The Victorian Era: Lastly and leastly

The Victorian Age was marked firstly by the longest one reign of England by miss Queen Victoria, making a name for the era, and also by the height of the British empire. Imperialism was in full swing and with British troops spanning the globe, influence for writers and poets was abound in glory. The Arabian Nights were made popular in the west during this time, and so was The Novel, but that's a different story. The novel became the new writing form with the masters Jane austin and Charles Dickens, along with the Bronte sisters and the many, many English novelists who littered the scene.

The Reform Act of 1832 really started the era, which humanized working conditions in the new industrial age a bit, and the times continued with drastic changes in society. Darwin came out with the Origin of Species, the first World's Fair occurred in London in 1851, "the sun always shown on the British Empire" -- life was wild.

The literature of the age reflected its authors' changing environment and the tangible progress that was running through the middle of the 1800s. From Romantic ideals and lofty dreams, the Victorian writers and poets wanted to bring their writing back down to a more real level, something that responded to the lives of real peoople, the people living in cities, the poor, the prostituted. Despite these ideals of being real, most all the novelists of the period idealized or sentimentalized the lives of the poor, and always gave happy endings that tied their stories closed -- an aspect completely unrealistic. The poets, though acting as transitory figures between the Romantics and the Modernists of the 20th century, still held the Romantic importance of their heritage strongly, lamenting, like Keats, of the lost days of the Medival chivalry and the Renaissance.

Lord Tennyson's Isabel is a lovely ode to a girl, more over a woman. He says she is "the queen of marriage, a most perfect wife." Perhaps she was his, although that thought is dissented by the great concern over Isabel's purity and great grace of being. She is very strong, clear minded and quick-witted, and intelligent. She does not let idle gossip get her down, and she looks like nothing lower than a saint in his words. Tennyson describes a real woman, a live woman, who despite being surrounded by foolishness and low-downness, still holds to the ideals of a woman of the medieval times, who would deserve a knightly, chivalrous man.

Robert Browning's Youth and Art nearly made me want to cry, and change the name of this post. This poem ought to come first -- its good, and lonely, and I, like one who's memorized a bird's call and recognized it out in the world, was found very moved by reading this poem. It is the story of two people that live across the street from one another, an example of real live and real people, that could have been true lovers and the best of partners but neither ever made the initation of contact, neither caught the others' eye and so the possibility of their romance was wasted, and they moved on to other things. I liked:
"Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power
Of thanks in a look, or sing it?"

The narrarator is the woman, and throughout the poem she reveals a certain sense of anger, or frustration, or remorse that her dreams never made it, and the two young artists each made their paths, but never crossed them. I really liked this one. Maybe I like to relate to it, made it just is written so that it is easy to relate to, but Browning certainly made an impact with this work.

Matthew Arnold wrote Philomela, a serious work. This poem has many references to antiquity, many greek names, greek words, but while having this poem sound, perhaps, like complete poetic jargon, he still holds a sense of reality, and freshness -- raw feeling along with the classic. "Eternal Passion! /Eternal Pain!" These words sum up the whole poem. So maybe this poem is sort of a waste of words, when he could have just said it in four. But, nonetheless, I do feel a difference between this poem, and the classic style poems of the Romantics

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy is a winter poem. "When Frost was spectre-gray...dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day." Our poet has lost his hope, and he just wants to go inside, by the fire, curl up, and everyone else does too. It is night, and it is cold, but HARK! a thrush sounds out and reveals a mysterious hope and delight by singing, and the poet is in awe. Its a nice, simple poem. It reveals a lot about life during that time too. Just the feelings of the people during a season. What they want and like to do. I see that a lot in this Victorian poetry -- the base of real life, and basic reality for their poetry. At times its nice to relate to their words, other times I want something more exciting.