VictB-British+Poetry+Movements



**__The Victorian Era: British Poetry__**

__Overview__

Poetry in a sort of calmed down from the rash and passionate whirlwind of the romantic era and much of the work of the time is seen as a bridge between this earlier era and the modernist poetry of the next century. It also seems that the Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behavior and impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire. They liked poems about love and ballad-like poems, which told a story. It seems that during this era that the people were starting to make a shift towards realism because they wanted to make the connection of the poem to themselves, to realize that it doesn’t have to be one person feeling those emotions, it could themselves and others. Before the Victorian Era there were very few famous female poets. In the early nineteenth century writing was still seen as a predominantly male preserve. Hoever despite views such as this in the Victorian period saw the emergence of many important female poets.

__Victorianism__

The name given to the attitudes, art, and culture of the latter two-thirds of the 19th century, especially with reference to English speaking peoples and the British Empire. Victorianists are people who study Victorianism or the Victorian era. Most poets were a part of the victorianism, expressing their views of politics, social order and feelings through their words.

__Famous Poets who's works influnces the lifes and style of those in the Era:__ **Alfred Lord Tennyson-**

He led a poet laureateship for over forty years and his verse became rather stale by the end but his early work is rightly praised. Tennyson took a risk and wrote a couple poems in blank verse, thus Ulysses and Tithonus. His use of blank verse, which was rare in his day, may be related to his complete tone deafness which made it hard for him to follow even the simplest of rhythms of the poetry of his day. He was the second most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare.


 * Emily Bronte-**

Her poetry stands out from the rest because it has the ability to speak clearly to the reader and is uncluttered with obscure forms and languages. Her poetry achieves a remarkable effect by the energy and sincerity. She lived a short and somewhat dlosed off life, but although she didn't write very much aside from her novels and poems. The works she did publish have become classics of English literature because of their emotional intesity and rare power. Emily is best known for her Romantic novel Wuthering Heights, which is one of the English language's greatest romantic novelist and poet.


 * Elizabeth Barret Browning-**

She is wife to the part of the marriged duo whos loves poems to one another helped to define an era of poetry. Elizabeth began writing poetry after a riding accident that hurt her spine causing her to pass alot of her time writing poetry in a darkened room. In 1845 she met for the first time her future husband, Robert Browning Their courtship and marriage were carried out under somewhat peculiar and romantic circumstances. Her romance and marriage with Robert Browning helped Elizabeth tremendously, contributing to an improvement in her health. She is generally considered one of England’s greatest poetesses. Her works are thoughtful and delicate, but also offer profound ideas, especially on spiritual topics. Her own sufferings, combined with her moral and intellectual strength, helped to make her poems identifiable and more interactive with the reader.


 * Robert Browning-**

He spent a large porition of his childhood in his fathers library which housed over six thousands books, a majority of his education was due to those books.Browning became a n admiror of Elizabeth's Barretts poetry in 1844. He began corresponding with her with lettrs and soon it was the beginning of an era's defining romantic marriage. He is most likely known for his unusual technique of dramatic monologues, for which in them he voiced a character or someone that was no beknownst to himself. Robert had a fondness for people who lived during the Renaissance. Most of his monologues portray persons at dramatic moments in their lives. His poems where not as well known as Elizabeth's under after her passing when he wrote of how he missed her and of their love that not even death could seperate. An example of one of his poems is //Life in a Love//:

Escape me? Never- Beloved! While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loth, While the one eludes, must the other pursue. My life is a fault at last, I fear- It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed- But what if I fail of my purpose here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain, To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, And baffled, get up to begin again,- So the chase takes up one's life, that's all. While, look but once from your farthest bound, At me so deep in the dust and dark, No sooner the old hope drops to ground Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark, I shape me- Ever Removed!

Work Cited: [|http://www.**victorian**a.com/] [|http://www.victoriaspast.com/FrontPorch/**victorianera**.htm] []