Victorian Poetry

Victorian poetry is post-Romantic

1. Post-Revolutionary •A belated poet was post-revolutionary, existing with the constant possibility of mass political upheaval and fundamental change in the structure of society, which meant that the nature of society to had to be redefined. 2. Post-Industrial •Belatedness was post-industrial and post-technological, existing with and theorizing the changed relationships and new forms of alienated labor which capitalism was consolidating, and conscious of the predatory search for new areas of exploitation which was creating a new colonial 'outside' to British society. 3. Post-Teleological •It was post-teleological and scientific, conceiving beliefs, including those of Christianity, anthropologically in terms of belief systems and representations through myth. 4. Post-Kantian • Lastly, the supreme condition of posthumousness, it was post-Kantian. This meant, in the first place, that the category of art becoming 'pure.' Art occupied its own area, a self-sufficing aesthetic realm over and against practical experience... And yet it was at once apart and central, for it had a mediating function, representing and interpreting life. These contradictions were compounded by post-Kantian accounts of representation which saw them as the constructs of consciousness which is always at a remove from what it represents."

Dramatic Monologue

• A monologue is a lengthy speech by a single person. In a play, when a character utters a monologue that expresses his or here private thoughts, it is called a soliloquy. Dramatic monologue, however, does not designate a component in a play, but a type of lyric poem...The dramatic monologue has the following features: 1. A single person, who is patently not the poet, utters the speech that makes the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment 2. This person addresses and interacts with one or more other people; but we know of the auditor's presence, and what they say and do, only from clues in the discourse of the single speaker 3. The main principle controlling the poet's formulation of what the lyric speaker says is to reveal to the reader, in a way that enhances its interest, the speaker's temperament and character.

Lyrical Poem

• A sustained colloquy, sometimes with himself or with the outer scene, but more frequently with a silent human auditor, present or absent • The speaker begins with a description of the landscape • Shows an aspect or change of aspect in the landscape evokes a varied but integral process of memory, thought, anticipation, and feeling

Apostrophe

•A rhetorical figure •A direct and explicit address either to an absent person or nonhuman entity. •Jonathan Culler argues that the apostrophe is not just one trope among others but a fundamental characteristic of the form. He suggests that the lyric is an active form of naming, which "performatively seeks to create what it names," and apostrophes "foreground the act of address" and lift the lyric object out of ordinary empirical contexts and into the poetic act (2014: 68, 69).

What is Victorian Poetry?

•A tautological definition: Victorian Poetry is the poetry written between 1837 and 1901, the years marking the reign of Queen Victoria. •A slightly less tautological definition: Victorian Poetry is poetry written between the literary movements known as Romanticism and Modernism. •Can we get any closer to the thing itself? The Victorian Poem?

But, having made me, me he shall not slay. Nor slay nor satiate, like those herds of his Who laugh and live a little, and their kiss Contents them, and their loves are swift and sweet, And sure death grasps and gains them with slow feet, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blossom of branches, and on each high hill Clear air and wind, and under in clamorous vales Fierce noises of the fiery nightingales, Buds burning in the sudden spring like fire, The wan washed sand and the waves' vain desire, Sails seen like blown white flowers at sea, and words That bring tears swiftest, and long notes of birds Violently singing till the whole world sings— I Sappho shall be one with all these things, With all high things for ever

•Anactoria •Swinburne •Poetic Immortality: "Nor slay nor satiate" • "But, having made me, me he shall not slay": How might these lines be read as ironic? What did Swinburne know about the fate of Sappho's poetry? • How does the poem imagine the relationship between poetic immortality and sexual satiety?

