JOHN KEATS’S SENSOUSNESS
By the sensuous poetry is meant poetry which is devoted not to an idea or a philosophical thought, but mainly to the task of giving delight to the senses. Sensuous poetry would have an appeal to our eyes by presenting beautiful and colorful word-pictures, to our ear by its metrical music and musical sounds, to our nose by arousing our sense of smell, and so on.
All poetry proceeds originally from sense-impressions, and all poets are more or less sensuous. Impressions of the senses are in fact the starting point of the poetic process for it is what the poet sees and hears that excites his emotion and imagination, and his emotional and imaginative reaction to his sense-impressions generates poetry.
Keats said, “O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts”. Sensuousness means appeal to our senses-eye, ear, nose, taste and smell, and sense of hot and cold. Other poets give only eye picture. They are capable of giving other pictures. Keats is a painter in words. With the help of a mere few words, he presents a solid, concrete picture.
“Her hair was long, her foot was light
And her eyes were wild”.
“I saw their starved lips in the gloom
With horrid warning gaped wide”.
The music of the nightingale produces pangs of pain in poet’s heart.
“The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In the ancient days, by emperor and clown”.
The opening lines of La Belle Dame Sans Merci describe extreme cold;
“The sedge is withered from the lake
And no birds sing”.
Calvin called the line ‘And no birds sing’, as the best line in English literature. In Ode to a Nightingale, Keats describes many wines. The idea of their taste is intoxicating:
“O for a beaker full of the warm South:
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene”.
In La Belle Dame Sans Merci the idea of taste is described
She found me roots of relish sweet
Of honey wild and manna dew”.
The poet can’t see the flowers in the darkness. There is mingled perfume of many flower:
Fast fading violets covered up in leaves
And mid May’s eldest child,
The musk-rose, full of dewy, wine
The murmurous haunts of flies on summer eves.
In the Ode to Autumn, the season of autumn is described in sensuous terms in which all the senses are called forth.
Season of musts and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Keats is pre-eminently a poet of sensations, whose very thought is clothed in sensuous images. Not only were the sense perceptions of Keats quick and alert, but had the rare gift of communicating these perceptions by concrete and sensuous imagery. How vivid and enchanting is the description of wine-bubbles in the line:
With beaded bubbles winkling at the bottom.
Keats was a worshipper of beauty and pursued beauty everywhere, and it was his senses that first revealed to him the beauty of things. The beauty of the universe---from the stars of the sky to the flowers of the woods---first stuck his senses. He could make poetry only out of what he felt upon his pulses. Thus, it was his sense impression that kindled his imagination which made him realize the great principle that “Beauty is Truth and Truth is Beauty”.
Showing posts with label English poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English poetry. Show all posts
John Keats As An Escapist
John Keats
As An Escapist
Firstly, all the poets of Keats’s time were influenced by the ideas and ideals of the French Revolution. The ideas of the French Revolution had awakened the youthful nature of both Wordsworth and Coleridge; they had stirred the wrath of Scott; they had worked like Yeats on Byron and brought forth new matter for Shelly. There was only one poet, Keats, of that age whom they could not affect on any way whatsoever.
Secondly, Keats longed to escape from the realities of life in a mood that seized him when he was contrasting the lot of man with that of the nightingale. Sorrows and sufferings were inevitable in life and he had fully realized that escape from the realities of life was neither possible nor desirable. Keats’s lifelong creed was:”A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”He wanted to plunge into. ”the realm of Flora and Pan …. Sleep And Poetry. Keats was so preoccupied with beauty that he turned a deaf ear to the actualities of life around him.
Keats always tried to attain serenity of mood in the midst of all the sufferings which he was undergoing in his own life and which he saw all around him in life. For Keats the world of beauty was an escape from the dreary and painful effects of life. Keats was not a Revolutionary idealist like Shelley, nor had the Shelley’s reforming zeal. Keats was a pure poet. He had aesthetic taste in the masterpieces of the past.
