
The poems are already analysed. Now we have a
poem from the Romanticism and a poem from the Victorian Era. The next step in
this paper is to talk about the main characteristics of both authors and their
contexts. Then we will continue with the comparison between them and, of
course, we will see the similarities or differences between the two poems.
SOCIO- HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF
JOHN KEATS
The Romantic John Keats, as we know, was born in
The beginning of 19th century also was the beginning of a great
development in several aspects of life and society. However, the problems still
were present.
First of all, the pollution started to be an important problem; it was
accompanied with terrible diseases. Furthermore, the distinction between social
classes became stronger, the early 19th century
With regard to culture and politics of this early 19th century,
In this period politics in
Politics also affected to the citizens ‘By
the 1820’s working and middle class Londoners became increasingly politicised’ (The
Proceedings of the Old Bailey).
John Keats grew up in this context and it influenced him in his poetry
works. However, the most important aspect that influenced Keats when he wrote
the poem ‘When I have
Fears that I may Cease to Be’ is the problem of death and diseases.
(Following Wikipedia 10) His brother, Tom Keats,
had just died when he wrote this poem because of a disease, tuberculosis. The
family of Keats had suffered from this disease, so it was hereditary.
Then Keats also started to feel the signs of tuberculosis and because of
this he started to have fear towards death. This fear made him write the poem
and this fear inspired him to write about what he really loved and didn’t want
to lose. Keats died only three years after having written the poem.
SOCIO- HISTORICAL
CONTEXT OF ALFRED TENNYSON
Alfred Tennyson was born in
When Alfred Tennyson wrote the poem ‘Tears, Idle Tears’ (1847), he was
living in
(From The
Victorian Web) The Victorian Era had begun when Tennyson was working in the
poem ‘Tears, Idle Tears’. In this period were important changes in wealth,
power and culture. These changes were because of the Industrial Revolution,
changes that produced benefits, but also bad consequences. In this period is
when changes are more visible.
Now the Victorians had a new way of thinking, they tried to find
solutions to their problems. With this mentality things could be better.
In society was an incredible development: democracy, feminism, union of
workers, socialism… This could be a period of modernization. Furthermore, among
the Victorians appeared the importance of social responsibility; the best example
is Tennyson who went to
As George P. Landow
continues saying in the Victorian Web,
in literature the Victorians wanted to combine some characteristics of the
Romanticism (like emphasis, emotion and imagination) with Neoclassical
characteristics.
(From Dickens’
London Page) However, they still had the same problems of the Romantic
period. For example, the diseases were still present because of the water from the
river
It was created a new law to help poor people, the New Poor Law (1834).
Workhouses were created for them, but these houses seemed a prison where ‘civil liberties were denied, families were
separated, and human dignity was destroyed’ as David Perdue says in his Charles Dickens’ website.
Alfred Tennyson lived in this context and he had all the characteristics
of a Victorian poet.
Society was very important for him (sense of social responsibility) and
he spent much of his time helping the lower classes.
With Tennyson we can see the society from a different point of view;
from the point of view of the upper classes (we must remember that he was a
Poet Laureate of the
COMPARISON OF THE SOCIO- HISTORICAL CONTEXTS
We already know the context where Keats and Tennyson were when they
created the poems. Now it would be interesting to compare both contexts and
analyse its similarities or differences and its influences.
(Information taken from Wikipedia 12 13) First of
all we can find a difference between the lives of the authors. Keats had a
difficult life, his parents died when he was very young and he was sent to a
school to be a surgeon’s apprentice. But what he really loved was literature
and he decided to dedicate to it. Then, his brother died, also from
tuberculosis, three years later he died at the early age of 25.
However, Tennyson was one of the descendants of King Edward III of
Keats and Tennyson were born at similar time, Keats 1795 and Tennyson
1809. But Keats only lived the beginning of some changes that would explode in
Tennyson’s times.
Keats was shocked because of his life; death had been present during all
his short life. So, this context made him to write the poem ‘When I have Fears
that I may Cease to Be’. (From Wikipedia- links
12 and 13).
As I said before, this period was a period where literature started to
be powerful and Keats had fears towards death, but concretely fears towards the
possibility of not writing again.
Tennyson received an enormous influence from Keats. We can see it
clearly in Tennyson’s poem ‘Tears, Idle Tears’.
In their poems they are not talking about the same topic, but they talk
to the same, death. Both of them have suffered a loss and they show their
sadness and melancholy in the poems.
