POETRY

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 Romantic School

There are two generations of the Romantic poets:

1- William Blake, William Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge.

2- John Keats, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron.

Romantic school is characterized by some features:

1- Poetry is spontaneous. The poet doesn't write the poem; it is the poem which
dictates itself on the poet.
2- The Romantic poets believed that poetry should be written for all people. Their
language was characterized by simplicity and easiness.
3- The Romantic poets found in the lyric the best means of expression, thus their
poems deal with emotions and feelings.
4-The Romantic poets hated the spirit of materialism and industrialism. As a
substitute, they resorted to nature which was represented a beautiful setting and a
spiritual power. It was a source of creativity and enlightenment.
5- The Romantic poets were lovers of freedom. They called for change and revolution.
6- The Romantic poets believed that imagination is more important than reason. They
believed that imagination is the source of human creativity. Blake and Coleridge are
strong believers in imagination.
7- The Romantics use what is called the supernatural elements, for they believe that
everything about nature is a kind of spirit.
8- Their concern was with the remoteness of places and ancient times. These created a
sense of nostalgia (Yearning for the past).

Life of Blake
From his early childhood, Blake used to live in his fantasy and imagination. He
considered the world mad because of destruction and ferocity. Blake saw people
following the materialistic things. So he escaped from this harsh world to a beautiful
and dreamy world. He was a man of a very sharp vision. His target was to call for
peace, comfort, love and the end of the persecution. He called for the liberation of
human minds from old restrains. He escaped from a limited reality to a world of
vision, where people are free and happy.

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Blake has two signi cant books:
1- Songs of Innocence: the poet was famous as a poet of childhood and of innocence.
This book was full of joys, purity, pleasure and activities. Children are innocent,
simple and angelic. They are symbols of innocence. They are lowers and angels. The
poet used the children to show the bright side of the human soul. He was sympathetic
with the children because of that time, children worked in di cult, unhealthy and
harsh conditions.

2- Songs of Experience: this book is full of guilt, misery and tyranny. All earth's vital
and active energies are frozen. Winter with darkness and death.

Blake's Style :
Blake' s language and style are characterized by simplicity and easiness. His words are
very common. His words are very day speech as if one is speaking prose. He uses the
language of the simple villagers and the poor to be understood.

The lamb (song of innocence ) by William Blake

Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

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 The Lamb By William Blake
Blake addresses the little white lamb as if it were a person. The poet personi es the
lamb and gives it a human quality. The poet questions that little lamb one rhetorical
question: '' Do you know who is the creator of your body? '' then the poet tells the
lamb that the creator donates you some presents and gifts such as: life, food, clothing
of delight and tender voice. What is the source of food? of course, the food is by the
river and over the green grass. Clothing of delight has three features: it is soft, bright
and wooly. Tender voice can ll all the vales with joy and pleasure.

The poet compares between a little lamb and Jesus Christ because both of them are
innocent, mild and meek. The poet as a shepherd, the lamb and the child serve as
symbols of Jesus Christ. Blake writes: '' He is called by thy name'' means that your
creator, maker is known by your name because he calls himself a lamb. It is an
agnostic concept because God is without name and form. The Christ is meek and
mild. Meekness and mildness are two divine virtues and qualities of an innocent child.
ً

Blake as a romantic poet re lected some romantic features in this poem such as: He is
interested in the beauty of nature when the poet refers to some natural elements as
the lamb, vales, stream and food. The poet pictures that the little white lamb is alone
as a child. The poet wants to show his great love for the world of innocence and purity.

The Tyger ( SONGS OF EXPERIENCE) by Wi iam Blake

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the re of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the re?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

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What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Blake addresses the tiger as if it were a person. Blake gives us a general depiction of
the tiger that is a symbol of power. God gives many things to the tiger as God granted
to the lamb, such as: the tiger has an immortal hand and strong eyes, a fearful
symmetry ( his body is dreadful ), and he lives in the forest. Later on, the poet uses the
imaginary wings that are moving quickly.

That is why, Blake gives us two universal pictures: the body of the tiger and the
imaginary wings). The poet describes the hand and the shoulder of the blacksmith
that are symbols of strength and they can do the things as God does. Shoulder is a
symbol of power. So it is long, strong in forming the sinews of his heart, how dreadful
his hand and feet are. They are the organs of the tiger.

Then the poet asked the tiger '' the hammer, the chain, and the anvil were used in
forming the tiger's symmetry. Which furnace can create the brain? All these words are
symbols of God's power of creation. What is that dread and tremendous grasp which
can catch him in all his deadly terror?
The stars are symbols of material powers. They are angels and throwing down their
spears but the blacksmith escaped, run away, express the triumph of innocence over
experience.
• Notes:
The tiger is a symbol of restlessness and erceness. The tiger symbolizes the erce
forces ( the natural energies in the soul which are necessary to break the bonds of
experience). The tiger burns in the forests of the night, then the re of his eyes burns
in distant skies.

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Christ is the symbol of both innocence and wrath. When the stars, representing the
fallen angels were defeated by the wrath of Christ, they threw down their spears and
wept for their evil and its punishment.

Blake metaphorizes '' Burnt the re of thine eyes'', personi es '' watered heaven with
their tears'' , and symbolizes '' the tiger as a symbol of power and ferocity''.

Blake used some romantic features in this poem such as: nature, imagination,
nostalgia, loneliness and simplicity.

Elegy Written in a Country Church yard

by Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

He was one of the most learned poets of his time, yet he left very few odes and the
elegy. In his youth, he was very happy and active. He was educated at Cambridge. He
got some sickness in the mind; he was mentally sick; a sickness that made creative
writing impossible; he got kind of ' inertia' which paralyzed his action and made him
unable to write and think well. He became thus in a melancholic gloomy. He liked to
sit among the graves and used to write there. The elegy was written in a country
churchyard. The dark view of modern life can be seen through this elegy.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning light,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r

The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

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Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Elegy: is a poem or a song that expresses sadness, especially for somebody who has
died.
In the rst stanza, the poet de nes ' the time and the setting'. The words are used to
announce the death of a person, but Gray uses them to announce the death of the day.
The poet was standing in the graveyard of the church. He describes the common
sights of the countryside: the mooing cattle move slowly in crooked way through the
meadow, as they are very tired. The farmers are also walking towards their homes after
a long day. Their way is very tired as people come and go all the day over it. All the
others go home, except the poet. The atmosphere at that moment is de ned the open
lands: all the elds disappear in the darkness, and everything is quiet and silent. There
are only lying insects that break the silence of the place, and ly in a circular way like
the wheels.

In the second stanza, Gray shows that there is another sound that breaks the silence
of the place that is the faint tinkling of the bells that comes from a distance. The sheep
carry bells around their necks. In the evening, they become drowsy; that is why the
bells tinkle faintly as if they were tired to lull the elds to sleep.

In the third stanza, the poet shows that there is another noise that breaks the silence,
that is the complaining of the gloomy sad owl coming from the tower of the church
which is covered by Ivy. It is complaining to the moon (which is also alone) about
some insects that come near its bower (living place). The passage of time is indicated
by the moon. Now it is night; it is completely dark.

In the fourth stanza, now, we know exactly when the poet is standing. He looks at
the graves that surround him. The graves are under naked elm trees, sheltering with
trees. These are the graves of the poor villagers who could not a ford for building
graves for their dead. Their graves are not naturally built by rising the ground when
they buried the dead, and the heaps are covered by the dead leaves falling from the
trees; the forefathers of that simple village are imprisoned in their narrow cells
( graves).

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 The Imagery
It is an important part in making the elegy lively and e fective. The Elegy is rich with
di ferent images:
1- the images of death: these images prevail in the rst four stanzas. Death in all its
aspects appears as a dominant force in those stanzas.

• a- Darkness in the rst line is presented through the evening.

• b- The emptiness of the place is another aspect of death.
• c-Stillness is the third aspect.
• d- Coldness is the fourth aspect of death.

Those aspects are presented though the four stanzas in di ferent images. Death is also
presented directly through the graveyard, and lastly it is presented through minute
details prevailing in the four stanzas. The owl is connected with death because it lives
in ruined place and it appears mainly at night. The trees (the elms and the yews) also
represent death. They die in the cold season, their leaves fall, and all signs of life in
them stopped. Thus, their appearance is connected with death.

William Wordsworth ( 1770-1832)

Wordsworth was born in an area in the north England called '' lake District''. This area
was and is still one of the most beautiful areas in the country.
He spent his happy childhood and boyhood there, walking among the woods, skating,
swimming, and hunting birds. His childhood left strong impression on his mind. He
loved the scenes of nature and his native country too much. He was lled with zeal for
the ideals of the French revolution. He is a father of Romantic movement. He is an
idealist and a lakist. He is a poet of lake.

lakist : one of the poets of the Lake School or one of their adherents

Features of Wordsworth's poetry:

• 1-His poetry is concerned with nature. For him, nature is a living entity (spirit).
There are joy and universal love in nature. The poet believes that there is a harmony
between the mind of man and nature.
• 2-Poetic diction: Wordsworth's language and style are characterized by simplicity
and lucidity.
He insists that poetry should be simple and clear in its language. The poet believes
that poetry should be written for all people especially for common people.
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• 3-Childhood: the child is described by Wordsworth as the father of man, and he is
even wiser than man. The poet believes the child is near to the celestial light (the
light ). The child is simple and innocent.

The Solitary Reaper by Wi iam Wordsworth

Behold her single in the eld,

Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself,
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is over lowing with sound
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt
Among Arabian sands,
A voice so thrilling ne er was heard
In spring - time from the cuckoo-bird
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sing?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers low
For old, unhappy, far-o f things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

What er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending,
I saw her singing at her work,
And O er the sickle bending,
I listened, motionless and still,
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more

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1st stanza
The poet speaks of the girl who is reaping, singing and binding. She is a highland girl.
The poet wrote this poem when he was in tour in Scotland in 1803. The girl is reaping
the harvest. She is a harvester. She is singing and binding (tying) the sheaves. The girl
has three qualities: - She is a harvester and a gleaner. She is a good singer with a soft
voice, and she is a binder ( to bind) the grain that is the source of the food in the eld.

2nd stanza
The poet compared between the song of the girl that is more beautiful, sweeter to the
poet than that of the nightingale to the tired travelers who take rest in Arabian desert (
refers to green trees and beautiful lowers). Her song is more thrilling than the
cuckoo's song in spring time in the silent seas of the remotest Hebrides ( a group of
islands in Scotland).

3rd stanza
The language in which the girl is singing is incomprehensible to him. He can't
understand the theme of the song, or no one can interpret the song to the poet. The
plaintive numbers (lines) are sad, melancholic, connected with unhappy incidents, or
battles of the past, or about misfortunes of everyday, life of sorrows which come out of
the natural course of things.

4th stanza
The girl was singing at her work. The poet remained motionless and still while the
song was going on. The music (melody of the song) remained enshrined on the heart
of the poet after its stop.

-Romantic features are used by the poet:

1- Solitude 2- Nature 3- Romantic imagination

The World Is Too Much With Us By: W. Wordsworth

The poet says that the people of his time were so busy in collecting money, wealth,
and fortune, spending their time of the day, they wasted their spiritual power. They
weren't interested in certain objects of nature. People sold their hearts to the god of
wealth and have no feelings left for enjoying the beauties of nature. They don't have
any love for the sight of moonlight falling on the surface of the sea or the picture of
the winds which make noisiness ( howling) throughout the day but sleep like lowers
at night.

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The people of his time are not at all moved by the beautiful objects of nature.
The poet wants to be nurtured in the extinct creed of paganism. As a pagan, the
poet would have the opportunity of witnessing the sights of pagan gods like
Proteus and Triton.

Wordsworth loved the scenes of nature, he gives two beautiful pictures of nature.
What are they?

1-The picture of the sea bathed in moonlight.

2-The picture of the winds that sleep like lowers at night.

Wordsworth used two classical allusions in his poem :

1-Greek God '' Proteus'' was a sea god that rising from the sea.
2-Roman God '' Triton'' could sooth the restless waves of the sea by blowing his
wreathed horn.

Notes:
We are always busy running after the material pleasure of life.
'' Getting and Spending'': we waste our spiritual power by devoting all our time to the
pursuits of wealth.

The speaker of this poem wants to criticize modern civilization that lacks
imagination, the stu ness of its creeds, the rush and push of its public life.

The World Is Too Much With Us By: W. Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping lowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

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 S.T. Coleridge (1772-1834)

He was studied at Cambridge. He studied theology and philosophy. He is a poet, a

critic, a dramatist, a journalist, and a lecturer. He and Wordsworth propounded more
functions of poetry. He wrote '' The Biographia Literaria'' that is a narrative book, full
of chapters. So he is the co-founder of the romantic movement.

Features: -

1 - :The Supernatural:
Coleridge is considered as the greatest poet of the supernatural in English literature.
His aim was to make the supernatural appear natural. He revived the supernatural as a
literary force. He goes directly to the supernatural and the fantastic and his
imagination acquires true poetic distinction. He has the faculty to make the mystery
actual, real and obsessing. The supernatural objects are representations of our own
inward desires. The spectral objects are conditions of our own mind.

2 - : Nature:
He considers nature as a divine spirit and believes in the moral and educative
in luence of nature upon man. That is why, he is a keen lover of nature. He believes if
we are happy, nature is happy. If we are sad, nature is sad.

3 - : Dream
He is the rst and the nest dreamer in English poetry. He took a keen interest in
illusions, hallucinations, magic and dreams. A romantic poet creates his own world of
dreams which is far better than this world. He escapes from this world into the mystic
world dreams.

Frost at Midnight
BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side

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My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue lame
Lies on my low-burnt re, and quivers not;
Only that lm, which luttered on the grate,
Still lutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny laps and freaks the idling
Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that luttering stranger ! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,

Lines ( 1-24)
The Frost is secretly performing its work without being helped by the wind. All the
inmates inside the cottage are sleeping and the poet is left alone.( loneliness is good in
philosophical thinking). His infant ( Hartley) is sleeping peacefully in the cradle by his
side. All the natural elements are silent ( sea, hill, wood) as dreams. The thin blue

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 lame of re is motionless. The lm is luttering on the grate. This picture re lects a
sense of sympathy between the poet and this lm because both of them are awake and
active. The idle spirt of the poet explains the irregular movements of the lm
according to his own moods and wishes.

Lines ( 24 -43)
Coleridge yearns for his past when he was a student at school. He used to believe that
the luttering lm was a prophetic symbol as someone will come. When he saw the
luttering lm, he became excited and dreamt of his sweet birth place, the old church-
tower whose bells rang from morning to evening ( All the hot- fair day ). The sweet
sound of the church bells which was the only music for the poor people considered as
a symbol of a prophecy of future events . He looked at the lm, thought of his home,
then to fall asleep. Even in his dream, he dreamt of the same things (ideas) in his
mind. He was afraid of his strict teacher, so his mind was wandering here and there
when he looked at his book.

Lines ( 44-64)
The poet is calling his baby who is sleeping in the cradle in a quiet atmosphere. He
wants to ll up the gaps of his mind when he thinks one idea to the other. Coleridge
shows that his child will grow up and educated in a di ference life than his own. The
poet himself was brought up away from nature in London. So he didn't nd any
beautiful sights of nature except the sky and the stars. He wants his son to bring up in
natural environment. He will wander here and there like wind by lakes and sandy
shores. His baby will see the beautiful shapes and hear the lovely sounds of nature.
God teaches humanity.

Coleridge wants to say that God speaks to us through the beautiful sights and the
sounds of nature as representations of God.

Kubla Khan by S. T. Coleridge

Kubla Khan was the great Emperor. He was a founder of the 20th Chinese dynasty. He
was the grandson of Chengiz-khan who founded the greatest empire, included a lot of
countries, encouraged agriculture, industry, and commerce. Kubla Khan ordered the
workers to build a beautiful pleasure palace for him in Xanadu ( a city in China). The
palace was to be situated on the bank of the sacred river ( Alph) which lowing
through vast deep caves, sank into a dark sea. This place had planted on one side with
beautiful gardens, winding streams, aromatic trees ( full of smelling lowers ), while

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on the other, forests as old as hills, enfolding in their midst sunny spaces full of green
spots.

The poet saw an Abyssinian maid ( damsel) singing a sweet song about Mount Abora
in Abyssinia. Her music is like his powerful poetry showing pleasure palace. They can
hear/ see that palace in the air, in their imagination. Her song is powerful, can create a
deep delight and a creative joy in the poet. According to her music, Coleridge will
build his unreal dome. The rst dome is built by Kubla which is real while the second
unreal is built by the poet.

They think of the poet as a dreadful magician. His loating hair and lashing eyes full
of fear and awe. They go round him thrice to protect themselves from his magical
powers. They will think he is a superhuman to eat the honey-dew (Manna which is a
heavenly food) and to drink the milk of paradise.
The meaning is that people would regard him as inspired by God.

Notes:
1.Coleridge has three characters: a dreamer, a creator, and a magician
2.This poem is full of supernatural elements such as : the cave, chasm, sunless sea, etc.
they all create a world of wonder and enchantment. The atmosphere of this poem is
strange and mysterious.
3.Chasm has ve features: it is deep, romantic, a savage place, holy and enchanted. It
is associated with the waning moon and the wailing woman.

Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

In Xanadu* did Kubla Khan

Where Alph*, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice ve miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

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 But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or cha fy grain beneath the thresher's lail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It lung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,
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 That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His lashing eyes, his loating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

John Keats (1795-1821)

Keats was a man who lived for a short time. He was a man of genius. His father was a
stable keeper, thus he didn't receive high education. He started writing poetry when
he was a teenager, but his rst volume of poetry was subjected to a very severe
criticism. He was in luenced by Greek mythology, Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare.
The real reason for his death was the same disease which had killed his father and his
elder brother. He died in Italy at the age of 26.

Features: -
1 :Keats' s Sensuousness ;
The term '' sensuousness'' means giving pleasure to the senses. Sensuous poetry
presents beautiful and colourful word-pictures by the sensuous poet. He uses his ve
senses in poetry.

2 :Keats' s Cult of Beauty ;

Keats was a poet of beauty. He was always interested in beauty, mankind, nature and
art. Imagination is sweeter than reality. Keats says that art is superior to life. Life has
two main defects which art is free from. The rst one is that things in life are
transient, temporary, and ephemeral because beauty, love and passion all die and pass
away one day. The other defect is that happy things usually change at the end into
sadness, beauty into ugliness. Thus life embodies death, whereas art is more
permanent. Love is immortal, beauty is everlasting and happiness is undying.

3 :Keats' s treatment of Nature ;

Keats is a lover of nature. Keats is quite di ferent from the other romantic poets. He is
content to express her through the senses, the colour, the sound, the touch, the

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pulsating music. These are the things that stir him to his depths. He deals with nature
in an intense and passionate simplicity.

4 :Keats' s Philosophy
Keats summarizes his philosophy about beauty in life and its relation to the truth.
Keats is famous for being a poet of beauty. He always looks for beauty everywhere,
whether in art or human beings. He looks upon beauty as the supreme ideal of life and
of art. '' Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that's all''

Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

Ode: is a lyrical poem of some length, serious in tone, grand in language and
complicated in structure.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

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Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus* and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;*
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused* rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard

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In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth*, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep

Stanza: 1st
When Keats listens to the song of the nightingale one day, his heart begins to ache
with the excess of joy. Keats wants to forget his su fering and pains through drinking
hemlock ( a kind of drink ) or to take a dose of some opium ( opiate) or the river of
forgetfulness ( Leeth- wards) only a minute past. The poet doesn't envy the happy lot
of the nightingale but he is too happy in her pleasure. He wishes to reach the
melodious plot where, amidst the beach trees, the light-winged fairy of the forest. The
nightingale sings with full throated ease the song of the summer. In short, the song of
the nightingale made him restless and he felt a sort of listless lethargy. He wants to
forget himself when he crosses the river.

Stanza 2nd
The poet has a strong desire for a draught of wine that has been cooled for a long time
under the earth. Flora is the Roman goddess of spring time. Flora has a shrine full of
pink roses and violets. In Flora, the country is green, full of vintages, dancing, songs
of the singers, he wants to get joy in summer. A glass of wine ( beaker ) will be full of
warm- south, true, blushful Hippocrene ( the spring of the Muses on the Mount
Helicon ( the poet wants to get the inspiration he desires). That kind of wine will
inspire the poet something in his mind.

The poet describes th beaker full of the rich red wine. The wine being as red as the
blushes of the girl. The rising and breaking of the bubbles in the cup remind the poet

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of the closing and opening of her eyes. Under the intoxication of such wine, the poet
wants to escape to the world of the nightingale

Ode to The West Wind by P.B.She ey

Shelley was one of the most important romantic poets who represented the spirit of
Romanticism at its best. From his early childhood, he was well educated. Shelley
always believed that no healthy love can be established until the corrupted institutions
are removed. He believed in the freedom of humans and believed that people are
equal to one another. Shelley was an idealist, a dreamer, and a visionary.

Features: -
1: Shelley's lyrical power..
Shelley's lyrical power expresses the highest emotional ecstasy. Shelley's poetry
divides into two sides:-
• A/ The visionary or prophetic works in which the hero against tyranny.
• B/ The shorter lyrics show the beauty of nature, spirituality, and splendor.

2: Shelley's descriptive power..

Shelley's descriptive power expresses imagination as a source of love and compassion.
His poetry is a kind of prophecy because a poet has the ability to change the world for
the better (political, social, and spiritual changes).

3: Themes
Shelley's thematic concerns are beauty, passion, nature, political liberty, creativity and
the sanctity of imagination. These are developed by Shelley's philosophical
relationship to his subject-matter. The poet shows his intense feelings to evoke his
relationship to his art.

Introduction to the West Wind

Shelley takes the west wind with its great power as a symbol of the coming revolution
that will change the world and make a new life for people. It is a symbol of the
revolution that will destroy the old and overcome all the corruption and quicken a new
world for mankind.

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 Ode to The West Wind by P.B.She ey

• I.
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter leeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and ll
(Driving sweet buds like locks to feed in air)
With living hues and odors plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

• II
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some erce Mænad*, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and re, and hail, will burst: oh hear!

• III.
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,

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And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and lowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!
Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!

• IV.
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to ly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

• V.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is;
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit erce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an extinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
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Be through my lips to unwakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Stanza 1st
Shelley addresses the west wind as a wild wind because the west wind is very strong
and violent. It is wild, no one can stop it, or control it. It is described as a breath of
autumn because it blows in Autumn as if autumn is breathing. The presence of the
west wind is felt unseen! The west wind drives away all the dead leaves. The trees are
almost bare in Autumn. When the west wind comes, all the dead leaves of the trees
will be carried away from the trees. The dead leaves are compared to the ghosts who
run away from the enchanter because they fear him, so the dead leaves run away
exactly like ghosts do from the west wind. The colours of the leaves in Autumn are
associated with destruction. They are yellow, black, pale ( like sick man ) and scarlet
red. The colours of those leaves will be like dreadful disease stricken and taken a lot of
people to death.

The west wind carries the seeds of some plants to their wintry beds where they will lie
all winter. Those seeds will lie there as cold as a corpse under the ground, they will
wait until the wind of spring will come, the spring will blow her clarion (music) as a
source of food for them, the seeds will be green (full of hues and odours).

The west wind is a wild spirit that blows everywhere. The west wind is presented in
two aspects: As a destroyer, it destroys the leaves of the trees, while as a preserver, it
preserves the seeds in a safe place (under the earth as a wintry bed).

Stanza 2nd
The west wind is addressed again. It carries the clouds (messengers or angels of rain
and light) with it. It causes changes in nature. The west wind as if shakes the boughs
of the trees, it also shakes the boughs of heaven and ocean. Angels of rain and lighting
will spread on the sky. The west wind is surging (sound of the storm). It causes much
rain, violent storms and lighting. (sky's commotion means a tumult in the sky)
Maenads are in Greek Mythology. They are female followers of Bacchus. They are wild
girls who celebrate the coming of God's wine (Bacchus). They are wild because their
hair is always untidily uplifted. The west wind uplifts the locks of the approaching
storms, as if the storm is a girl and the west wind lifts her locks. The west wind is like
the dirge of the dying year in the sense that Autumn is the end of the year while spring
is the beginning. The night on which the west wind will blow will be the big grave of

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the year. As a result of the strong wind caused by the west wind, heavy and black rain
and the lighting and even hail will burst and fall on human kind.

Stanza 3rd
The west wind is addressed again. When the west wind comes, it awakens the
Mediterranean from its summer dreams. It is lying asleep lulled by the coil of streams
(pure/ white waves). It is asleep, dreaming. So, when the west wind blows, it wakes the
sea and makes it violent, stormy and full of currents. This sea is asleep lying beside a
pumice (kind of rocks caused by volcano '' porous '' in an isle Baiae means a district in
Italy). In its dream, the sea saw all the palaces and towers quivering and shaking
within the waves. He saw all the moss and lowers of the Azure (the wind in spring).
All his dreams are so beautiful in the sense that no one can depict or picture them.
Thus, the west wind e fects not only Mediterranean but also the Atlantic.

While the surface of water and currents cleave themselves into chasms, the roots and
other green plants shiver with fear when they hear the coming of the west wind. They
frightened of the west wind because its power roots out all the old and decayed plants
and thus the plants become pale when they hear of its coming.

Stanza 4th
The poet wants some of the impulse of the strong west wind. He will then be free, less
free from the west wind. He will still remain less free than it because the west wind is
the west wind is the most uncontrollable. Even in his childhood, Shelley had felt a
companionship with the west wind. But now, aware of his weakness, he prays to the
wind to lift him up like a leaf, a cloud or a wave, to carry him away from the thrones of
life (troubles) and miseries of life. He is bleeding because of the thorns of life. The
poet wishes to be a child because the child is free and unchained from the social and
moral laws of society to be the comrade of the west wind in its wanderings. The child
looks upon life as a vision. The poet wants to be like the west wind, tameless, swift and
proud. He is wild and free like the west wind.

Stanza 5th
The poet wants to compare between the powerful voice of the west wind to the lyre.
The powerful voice of the west wind can be heard at its best in the forest where it
becomes very loud, fearful, and frightening. The poet wishes that the west wind would
help him to get rid of all his dead leaves. He wants the west wind to b his spirit or be
himself (the union between the poet and the west wind). He wants it to take all his
ideas and thoughts and scatter them, spread them all over the universe (his

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 revolutional ideas or spirits are so important for the re- generation to save the world).
He calls for change and revolution. He wants to expose the evils and corruption of the
decayed regimes.

The earth is still sleeping (the unawakening Earth). He wants to the west wind to be
the prophecy of a better future, a brighter or to be the carrier of his prophecy that the
world would be happier in future.

When the west wind comes, the spring will be near. Spring is the symbol of revolution
to topple, carry out all the corruption and make the earth more suitable for living.

Crossing the Bar by A.L. Tennyson

Crossing the Bar’ is about the journey into death from life and was wrihen by
Tennyson in his advancing years when he was star6ng to think about death (No
surprises there!) The poem begins with the poet taking note of the semng sun and
Venus. It feels to him in these moments as though he’s been called on.

He also considers the sea and what will happen if he journeys there. He hopes it will
refrain from sounding mournful and will instead be full and unable to contain sound.
The speaker is striving to nd some kind of peace in the scene.

Next, the speaker pronounces the day done and his departure looming. This is, of
course, an extended metaphor for death itself. Despite his advancing doom, he doesn’t
want anyone mourning him or worry about him. His mind is xed on what he’s going
to nd when he’s crossed the sand bar. It is ideally, his “Pilot,” meaning God.

“Crossing the Bar”

Sunset and evening star

And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

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**
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The lood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

1st stanza :
The very rst line of this stanza of ‘Crossing the Bar’ puts the poem in a particular
time of day. The evening star that it describes is another name for Venus, Venus is
known as both the Evening Star and the Morning star dependent on whether it is
winter or summer which means this poem is based in the winter.
Whilst Venus represents the goddess of love this is certainly no love poem and its
inclusion is clearly just to point to what the “6me” is. I’m not sure what the narrator is
referencing when they men6on a “clear call” the poem is quite dated, but it doesn’t
appear to be a nautical term. Perhaps this line is meant to be taken literally. Maybe it is
made to suggest that the narrator’s voice carries, perhaps due to the weather or the
location. Or, alternatively, he feels as though he’s being called to by the heavens.
The bar, which is physically a sand bar, represents the line between living and dying.
When the narrator says there is to be no moaning at the bar they are saying that there
shouldn’t be any sadness or complaining about their passing. Throughout this poem,
the narrator makes references to being at sea. Travelling at sea is used as a metaphor
for the journey from life on into death.

2nd stanza :
This stanza of ‘Crossing the Bar’ is quaint sounding. It describes the current as very
minimal, not very powerful, and does so beau6fully. Does this line denote that the
narrator’s journey to the afterlife is a peaceful one? Dying in their sleep perhaps? The
idea of the full 6de suggests that the metaphorical ship being sailed is in deep water.

The lack of sound and foam indicates that the vessel is in the deep sea. This might lead
one to think that it isn’t at the start of the journey but nearer the end. Note how the
narrator doesn’t say this but subtly hints, leaving clues for a reader like Hansel and
Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

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The third line of this stanza is even more nuanced. It’s drawing from the “boundless
deep,” the sea. These lines aren’t entirely clear, but it likely the narrator is still
referencing the tide as this seems to be the theme for this stanza. It then continues to
say it turns again home. This suggests that the tide is turning; does this mean that it is
becoming less calm? It’s doubtful , but it certainly doesn’t suggest that the narrator
isn’t going to cross over after all, the tide isn’t going to carry them “back to shore”.

3rd stanza :
Events are once again taking place at twilight. This helps to create a visual picture of
the surroundings. The use of evening bell evokes images of the funeral toll often
associated with death. The next line would certainly lend credence to that idea as
following the bell there is darkness. Is this a sign that the narrator has nally passed
on? One thing is clear and that is that the narrator doesn’t want people to make a big
deal out of their passing as they reiterate the sentiment from the rst stanza of
‘Crossing the Bar’ by saying that they don’t want sadness.
Their passing to the other side is referred to as “embarking”. This ts in nicely with the
nautical theme. It almost sounds like the experience is an adventure, which holds its
contrast with the descriptions that have made the episode seem serene and peaceful.

4th stanza :
The themes of time and place are prominent throughout ‘Crossing the Bar’. You can
see as they have been used several times throughout the narrative. This stanza seems
to act almost like a summary detailing a very much abridged version of the journey
that has taken the narrator from their birth up to their eventual demise. When they
talk of the lood I think this is another way of describing the “endless sea” that has
carried them towards their destination , their passing into death.
When the narrator talks about the pilot they are e fectively referring to the person that
has controlled their journey. This could be the grim reaper, or the ferryman! (These
are characters from mythology that help people transition to the afterlife ) but it could
also be a reference to god. Perhaps the narrator wants to “meet their maker”.
Crossing the bar is a phrase that essentially means crossing over from life into death.
It is also the name of the poem ending on this line gives it prominence.

Notes :
1 : Venus is known as both the Evening Star and the Morning star. Venus represents
the goddess of love.
2 : The bar, which is physically a sand bar, represents the line between living and
dying.

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3 : The idea of the full tide suggests that the metaphorical ship being sailed is in deep
water.
4 : The use of evening bell evokes images of the funeral toll often associated with
death.
5 : The pilot refers to the person that has controlled his journey. This could be the
grim reaper or the ferryman! (These are characters from mythology that help people
transition to the afterlife)

Home: refers to the other world.

Twilight: evening bell the last stages of life, when the poet is old.
Dark: Death, the poet wants to die peacefully without pain
Pilot: God, the guide of the human soul.
- The poet was ill and sad, face to face with god
Poet + sea +bar+ de +pilot are the characters of the poem.
Unset (old age) the stages of human life
The bar: life itself.
The poet wants to get cool, nice weather to die.
The poet wants to walk (visual journey) kind of life.
The poet wants to travel to another world (after death)
- Tide: refers to the sea waves.
Moving and sleep/ contrast.
-Tide: full of sound and foam from the ship
Sound: disturbances.
Foam: agitation.
Deep: ocean.

Themes :
• 1- The Reconciliation of Religion and Science :
Tennyson lived during a period of great scienti c advancement, and he used his
poetry to work out the con lict between religious faith and scienti c discoveries for
most of his career, Tennyson was deeply interested in and troubled by these
discoveries.
His poem "Locksley Hal" (1842) expresses his ambivalence about technology and
scienti c progress. There the Speaker feels tempted to abandon modem civilization
and return to a savage life in the jungle. In the end. he chooses to live a civilised,
modern life and enthusiastically endorses technology.

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• 2- The Perseverance and Optimism:
After the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, Tennyson struggled through a period of
deep despair, which he eventually overcame to begin writing again. During his 6me of
mourning. Tennyson rarely wrote and, for many years, battled alcoholism. Many of
his poems are about the temptation to give up and fall prey to pessimism, but they
also extol the virtues of optimism and discuss the importance of struggling on with
life.

My Last Duchess
BY ROBERT BROWNING

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf ’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf ” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the rst
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half- lush that dies along her throat.” Such stu f
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some o cious fool Broke
in the orchard for her, the white mule She

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rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of tri ling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
;Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands;
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known muni cence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

My Last Duchess is ‘the’ most famous dramatic monologue of ‘Robert Browning. The
poem was published in the year 1842 in the third series of Bells and Pomegranate.

Sitting of the poem:

The poem is set in the Italian town Ferrara during the Renaissance period. The Duke
[who is also the speaker] is supposedly Alfonso the second. Alfonso is the fth Duke
of Ferrara and he lived during the 16th century. The Last Duchess is considered to be
Lucrezia de Medici, wife of Alfonso. Robert Browning portrays the character of the
Duke with egoistic attitude and a man who likes to dominate the scene rather than

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getting deluged by the ideas of others. An emissary visits the recently widowed Duke
and the dramatic monologue begins.

My Last Duchess Summary Lines 115

Alfonso shows the painting of his deceased Duchess exhibited on the wall. He feels
that the image is alive and remarks the painting as a remarkable achievement. He
reveals that the artist is Fra Pandolf who spent a day to complete the portrait. His
artistry has resulted in the life like image of the Duchess and he asks the emissary to
examine the painting.
The Duke acknowledges that whenever strangers look at the painting, they want to
ask how the artist was able to achieve such depth in emotion. So, he answers the
emissary without a question being asked. Moreover, the Duke is the only one who can
unveil the curtain of the painting and answer the questions as no else is allowed to go
near the painting.
Alfonso explains that his last Duchess expressed joy not only in the presence of her
husband [the Duke], but also when others are present. It is the reason for her cheeks
to express joy in the presence of Fra Pandolf.

My Last Duchess Summary Lines 1635

Alfonso tries to explain the smile on the face of his wife with the use of imaginary
claims. He thinks that Fra Pandolf might have said that the cloak of the Duchess
covers the wrists [a way of lirting] or remarking that such beauty can never be
reproduced by paints. The Duke says that such words were enough to produce a smile
on her face as she believed that they were the words of courteousness.
She was the one who would derive gladness from anything quickly. She admired
everything and her sight could derive happiness from everywhere. To the Duchess,
according to the Duke, his expensive gift at her breast, sitting sun, cherries presented
by a fool, riding on her mule, etc. were things of joy and she blushed to enjoy any of
them. Alfonso believes that she thanked many men, but in a suspicious way. He could
not believe that she thinks other gifts equivalent to the proud family name given by
the Duke. However, Alfonso expresses that it is too low to bend to her level and try to
mend her ways even if it is possible.

