Chapter Ten.
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Later nineteenth-century poets.
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*The early poems of ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON were much criticized, but in his later books he rewrote some and omitted others altogether.
His (POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL) and (POEMS) were an improvement, though they were still the work of a young man. The music is there already, but the thought is not deep.
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*Tennyson knew well that more thought was needed in great work, and in 1842 he published two books of poems which are serious and thoughtful as well as musical.
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*Tennyson's plays are not important. The best is (BECKET) on the subject of the quarrel between KING HENRY II and THOMAS a BECKET, who was murdered at Canterbury.
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*Tennyson's influence in his own time was immense? (Justify) .
He reflected the changing ideas of his age in his various poems; but at the beginning of the twentieth century, his popularity fell.
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*ROBERT BROWNING was unlike Tennyson. For Browning the intellect was, from the beginning, more important than the music. This made him popular in universities after his death. He did not reflect very much the ideas of his time; he did not go to an ancient university. His immense knowledge came from his studies in London, his travels and his own work. He was hopeful by nature. He married Elizabeth Barrett, one of England's greatest poetesses.
He tried writing plays without much success.
= (SORDELLO) is his most difficult poem. It is a story of events in 1200, and its details are complicated.
= One of his successful dramatic poems (PIPPA PASSES). In this a girl, Pippa, wanders through the town singing, and her song influences people who (unknown to her) hear it.
= The poems in (DRAMATIC LYRICAL) and (DRAMATIC ROMANCES) are a great advance on Browning's dramas. (THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN), a poem in the second of these books, described the removal of rats from a city by a musician whose music leads them away.
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*Browning's difficult style? (why).
is the result of his unusual knowledge of words and his bold ways of building sentences.
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*Tennyson and Browning were the two greatest poetic figures of their time, but there were other great poets such as>>MATTHEW ARNOLD.
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