January 26, 2020

Task on Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning

☆ Difference between The Romantic age and The Victorian age :-

                       The Romantic Period 



The time period of the Romantic age was 1800 to 1850.
It is also known as the Age of Enlightenment. 
The age of began with the French revolution in 1789 and ended with the Parliamentary reforms of 1832.
In 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth published a joint Volume of Poetry called, Lyrical Ballads and in doing so launched the English Romantic Movement. 
The Romantic movement was a negative attitude towards the existing social and political condition and also it was a reaction against Neoclassicism. 
It was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of 18th century. 
The age was a reaction against convention and it was asserted the power of the individual. 
The Romantic period is the age of Idealistic and emphasized the importance of the subjective experience. 
The key points of the Romanticism are :- 1. Nature, 2. Imagination, 3. Emotion, 4. Individualism, 5. Enthusiasm for the wild, 6. Gothic or grotesque in nature, 7. Human rights and Idealization of rural life etc.
It was dominated by major poets like : William Wordsworth, S. T Coleridge, William Blake, John Keats, Lord Byron, P.B Shelley, Walter Scott, Robert Burns, Robert Southey etc.

                    The Victorian Age




■ The Victorian age was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.
The Victorian age is also known as the age of the prose and the novel.
■ The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period and its later half overlaps with the first part of the Belle Epoque era of continental Europe.
■ This period began with the passage of the Reform act 1832.
There was strong Religious drive for higher moral standards led by the nonconformist churches such as the Methodist and the Evangical wing of the established church of England.
■ Ideologically, the Victorian era witnessed resistance to the rationalism that defined the Georgian period and an increasing turn towards romanticism and even mysticism with regards to religion, Social values and art.
■ The two main political parties during the era remained the Whigs/ Liberals, the labour party had formed as a distinct political entity.
  
          The Romantic age
      The Victorian age 
          Nature
                    Morality 
Experimentation with Poetic form   
                    The Revolt
         Rebellion 
        Intellectual developments
Ruins and Relics of the Ancient past
          The New education 
        Heroism
        Industrial revolution 
        Emotion 
        Arts and Science 
      Sense and sensuality 
        Search for balance 
      Sublime 
        Realism
      The French Revolution 
        Patriotism 
      The Industrial Revolution 
      Pessimism 
    Devotion to beauty 
      Democracy 
Subjectivity and an emphasis on Individualism 
      Social Unrest 


☆ Difference between Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning  :-

                          Alfred Tennyson 


                     Born : 6 August 1809
                     Death : 6 October 1892

Alfred Tennyson was a British poet. He was the poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poet. In 1829 Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first Pieces, " Timbuktu." Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual, imagery was a major influence on the Pre - Raphaelite brotherhood. In 1850, after William Wordsworth's death and Samuel Roger's refusal, Tennyson was appointed to the position of poet Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Leigh Hunt had also been considered. He held the position until his own death in 1892, the longest tenure of any Laureate. As a source material for his poetry, Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situation to observations of nature. 


☆ His Poems :-

¤ " The Lotos - Eaters
¤ " The Lady of Shalott "
¤ " St. Simeon Stylites "
¤ " Break, Break, Break "
¤ " Ulysses "
¤ " Locksley Hall "
¤ " The Princess "
¤ " Godiva " 
¤ " The Eagle "
¤ " Crossing the Bar "
¤ " The Window "
¤ " Tithonus "

                           Robert Browning 

                
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.  Browning's early career began promising but collapsed. The long poems " Pauline " and " Paracelsus " received some acclaim,  but in 1840 the difficult " Sordello " which was seen as wilfully obscure, brought his poetry into disrepute. His critical reputation rests mainly on his dramatic monologues, in which the words not only convey,setting and action but reveals the speaker's character. His work has nevertheless had many detractors and most of his voluminous output is not widely read.

☆ His Famous works  :-

  1. Pauline : A fragment of a confession ( 1833)
  2. Paracelsus ( 1835 )
  3. Stafford ( 1837 )
  4. Sordello ( 1840 )
  5. Christmas- Eve and Easter- Day (1850)
  6. Men and Women (1855 )
  7. Dramatic Personae ( 1864 )
  8. The Ring and the Book ( 1868 - 69 )
  9. Jocoseria ( 1883 )
  10. Ferishtah's Fancies ( 1884 )

☆ Difference between their writing style  :-

Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning both are prominent figures of the Victorian age. Both the poets apply new techniques and styles in poetry writing but both these poets adopt their own style in their writings.

