Discuss Tennyson as the representative Victorian poet.
Tennyson stands in the same relation to his times Chaucer does to the fourteenth century and Alexander Pope to the early eighteenth century. He is true to " the glass of fashion and the mould of form " of the Victorian period as Spenser was of the Elizabethan age. He is the typical Victorian poet voicing in is poetry the hopes and aspirations, the doubts and scepticism, the refined culture and the religious liberalism of the age.
Like a detached but intent spectator, he closely watched the ebb and flow of events happening in his country. he believed that it was the function of a poet to penetrate and interpret the spirit of his own age for the future generation and true to his poetic cred, he presented flawlessly the Victorian age in its varied aspects in his poetry. "
For early half a century," says W.J. Long Tennyson was not only a man and a poet, but he was also a voice, of a whole people, expressing exquisite melody their doubts and their faith, griefs and their triumphs, As a poet who expresses not so much a personal as a national spirit he probably the most representative literary man of the Victorian era. "
Tennyson faithfully reflected the various aspects of Victorian life in his poetry. The change which Tennyson's thought underwent a change with social and political questions itself reveals his curious sensitiveness to the tendencies of his time, for the sanguine temper of early manhood, the doubt, misgivings, and reactionary utterances of his middle age, and the chastened hopefulness of the widely characteristic of his generation.
It will be our endeavour now to examine how faithfully the poet is the organ voice of his age. The Victorian era was essentially an age of peace and settled Government. The old fire of revolutionary enthusiasm had been quenched and the people of the age longed for a life of settled order, stability and place. They had enough of tremendous thoughts in a familiar shape. The now wanted familiar thoughts in tremendous shape.
The Victorians had a love or law, order and discipline. Tumult and storm and the revolutionary feeling upsetting established conventions were frowned by the Victorians. Tennyson reflects on this training of the age for the authority or law and settled order. The dominant element in Tennyson's thought is his sense of law.
The thing which most pleases and impresses him is the spectacles of order in the universe. G. Albert points out rightly that as a thinker " Tennyson lacked depth and originality. " Though his views were purple and trivial, still his poetry was a valuable social document and reflected the dominant trend and attitude of the Victorian age.
Politically the Victorian age was striking a compromise between the growing tide of democracy and political freedom to the masses, and the continuation of an old order of aristocracy Tennyson who belonged to the aristocratic class combined the beliefs of the English aristocracy.
Although he upheld the compromising spirit of his age to the best of his ability, at heart he was rather conservative, having little faith in democracy. The Princess, one of Tennyson's major poems deals with the contemporary issue of female education and the emancipation of women. Tennyson sees in marriage and home life the best outlet for women's energies. He says: ' Man for the field, woman for the hearth. Man for the sword, for the needle she Man, to command, woman to obey. All else confusion . "
Need of God and Religion -
Tennyson's views on God and region find their complete expression in In Memoriam. The poem shows the poet's faith in the immortality of soul , in the existence of God and his love and mercy. He worked out a compromise between God's love and man's suffering. " God exists because the human heart feels an instinctive need of His existence, that soul must be immortal because any other solution was unthinkable . " ( Harold Nicholson ).
Life becomes tolerable and meaningful only if one has faith.
Faith beyond the forms of Faith, faith in God and His love.
' More things are wrought by prayer
Then the world dreams of.
Tennyson has been called a mystic, but it would be more
appropriate to say that he was mystical. In his doubts and uncertainties and in his attempts to reason out his religious position, he shows the influence of science. Tennyson presented in his poetry all the essential features of Victorian life; and ideas and tastes the inherited predilections belonging to his class and generation.
Moderation in politics, refined culture, religious liberalism chequered by doubt, a lively interest in the advance of scientific discovery coupled with alarms lest it should lead us astray, attachment to ancient institutions, larger views of duty of state towards its people, and increasing sympathy with poverty and distress - all these Victorian feeling find expression om Tennyson's poetry.
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