Who expressed in his poetry the most worth-while part of his vision of beauty, which was also truth to him. Every great poet must follow the bent of his genius: ---he has his own vision of life, and he expressed it in his own way. Wordsworth has a spiritual vision and he expresses it in simple style; Shelley has an idealistic vision and he expresses it in musical verse; Keats had the artist’s vision of beauty, and he expresses it in picturesque style.
‘Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty’, that is all
Ye know on earth, ad all ye need to know.
The poetry of Keats shows a process of gradual development. His earlier experiments in verse are products of youthful imagination, immature and overcharged with imagery. The youthful poet has abnormal sensibility, but lacks experience of life.
Thus he longed to escape from the realities of life. But it was a passing mood that seized him when he was contrasting the lot of man with that of nightingale. Sorrows and sufferings were inevitable in life and he fully realised that escape from the realities of life was neither possible nor desirable. In Hyperion he wrote:
None can usurp the height…
But those to whom the miseries of the world
Are misery, and will not let them rest.
Keats was trying to attain serenity of mood in the midst of all the sufferings which he was undergoing in his own life and which he saw all around him in life. This mood of serenity is expressed in the Ode to Autumn.
Keats remained untouched by the ideas of the Revolution which filled the atmosphere of Europe at the time: at least from his poetry we do not find any indication of his interest in the Revolution. Though the contemporary facts of history have not left any impression on his poetry, he deeply realized and expressed in his poetry the fundamental truths of life. Keats was a pure poet, would not allow any extraneous things like politics or morality to disturb the pure waters of poetry. And poetry is the expression of the poet’s own experience of life
In the Ode to Melancholy, he points out how sadness inevitably accompanies joy and beauty. The rose is beautiful indeed but we cannot think of the without its thorn. It is therefore impossible to escape from inevitable pain in life. Melancholy, he says,
“Dwells with beauty—beauty that must die”
Melancholy arises from transience of joy, and joy is transient by its nature. Therefore, Keats accepts life as a whole—with its joy and beauty as well as its pain and despair. The Ode on Grecian Urn is not a dream of unutterable beauty nor is the urn itself the song of an impossible bliss beyond mortality. It has a precious message to mankind, not as a thing of beauty which gives exquisite delight to the senses, but as a symbol and prophecy of a comprehension of human life to which mankind can attain. Keats was not an escapist from life, as he is sometimes supposed to be.
As An Escapist
Firstly, all the poets of Keats’s time were influenced by the ideas and ideals of the French Revolution. The ideas of the French Revolution had awakened the youthful nature of both Wordsworth and Coleridge; they had stirred the wrath of Scott; they had worked like Yeats on Byron and brought forth new matter for Shelly. There was only one poet, Keats, of that age whom they could not affect on any way whatsoever.
Secondly, Keats longed to escape from the realities of life in a mood that seized him when he was contrasting the lot of man with that of the nightingale. Sorrows and sufferings were inevitable in life and he had fully realized that escape from the realities of life was neither possible nor desirable. Keats’s lifelong creed was:”A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”He wanted to plunge into. ”the realm of Flora and Pan …. Sleep And Poetry. Keats was so preoccupied with beauty that he turned a deaf ear to the actualities of life around him.
Keats always tried to attain serenity of mood in the midst of all the sufferings which he was undergoing in his own life and which he saw all around him in life. For Keats the world of beauty was an escape from the dreary and painful effects of life. Keats was not a Revolutionary idealist like Shelley, nor had the Shelley’s reforming zeal. Keats was a pure poet. He had aesthetic taste in the masterpieces of the past.
Who expressed in his poetry the most worth-while part of his vision of beauty, which was also truth to him. Every great poet must follow the bent of his genius: ---he has his own vision of life, and he expressed it in his own way. Wordsworth has a spiritual vision and he expresses it in simple style; Shelley has an idealistic vision and he expresses it in musical verse; Keats had the artist’s vision of beauty, and he expresses it in picturesque style.
‘Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty’, that is all
Ye know on earth, ad all ye need to know.
The poetry of Keats shows a process of gradual development. His earlier experiments in verse are products of youthful imagination, immature and overcharged with imagery. The youthful poet has abnormal sensibility, but lacks experience of life.