My Last Duchess Summary Lines 3656

The Duke goes on to explain that three factors stood in his way for advising the
Duchess – he claims his inability to deliver a good speech than can change the
predicament of his wife, even if he achieves it would be shameful if the wife gives out
an excuse to escape and lastly Alfonso says that he will not be stooping down for

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anything.
Alfonso admits to the emissary that his wife smiled at him as a mark of love, but he felt
that the same smile was produced to anyone who passes her by. As this indiscriminate
behaviour of the Duchess grew, the Duke couldn’t bear it and gave orders to silence
her. after narrating a compelling story about the death of his wife, the Duke shows the
emissary the painting by Fra Pandolf where one can nd the life like image of her.
The Duke resumes to business and asks the emissary to come with him to join the
others. He emphasises that the emissary’s master – a Count, is a rich man and he
expects to get a good amount as dowry. However, Alfonso also states that the Count’s
daughter is more important to him than dowry. On the way down, Alfonso points out
at another art piece – Neptune taming a seahorse. The bronze statue was made by
Claus of Innsbruck.

Important notes:
Duchess means widow or the dead wife of the duke Also, my last duchess is of
dramatic situations

my last duchess shows domestic violence

The duke loves his wife when she is a picture not when she is a real person
And this is the di ference between reality and ideality

What’s the sin of the duchess ?

Actually, her smile and her natural beauty

Who are the characters in this poem?

the duke, The duchess, The Painters(artists ), The emissary, the Count’s daughter...

My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

The poem opens with the reference, by the Duke of Ferrara to the portrait of his last
Duchess. The Duke says that the gure in the portrait has the very look of life. This
cannot be mistaken as a hint of lament. Browning's use of irony exposes the Duke to
us: the Duke himself could not know the natural liveliness of the Duchess and
remained a stranger to his own wife because of his obsession with himself. The
aggressive individualism of the Duke and his tyranny of possession already indicated
in "my" of the rst line are reinforced in his pride of being the only person to draw the
curtain away from the portrait.

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The sense of superiority of aristocratic isolation is also indicated here in the hint that
others dare not ask the Duke any questions. The Duke may be a lover of art, but is
"essentially a savage, however he may appear super cially". The possessiveness and
the jealousy of the Duke as husband is revealed when he tells the listener that the
smiles of the Duchess were not reserved only for her husband. How vigilant, he was
under the provocation of jealousy, is proved by the example that he gives.
He imagines that probably the monk-painter hinted at the gown excessively covering
the wrist of the Duchess or that the artist remarked that his art could never recapture
the delicate beauty of the Duchess and the Duchess thought that she must respond
with cheerful courtesy.

Browning considers life is greater than art. The generosity and spontaneity of the
humanitarian Duchess were quite unacceptable to the Duke, who here becomes the
Victorian conventionalist.

From the smiles and courtesy of the Duchess the Duke now passes on to consider, or
rather just tells about himself and fails to understand, the "heart" of the Duchess. This
is Browning's chance to reveal through the dramatic contrast the heartlessness of the
Duke. The Duke says that language fails him to communicate to others the quality of
the heart of the Duchess.

He then proceeds to refer to the sense of equanimity in the acutely sensitive Duchess.
He notes with the sense of conventional Victorian shock that she, through the blush
or through the words, weighed the tri les (for the Duke) like the sunset scene on the
Western horizon, the cherries brought to her by some intruder (in the Duke's sole
property rights over the Duchess), or the mule that she rode on equally with his
'signi cant' embracement— it must be noted here that the Duke embraces only the
body but the Duchess embraces natural and universal humanity.

The main character in the poem is the Duke of Ferrara. Ferrara is an old and proud
city in northern Italy. He is gradually ‘unmasked’ in the process of his dialogue. He is a
murderer who had killed his beautiful and innocent young wife out of jealousy. He
boasts about his great name and status in a mean manner. He is a Philistine (one who
pretends to be a lover or expert of art). The Duke has some qualities of Italian
Renaissance: a grandee, egotistical, proud, possessive, cruel, and art loving. He is
jealous, controlling individual, arrogant, conceited and callous towards his last wife.
He has cold feelings with her. He is doubtful, suspicious about his last duchess.

The Duchess is simple, beautiful, young, pretty, devout and modest. According to the
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duke, she was unfaithful. So she was punished by her husband for her beautiful smiles
and natural beauty. So the duke ordered to stop her life. She is killed .

The irony lies not only in that he is not what he thinks he is, but more in that he
doesn’t realize how he is unwittingly telling the truth. He reveals all the truths about
his devilish character when he is trying to prove himself a great man. Browning takes
up a moment and makes the character speak of something that reveals so much
behind what is being said. The duke here pulls the mask o f his own face. The duke
shows that he has a great control over the messenger who came from another country
as the poet does and controls our thoughts through irony.

This poem is a dramatic monologue that is a type of poetry in which a speaker

addresses a silent listener. the purpose of it is to express the speaker's thoughts,
emotions, feelings, and attitudes . The elements of dramatic monologue are the
speaker, the listener, the action, the occasion and the revelation of the character. The
listener obtains a psychoanalytic view of the speaker. It re lects the speaker's thought
and speech. So this poem is full of dramatic situations that shows a complete con lict
between the speaker and the listener. The poet portrays a mask that is di ferent from
his own personality.
In Browning’s “My Last Duchess” the duke negotiating with an emissary for a second
wife , speaks throughout the poem. Secondly, the speaker addresses another person
whose presence is felt though he says nothing. His response is given in clues in the
discourse of the speaker. Thirdly, the speaker unwittingly reveals his character,
especially his moral caliber and sense of values. In “My Last Duchess” the duke reveals
his self-centred nature and possessiveness through his own words. The poem is a
monologue because it is a speech by single character; it is dramatic because it presents
many arresting scenes like the pleasure ride of the Duchess on mule, the gift of a
bough of cherries by a clown and the smiling picture of the Duchess in “My Last
Duchess”.

There are two painters in this poem. The rst artist is Fra Pandolf who had painted the
portrait of the Duke's last Duchess. The second one is Claus of Innsbruck who lived in
Innsbruck and carved or engrave the statue of Neptune. The bronze statue of
Neptune provides the nal symbolic statement of the meaning of the poem; Neptune
tames the sea horse, just as the Duke had "tamed" his wife. It may be suggested that
the Duke failed to "tame" the last Duchess unless murder be called taming.
Undoubtedly the Duke sees himself in the image of Neptune and the last word "me" in
the context indicates his tyranny of possession.

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 The Narcissus complex of the Duke and the resultant jealously could not go hand in
hand with the humanitarian values of the Duchess and the con lict raised to the climax
must bring the tragedy. The Duke is simultaneously the Renaissance Machiavellian
gure and the Victorian man with his vanity; materialism, lack of spirituality, and lack
of awareness of human values. The Duchess is also a symbol, that of natural humanity.
The murder of the Duchess under the commands of the Duke shows the ultimate
human depravity resulting from suppression of human values in the Renaissance
world and the Victorian world.

