Both equally beautiful in message and style, Romantic poetry and Victorian poetry stand as moving pieces of literature and immortal testaments to the genius of their writers. However, both vastly differ from each other in their specific content and structure. While Romantic poetry focuses on humbleness and self-reflection, Victorian poetry addresses pride and the broader subject of humanity. Additionally, the structure of both types of poetry differs greatly: punctuation usage and placement becomes an overwhelming identifier of both types of verse. Romantic and Victorian poetry highlight each other by their differing topics of hubris and the state of man, and their intensely opposite structure.
First, the subject of humility is brought forth in William Wordsworth’s poem, “The world is too much with us” and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, “Ulysses.” Wordsworth’s speaker states that “Little we see in Nature that is ours,” meaning that humans forget their place in nature and the gifts which nature offers; the speaker goes on to say that “we are out of tune,” suggesting that humans are forgetful and sometimes willfully ignorant of nature’s power (Wordsworth 3). In Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” the speaker, who announces himself as a leader, rivals Wordsworth’s humility and openly states that his “purpose holds / to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western stars” (Tennyson 60-61). This declaration presents a challenge against nature to sail beyond what nature consists of and has made. The idea of man roaming farther than the “sunset” and the “stars” embodies human pride and suggests man overcoming nature by discovery. Furthermore, the mighty speaker concludes by saying “that which we are, we are […] Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” (Tennyson 67-70). This bold finale represents man’s desire to remain steadfast, but headstrong in his mission to overcome that which is mightier than he.
Second, the ideas of the “self” and humanity are represented in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” and Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” “Kubla Khan,” by itself, represents the innermost thoughts and feelings of a single individual; its origins stem from a dream Coleridge experienced. It stands alone as a piece of writing which is representative of the individual self because of its deeply personal material. In the text, the speaker presents Kubla Khan’s design, a wondrous “deep romantic chasm which slanted / Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!” (Coleridge 12-13). Kubla Khan’s creation is a manifestation of his personal, intimate desires, and he is surrounded by his own images of what he considers beautiful: the moon, water, and gardens. Conversely, the speaker in Ulysses addresses his “mariners” from the beginning, encouraging them to “seek a newer world” and to “smite the sounding furrows” (Tennyson 45, 57-59). His public plea for his fellow “souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought” with him presents a proposal to humanity at large, including the reader, to go forth, conquer, and discover the world outside oneself (Tennyson 46).
Last, the differing punctuation displayed in Romantic and Victorian poetry is clearly seen in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” and Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess.” Coleridge’s piece is a steady flow of sentences; nearly every punctuation mark arrives at the end of a line, whether it is a comma, semicolon, or exclamation point. Its consistent rhythm is a result of ritualistic punctuation placement, a trait which other Romantic poems have in common, including Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us.” For example, lines 17, 19, 20, 22, and 23 in “Kubla Khan” are all without punctuation until the end of the line. Also, in “The world…”, lines 5, 6, 7, 12, and 13 share the same style of a consistent end-of-line punctuation mark. In contrast, the Victorian piece, “My Last Duchess,” contains countless lines which are bisected by the interruption of commas, exclamation points, colons, and dashes. The speaker says that “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” (Browning 31-34). This excerpt begins in the middle of a line and also ends in the middle of a line, interrupting the flow of a thought and concluding with another through the use of sporadic punctuation.
Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Romantic poetry offers a humble, inward-thinking, and smooth approach to poetry while Tennyson and Robert Browning’s Victorian styling proposes a proud, all-encompassing, and energetic display of verse. Through differing topics and styles, all four authors achieve the coveted feat of successfully appealing to a wide range of audiences, and in doing so, allow their readers to come to an understanding with themselves and their fellow human beings.
The schismatic nature of Man's ego has always confounded me - we are, at once, both insignificant, impotent, and transient, yet noteworthy enough to draw the attention of divine powers; that, in all the vastness of the void, its myriad beauties and wonders, we alone are worthy of the attention of God seems fairly silly to me unless you account for there being something "about" Man that makes Him special.
ReplyDeleteThe most healthy attitude for one to have towards nature is, in my opinion, that of rivals, her taunting achievements goading us to yet greater glory. Indeed, the only reason she surpasses us in might is her rather prodigious head start, placing us in something of a tortoise-and-the-hare scenario. Though, personally, I and she are less rivals and more dire enemies. After all, it is she that bid me die, a prospect I like none at all.
Of course, one would do well to respect such a monumental opponent. She can serve well as a muse, until the day our works surpass her own in titany.
Have you read Heidegger? He had some rather interesting ideas as to the concept of self ("Dasein") and how it relates to the world around it ("Das Man").
As you are no doubt aware, I have a deep love of words, and the artful crafting thereof, and a good part of that is the skilled use of punctuation. The ministrations of a talented wordsmith who has labored long at the hot forge of the parchment are most conspicuous in the punctuation, for there is spoken the things between, behind, and beyond the words themselves. Proper punctuation can craft sentences almost sonorous, that flit and dance in the mind's eye. The reason for this being that words are hollow simulacra of the thoughts that engender them. Words are the means by which we know the world (for instance, there are cultures which cannot tell the difference between red, orange, and pink because their language uses the same word for all of them), but thought is so much more than words. However, the choice of words, their arrangement, and the manner in which they are spoken can convey the slightest bit more than the words themselves.
Conversely, the absence of punctuation grates on me heavily, to the point that I cannot stomach stream-of-consciousness work, and suffer intense headaches when I try (You were trying to capture the essence of human thought, okay, got it. However, the only thing you've managed to capture is the essence of coming down off a solid eight-ball of blow.)
Tangentially, I've come to regret the simplification of speech and writing. It seems as though so little meaning is actually conveyed anymore, and I can't help but feel despondent whenever I speak in sentences with multiple clauses and phrases and get nothing but blank, confused stares.