● Tennyson draws material from external specific realities, ideas and objects and tries to express it through ornate language. On the other hand Browning focuses on the psyche of his frantic characters and tries to look into deep inside of such characters in his writing.  He tries to understand human nature, religion and society properly. 

● Tennyson's tone of expression is generally melancholic where he tends to give touch of nostalgia. Their poetic concern are hardly related and he gives importance in inducing and endorsing a perticular mood. On the other hand Browning's writings are always energetic and systematically depicts the essence of a character. 

● Tennyson as a source for his poetry, used many subjects from domestic condition to observations of atmosphere. Whereas,  Browning takes an immoral characters and challenges us to find out the moral exellence.

☆ Difference between Charles Dickens and George Eliot  :-

                            Charles Dickens 

         
                      Born : 7th February 1812
                      Death : 9 June 1870

" Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes."
                                
                                           - Charles Dickens 

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. His work enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and by the 20th century, critics and scholars recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are still widely read today. In 1832, at age 20, Dickens was energetic and increasingly self confident. He enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become and yet knew he wanted to fame. In November 1836, Dickens accepted the position of editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner. Oliver Twist published in 1838, became on of Dickens's better known stories and was the first Victorian novel with a child protagonist. His notable works are :-

                   " The Pickwick Paper " ( 1836 - 37 )
                   " Oliver Twist "
                   " Nicholas Nickleby "
                   " The Old Curiosity Shop "
                   " Barnaby Rudge "
                   " Bleak House "
                   " Little Dorrit " 
                   " A tale of two cities "
                   " Hard Times "
                   " Edwin Drood "

Dickens's approach to the novel is influenced by various things including the Picaresque novels tradition, melodrama and the novel of sensibility. His writing style is marked by a profuse linguistic creativity. Satire in his forte. His literary style is also a mixture of fantasy and realism. 

                            George Eliot 

                   
                             Born : 22 November 1819
                             Death : 22 December 1880

" What greatest thing is there for two human soul than to feel that they are joined - to strengthen each other - to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories. "
                            
                                               - George Eliot 

Mary Ann Evans was an English novelist, poet, Journalist, translator and one of the leading writer of the Victorian era famous by her pen name George Eliot. She wanted to escape the stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted romances. Throughout her career, Eliot wrote with a Politically astute pen. Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small town persecution. Readers in the Victorian era praised her novels for their depiction of rural society. Much of the material for her prose was drawn from her own experience. Working as a translator ,Eliot was exposed to German texts of religious, social and moral philosophy such as Friedrich Strauss's Life os Jesus. Eliot herself was not Religious. She had respect for religious traditions and its ability to maintain a sense of social order and morality.

          Works 
            Poems
            Other
  " Adam Bede " ( 1859 )
" Two Lovers " ( 1866 )
" The lifted Veil " ( 1859 )
" Middlemarch " (1871-72 )
" Agatha " ( 1869 )
" Brother Jacob " ( 1864 )
" Romola " ( 1863 )
" Brother and Sister " ( 1869 )
" The influence of Rationalism " ( 1865 )
" Silas Marner " ( 1861 )
" Armgart " ( 1871 )
" Three months in Weimar " ( 1855 )
" The Mill on the Floss" (1860 )
" Stradivarious " ( 1873 )
" The Natural History of German Life " ( 1856 )
" Daniel Deronda " ( 1876 )
" The Legend of Jubal " ( 1874 )
" Scenes of Clerical Life " ( 1857 )
" Felix Holt,the Radical " ( 1866 )
" Count that Day Last " ( 1887 )
" Impression of Theophrastus Such " ( 1879 )

☆ Difference between their writings :-

The Complex characters and plots of George Eliot's novels all make for intresting read and challange to think more seriously about choices in love, their personal ambitions and deepest inhibitions. For example her famous novel : Middlemarch. 

While in Charles Dickens's novel one very common theme is poverty. We see this theme in Oliver Twist.  Dickens was writing during the Industrial revolution in London and the stark contrast between the wealthy and the poor was more prevalent than ever before. 


2 comments: