romantic till modern poetry
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Topic: Changing Trends in Poetry from Romantic Era till Modern
ABSTRACT
This paper aims at viewing the trends of poetry in the Romantic, Victorian and Modern ages
and highlighting the differences. The Romantics are more concerned with man in relation to
nature. The tone of the Victorians is elegiac which shows the lamentation of lost connection
between man and nature. The Victorians depicted the doubt of their age. The Modern poets
depicted the chaos and turmoil of the modern world. World War I dislodged the beliefs of the
modern man and it is clear in the poetry of the era. There is a change in theme, form and
diction in all these ages.
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The age which relived and revived the romanticism of Elizabethan Era was the Romantic Age
which began roughly with the publication of Lyrical ballads in 1798. Romanticism followed
the age of Enlightenment and Neo-Classicism. Towards the end of 18th century, in a reaction
against Enlightenment ideas, feeling began to be considered more important than reason, both
in literature and in ethics. The early Romantic period coincides with what is often called the
"age of revolutions"--including, of course, the American (1776) and the French (1789)
revolutions--an age of upheavals in political, economic, and social traditions, the age which
witnessed the initial transformations of the Industrial Revolution. A revolutionary energy was
also at the core of Romanticism, which quite consciously set out to transform not only the
theory and practice of poetry (and all art), but the very way we perceive the world. It
elevated the individual, the passions, and the inner life, embracing a more dramatic, personal,
and emotional style--even to the point of melancholic emotion.
Romantic Age
The Romantic period stands between and connects the Enlightenment’s promotion
of commerce, reason, and liberty and the Victorian experience of industrialization and
empire. Romanticism in both artistic production and cultural reception elevated aesthetic
practice to an almost divine activity, a realm wherein the individual might forge his or her
very self as an ethical, political, and creative being.
Characteristics of Romantic Poetry:
Romantic poets wrote about the marvelous and supernatural, the exotic, and the
medieval. But they also found beauty in the lives of simple rural people and aspects of the
everyday world. Another important subject of the Romantics was nostalgia. The main
characteristics of Romantic poetry are:
Interest in the common man and childhood
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Romantics believed in the natural goodness of humans which is hindered by the urban
life of civilization. They believed that the savage is noble, childhood is good and the
emotions inspired by both beliefs causes the heart to soar. Humble, rustic subject matter &
plain style became the principal subject & medium of poetry. Poets sought to refresh readers’
sense of wonder about the ordinary things of existence, to make the “old” world seem new.
Strong senses, emotions, and feelings
Romantics believed that knowledge is gained through intuition rather than deduction.
This is best summed up by Wordsworth who stated that “all good poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings.”
Supernatural and Strange
Many romantic poems explore the realm of mystery & magic; incorporate materials
from folklore, superstition, etc.; & are often set in distant or faraway places. There was a
renewed interest in the middle-ages (and the ballad form) as a beautiful, exotic, mysterious
bygone era. There was also great interest in unusual modes of experience, such as visionary
states of conscious-ness, hypnotism, dreams, drug-induced states, and so forth.
Awe of nature
Romantics stressed the awe of nature in art and language and the experience of
sublimity through a connection with nature. Romantics rejected the rationalization of nature
by the previous thinkers of the Enlightenment period. They tried to give accurate observation
& description of wild nature, which serves as a stimulus to thinking & to the resolution of
personal problems & crises. In their poetry, landscape was often given human qualities or
seen as a sys-tem of symbols revealing the nature of God. Closeness to nature was seen as
bringing out humanity’s innate goodness.
"Nature" meant many things to the Romantics. It was often presented as itself a work of
art, constructed by a divine imagination, in emblematic language. Nature was seen as:
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a healing power,
a source of subject and image for poetry ,
a refuge from the artificial constructs of civilization, including artificial language,
an organically unified whole.
It was viewed as "organic," rather than, as in the scientific or rationalist view, as a system of
"mechanical" laws. Romantic nature poetry is essentially a poetry of meditation
Symbolism
It is a way of expressing so much in so little. The use of symbolism in literature
allows derivation of different meanings from a single expression. Symbolism rouses the
curiosity of readers and also adds a kind of enigma to the expressions or thoughts of the poet.