Thus he longed to escape from the realities of life. But it was a passing mood that seized him when he was contrasting the lot of man with that of nightingale. Sorrows and sufferings were inevitable in life and he fully realised that escape from the realities of life was neither possible nor desirable. In Hyperion he wrote:
None can usurp the height…
But those to whom the miseries of the world
Are misery, and will not let them rest.
Keats was trying to attain serenity of mood in the midst of all the sufferings which he was undergoing in his own life and which he saw all around him in life. This mood of serenity is expressed in the Ode to Autumn.
Keats remained untouched by the ideas of the Revolution which filled the atmosphere of Europe at the time: at least from his poetry we do not find any indication of his interest in the Revolution. Though the contemporary facts of history have not left any impression on his poetry, he deeply realized and expressed in his poetry the fundamental truths of life. Keats was a pure poet, would not allow any extraneous things like politics or morality to disturb the pure waters of poetry. And poetry is the expression of the poet’s own experience of life
In the Ode to Melancholy, he points out how sadness inevitably accompanies joy and beauty. The rose is beautiful indeed but we cannot think of the without its thorn. It is therefore impossible to escape from inevitable pain in life. Melancholy, he says,
“Dwells with beauty—beauty that must die”
Melancholy arises from transience of joy, and joy is transient by its nature. Therefore, Keats accepts life as a whole—with its joy and beauty as well as its pain and despair. The Ode on Grecian Urn is not a dream of unutterable beauty nor is the urn itself the song of an impossible bliss beyond mortality. It has a precious message to mankind, not as a thing of beauty which gives exquisite delight to the senses, but as a symbol and prophecy of a comprehension of human life to which mankind can attain. Keats was not an escapist from life, as he is sometimes supposed to be.
JOHN KEATS’S HELLENISM
“Hellenism” means one’s specific interest in Greek culture and fine arts (poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture) as developed by Greek cities in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. Keats’s Hellenism ( Greekness ) is represented by:
(i ) his spontaneous response to his lobe of beauty and of truth in all possible forms;
(ii) his pagan delight in Nature and in the physical side of human life;
(iii) his manner of personifying the phenomena of Nature;
(iv) his interest in ancient Greek writers as well as in ancient Greek mythology;
(v) his feeling for form, and clearness of expression;
(vi) his concrete imagery instead of abstract ideas;
(vii) his reading of translations of Greek classics; and
(viii) his study of Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary.
Keats freely used Greek mythology in his poems like Endymion, Lamia, Hyperion, Ode to Psyche, On a Grecian Urn, The eye of St. Agnes, etc. The imaginative attitude of the Greeks felt the mythological presence of Proteus if the sea, of Dryads in the trees and of Naiads in the brooks. The instinctive Greekness of Keats’s mind is proved by the fact that in his entire poetry, he elevated only goddess Psyche and she was of Greece. Keats’s poetry blends Hellenic or Classical restraints with Romantic freedom. It is in Keats’s Odes that we find a fusion of his romantic impulse with the classic severity.
The instinctive Greekness of Keats’s mind lies in his passionate pursuit of beauty, which is the very soul of his poetry. The Greek did not burden their poetry with philosophy or spiritual massage. Their poetry was incarnation of beauty, and existed for itself. Similarly Keats was a pure poet.
Thus “there was in Keats the keenest sense and enjoyment of beauty, and this gave him a fellow feeling with the Greek masters.”
The qualities and characteristic of Keats’s Hellenism or “Greekness” may be thus summarized:
(1)his love of beauty--- his spontaneous response to in all forms.
(2)his pagan delight in Nature and in the physical side of life.
(3)his manner of personifying the phenomena of Nature.
(4)his interest in the subject-matter of the old Greek writers, and in the Greek mythology.
