Global Lit: Blake, Tennyson, Browning

William Blake

William Blake is an early Romantic poet.

Romantics

Romantics  are reacting to the Enlightenment thinkers in Europe and England – you’ll remember that the Enlightenment were those 18^th Century philosophers and scholars who believe, more or less, in the power of human reason to fix the world; who believe, that is,

·        that problems in this world have causes in this world

·         that human beings can figure out the causes to problems in this world

·        that if we can figure out the causes we can fix the problems;

·        that we should figure out the causes and fix the problems

This, as you can see, is a very rational and intellectual (if not always successful) approach to the world and its multitude of problems.

The scholars and intellectuals who fomented the American Revolution and wrote our constitution were Enlightenment thinkers – Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams: they had the idea that if they just approached the idea of building a government rationally – that is, if they looked at the problems the current forms of governing had, and fixed those problems – they could get governing right, and form (in their words) a “more perfect union.”  You just have go at the thing in a rational manner, see?

The Romantics hold sway in Europe from about 1750 to 1825, and are very nearly the exact opposite of the Enlightenment thinkers. They share certain characteristics.  Romantics

·        Celebrate the individual

·        Celebrate the progressive cause

·        Celebrate emotion – what you feel is reality

·        Celebrate intuition – your spiritual force carries you to the truth

·        Celebrate the alien, the exotic, the other

·        Believe nature is a source of authentic truth

·        Hold imagination to be holy

·        Distrust authority

·        Distrust reason as a road toward truth

·        Dislike form or structure

·        Distrust moderation

**** **** ****

Blake

Unlike most of the Romantic poets, and indeed most poets in history (that we know about), William Blake does not come from the upper or middle class, but from the working class – his father had been a hosier, and Blake had very little formal schooling.  He was apprenticed at age 14 to an engraver; he left this trade at 21, when the apprenticeship ended, and entered the Royal Academy, where he studied art for a time.  Throughout his life he did not just write his poems; he engraved them, surrounding them with elaborate illustrations.

(For more examples, see here.)

Form:

Notice that Blake makes both sets of poems – the “innocent” and the “experienced” voices – simple, child-like rhymes.  He chooses, that is, an implied narrator who is a naïve persona, speaking in a mock-nursery rhyme voice. 

(Emily Dickinson, on her side of the Atlantic, is going to do something of the same thing, when she uses the voice of the church hymnal to speak all her poetry in.) 

[Implied narrator or implied author: A character created by the author of a work through which that author speaks; to most readers, this character may seem, at first, to be the author himself, but it is as much a creation as any other character in the work.  The implied author / narrator may deeply ironic; it may be unreliable; it be deliberately naïve; it be, on the other hand, wholly trustworthy. 

One of the most famous examples of an ironic implied narrator is that used by Jonathon Swift in a Modest Proposal, which y’all can read for extra credit.  It’s in the text or you can find it here.] 

Using this simple, indeed almost simplistic form, to write in, frees Blake in one way – it makes his form transparent.  Now he can put all of his complexity in his meaning.

In another way, it traps him.  He can never do much with his form, because he’s chosen such a simple form.

Also, with such a simple form, you aren’t expecting much complexity in his meaning.  Often readers won’t look for complexity in Blake’s poetry.  The form (and also the meter) tells them this poetry must be simple; so they assume it is simple.

But notice the double meanings in even such apparently transparent poems as the “Introduction” poem – the piper, who’s singing, is given commands by a child who appears from the clouds (who is the child, do you suppose?).  

He’s told to pipe about a lamb (hmm – what might that mean?) and then ordered to drop his pipe and sing; and then to write his songs in a book, so that “all may read.”  So he “stain[s] the water clear,” which is an interestingly ambiguous line, and writes his happy songs down.

It’s written like a nice song, IOW, but it’s a song about the fall from innocence: in a perfect world, this introductory poem seems to suggest, we wouldn’t need poems written in books, or words, either.  All poetry would be music, piped in valleys wild – the first, real poetry.

Same with “The Lamb,” which looks like a Sunday school lesson, but on closer examination connects the child, the lamb, and Jesus into a kind of Trinity – they are all the same being, all called by the same name – which might be reassuring, if we didn’t know the fate of the lamb (all three of the lambs?). The final lines thus take on a darker meaning.

And so on through all of these.  Notice as you read how Blake contrasts nature with the urban environment – the countryside is natural (and therefore good) whereas the city is the abode of man (and therefore corrupt).  Very Romantic.

His Songs of Experience work in contrast to his Songs of Innocence, and are often paired with them – look at “The Tyger,” for instance, in conjunction with “The Lamb.”

“The Lamb” (335) is a series of statements (made by a child, an innocent, who is sure he understands everything, and that the world is a just and simple place); “The Tyger” (339) is a series of questions, asked by an adult, who knows that the world is unjust, and complex, and horrific.

                When the stars threw down their spears,

                And watered heaven with their tears,

                Did he smile his work to see?

                Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

                                                                        (17-20)                                            

These lines work on the literal level – putting a tiger and a lamb on the same playing field seems horrifying enough – but there’s also a metaphor operating here, hinted at by the “stars threw down their spears,” which points to the “war in heaven” told about in Milton. 

This is the War in Heaven between the Angels, when Lucifer leads a rebellion of some of the Angels against God.  In Milton, those Angels who lose are thrown down into hell, and fall like shooting stars, spears of light.  The other Angels weep at this destruction.

So the “Tyger” here is Lucifer, or Satan; and the Lamb is (as he is in the poem “The Lamb”) Jesus.  And of course the lamb is also humankind, since we are God’s flock.  And Blake is wondering whether God is pleased with himself, putting Jesus and humanity in the same field, as it were, with the Tyger that is Satan.

“And Did Those Feet” is Blake’s most famous poem – it’s kind of the unofficial English National anthem now.

Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Both of these poets were active during the first half of the Victorian Era (1830-1870 or so). The Victorian period that followed the Romantic Period in England. The first half of this period has certain characteristics:

·        Optimism and a belief in the benevolence of God/fate – authors tend to trust authority, and to believe that everything is working the way it should work (here in the best of all possible worlds)

·        An interest in morality and correct ethical behavior: the poets and writers look at how people should act, and believe that a correct way of behaving exists and is universal (that is, it doesn’t vary from culture to culture, and the way a Victorian gentleman behaves is also the correct behavior for an ancient Greek warrior). The poets often looked to the past for their models – King Arthur, or the Greeks and Roman – but they also always imposed their ethical behavior on these models.

·        Form becomes important – poems are nearly always written in meter and with consistent rhyme schemes.

·        Long works, like long poems and long novels, become common

·        We see a tendency to valorize authority. Unlike the Romantic poets, the Victorian poets tend to believe that those in authority are correct and to be trusted.

·        On the other hand, this is the era when the Industrial Revolution as well as the scientific revolution are gaining power. Both of these are immense paradigmatic shifts. Poets respond (often) by questioning the status quo, by endorsing new ways of behaving, or questioning old ways.

Thus, in Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” we see the poet choosing the story of Odysseus in order to give a moral lesson on the attitude we should have toward life (“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”). He uses realistic details about Odysseus and his life; he makes Odysseus, a king and therefore an authority, the subject of the poem. 

Further, Tennyson does not write the expected poem – the one that discusses Odysseus and his exploits, or his cunning, or his victory over the suitors that invaded his home. Instead, Tennyson writes about an old Odysseus, who having gotten what he spends the entire Odyssey yearning for (home and his wife and son), rejects this victory, and seeks out more adventure.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning also raises questions in “A Musical Instrument.” Here, she discusses the actions of a god; but rather than question the God of her own culture, the Trinity, she examines the behavior of a Greek God, Pan.

On the surface “A Musical Instrument” is a simple narrative that tells how Pan invented the pipe (either a Pan pipe or just a simple pipe). But the allusions which compare the creating of this pipe to the creating of a poet show Browning means us to consider how “Pan” turns men into poets as well – through tearing them away from their homes, ripping their hearts out, and making them hollow. Great trauma for the poet, but beautiful poetry for us all.

Note that this is a kind of theodicy, same as Aexander Pope’s “Essay on man.” Browning asks why God creates trauma. The answer is great art/great poetry.