Thinking Activity : Victorian poets : Tennyson and Browning

 ⚫ Anyone Poem by Tennyson or Browning:

⚫ROBERT BROWNING⚫

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are noted for irony, characterisation, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax. His career began well, but collapsed for a time. The long poems Pauline  and Paracelsus  were acclaimed, but in 1840 Sordello was seen as wilfully obscure. His renown took over a decade to recover, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett and went to live in Italy. By the time of her death in 1861 he had published the collection Men and Women (1855). His Dramatis Personae (1864) and book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-1869) made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation today rests largely on his middle period. On his death in 1889, he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had contributed to Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying work formed in his lifetime and subsisted in Britain and the United States into the 20th century.

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⚫ Poems ⚫

• HuLove in a Life

Robert Browning

1855

• Life in a Love

Robert Browning

1855

• Song from Paracelsus

Robert Browning

1835

• Wanting is — What?

Robert Browning

1883

• Love in a Life

Robert Browning

2016

• Epilogue

Robert Browning

2017

• Now

Robert Browning

2016

• The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Robert Browning

1842

• My Last Duchess

Robert Browning

1842

• Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

Robert Browning

1842

• Rabbi Ben Ezra

Robert Browning

1864

• Meeting at Night

Robert Browning

⚫ My last Duchess ⚫

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands

Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said

'Frà 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 first

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not

Her husband's presence only, called that spot

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps

Frà Pandolf chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps

Over my lady's wrist too much,' or 'Paint

Must never hope to reproduce the faint

Half-flush that dies along her throat:' such stuff

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, 't was all one! My favour at her breast,

The dropping of the daylight in the West,

The bough of cherries some officious fool

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She 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 trifling? 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 munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretence

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!

⚫ Summary of the poem ⚫

 My last Duchess is loosely based on historical events involving Alfonso, the Duke of Ferrara, who lived in the 16th century. The Duke is the speaker of the poem, and tells us he is entertaining an emissary who has come to negotiate the Duke’s marriage (he has recently been widowed) to the daughter of another powerful family. As he shows the visitor through his palace, he stops before a portrait of the late Duchess, apparently a young and lovely girl. The Duke begins reminiscing about the portrait sessions, then about the Duchess herself. His musings give way to a diatribe on her disgraceful behavior: he claims she flirted with everyone and did not appreciate his “gift of a nine-hundred-years- old name.” As his monologue continues, the reader realizes with ever-more chilling certainty that the Duke in fact caused the Duchess’s early demise: when her behavior escalated, “gave commands;  Then all smiles stopped together.” Having made this disclosure, the Duke returns to the business at hand: arranging for another marriage, with another young girl. As the Duke and the emissary walk leave the painting behind, the Duke points out other notable artworks in his collection.

⚫ Themes of the poem ⚫

1. Multiple Perspectives on Single Events

2. The Purposes of Art

3. The Relationship Between Art and Morality

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⚫Characters

5657

⚫ Sentences

138

⚫ Paragraphs

25

⚫ words

1050