Notes :
1- this poem shows violence described in an aristocratic home. This poem shows the
dramatic violence in dramatic monologue.
2- Silence is an essential subject discussed in this poem through three characters :
• the silent listener who wants to obtain and get the psychoanalytic outlook of the
speaker.
The silent listener is the messenger ( Nikolas) ,who came from count of Tyrol ,
delivered the message to invite the duke to Vienna. The duke is negotiating with an
envoy for the hand of a count's daughter. After settling the question of dowry, the
duke told him that he wants his next bride to obey him worshipful loyalty, and will
tolerate no less. He tells the story of his last duchess as a subtle means of making this
point.
• The portrait of the last duchess is silent. So when she is dead, she becomes a silent
listener.
• the reader of this poem is silent.

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY 36th YEAR

BY LORD BYRON

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The Flowers and fruits of Love are gone;
The worm—the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!

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 The Fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some Volcanic Isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze
A funeral pile.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,

The exalted portion of the pain
And power of Love I cannot share,
But wear the chain.
But 'tis not thus—and 'tis not here
Such thoughts should shake my Soul, nor now,
Where Glory decks the hero's bier,
Or binds his brow.

The Sword, the Banner, and the Field,

Glory and Greece around us see!
The Spartan borne upon his shield
Was not more free.

Awake (not Greece—she is awake!)

Awake, my Spirit! Think through whom
Thy lifeblood tracks its parent lake
And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down

Unworthy Manhood—unto thee
Indi ferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.

If thou regret'st thy Youth, why live?

The land of honourable Death
Is here:—up to the Field, and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out—less often sought than found—

A Soldier's Grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy Ground,
And take thy rest.

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This is an autobiographical poem which was written when the poet reached at 36 years
old. In the rst stanzas of the poem the speaker" represents himself as old in
experience, as lonely, and as forsaken by those whom he has loved; he reminds
himself, though, that this is not the time and place to lament his personal griefs, for
he is engaged in a struggle for the liberty of an oppressed people. He will therefore
forget himself and, not wishing to live longer, nds for himself a heroic death on the
battle eld. Actually, the speaker, or the poet himself feels dull, and his life with
adventures of love is meaningless. So he decided to change the style of his life by
sharing with great causes such as liberty. That great cause was the liberation of Greece
which was under Turkey occupation. The speaker chose Greece because Greek
civilisation was the major source for the Western renaissance. Also, the Spartan heroic
pattern is so attractive for the speaker.
Byron speaks of the coming battle and his wish for an honorable death.

In the rst few stanzas he speaks of how his life is coming to an end:
"My days are in the yellow leaf/
The lowers and the fruits of love are gone/
The worm, the canker, and the grief/ Are mine alone!

He goes on to speak of the upcoming battle in which he would be ghting

with the Greeks:
The sword, the banner, and the eld/
Glory and Greece, around me see!

He ends the poem saying he would wish to have an honorable death, that
he would be able to leave this life in peace:

"Then look around, and choose thy ground

And take thy rest"

The poet spends his life doing things that are worth living for. He needs to be
spending his youth wisely, doing things that are pro table, things he wants to do.
Hopefully the things he wants to do are the things that God would want me to do. He
knows that if he spends his youth, or his entire life, really, doing things that have
eternal value, he will not regret it. One of his present goals is to focus more on
relationships than on academics. Spending time with relatives, church family, and
friends. He wants to spend his time in a more pro table manner.

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Notes:
1- Byron renounces the youthful joys of love for its mature pains, choosing self-
sacri ce over self-indulgence. This turn is mirrored in his choice to go to war: he has
lived long enough to seek a collective good over his personal satisfaction or safety
(though he’s still got his eye on the honor that choice can provide). Maturity, the
poem suggests, is the brave acceptance of change, pain, and death—and the ability to
transform those frightening experiences into glory.

2- However, he is alone, like an island of volcanoes, which smoulder and burn with
heat (in Byron’s case, the heat of passion). But this re can light no torch (of hope, or
love): it’s not the lame of hope, but the re of a funeral pyre, symbolising death and
decay.
3- love is not just hope and power, but also pain and fear (and jealousy). Love isn’t all
a bed of roses, after all.
4- Byron tells his ‘Spirit’ to suppress thoughts of love or desire.

• 1st stanza
In the rst stanza of this piece the speaker begins by stating that it’s time for his
“heart” to be “unmoved.” He’s come to a time in his life, his thirty-sixth birthday, when
he no longer inspires love in others. This failing makes him feel as though he is
unworthy of experiencing love himself. This does not stop him from wanting true love
though.

It is impossible to ignore the historical details of Byron’s life when considering these
lines. He was a notorious for his ever-changing relationships and the ease with which
he would fall in and out of love with women. The idea of willing taking away that
freedom from himself would’ve been hard to accept. It is also interesting to note the
self-conscious place from which these lines emerge. Due to his age, he feels that he’s
no longer the same person he was in his youth. This image of Byron is quite di ferent
from the generalised, lustful image seen through the majority of his poems.

• 2nd stanza
In the next quatrain Byron goes on to refer to his days as “in the yellow leaf.” He feels
as if his vibrancy is fading, just like an autumn leaf. The seasons of youth are ending
and the progression of age is represented through the loss of “ lowers and fruits,” as if
he were a tree that no longer produces. This line also comes from a well-known
section of Act 5 in Shakespeare’s M acbeth . In this verse Macbeth speaks on the the
change in his way of life and the loss of love, honour and friendship.
Byron continues on to say that the only things he has left to him are those that come

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with decay and age. His company is made up of worms and grief, as well as “the
canker,” a reference to a disease of fruit trees.

• 3rd stanza
The third stanza is dedicated to making sure the reader knows how alone he is. In his
chest there is still the “ re” though. This was the passion that previous lled his
relationships. It’s still there, but now it is as “lone as some Volcanic Isle.” There is
nowhere for it to go and no torches for it to kindle. Instead, it burns within him, more
like a “funeral pile” than the force driving his passion.
• 4th stanza
This stanza, especially the rst lines are notable for the way Byron has listed them one
after another without a conjunction. This is known as an asyndetic list. The technique
is common in Byron’s poetry, as well as with many other writers. It gives the text an
added emphasis as if all of the listed items or emotions are building up upon one
another with an end in sight. He is explaining the complexities of love in this stanza.
There are equal parts pain and pleasure. Love brings with it jealousy, hope and fear.
These were things he relished, but now “cannot share.” They hang around his neck
like a chain, weighing him down. His passion has become more of a burden than a joy.
• 5th stanza
The fth stanza takes a turn and leads the reader into the second half of the poem. He
seems to come to the decision that he isn’t going to mope around and feel sorry for
himself. It is not “here” that these “thoughts should shake” his soul. Rather than
become a sacri ce to his useless love, he is going to ght on. It isn’t time for him to be
lifted onto the “hero’s bier” or the platform on which a co n is placed.
• 6th stanza
The sixth stanza continues the militaristic imagery. Here he lists out some of the
elements of battle that makes up his own mental image of the task at hand. There are
swords, banners, the eld, and all the glory one could want. He also speaks of Greece
as a location for this metaphorical battle for the recovery of his purpose. Greece was a
favourite amongst the Romantic poets and featured prominently in the works of
Coleridge and Wordsworth. It is through this metaphorical battle that the speaker
hopes to free himself. He would like to be like the Spartans, who he sees as being as
free as is possible.

