ROMANTIC/ VICTORIAN POETRY

ROMANTIC/ VICTORIAN POETRY

One of the poets of great poetic attribute was William Blake. he devoted his life to worshiping god through his poems and art. he believed that every object and event on earth had its powerful meaning, trough spiritualism. This can be seen in one of his poems:

"THE TYGER"

"tyger! tyger! burning brightin
the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain ?
what the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning brightin
the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

This poem seems to be a good example of romanticism since; I believe it expresses the ideas of William Blake itself, which is being religious. In the poem i noticed this reference in stanza# 17, "when the stars threw down their spears....". Stars.......spears; refer to the angels who fell with Satan and threw down their spears after losing the war in heaven.
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In the Victorian period which became very different from the romantic, authors and poets had a different way of expressing thoughts and ideas. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a very good poet, considered once the greatest living English poet. Tennyson always had and never lost the melancholy and sense of chaos that friends and reviewers in his early poems. He was very popular because his poems spoke a beautiful measured language of sense and regarding the sadness of life. This can be seen in one of his poems;

“Tears, Idle Tears”

“Tears idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields, and thinking of the
Days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a snail, that brings our
Friends up from the under world, sad as the last which reddens
Over one-
That sinks with all we love below the verge:
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death, and sweet as those by
Hopeless fancy feigned-
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O death in life, the days that are no more.”

This poem takes effect in a emotional perspective probably to the concern of Tennyson at the time. The poem I believe has words that would conclude to the reader as aspects of the way of life, Tennyson includes “days that are no more” which I believe regards to the end of life or death. In stanza# 2; “Tears from the depth of some divine despair”, I believe Alfred regards to the involvement of something in the religious aspect, perhaps it relates to Adam and Eve’s fall in genesis.