As Abrams, M.H. says in ‘The
Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition’ the Romantics tried to express their feelings and thoughts in a
sincere, original, intensive, spontaneous, alienate… way. In the Victorian Era
the Victorians had to write in a middle point between egotism and excessive
subjectivity, concretely, as Abrams says, ‘they had to find public uses for very private experiences without either
becoming egotistical or makes themselves vulnerable… Victorian literature therefore attempts
bravely, and often successfully, to combine the individuality, originality,
intensity, and above all sincerity of Wordsworth and Keats with
publicly accessibility and social relevance of Pope and Johnson’.
This would be the main difference between Keats as a
Romantic poet and Tennyson as a Victorian.
With regard to the similarities between the poems I think
that these similarities are stronger than the differences. The main reason is
the socio- historical context. Keats and Tennyson are not very distanced in
time, so Tennyson received a direct influence from Keats. Tennyson, of course,
adapts this influence to the characteristics of his Victorian time.
CONCLUSION
As a conclusion I can say that the poems I have
analysed deal with a very personal topic, death. I have chosen these poems
because, first of all, they talk about a similar topic. And secondly, because I
think that it is very interesting to analyse the thoughts and feelings of the
poets about these personal topics, trying to understand why they use
determinate words and what they want to express.
I also have found interesting to analyse two poems
that are talking about the same, but from different points of view.
Furthermore, between Keats and Tennyson we can see the step from Romanticism to
the Victorian Era. These poems show, as Abrams said
before, an evolution in their way of expression.
With this paper I have arrived to the final conclusion
that the socio- historical context and poetry go together, they develop
together. While society is living the changes of a new period, poetry is
adapting itself to these new changes.
WEBGRAPHY
• Quiller- Couch, Arthur, ed. 1919. The
• Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, 'Gender in the Proceedings', Old
Bailey Proceedings Online. 2003-
2007. 3 Dec 2007 <http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/london-life/london-life18th.html>.
• Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, 'Gender in the Proceedings', Old
Bailey Proceedings Online. 2003-
2007. 3 Dec 2007 <http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/london-life/london-life19th.html
>
• History of London- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
5 Dec 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_London#18th_century_London>.
• History of London- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
5 Dec 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_London#19th_century_London
>
• SparkNotes: Tennyson’s Poetry: ‘Tears, Idle Tears’. 2006.
7 Dec 2007 <http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/tennyson/section7.rhtml >
• MegaEssays.com. 2001- 2008. 7
Dec 2007 <http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/97097.html
>
• John Keats Forum. The largest
John Keats bulletin board on the web. 2001- 2005. 10 Dec 2007
<http://www.john-keats.com/phpboard/viewtopic.php?p=6695&sid=4ec72822fd99b1f3554046c5756ca2af
>
• Keats: ‘When I have fears that I
may cease to be’. 10 Dec 2007 <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/fear.html
>
• Dagorn, Lisa M.- Cedar Crest Collage. A 19th- Century BritLit
Web. 13 Dec 2007
<http://courses.wcupa.edu/fletcher/britlitweb/ldagorna.htm
>
• Poemas en Inglés: John
Keats- When I have fears that I may cease to be- 13 Dec 2007
<http://poemaseningles.blogspot.com/2005/06/john-keats-when-i-have-fears-that-i.html
>
• When I have fears that I may
cease to be by John Keats. 13 Dec 2007
<http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/whenihavefears.html
>
• Everett, Glenn. - Associate Professor of English,
• Alfred Tennyson, 1st
Baron Tennyson- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 16 Dec 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred%2C_Lord_Tennyson
>
• Tears, Idle Tears- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
16 Dec 2007
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears,_Idle_Tears
>
• Tintern Abbey- Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia. 16 Dec 2007
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintern_Abbey
>
• Fill for me a brimming bowl@Everything2.com. 21 Dec 2007
<http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1192322
>
• John Keats- Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia. 22 Dec 2007
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats
>
• Literary Encyclopedia:
The Princess. 06 June 2003. 26 Dec
2007
<http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7455
>
• Colvin, Sidney. JOHN KEATS: HIS
LIFE AND POETRY, HIS FRIENDS, CRITICS AND AFTER- FAME. 1917.
26 Dec 2007 < http://englishhistory.net/keats/colvinkeats.html
>
• 19th Century Class
System. 27 Dec 2007 < http://www.romanceeverafter.com/19th_century_class_system.htm >
• Perdue, David A.- Dickens’ London
Page. 1997- 2007. 27 Dec 2007 <http://charlesdickenspage.com/dickens_london.html
>
• Forés, Vicent. Universitat de València Press.
1996- 2000. 29 Dec 2007 <http://www.uv.es/~fores/mainframeuvp.html >
• The Victorian Web- Victorianism. 29
Dec 2007 <http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/index.html >
• Landow, George P.- Professor of English and
Art History,
• Landow, George P.- Professor of English and
Art History,
• Everett, Glenn. - Associate Professor of English,