I am sick with time as these with ebb and flow, And by the yearning in my veins I know The yearning sound of waters; and mine eyes Burn as that beamless fire which fills the skies With troubled stars and travailing things of flame; And in my heart the grief consuming them Labours, and in my veins the thirst of these, And all the summer travail of the trees And all the winter sickness; and the earth, Filled full with deadly works of death and birth, Sore spent with hungry lusts of birth and death, Has pain like mine in her divided breath; Her spring of leaves is barren, and her fruit Ashes; her boughs are burdened, and her root Fibrous and gnarled with poison; underneath Serpents have gnawn it through with tortuous teeth Made sharp upon the bones of all the dead, And wild birds rend her branches overhead. These hath God made, and me as these, and wrought Song, and hath lit it at my lips; and me Earth shall not gather though she feed on thee. (225-46)

•Anactoria •Swinburne •Poetic Immortality: The Nature of Time and The Nature of Desire

Ah that my lips were tuneless lips, but pressed To the bruised blossom of thy scourged white breast! Ah that my mouth for Muses' milk were fed On the sweet blood thy sweet small wounds had bled! That with my tongue I felt them, and could taste The faint flakes from thy bosom to the waist! That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eat Thy breasts like honey! that from face to feet Thy body were abolished and consumed, And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed! (105-14).

•Anactoria •Swinburne •Self & Other: Cannibalism and Incarnation •In the Christian faith, believer consume the body of Christ as a symbol of his sacrifice. How does this passage invoke that ritual? How does it transgress it?

Like me shall be the shuddering calm of night, When all the winds of the world for pure delight Close lips that quiver and fold up wings that ache; When nightingales are louder for love's sake, And leaves tremble like lute-strings or like fire; Like me the one star swooning with desire Even at the cold lips of the sleepless moon, As I at thine; like me the waste white noon, Burnt through with barren sunlight; and like me The land-stream and the tide-stream in the sea. (215-24)

•Anactoria •Swinburne •Self & Other: Immortal "Metaphors of me"? •While the poet initially defines herself in relation to the beloved other, we might observe a shift here. Who or what is the Other? •What kind of rhetorical figure is the construction "like me"? How does it differ from a metaphor? What might be the significance of this rhetorical choice?

Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine, Except these kisses of my lips on thine Brand them with immortality; but me— Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea, Nor mix their hearts with music, nor behold Cast forth of heaven with feet of awful gold And plumeless wings that make the bright air blind, Lightning, with thunder for a hound behind Hunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown— But in the light and laughter, in the moan And music, and in grasp of lip and hand And shudder of water that makes felt on land The immeasurable tremor of all the sea, Memories shall mix and metaphors of me. 201-14

•Anactoria •Swinburne •Self & Other: Poetry and Immortality •This famous passage is one long sentence. What can we observe about its structure? Why switch half-way through from negation to positive assertion? What do you make of the odd grammatical construction "memories shall mix and metaphors of me"? Why would Sappho want to live on as a metaphor"?

My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyes Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound, And my blood strengthens, and my veins abound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I feel thy blood against my blood: my pain Pains thee, and lips bruise lips, and vein stings vein. Let fruit be crushed on fruit, let flower on flower, Breast kindle breast, and either burn one hour. (1-14)

•Anactoria •Swinburne •Self & Other: Sadism and Desire •David A. Cook writes that sadism is "the desire to literally break down the barriers of the flesh and achieve a sanguinary confluence of organic tissue with the other." •How does this definition of sadism impact our understand of "Anactoria" and its representation of sexual violence? What, then, does the poem reveal about the desire for complete union with the other?

Would I not plague thee dying overmuch? Would I not hurt thee perfectly? not touch Thy pores of sense with torture, and make bright Thine eyes with bloodlike tears and grievous light? Strike pang from pang as note is struck from note, Catch the sob's middle music in thy throat, Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with these A lyre of many faultless agonies? (132-41)

•Anactoria •Swinburne •Self & Other: Sadism and Meter •Let us recall Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Musical Instrument." How does Swinburne's Sappho conceive of the relationship between musical rhythm and sadistic torture? What does this reveal about Swinburne's attitude toward poetry?