Representing a particular thing allegorically, lies at the core of symbolism. Repetitive
presentation of an object or character is one of the ways in which symbolism is depicted in
poetry.
Pastoral Life
The pastoral life, culture and traditions are mentioned on a frequent basis in romantic
poetry. In most cases, the relaxed and slow-paced pastoral life of shepherds is depicted in
these poems. Romantic poetry employs this feature in order to present before readers the
complexities of life in a simple manner. Contrasting features of country and urban life can
also be depicted by the portrayal of pastoral life.
Individualism
Human beings were seen as essentially noble & good (though corrupted by society),
and as possessing great power & potential that had formerly been ascribed only to god. There
was a great belief in democratic ideals, concern for human liberty, & a great outcry against
various forms of tyranny. The human mind was seen as creating (at least in part) the world
around it, and as having access to the infinite via the faculty of imagination. The romantics
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refused to accept limitations, human beings set infinite, inaccessible goals, thus making
failure & imperfection glorious accomplishments. This refusal to accept limitations found
expression in bold poetic experimentation. Many writers deliberately isolated themselves
from society to focus on their individual vision.
The use of romanticism in literature appeals to our dreamy inner-self. It helps us
transcend the boundaries that are set by rational thinking. It helps us understand the
wholesome truth instead of just making conclusions on what we see or derive by logical
reasoning. There are so many things in this world beyond our understanding. We can say that
the urge to known the unknown is expressed in the form of romantic poetry.
Victorian Age
Victorian age refers to the era ruled by Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was
no great war in Europe during this period. It was an age of political peace and economic
prosperity. All sections of the people were benefitted by the all-round material progress in the
country. Transport, communication, medicine, science and electricity, considerable
advancement was seen in every field. Science helped the people in many ways. Owing to the
progress of science and industry, the Victorian period became an age of intellectual unrest
and restless questioning. People lost faith in religion. The spread of Education accelerated the
intellectual growth of the people. New scientific theories like those of Darwin revolutionized
the altitude of the people. People began to question the authenticity of the stories recorded in
the Bible. Victorian Age dwindled into an age of doubts and disputes, restlessness, skepticism
and psychological complexity. Science could not be accepted as a substitute for religion. The
age was half way between realism and romanticism, materialism and spiritualism, peace and
the unrest, science and religion, conservation and liberalism, and mechanism and humanism.
'We are between two worlds' said Arnold "one dead, the other powerless to be born'.
Politically, Victorian Age was an age of reforms. The Victorians generally adopted an
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attitude of complacency. They desired to maintain the status quo, because everything was
quite satisfactory. They could not give up the conventional morality or religious practices.
They tried to reconcile religious dogma and scientific truth. Thus it was an age of
compromise. On the whole, the Victorian Age was a period of peace and prosperity, scientific
progress and imperial expansion.
Characteristics of Victorian Poetry
Realism
Realism, in the broader sense, rejects imaginative idealization in favor of a close
observation of outward appearances. Realism emerged as a form of fictional literature that
attempted to capture the qualities of real people and events. The Victorians did not follow the
exact lines of realism. Their realism came as a reaction to the extreme imagination of
Romantic poets. They worked on the verge of realism and their works still employed
romantic elements but they pursued realism with believability of characters, plot, or narrative
style. For example, in the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alferd Tennyson we
find realism. He depicts a scene of Crimean War which was fought between Russian and
Britain during 1853-56. He says:
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred. (Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade)
The event described is taken from a real event during the war when the Britain brigade
fearlessly charged against the Russian forces.
Another example of realism can be observed in Robert Browning’s poem “My Last
Duchess” in the speech of Duke:
…Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
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Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. (Browning, My Last Duchess)
Here we see that the Duke is talking about the death of his last duchess and the events that led
to it. The presentation of the incident is realistic. From the above references we can get an
idea about the realism of Victorian literature.
Conflict between Science and Religion
In the Victorian era, a vast conflict occurred between science and religion because of
the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. In his book, Darwin claimed that human
beings originated from the apes. This shook the faith of people in religion. Besides this, the
industrial revolution caused rapid growth of factories, mills and industries and this material
growth affected the thinking of people. Science brought new inventions which, while doing
them good, made them mechanized. They became more interested in material welfare than
religion. This conflict also affected the minds of the poets and showed through their poetry.
Tennyson, for example, adopted a compromising attitude_ he neither yielded to the crisis nor
became carefree of the problems. The conflict of age is reflected in his poem In Memoriam,
where he refers to the ‘Natural Selection’:
Are God and Nature then in strife,
That Nature lend such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
That I considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
She often brings out one to bear,
I falter when I firmly trod (Tennyson, In Memoriam)
Love and Romance
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Love and romance are major literary tendencies of the Victorian poetry. Although the
Victorian people emphasized on morality and harbored a conservative outlook towards the
relationship of men and women but the poetry of the era depicts passionate love. Especially
the poetry of Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning contains some of the
best love poems of Victorian literature. Alfred Tennyson also incorporated the theme of love
and romance in his poetry. Faith in love is shown in his poem Vivien’s Song:
In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. (Tennyson, Vivien’s Song)
Robert Browning’s “Last Ride Together” depicts the lovers who are pining away for
their beloved. His idea of love is not like Romantics. He sees love as a relation capable of
giving pain and pleasure.
Pessimism
Victorian pessimism is the outcome of a deep-seated spiritual disturbance to which
the sensitive poets of the age were eminently prone. The age experienced a protracted battle
between the advancing forces of science and agnosticism and the retreating forces of
Christianity and faith which had been holding ground for times immemorial. While the
tremendous advance of science destroyed much of the existing faith, it could not provide
another spiritual anchor. Many thinkers and poets, then, felt lost. Pessimism of the Victorians
arose from impersonal grounds, not subjective experience. They found themselves blundering
between two worlds; one dead,
The other powerless to be born,
Arnold is the most consistently pessimistic of all the major Victorian poets. Much of
his pessimism comes from his ill-adjustment to the changing conditions of his times. As has
been said in the beginning, the advance of science in the Victorian age had given a rude
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shock to the body of Christian beliefs. This spiritual disturbance took the form of despairing
pessimism. In Dover Beach he observes that "the Sea of Faith" has now withdrawn and the
world as he sees it:
Hath really neither joy, nor light, nor love,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant, armies clash by night. (Arnold, Dover Beach)
Mysticism
Mysticism is a belief in or the pursuit in the unification with the One or some other
principle; the immediate consciousness of God; or the direct experience of religious truth.
Mysticism is nearly universal and unites most religions in the quest for divinity.
Browning is a seer, and pre-eminently a mystic. We see at once that the main position
of Browning's belief is identical with what is said to be the characteristic of mysticism—unity
under diversity at the centre of all existence. The same essence, the one life, expresses itself
through diversity of form. He dwells on this again and again:—
God is seen
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
Tennyson's mysticism came, as it were, rather in spite of himself, and is based on one
thing only—experience. He states his position quite clearly in In Memoriam, cxxiv. As is
well known, he had from time to time a certain peculiar experience, which he describes fully
both in prose and verse, a touch at intervals throughout his life of "ecstasy," and it was on this
he based his deepest belief. This is described in In Memoriam, xcv.
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And all at once it seem'd at last
The living soul was flash'd on mine,
And mine in this was wound, and whirl'd
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world. (Tennyson, In Memoriam)
Humanitarianism
Humanitarianism is one of the most important aspects of Victorian literature. In its
most general form, humanitarianism is an ethic of kindness, benevolence and sympathy
extended universally and impartially to all human beings. No distinction is to be made in the
face of human suffering or abuse on grounds of gender, caste, tribal, religious or national
divisions. The social ideals in the poetry of Matthew Arnold are those of Victorian
humanitarianism. In the poems of Robert Browning we also find the note of Humanitarianism
as evident in his famous poem “Andrea del Sarto”.
Morality
Victorian literature is characterized by a strong sense of morality. Morality is defined
through the traditional and religious standards that structure the way of life for many
Victorians. Morality is held in such high regard by the Victorians that many of their works of
literature are based upon the way one should morally live. Tennyson’s Idylls of the King is in
part a hypothetical portrait of high idealism and strict morality of Victorian England.
“Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” by Robert Browning utilizes a dramatic
monologue that provides aesthetic detail and moral values. The morality of the monk reflects
the often hypocritical clerical view of Christianity.
Nature
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Tennyson, Browning and Arnold lost an all-embracing enthusiasm for Nature like the
Romantic poets. In the most cases the influence of Nature was on them wholesome and
salutary, and symptomatic of spiritual unity of the universe. The Victorians were not able to
maintain the confidence and optimist possible for the Romantics. On the one hand, as we
shall see, science cultured a love for Nature in some ways as intense, as anything that one can
recognize in previous centuries, but on the other hand, by stressing the mechanical and
chemical aspects of natural process, it look away the magic and left no room for spiritual
direction.
Tennyson takes great interest in Nature. "In Memoriam" is one of the most
outstanding poem that serves immense evidence of Tennyson's great interest in and love for
Nature. In this poem there is calm and tranquil morning with the faded leaves, silvery
gossamers, the crowded farms, ambrosial air, towering sycamore, bats went round in fragrant
skies, the trees laid their dark arms about the field, the grey old orange, the lonely field, the
ship walk up the windy world etc. the pictures of Nature in this poem give pleasure and
sorrow, because the poet shows that moonlight not only falls upon the poet's bed but also on
the dead friends grave in the church.
Robert Browning also has a remarkable love of the color of nature. His vivid painting
of brief landscapes, his minute observation, his flashing way of description, his feeling for the
breadth and freshness of Nature, his love of flowers and animals, and the way he has of
hitting and emphasizing the central point or light of a landscape is considerable. The first
natural description he published is in the beginning of Pauline:
Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter
Crept agèd from the earth, and spring's first breath
Blew soft from the moist hills; the blackthorn boughs,(Browning,
Pauline)
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Symbolism
Symbolism is something that has taken on a meaning beyond what the object actually
is. For example the winter season is sometimes used as a symbol which represents aging,
decay and death. Spring is often used to represent energy, birth and hope. In Robert
Browning’s “My Last Duchess” the portrait of the Duchess is a fresco, a type of work painted
in watercolors directly on a plaster wall. The portrait symbolizes the duke’s possessive and
controlling nature in as much as the duchess has become an art object which he owns and
controls.
Matthew Arnold also uses symbolism in “Dover Beach”. In the poem the sea is both a
symbol and metaphor, referencing the “eternal note of sadness” as well as the “Sea of faith”.
The sea shows the fact that man float in their life on a series of waves that move up and
down, that bring us close to happiness but only to pull us out again. Dove is a white bird that
is often used as a symbol of peace. Arnold could turn this noun and symbol into an adjective,
“Dover”_ The Peaceful beach. This fact highlights the idea of God’s light and white cliff of
the Dover strait.
Modern Age
Twentieth century was an age of unstableness, wars and sharp contrast between the
wealthy and the poor shattered the dreams of people who tended to seek an ideal equitable
society. Meanwhile European society was experiencing great changes: two world wars broke
the old social system. Modern poetry was born in such an era of change, which becomes
central to any discussion of 20th century art and literature.
The horrors of World War I (1914-19), with its accompanying atrocities and
senselessness became the catalyst for the Modernist movement in literature and art.
Modernist authors felt betrayed by the war, believing the institutions in which they were
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taught to believe had led the civilized world into a bloody conflict. They no longer considered
these institutions as reliable means to access the meaning of life, and therefore turned within
themselves to discover the answers. Modernist writers proclaimed a new "subject matter" for
literature and they felt that their new way of looking at life required a new form, a new way
of writing. Writers of this period tend to pursue more experimental and usually more highly
individualistic forms of writing. The main features of the Modern Age are:
Break with Tradition
The modern poetry is marked with a strong and intentional break with tradition. This break
includes a strong reaction against the political, established religious and social views. The
modern poets thought on a different level than their predecessors. They took poetry as a
means to convey their ideas_ rather than just inspiring the senses. This can be clearly seen in
the poetry of T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats.
The Waste Land by Eliot conveys the idea of chaos and disharmony in the modern world. He
says:
Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge…. (The Waste Land,
Eliot)
The above lines do not give an inspiring or romantic picture of the city. They show the
mechanical routine of the people who have lost their purpose and seem to be unreal.
