Responses to In Memoriam

Hello Victorianists,

We return on Thursday to our dear friend Tennyson, and also to his dear friend, Arthur Henry Hallam.  Hallam is familiar to us as the reviewer who acknowledged Tennyson's innovation of the dramatic monologue ("a graft of the lyric onto the dramatic,"from "On some of the characteristics of modern poetry," in the last section of your text book).  As well as a promising literary critic, Hallam was also Tennyson's dear friend, was beloved of Tennyson's family, and engaged to Tennyson's sister.  While traveling abroad in 1833, at the age of 22, Hallam died suddenly, leaving Tennyson bereft. 

Written in snatches over more than 16 years, In Memoriam is both a deeply personal tribute to a lost love, and an exploration of human grief and mourning that spoke to an entire culture's anxieties about faith, loss, and humanity's place in a universe that seemed increasingly foreign and hostile.

As you read, you may want to look for moments that speak to these larger cultural concerns, for example the discussion of faith and theories of evolution in stanzas 54-56.  Equally, you may want to read with an eye toward the ways that Tennyson seeks for ways to articulate his relationship with his lost friend (stanza 40, for example).

Happy reading, 
Prof. M.

Tennyson and his son, Hallam.

Portrait of Victoria in mourning (Bertha Muller, National Portrait Gallery)

Responses to Barrett Browning

Dear Victorianists,

On Thursday we'll be discussing Elizabeth Barrett Browning and in particular two major genres of poems she wrote: ballads and political poetry.  We've already seen an example of her political works in "Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point," a poem that revises the dramatic monologue to allow an oppressed figure to tell her own story.  Just as "Runaway" directly attacks slavery in America, "The Cry of the Children" vehemently opposes child labor, a topic of significant debate in the early- to mid-Victorian period, before legislation was drafted to at least reduce working hours for the young.  Here Barrett Browning uses a more traditional poetic structure to make her claim rather than establishing one of the children as her primary speaker.  "Crowned and Wedded," while not a protest poem, also addresses a contemporary event in British politics and its ramifications.

In addition to poetry that addressed specific political issues of her period, Barrett Browning also wrote a large number of ballads or romances, narrative poems originating in oral, folk traditions.  These might seem to be unrelated to her other works.  They make no direct assertions about contemporary political issues; in fact, their settings are often historically and/or culturally distant from Victorian Britain.  You might consider, however, the formal or thematic concerns that these two types of poems share.

In addition to the illustration of "Romaunt of the Page" I sent with the readings, have a look at the illustrated opening of this Parliamentary report on child labor in mines.  More information and images at the British Library: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/child-labour

Happy reading,
Prof. M.

Responses to the "silent speaker" dramatic monologues (for 2/11)

Dear Victorianists,

Your first close reading assignment of the semester is on our poems for Thursday; please post it as a comment on this thread.

The previous dramatic monologues we have examined have all been spoken by seemingly powerful figure while a relatively disempowered figure listens and is silenced: the duke for example is landed gentry and thus holds political, social, and economic sway over many around him, including the lowly envoy to whom he speaks.  As a husband, he also owned his duchesses as if she were property.  As readers, we hear nothing from either the envoy or the woman in the scenario.

The dramatic monologues for Thursday all reverse this position: the speaker is a disempowered figure, a woman, a slave, a prostitute ("castaway" and "Magdalen" were both terms for prostitutes or fallen women), etc.

Gustav Dore's illustration for Thomas Hood's "The Bridge of Sighs" depicts the common fate of a fallen woman in Victorian literature: premature death.

The only exception is "The Farmer's Wife," in which the husband speaks the poem.  However, its author is a woman-- a woman who dressed and presented as male throughout her adult life-- and so ventriloquizing a male character may mean something different to her than it did to Tennyson and Browning.

Happy reading,
Prof. M.

Andrea del Sarto images

Dear Victorianists,

As promised, some of Andrea del Sarto's works:

His most famous work, known as Madonna of the Harpies.  Owned by the Uffizi Gallery: http://www.uffizi.org/halls/halls-57-and-58/

And some images from a recent exhibit in our own backyard.  For a full catalogue, see the Frick Collection's page: http://www.frick.org/exhibitions/del_sarto/checklist