Robert Browning's Middle life
Middle life
In 1845, Browning met Elizabeth Barrett, who lived as a semi-invalid and virtual prisoner in her father's house in Wimpole Street. Gradually a significant romance developed between them, leading to their secret marriage and flight in 1846. From the time of their marriage, the Brownings lived in Italy, first in Pisa, and then, within a year, finding an apartment in Florence which they called Casa Guidi. Their only child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, nicknamed "Penini" or "Pen", was born in 1849. In these years Browning was fascinated by and learned hugely from the art and atmosphere of Italy. He would, in later life, say that 'Italy was my university'. The Brownings bought a home in Asolo. Browning died on the day that the Town Council approved the purchase. His wife died in 1861.
Browning's poetry was known to the cognoscenti from fairly early on in his life, but he remained relatively obscure as a poet till his middle age. In Florence he worked on the poems that eventually comprised his two-volume Men and Women, for which he is now well known; in 1855, however, when these were published, they made little impact. It was only after his wife's death, in 1861, when he returned to England and became part of the London literary scene, that his reputation started to take off. In 1868, after five years work, he completed and published the long blank-verse poem The Ring and the Book, and finally achieved really significant recognition. Based on a convoluted murder-case from 1690s Rome, the poem is composed of twelve books, essentially comprising ten lengthy dramatic poems narrated by the various characters in the story showing their individual take on events as they transpire, bookended by an introduction and conclusion by Browning himself. Extraordinarily long even by Browning's own standards The Ring and the Book was the poet's most ambitious project and has been hailed as a tour de force of dramatic poetry.Finally brought Browning the renown he had sought and deserved for nearly forty years of work.
In 1845, Browning met Elizabeth Barrett, who lived as a semi-invalid and virtual prisoner in her father's house in Wimpole Street. Gradually a significant romance developed between them, leading to their secret marriage and flight in 1846. From the time of their marriage, the Brownings lived in Italy, first in Pisa, and then, within a year, finding an apartment in Florence which they called Casa Guidi. Their only child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, nicknamed "Penini" or "Pen", was born in 1849. In these years Browning was fascinated by and learned hugely from the art and atmosphere of Italy. He would, in later life, say that 'Italy was my university'. The Brownings bought a home in Asolo. Browning died on the day that the Town Council approved the purchase. His wife died in 1861.
Browning's poetry was known to the cognoscenti from fairly early on in his life, but he remained relatively obscure as a poet till his middle age. In Florence he worked on the poems that eventually comprised his two-volume Men and Women, for which he is now well known; in 1855, however, when these were published, they made little impact. It was only after his wife's death, in 1861, when he returned to England and became part of the London literary scene, that his reputation started to take off. In 1868, after five years work, he completed and published the long blank-verse poem The Ring and the Book, and finally achieved really significant recognition. Based on a convoluted murder-case from 1690s Rome, the poem is composed of twelve books, essentially comprising ten lengthy dramatic poems narrated by the various characters in the story showing their individual take on events as they transpire, bookended by an introduction and conclusion by Browning himself. Extraordinarily long even by Browning's own standards The Ring and the Book was the poet's most ambitious project and has been hailed as a tour de force of dramatic poetry.Finally brought Browning the renown he had sought and deserved for nearly forty years of work.
Rape of the Lock as an epic
Rape of the Lock as an epic
The poem satirises a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an incident recounted by Pope's friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic Catholic families at a period in England when Catholicism was legally proscribed. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to "comically merge the two." He utilised the character Belinda to represent Arabella and introduced an entire system of "sylphs," or guardian spirits of virgins, a parodic version of the gods and goddesses of conventional epic.
Pope’s poem mocks the traditions of classical epics: the rape of Helen of Troy becomes here the theft of a lock of hair; the gods become minute sylphs; Aeneas’ voyage up the Tiber becomes Belinda’s voyage up the Thames, and the description of Achilles’ shield becomes one of Belinda’s petticoats. He also uses the epic style of invocations, lamentations, exclamations and similes, and in some cases adds parody to imitation by following the framework of actual speeches in Homer’s Iliad. Although the poem is extremely funny at times, Pope always keeps a sense that beauty is fragile, and that the loss of a lock of hair touches Belinda deeply. As his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter.
