Course tutor: Dr.

Adrian Radu
Office: M12
Email: aradu@lett.ubbcluj.ro
Web: www.lett.ubbcluj.ro/~aradu

Matthew Arnold

Arnolds Poetry
roots in the classical writings of the Greeks

neoclassical
influences by the Romantics such as Wordsworth
late Romantic
his poems are melancholic, deeply personal (intimate),
introspective, full of sentimental pessimism and
nostalgia
cultivates the soliloquy / intimate confession
his poems are solitary meditations in evocative
surroundings

Dover Beach
meditation on the loss of public values,
the great ages are gone,
faith is lost

what is left is but private affections, the little society of

love and friendship

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

one of the most influential

poets of the age (Poet

Laureate)
melancholic figure
tendency to withdraw in
the past and far-off lands
loyal subject occasional
poetry
lines which resound with
music and harmony
creator of remarkable verse
technique:
the dramatic monologue
the English idyll

Work
direct prolongation of Romanticism
discipline of form
elaborate ornamental effects

intellectual refinement

The Lady of Shalott

artistic creation and the condition of the artist

condemned to live in solitary confinement from

everyday world
the Lady is an artist, a weaver her real world is a
mirror above her loom
her attempt to escape into the real world ends
tragically

The Palace of Art

about the condition of the artist a sequel that

completes The Lady of Shalott

imprisonment in the world of spirituality and
pleasure, symbolised by the Palace of Art
the message is that life in such a world is impossible
life has to be lived directly

The Lotos-Eaters
explores the theme of withdrawal
the sailors express the will to escape into an euphoric

and hedonistic world of sensations and pleasures

the land of the Lotos-Eaters is depicted as a terrestrial
paradise

Ulysses
a dramatic monologue
Ulysses is Dantes Ulysses as he appears in his Inferno.
he is not willing to abandon active life even at old age

life has to be lived to the full at any age

In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850)
series of elegiac poems of 131 sections with a Prologue

and an Epilogue
caused by the death of Arthur Hallam
self-therapy
the meaning of life and death
moves from the shadow cast by death to the light of
hope psychological recovery from despair to
optimistic expectation
reflects the ages crisis of belief and marks the poets
coming to terms with God

Maud (1855)
a monodrama a study of gruesome psychology that

provoked a storm of protest for its morbidity and

violence
the exploitation of the theme of madness
reality is distorted by subjectivity
lyric passages and violent rhetorics

The Idylls of the King (1857-1889)

the project of re-writing the legends about King

Arthur
12 interconnected poems: 10 central poems flanked by
The Coming of Arthur and The Passing of Arthur
the legends are wrapped in a poetical and hued veil
the theme is heroism, its dissolution and ruin after the
introduction of evil to Camelot (adulterous love)

The Idylls of the King (1889)

the passage is from warm colours in the beginning
to the mist and cold of winter
the form is the idyll written in blank verse

the form is not always appropriate: Tennyson cast

romantic material into a Victorian moral mould
highly stylized and idealised dignified attitude

remarkable is the musicality of the language and

the images like coloured miniatures bathed in
gentle light

The Passing of Arthur

Then Sir Bedevere cried: Ah my
lord Arthur, what shall become of
me, now ye go from me and leave
me here alone among mine
enemies? Comfort thyself, said the
king, and do as well as thou
mayest, for in me is no trust for to
trust in; for I will go into the vale
of Avilion to heal me of my
grievous wound: and if thou hear
never more of me, pray for my
soul. But ever the queens and
ladies wept and shrieked, that it
was pity to hear. And as soon as
Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of
the barge, he wept and wailed, and
so took the forest. (Th. Malory, Le
Morte dArthur)

Crossing the bar

written on the back of
an envelope as
Tennyson was crossing
the Solent to the Isle of
Wight

the poets epitaph

the last poem in each
of Tennysons

published volumes

Assessment
continuator of Romanticism of Wordsworth, Byron

and Keats
he is a master of creating a mood, communicating a
state of feeling
lines of exquisite variety and melody
readership is educated middle-classes
his themes turn round the doubts and difficulties of an
age when Christian Faith was questioned by science
and modern progress