Advancing higher still The prospect widens, and the village church But little, o'er the lowly roofs around Rears its gray belfry, and its simple vane (ll. 309-312)

•Beachy Head •Charlotte Smith •

On thy stupendous summit, rock sublime! That o'er the channel rear'd, half way at sea The mariner at early morning hails, I would recline; while Fancy should go forth, And represent the strange and awful hour Of vast concussion; when the Omnipotent Stretch'd forth his arm, and rent the solid hills, Bidding the impetuous main flood rush between The rifted shores, and from the continent Eternally divided this green isle. (ll. 1-10)

•Beachy Head •Charlotte Smith •Prospect 1: The Cliffs & The Channel

Contemplation here, High on her throne of rock, aloof may sit, And bid recording Memory unfold Her scroll voluminous—bid her retrace The period, when from Neustria's hostile shore The Norman launch'd his galleys, and the bay O'er which that mass of ruin frowns even now In vain and sullen menace, then received The new invaders; a proud martial race, Of Scandinavia the undaunted sons, Whom Dogon, Fier-a-bras, and Humfroi led To conquest: while Trinacria to their power Yielded her wheaten garland; and when thou, Parthenope! within thy fertile bay Receiv'd the victors—

•Beachy Head •Charlotte Smith •Prospect: British History

While more remote, and like a dubious spot Just hanging in the horizon, laden deep, The ship of commerce richly freighted, makes Her slower progress, on her distant voyage, Bound to the orient climates, where the sun Matures the spice within its odorous shell, And, rivalling the gray worm's filmy toil, Bursts from its pod the vegetable down; Which in long turban'd wreaths, from torrid heat Defends the brows of Asia's countless casts.

•Beachy Head •Charlotte Smith •Prospect: Global Colonial Trade Routes

The high meridian of the day is past, And Ocean now, reflecting the calm Heaven, Is of cerulean hue; and murmurs low The tide of ebb, upon the level sands. The sloop, her angular canvas shifting still, Catches the light and variable airs That but a little crisp the summer sea, Dimpling its tranquil surface. Afar off, And just emerging from the arch immense Where seem to part the elements, a fleet Of fishing vessels stretch their lesser sails;

•Beachy Head •Charlotte Smith •Prospect: The Sea

Blank Verse

•Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. •Iambic pentameter: a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable

Oh my rare cup! my pure and crystal cup, with not one speck of colour to make false the passing lights, or flaw to make them swerve! My cup of Truth! How the lost fools will laugh and thank me for my boon, as if I gave some momentary flash of the gods' joy, to drink where I have drunk and touch the touch of my lips with their own! Aye, let them touch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Too cruel? Did I choose them what they are? or change them from themselves by poisonous charms? But any draught, pure water, natural wine, out of my cup, revealed them to themselves and to each other. Change? there was no change; only disguise gone from them unawares: and had there been one right true man of them he would have drunk the draught as I had drunk, and stood unchanged, and looked me in the eyes, abashing me before him.

•Circe •Webster •Webster's Feminist Revision: Circe's Powers •How does Webster's Circe revise the Homeric myth? How does this alteration rewrite the sexual politics of Circe's magical powers?

The sun drops luridly into the west; darkness has raised her arms to draw him down before the time, not waiting as of wont till he has come to her behind the sea; and the smooth waves grow sullen in the gloom and wear their threatening purple; more and more the plain of waters sways and seems to rise convexly from its level of the shores; and low dull thunder rolls along the beach: there will be storm at last, storm, glorious storm.

•Circe •Webster •Webster's Feminist Revision: Female Desire •What action does "Darkness" take? How does this challenge Victorian female stereotypes? •What does the storm symbolize?