The humour of the poem comes from the tempest in a teapot of vanity being couched within the elaborate, formal verbal structure of an epic poem. When the Baron, for example, goes to snip the lock of hair, Pope says,
The Peer now spreads the glittering Forfex wide,
T' inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.
Ev'n then, before the fatal Engine clos'd,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;
Fate urged the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But Airy Substance soon unites again)
The meeting Points the sacred Hair dissever
From the fair Head, for ever and for ever!
Canto III
Using epic battle imagery to describe a small pair of ladies' scissors satirises the ridiculous nature of the whole situation.
Three of Uranus's moons are named after characters from "The Rape of the Lock": Belinda, Umbriel, and Ariel, the last name also (previously) appearing in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
The poem satirises a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an incident recounted by Pope's friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic Catholic families at a period in England when Catholicism was legally proscribed. Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to "comically merge the two." He utilised the character Belinda to represent Arabella and introduced an entire system of "sylphs," or guardian spirits of virgins, a parodic version of the gods and goddesses of conventional epic.
Pope’s poem mocks the traditions of classical epics: the rape of Helen of Troy becomes here the theft of a lock of hair; the gods become minute sylphs; Aeneas’ voyage up the Tiber becomes Belinda’s voyage up the Thames, and the description of Achilles’ shield becomes one of Belinda’s petticoats. He also uses the epic style of invocations, lamentations, exclamations and similes, and in some cases adds parody to imitation by following the framework of actual speeches in Homer’s Iliad. Although the poem is extremely funny at times, Pope always keeps a sense that beauty is fragile, and that the loss of a lock of hair touches Belinda deeply. As his introductory letter makes clear, women in that period were essentially supposed to be decorative rather than rational, and the loss of beauty was a serious matter.
The humour of the poem comes from the tempest in a teapot of vanity being couched within the elaborate, formal verbal structure of an epic poem. When the Baron, for example, goes to snip the lock of hair, Pope says,
The Peer now spreads the glittering Forfex wide,
T' inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.
Ev'n then, before the fatal Engine clos'd,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;
Fate urged the Sheers, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But Airy Substance soon unites again)
The meeting Points the sacred Hair dissever
From the fair Head, for ever and for ever!
Canto III
Using epic battle imagery to describe a small pair of ladies' scissors satirises the ridiculous nature of the whole situation.
Three of Uranus's moons are named after characters from "The Rape of the Lock": Belinda, Umbriel, and Ariel, the last name also (previously) appearing in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Robert Browning's Youth
Youth
Browning was born in Camberwell, a suburb of London, England, on May 7, 1812, the first son of Robert and Sarah Anna Browning. His father was a man of both fine intellect and character, who worked as a well-paid clerk for the Bank of England. Robert's father amassed a library of around 6,000 books, many of them obscure and arcane. Thus, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources. His mother, with whom he was ardently bonded, was a devout Nonconformist as well as extremely musically talented. He had a younger sister named Sarianna, also gifted, who became her brother's companion in his later years. As a family unit they lived simply, and his father encouraged his interest in literature and the Arts.
In childhood, he was distinguished by a love of poetry and natural history. By twelve, he had written a book of poetry which he later destroyed when no publisher could be found. After attending several private schools he began to be educated by a tutor, having demonstrated a strong dislike for institutionalized education.
Browning was a fast learner and by the age of fourteen was fluent in French, Greek, Italian and Latin as well as his native English. He became a great admirer of the Romantic poets, especially Shelley. Following the precedent of Shelley, Browning became an atheist and vegetarian, both of which he later decided to stop being. At age sixteen, he attended University College London, but left after his first year. His mother’s staunch evangelical faith circumscribed the pursuit of his studying at either Oxford University or Cambridge University, then both only open to members of the Church of England. He had substantial musical ability and he composed arrangements of various songs.
Browning was born in Camberwell, a suburb of London, England, on May 7, 1812, the first son of Robert and Sarah Anna Browning. His father was a man of both fine intellect and character, who worked as a well-paid clerk for the Bank of England. Robert's father amassed a library of around 6,000 books, many of them obscure and arcane. Thus, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources. His mother, with whom he was ardently bonded, was a devout Nonconformist as well as extremely musically talented. He had a younger sister named Sarianna, also gifted, who became her brother's companion in his later years. As a family unit they lived simply, and his father encouraged his interest in literature and the Arts.