The Second Coming by Yeats conveys the breaking of all the ideals and the chaos thus
created. He responds sharply to the situation of the modern world and says:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, (Second Coming,
Yeats)
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Yeats very clearly tells the situation of modern world. There is chaos all around. The religion
seems to be missing and there is no harmony.
Experimentation in Form and Style
There is a marked change in form and style in the modern poetry. The modernists
used free verse or 'vers libre'. The poets no longer stick to the old forms of poetry. They laid
stress on ideas rather than form. The new form also shows the de-centered modern world.
The free verse is used by Eliot in Love Song of J. Alferd Prufrock:
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent (Eliot, Love Song of J. Alferd Prufrock)
The modernists are keen to convey the problems of their age than looking for style.
Ezra Pound remarked: 'To Break the Pentameter, that was the first heave'.
The fragmentation in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Ezra Pound's Cantos is an innovation
never used by the Romantics or the Victorians. They were more flexible in the length of
poetic lines. Alliteration and assonance were used massively. There is no traditional meter
and no rhyme scheme. There is a frequent use of visual images in the poetry of Ezra Pound:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough. (Pound, A Station in the Metro)
Sense of Alienation and Loss
The frequent theme for the modern poets was of alienation and loss. In a modernist
poem the speaker himself is uncertain about his or her own ontological bearings. The speaker
of modernist poems characteristically wrestles with the fundamental question of “self,” often
feeling fragmented and alienated from the world around him. In other words, a coherent
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speaker with a clear sense of himself/herself is hard to find in modernist poetry, often leaving
readers confused and “lost.”
Such ontological feelings of fragmentation and alienation, which often led to a more
pessimistic and bleak outlook on life as manifested in representative modernist poems such as
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” were prompted by fundamental and far-
reaching historical, social, cultural, and economic changes in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The rise of cities; profound technological changes in transportation, architecture, and
engineering; a rising population that engendered crowds and chaos in public spaces; and a
growing sense of mass markets often made individuals feel less individual and more
alienated, fragmented, and at a loss in their daily worlds. World War I (WWI), moreover,
contributed to a more modern local and world view.
Subjective Perception of Reality
The modern poets were very much impressed by the new philosophies and scientific
knowledge. They did not proclaim the ideas of absolute good or absolute truth which
prevailed in the Romantics and the Victorians. The modern poetry is subjective but it is not
necessarily emotional. The modern poet does not use the poem as a means to give voice to his
inner experiences but rather uses the poem as a stage on which he enters as an actor in order
to give a performance. There is therefore a degree of separation between the “I” of the poet
and the ”I” voice of the poem. The emotions which resonate in the poem are, therefore,
performed emotions and not necessarily real ones, though they may emerge from the
recollection of an emotional experience, the “emotion recalled in tranquility”.
Concerned with Psychology
The modern poets are keen to present the inner movement of the mind. The theories
of Sigmund Freud influenced almost all the writings of this age. The poets tried to show the
psychology of the modern man which is quite clear by the element of fear. The problems of
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modern man are material as well as psychological. Sailing to Byzantium by Yeats is a good
example of the psychological situation of the poet.
Conclusion
There is a marked difference between the ages above discussed. The Romantics
looked towards nature as an escape from their problems. The Victorians on the other hand
saw nature as an opponent of man. The modernists do not even look at nature because their
problems are the problems of material world on the political scene. The inner turmoil of the
modern man is financial crisis. The thinking styles of the ages are different and their form is
different. The Romantics looked for an escape, the Victorians tried to find their existence in
the world and the Modern poets find themselves alienated and forlorn in the world. The
poetic diction too changed with the passage of time. The Romantics used rural language to
establish a connection with nature but the Victorians and the Moderns were more concerned
with ideas than language. The main idea in Romanticism was nature and man’s connection
with nature which was losing control at that time, the Victorians lamented the lost connection
with nature and were in doubt about the new relation with machines and the Modernists were
bewildered by the intervention of machinery and the loss of center. In fine the poetry in the
Romantic era is a far cry from the Modern poetry in form, diction, themes and problems.
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