TENNYSON AND BROWNING

Alfred Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning

Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson were two main Victorian poets. They both were also famous in Dramatic monologue. Both the poets apply new techniques and styles in poetry writing. but both these poets adopt their own styles in their writing.

"How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life!"

Tennyson was the fourth of 12 children, born into an old Lincolnshire family, his father a rector. Alfred, with two of his brothers, Frederick and Charles, was sent in 1815 to Louth grammar school—where he was unhappy. He left in 1820, but, though home conditions were difficult, his father managed to give him a wide literary education. Alfred was precocious, and before his teens he had composed in the styles of Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott, and John Milton. To his youth also belongs The Devil and the Lady (a collection of previously unpublished poems published posthumously in 1930), which shows an astonishing understanding of Elizabethan dramatic verse. Lord Byron was a dominant influence on the young Tennyson.

NOTABLE WORKS :
Ulysses,
 Tithonus,
 The Eagle and In Memoriam
Break, Break, Break

"God’s in His heaven— All’s right with the world!"

Robert Browning 7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889 was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humor, social commentary, historical settings, and challenging vocabulary and syntax.

NOTABLE WORKS :

Pauline: A Fragment of a Confession (1833)
Paracelsus (1835)
Strafford (play) (1837)
Sordello (1840)
Bells and Pomegranates No. I: Pippa Passes (play) (1841) ...
Bells and Pomegranates No. II: King Victor and King Charles (play) (1842)

DIFFERANCE BETWEEN BROWNING AND TENNYSON:

👉Browning logically reveals the essence of a person whereas , Tennyson induce and plays a particular mood.

👉Browning in his poetry tries to realize human nature, society and religion. while Tennyson recalls the conscious mind an environment though ornate language.

👉Browning takes an immoral character and challenges us to find out the moral excellence while Tennyson as a source for his poetry , used many subjects from domestic conditions to observations of atmosphere .

👉Browning tries to understand human nature, religion and society properly.He studies the the innermost psychology of character. while Tennyson draws material from external specific realities, ideas and objects and tries to express it through ornamental language.

👉Browning's writings are always energetic but in Tennyson's the tone of expression is generally melancholic, where he tends to give touch of nostalgia.

👉Browning systematically depicts the essence of a character whereas Tennyson gives importance in inducing and endorsing  a particular mood.

👉Browning's poems reflects a wide range of emotional tones , Tennyson is best known for his evocation of melancholy .

👉Browning's poetic style is generally crisp and clinical while Tennyson's style is generally very lyrical and meditative .

👉Tennyson's poems featured spiritual lessons wrapped in Medieval traditions as in THE LADY OF SHALLOT. His symbolism led directly to picture of humankind's conditions.Browning's tales are related to common urban people who had uncommon psychological dilemmas, like in PORPHRIA'SLOVER they were resolved in uncommon ways not many people strangle their beloved with their own locks of hair.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROMANTIC AND VICTORIAN ERA ?

Romantic period and Victorian period are two notable periods in literature. The romantic period was an artistic and literary movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. Victorian period is the period during the reign of Queen Victoria. 

Romantic Era	Victorian Era
Romantic Poetry predominantly used the theme of nature. In addition, themes of pastoral life, medievalism, Hellenism, supernaturalism can also be observed.	Victorian Poetry used medieval myths and legends as well as realistic issues such as the struggle between science and religion.
Romantic Poetry revered and admired nature.	Victorian Poetry treated nature in more realistic and less idealized view.
Romantic Poetry gave prominence to emotion, imagination and spontaneity.	Victorian Poetry gave more importance to intellect and realism.
Notable Romantic Poets include William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, P. B. Shelley and John Keats.	Notable Victorian Poets include Robert Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Lord Tennyson.

Romantic Poetry predominantly used the theme of nature. In addition, themes of pastoral life, medievalism, Hellenism, supernaturalism can also be observed.

Victorian Poetry used medieval myths and legends as well as realistic issues such as the struggle between science and religion.

Romantic Poetry revered and admired nature.

Victorian Poetry treated nature in more realistic and less idealized view.

Romantic Poetry gave prominence to emotion, imagination and spontaneity.

Victorian Poetry gave more importance to intellect and realism.

Notable Romantic Poets include William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, P. B.Shelley and John Keats.

Notable Victorian Poets include Robert Browning, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Lord Tennyson.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHARLES DICKENS AND GEORGE ELIOT:

Documentary on  Charles Dickens

Documentary on George Eliot

Charles Dickens	George Eliot
Picaresque novels	She used third person narrative style in her works.
Writing style is marked by satire	Human perspective; she wrote with neither an exclusively male nor an exclusively female sensibility but from a well rounded human perspective.
Catchy names of the characters FOR EXAMPLE: PIP from Great Expectations Oliver from Oliver Twist	Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution
Well panned plots	Depictions of rural society.
Mixture of fantacy with realism	Major works are : Silas Marner Romola Middlemarch The Mill on The Floss
Characters are from middle or lower class
Social peculiarity are ridiculed.

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