In childhood, he was distinguished by a love of poetry and natural history. By twelve, he had written a book of poetry which he later destroyed when no publisher could be found. After attending several private schools he began to be educated by a tutor, having demonstrated a strong dislike for institutionalized education.
Browning was a fast learner and by the age of fourteen was fluent in French, Greek, Italian and Latin as well as his native English. He became a great admirer of the Romantic poets, especially Shelley. Following the precedent of Shelley, Browning became an atheist and vegetarian, both of which he later decided to stop being. At age sixteen, he attended University College London, but left after his first year. His mother’s staunch evangelical faith circumscribed the pursuit of his studying at either Oxford University or Cambridge University, then both only open to members of the Church of England. He had substantial musical ability and he composed arrangements of various songs.
Robert Browning_Late life
Late life
In the remaining years of his life he traveled extensively and frequented Manchester. Few of his later poems gained the popularity of The Ring and the Book, and they are largely unread today. However, Browning's later work has been undergoing a major critical re-evaluation in recent years, and much of it remains of interest for its poetic quality and psychological insight. After a series of long poems published in the early 1870s, of which Fifine at the Fair and Red Cotton Night-Cap Country were the best-received, Browning again turned to shorter poems. The volume Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper included a spiteful attack against Browning's critics, especially the later Poet Laureate Alfred Austin.
According to some reports Browning became romantically involved with Lady Ashburton, but did not re-marry. In 1878, he returned to Italy for the first time in the seventeen years since Elizabeth's death, and returned there on several occasions.
The Browning Society was formed for the appreciation of his works in 1881.
In 1887, Browning produced the major work of his later years, Parleyings with Certain People of Importance In Their Day. It finally presented the poet speaking in his own voice, engaging in a series of dialogues with long-forgotten figures of literary, artistic, and philosophic history. Once more, the Victorian public was baffled by this, and Browning returned to the short, concise lyric for his last volume, Asolando (1889).
He died at his son's home Ca' Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December 1889, the same day Asolando was published, and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey; his grave now lies immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.
In the remaining years of his life he traveled extensively and frequented Manchester. Few of his later poems gained the popularity of The Ring and the Book, and they are largely unread today. However, Browning's later work has been undergoing a major critical re-evaluation in recent years, and much of it remains of interest for its poetic quality and psychological insight. After a series of long poems published in the early 1870s, of which Fifine at the Fair and Red Cotton Night-Cap Country were the best-received, Browning again turned to shorter poems. The volume Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper included a spiteful attack against Browning's critics, especially the later Poet Laureate Alfred Austin.
According to some reports Browning became romantically involved with Lady Ashburton, but did not re-marry. In 1878, he returned to Italy for the first time in the seventeen years since Elizabeth's death, and returned there on several occasions.
The Browning Society was formed for the appreciation of his works in 1881.
In 1887, Browning produced the major work of his later years, Parleyings with Certain People of Importance In Their Day. It finally presented the poet speaking in his own voice, engaging in a series of dialogues with long-forgotten figures of literary, artistic, and philosophic history. Once more, the Victorian public was baffled by this, and Browning returned to the short, concise lyric for his last volume, Asolando (1889).
He died at his son's home Ca' Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December 1889, the same day Asolando was published, and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey; his grave now lies immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.
Robert Browning_Late life
Late life
In the remaining years of his life he traveled extensively and frequented Manchester. Few of his later poems gained the popularity of The Ring and the Book, and they are largely unread today. However, Browning's later work has been undergoing a major critical re-evaluation in recent years, and much of it remains of interest for its poetic quality and psychological insight. After a series of long poems published in the early 1870s, of which Fifine at the Fair and Red Cotton Night-Cap Country were the best-received, Browning again turned to shorter poems. The volume Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper included a spiteful attack against Browning's critics, especially the later Poet Laureate Alfred Austin.
