The major writer Tennyson & Browning

1. Name: Joshi Tejasvi a
Class: M.A. Sem: 02
Roll no. 21
Paper no. 06 (The Victorian age)
Topic: Introduction The major Writer Tennyson &
Browning
Submitted to: M.K.B.U. University Bhavnagar.

2.  The duration of queen Victoria’s reign is known
as the Victorian Age or the age of Tennyson or
some critics believes age of Charles Dickens.
 The romantic poet
advocated ‘Art for Art’s sake’
while most of the Victoria
poets supported ‘Art for Morality
sake’ poets like Browning ,
Matthew Arnold used poetry
to improve the society.

3.  Alfred Tennyson(1809-92)
 Tennyson was born in Somersby,
Lincolnshire.
Tennyson’s life is remarkable
 one in this respect, that from
beginning to end he seems to have
been dominated by a single impulse,
the impulse of poetry.
 Tennyson had begun writing as a child and published some
of his best known poems, including ‘Mariana’, when he was
only twenty.
 Tennyson went to Cambridge where he met Arthur Henry
Hallam whose early death was to prompt Tennyson to write
his great elegy of mourning, In “Memoriam”.
 T.S. Eliot called him “the great master of Melancholia.

4.  Poetry
 The Princess (1847) this poem is in blank verse.
 In Memoriam (1850)
 Crossing the Bar (1889) the last poem And his own elegy.
 Ulysses
 Maud and other poems (1855)
 Historical Plays
 Queen Mary(1875)
 Harold(1875
 The Cup (1881) is based on a story from Plutarch.
 The Falcon(1879) is a comedy based on a story from
Boccaccio.
 The Foresters (1892) this story dealing with the familiar
Robin Hood. Theme was produced in America.

5.  “In Memoriam” completed in 1849 written in the memory
of Arthur Hallam. The poem is divided into 133 cantos.
 I hold it true, whatever befall;
 I feel it when I sorrow most;
 ‘tis better to have loved and lost
 Than never to have loved at all.
 This stanza is to be found in canto 27.
 the last two line are usually taken as
 offering a meditation on the dissolution
 of romantic relationship.
 However the lines originally referred
 to the death of the poet’s beloved friend.
 The immortality of human love is the theme of the poem,
which is made up of over one hundred different lyrics.

6.  If we attempt to sum up the quality of
Tennyson, as shown in all these works, the task
is a difficult one; but two things stand out more
or less plainly.
 First, Tennyson is essentially the artist. Second,
like all the great writers of his age he is
emphatically a teacher, often a leader.
Tennyson’s theme, so characteristic of his age,
is the reign of order, of law in the physical
world, producing evolution.

7.  Robert Browning (1812-89).
 He was an English poet and
playwright. Browning’s father
outwardly a business man, a clerk
for fifty years in the Bank of England.
His mother was a sensitive, musical
woman.
 He is another distinguished poet
of the period. He was the father of
dramatic Monologue. He was an
port in pessimistic age. ‘Men and Women’ is
the masterpiece of him. He is not like many
other entertaining poets. One cannot read his
poetry was influenced by Italian painters.
 In 1846 Browning married the older poet
Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was
considerably better known than himself. So started
one of history’s most famous literary marriages.

8.  Poems
 Paracelsus
 King Victor and King Charles
 Pauline, (1833) an introspective poem, which shows
very strongly the influence of Shelly.
 Strafford (1837) produced by the actor Macready
achieved real pathos towards the close.
 Men &women, (his first published work)
 The ring and the book,
 The ring and the book the poem is composed of twelve
books and four volumes from November 1868 through
to February 1869.

9.  A glance at even the titles which Browning
gave to his best known volumes- Dramatic
Lyrics Dramatic Romances and Lyrics, Men
and Women, dramatic personae - will suggest
how strong the dramatic element in all his
work.

10.  Among the two Alfred Lord Tennyson is
considered as the most representative poet of
the age. His poetry provides a mixture of pain
and pleasure. His short poems are marvelous.
He is the master of Elegy. In variety of his
verse. He possesses all the qualities of the
greatest poet.
 Browning is one of the foremost Victorian
poets. His poems are known for their irony,
dark humor, social commentary, historical
settings and challenging.