Victorian Poetry and Realism

Victorian Realism

Victorian Realism• Reaction to Romanticism • Depicted life as it was really lived • Ordinary people facing nitty-gritty

reality • Novel form, e.g. Dickens • Themes of family relationships,

religion and morality, social change, social reform, and industrialization.

 • Naturalism: offshoot of realism.

Examination of life using scientific observation. Rejected the idea that nature mirrored human emotions. Calls for social reform.

The Brownings  Robert Browning eloped with

Elizabeth Barrett (an invalid) in 1846. They spent the rest of their lives in Florence, Italy.

R.B.’s poems show some Romantic attitudes

Others seek to portray individuals with un-romantic authenticity, e.g. dramatic monologue “My Last Duchess”

   E.B.B. wrote Sonnets from the

Portuguese, now recognized as one of the greatest sonnet sequences in English. (note her rhyme scheme!)

  

Elizabeth Barrett BrowningHow do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints, --- I love thee with the

breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God

choose,I shall but love thee better after death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLkcR9UR9us&feature=related

”My Last Duchess”One of Rober Browning’s

most famous dramatic monologues

The dramatic monologue was highly psychological, but developed before the ideas of psychology or psychiatry were established in society!

It exposed pretense and revealed the character’s inner self.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZxq3r7TlHo

The Pre-Raphaelites Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

formed in 1848 Protested the ugliness of

industrialization Painted/wrote about nature in the

style of Italian art found before Raphael, the Renaissance painter (1483-1520).

“art for art’s sake” Aestheticism (see Oscar Wilde)

emphasized themes of eroticized medievalism and pictorial techniques that produced moody atmosphere.

Poetry emphasizes lush vowel sounds, sensuous description, and subjective psychological states.

This painting by the Italian painter Raphael is called The School of Athens

Christina Rosetti: ”A Birthday”

MYheart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me.   Raise me a daïs of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me.

The second stanza of this poem has been praised as a ”fully Pre-Raphaelite word-picture”. Think about what you have just learned about the movement and explain why you think this is so.

DG Rossetti used Christina as his model

What event does this painting depict?

How would you describe the expression on her face?

What sorts of symbols are represented in the painting?

How is it ”Pre-Raphaelite”?

How does this painting differ from the more traditional images of this event?