• 7th stanza
This stanza begins with a single exclamatory word. It is repeated in the second line, a
technique known as anaphora. It draws additional attention to the word, “Awake,” in
this case, and what it means for the speaker. Byron begins the lines by asking that

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 someone, “not Greece,” wake up. It is to his soul that he’s speaking. It is time for it to
rise up out of its stupor, remember its “lifeblood” or passionate past, and “strike
home!”

• 8th stanza
This line is curious as it seems to degrade the speaker’s past decisions. He asks his soul
to repress any “reviving passions.” They should be kept down and away from his mind
and heart. This makes it seem as if he regrets the way he’s lived his life up until this
point. Perhaps that is because it has led him to this desperate place. He feels like he
has lived an “Unworthy” life. The speaker continues to address his own soul. This time
he tells it that it should be strong enough to resist the “smile or frown / Of Beauty.”
The capitalization of Beauty, just like “Glory” and “Love” before it, give the force an
additional agency in the world. It is depicted as an autonomous actor in luencing his
life.

• 9th stanza
In the second to last stanza the speaker asks himself what it means to regret one’s
youth. These lines are also quite dramatic and allude to death as the only option for
someone who has lived unworthily. The only thing someone like the speaker can do is
to ght, and attempt to regain some glory for himself. He directs his soul, and anyone
reading who might feel the same, to go “up to the Field, and give / Away thy breath!”

• 10th stanza
In the nal four lines the speaker returns to the solemn tone with which he began the
poem. Now that he has decided death is the only option available to him he asks
himself to seek out “A solider’s grave.” Once there, he needs to look around and
“choose” his own “ground” to be buried in. This is his destiny, to nally nd “Rest” and
repent for the way he’s lived up until now.

What’s it about?
So, as we learn from the title, Byron is 36, which in Romantic terms is old. He’s
decided that it’s a ripe time for him to die, and what better and more noble way to go
than on the battle eld in Greece? He writes this in Missolonghi, waiting to receive
army orders, and lamenting the transience of life, love and beauty. What a nihilist.

Structure:
The poem is told in quatrains of varying line length. The nal line of each stanza is
always the shortest, and tends to end on an exclamatory tone. Some of the verses

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 follow a loose abab rhyme scheme, but it is worth noting the use of half rhyme too,
which suggests the slow decay of Byron as he anticipates his death. The poem has an
elegiac tone, as if he is preempting his own funeral. It switches between downcast and
celebratory, mirroring the con lict between liveliness and love and death and
loneliness.

Imagery:
The use of triplets: “the worm, the canker and the grief.” “the hope, the fear, the
jealous care” “the sword, the banner and the eld”. These emphatic choices are at once
lamenting and celebratory, emphasising Byron’s sense of fragility, which borders on a
hysteria. Images of re: “the re that on my boson plays, is lone as some volcanic isle.”
We might interpret this to be a metaphor for sex, using re to represent lost passion.
This idea returns when he speaks of his “unworthy manhood”, which is perhaps his
ghting spirit, or perhaps his penis.

• Personi cation of Greece: “Awake! (Not Greece – she is awake!) Byron revered the
aesthetics of Greek culture, art and philosophy. Greece, to him, is awake in spirit,
unlike himself, who is wearied by experience.
• Use of the imperative: “tread” “seek” “give away” “awake”. There’s a lost of
imperative verbs in this poem, as if Byron is trying to convince himself that his
ac6ons are correct. He seems caught between a desire to relive his youth, and one to
give it away nobly.
• Form: Iambic tetrameter, but the last line is iambic dimeter – he hasn’t found his
idealised life through hedonism, he is growing tired of it.

ABAB rhyme – he is nding structure and immersing himself into the rigidity of
war – ghting and dying honourably instead of dying with an infamous legacy. He is
sacri cing his youth, ready to die and live di ferently.

Poetry Victorian of Features

1- Romanticism of Continuation.
• The Victorian poets concern with the theme of nature but it is not the same
Wordsworthian passion for nature. They focus on the complex reality of their
society rather than the physical aspects of nature.
• The Victorian poets have the romantic interest in the Middle Ages. The Middle
Ages are not about beauty and romance but served as agency of a moral purpose.
So, the Victorian poets interest in reviving the courtly love tradition with all its

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 chivalrous values which they felt were degenerating in their own society.
• The Victorian poets interest in the past and show their great interest in the East
through travelling and translations of di ferent Eastern books.
• They conceived of poetry as a vehicle for moral teaching. They are regarded poetry
as the perfect instrument for the spiritual elevation of mankind. They believed that
the poet must paint the world around him.
• They have the same prophetic spirit of the great Romantics. Tennyson considers the
main poet for his prophetic vision of the future.
• They re lect the romantic mood of melancholy and the artist's search for identity
and stability in a world of con licting values. This appears in many forms such as in
the musings of the imaginary persons of dramatic monologues, in the
reinterpretation of ancient legends and in long philosophical poems.
• They explain that their poetry is concerned with the age itself. It focuses on the
pressures and con licts of the age.

2. Doubts and disbelief in the religious authority of the Church

The growth of materialism began to produce doubts and disbelief in the religious
authority of the Church. Three great poets of this age—Tennyson, Browning, and
Arnold did much to comfort and sooth these doubts. Tennyson, the representative
pact of the age, was capable of celebrating the energy and resolution of his century in
Ulysses, and. yet as The Lotos Eaters shows he could vividly interpret the pessimism
and inertia which was a subconscious reaction to the conscious authoritarian spirit.
Browning represented the optimistic philosophy of the ‘Victorians.

However, he was interested chie ly in the exploration of characters. His dramatic

monologues deal with eccentrics like artists, ‘frauds, and scholars as they reveal their
spiritual dilemma.

Arnold was religious by nature but skeptical of dogma. Dismayed by theological

disputes and worried by threatened anarchy, he tried to revive the Greek spirit,
protested against the lack of real culture, and deplored the current materialism. His
major poems also voice a pessimistic note.

There were also some poets who played upon the doubts experienced by the people.
They were Edward Fitzgerald, James Thomson, and Arthur Hugh Cough. Victorian
industrialism and commercialism particularly provoked poets like Fitzgerald whose
Omar Khayyam expressed sentiments that ran counter to the stern moral earnestness
of the Victorian ethos.

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 The age also produced a new school of aesthetic poets called the Pre-Raphaelites who
wrote poetry for the aesthetic pleasure of its word-pictures, not as a vehicle of
prophesies or instruction. These included Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. Rossetti
and his friends tried to redeem art from commercialism and vulgarity.
The Pre-Raphaelite Movement against typical Victorian values amounts to a second-
wave of Romanticism in the latter half of the Victorian Age.

In the last decade of Victoria’s reign there arose another movement to upset moral
conventions and to extol sensual pleasures, introducing symbolism for direct
statement. This trend is found in the poems of Oscar Wilde, Arthur Symons, and Ernest
Dowson who are sometimes called the Decadents. They may, perhaps, also be called
the rst of the Moderns.

Despite of the di ferent schools, Victorian poetry proves to be a continuation of

Romantic mood both in theme and ideology with a modern concept of word
formations. But who can miss the Tennysonian lines from Idylls of the King, "The
Passing of Arthur" where he says with great morose the hard changed times:
“The days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”

************

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