According to some reports Browning became romantically involved with Lady Ashburton, but did not re-marry. In 1878, he returned to Italy for the first time in the seventeen years since Elizabeth's death, and returned there on several occasions.
The Browning Society was formed for the appreciation of his works in 1881.
In 1887, Browning produced the major work of his later years, Parleyings with Certain People of Importance In Their Day. It finally presented the poet speaking in his own voice, engaging in a series of dialogues with long-forgotten figures of literary, artistic, and philosophic history. Once more, the Victorian public was baffled by this, and Browning returned to the short, concise lyric for his last volume, Asolando (1889).
He died at his son's home Ca' Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December 1889, the same day Asolando was published, and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey; his grave now lies immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.
In the remaining years of his life he traveled extensively and frequented Manchester. Few of his later poems gained the popularity of The Ring and the Book, and they are largely unread today. However, Browning's later work has been undergoing a major critical re-evaluation in recent years, and much of it remains of interest for its poetic quality and psychological insight. After a series of long poems published in the early 1870s, of which Fifine at the Fair and Red Cotton Night-Cap Country were the best-received, Browning again turned to shorter poems. The volume Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper included a spiteful attack against Browning's critics, especially the later Poet Laureate Alfred Austin.
According to some reports Browning became romantically involved with Lady Ashburton, but did not re-marry. In 1878, he returned to Italy for the first time in the seventeen years since Elizabeth's death, and returned there on several occasions.
The Browning Society was formed for the appreciation of his works in 1881.
In 1887, Browning produced the major work of his later years, Parleyings with Certain People of Importance In Their Day. It finally presented the poet speaking in his own voice, engaging in a series of dialogues with long-forgotten figures of literary, artistic, and philosophic history. Once more, the Victorian public was baffled by this, and Browning returned to the short, concise lyric for his last volume, Asolando (1889).
He died at his son's home Ca' Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December 1889, the same day Asolando was published, and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey; his grave now lies immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.
W.B.YEATS
YEATS’S THEORY OF POETRY
Yeats’s theory of poetry is of great importance for a full understanding of his own poems. In the early stage of his poetic career he believed in the theory of “art for life’s sake”. He was in full agreement with his father that dramatic poetry was to be preferred because it was clear and sharp in outline, while the lyric was vague and blurred. However his genius was lyrical and it penetrates even his dreams which are essentially lyrical.
But in the nineties he became the advocate of “art for art’s sake.”He started to write “pure poetry”, a poetry from which all the exterior decorations had been done away with. In the last phase of his poetry Yeats tried to reconcile art with life. In his later poetry we get a nice fusion. Yeasts believed that “literature is always personal, always one man’s vision of the world, one man’s experiences”. But he also believed that there must be a fusion of the impersonal with the personal, of the objective with the subjective before really great poetry could be born. A poet to him was essentially a visionary who must remain true to his vision. Poetry to him was “the commonsense of the soul: it distinguishes greatness from triviality, mere fancifulness from beauty that lights up the deeps of thought”.
Yeats’s theory of poetry is of great importance for a full understanding of his own poems. In the early stage of his poetic career he believed in the theory of “art for life’s sake”. He was in full agreement with his father that dramatic poetry was to be preferred because it was clear and sharp in outline, while the lyric was vague and blurred. However his genius was lyrical and it penetrates even his dreams which are essentially lyrical.
But in the nineties he became the advocate of “art for art’s sake.”He started to write “pure poetry”, a poetry from which all the exterior decorations had been done away with. In the last phase of his poetry Yeats tried to reconcile art with life. In his later poetry we get a nice fusion. Yeasts believed that “literature is always personal, always one man’s vision of the world, one man’s experiences”. But he also believed that there must be a fusion of the impersonal with the personal, of the objective with the subjective before really great poetry could be born. A poet to him was essentially a visionary who must remain true to his vision. Poetry to him was “the commonsense of the soul: it distinguishes greatness from triviality, mere fancifulness from beauty that lights up the deeps of thought”.
W.B.Yeats.