Why am I so fair, and marvellously minded, and with sight which flashes suddenly on hidden things, as the gods see who do not need to look? why wear I in my eyes that stronger power than basilisks, whose gaze can only kill, to draw men's souls to me to live or die as I would have them? why am I given pride which yet longs to be broken, and this scorn cruel and vengeful for the lesser men who meet the smiles I waste for lack of him and grow too glad? why am I who I am, but for the sake of him whom fate will send one day to be my master utterly, that he should take me, the desire of all, whom only he in the world could bow to him?

•Circe •Webster •Webster's Feminist Revision: Female Subjectivity •According to tradition, Circe is able to prophesize like a god and manipulate men's souls and bodies at will. Yet, as Homer has it, the prideful goddess will apparently "be broken" by a mere mortal who will become her "master." •How does this passage work to expose this tradition of (male) representation? How does the passage place itself in relationship to such literary authority? •Accordingly, how should we read Circe's desire for domination?

Oh welcome, welcome, though it rend my bowers, scattering my blossomed roses like the dust, splitting the shrieking branches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What matter? let it come and bring me change, breaking the sickly sweet monotony. I am too weary of this long bright calm; always the same blue sky, always the sea the same blue perfect likeness of the sky, one rose to match the other that has waned, to-morrow's dawn the twin of yesterday's; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dusk after dusk brings the same languid trance upon the shadowy hills, and in the fields the waves of fireflies come and go the same, making the very flash of light and stir vex one like dronings of the spinning wheel.

•Circe •Webster •Webster's Feminist Revision: Woman's Work • What is the symbolic significance of "rend[ing] her bowers"? • How might Circe's weariness serve as a critique of Victorian gender norms? Why voice this modern critique through this ancient mythic figure? • Where have we encountered other "weary" figures? How might we compare Circe's weariness to these other representations?

The Lotus Eaters

•How might we read this poem as a critique of alienated labor? •Why are the mariners passive? •Why do they seek escape?

A Musical Instrument

•How would you describe the rhythm of this poem? •How does this rhythm/rhyme scheme interact with the thematic content of the poem? •What is the implication of the "turbid" river and the broken lilies? •Why are the lilies revived at the end of the poem? What about the reeds?

Role of the Poet

•If art constitutes its own self-enclosed realm, what is the relationship between poetry and labor? ("The Lotus Eaters," "A Musical Instrument") •Does poetry constitute its own labor? •If so, how is that labor represented? How do gender relations and sexual desire shape poetic labor? ("A Musical Instrument," "Eurydice to Orpheus")

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still.

•The Ballad of Reading Gaol •Wilde •Hard labor in prison •"Pain Wears No Mask" (Wilde's De Profundis, 473-4) •The sorrow is the best for art (truth value)

He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed.

•The Ballad of Reading Gaol •Wilde •Only stanza that talks about the murder •Hands = synecdoche

Yet each man kills the thing he loves By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word, The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because The dead so soon grow cold. Some love too little, some too long, Some sell, and others buy; Some do the deed with many tears, And some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, Yet each man does not die.

•The Ballad of Reading Gaol •Wilde •You kill some part of yourself •What does "kill" mean in this context? How literal? --Kill = stigma •"You are your worst enemy" •Bicyclist wants to be the best, trains every day, gets sick of it •I'm not the only one who does this, but I'm the only one in prison •Wilde was treated as poorly as the murderer •Very accessible poem (ballad form, colloquial language)

Eurydice to Orpheus

•The myth of Orpheus •How does Browning alter our interpretation of this myth? •How does Browning's representation of Eurydice compare to Tennyson's representation of the Lotus Eaters? How do these poem construct sexual desire? Or desire more broadly conceived?

Prospect Poem

•Topographical poetry or loco-descriptive poetry is a genre of poetry that describes, and often praises, a landscape or place. •A prospect poem is a subgenre of topographical poetry. It describes the view from a distance or a temporal view into the future, with the sense of opportunity or expectation.

Ulysses

•What kind of poem is "Ulysses"? •How does this poetic form shape our interpretation of the poem's representation of heroism? •Why do you think Tennyson employed this form?