W.B.YEATS: A Modern Poet
W.B.Yeats is a unique poet as he is a traditional as well as modern poet at the same time. T.S. Eliot once said, “Certainly, for the younger poets of England and America, I am sure that their admiration for Yeats’s poetry has been wholly good”. But though Yeats was traditional in his views and very Irish in his outlook, he was a modern poet all the same. Although he started his career as a reflection of the romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites, he very soon evolved into a genuine modern poet. Thus, Yeats is a poet who is both traditional and modern.
The early poetry of W.B Yeats is not realistic. Even in his later poems, despite diction Yeats is till not free from the spell of the fairies, ghosts, magic and the mysterious world. He is indeed the last romantic. But the poetry in specially the last two phases is very realistic.
The pessimistic note is the hallmark of modern poetry; Yeats’s poetry, like that of Eliot and some of the other modern poets is marked with pessimism and disillusionment. To A shade, When Helen Lived, and The Byzantium poems reflects this mood. The last two lines from the poem To A Shade will illustrate this:
You had enough of sorrow before death
Away, away; you are safer in the tomb.
Although the modern age is essentially a scientific age, yet modern poetry has traces of mysticism and religion in it. Yeats is perhaps the one modern poet who built up a system of thought based on the occult and mystic religion and whose poetry was the direct outcome of it. The last poems of Yeats are steeped in mysticism. A dialogue of Self and Soul is in a way a debate between ‘Atma’ and ‘Maya’.
Modern poetry has often been described as being very complex and obscure, and it is not at all surprising that Yeats’s poems have been dubbed as some of the most obscure and complex poems. Yeats’s adoption of poetic person or ‘Mask’ made his poems difficult to understand. But what made his poems (and even his plays) very complex and obscure is the ‘system of symbolism’ which he had built up in A Vision.
Yeats may be regarded as a link between the decadent aestheticism of the nineties and a new realism of the modern age. The romanticism, the mythology and the vague music of his early work are no longer to be found in his later poems.
The Nobel Prize for literature given to Yeats in 1923 confirmed him as a great modern poet.
W.B.Yeats is a unique poet as he is a traditional as well as modern poet at the same time. T.S. Eliot once said, “Certainly, for the younger poets of England and America, I am sure that their admiration for Yeats’s poetry has been wholly good”. But though Yeats was traditional in his views and very Irish in his outlook, he was a modern poet all the same. Although he started his career as a reflection of the romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites, he very soon evolved into a genuine modern poet. Thus, Yeats is a poet who is both traditional and modern.
The early poetry of W.B Yeats is not realistic. Even in his later poems, despite diction Yeats is till not free from the spell of the fairies, ghosts, magic and the mysterious world. He is indeed the last romantic. But the poetry in specially the last two phases is very realistic.
The pessimistic note is the hallmark of modern poetry; Yeats’s poetry, like that of Eliot and some of the other modern poets is marked with pessimism and disillusionment. To A shade, When Helen Lived, and The Byzantium poems reflects this mood. The last two lines from the poem To A Shade will illustrate this:
You had enough of sorrow before death
Away, away; you are safer in the tomb.
Although the modern age is essentially a scientific age, yet modern poetry has traces of mysticism and religion in it. Yeats is perhaps the one modern poet who built up a system of thought based on the occult and mystic religion and whose poetry was the direct outcome of it. The last poems of Yeats are steeped in mysticism. A dialogue of Self and Soul is in a way a debate between ‘Atma’ and ‘Maya’.
Modern poetry has often been described as being very complex and obscure, and it is not at all surprising that Yeats’s poems have been dubbed as some of the most obscure and complex poems. Yeats’s adoption of poetic person or ‘Mask’ made his poems difficult to understand. But what made his poems (and even his plays) very complex and obscure is the ‘system of symbolism’ which he had built up in A Vision.
Yeats may be regarded as a link between the decadent aestheticism of the nineties and a new realism of the modern age. The romanticism, the mythology and the vague music of his early work are no longer to be found in his later poems.
The Nobel Prize for literature given to Yeats in 1923 confirmed him as a great modern poet.
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