The Use of Nature, Natural Images vs Industrial Objects in Romantic and Victorian Poetry - Research Paper Example

? Victorian and romantic literature Introduction Brilliant poets use nature to show the connection between nature and human experiences. Personification of nature often makes the subject or the idea more vivid. From the earliest scriptural writings to contemporary poetry, nature is and was to enhance easier communication. Romantics and Victorians alike have employed nature in different ways. Similarly, manmade objects like iron hoes are employed as well especially by Victorians. This essay concentrates on the application or lack thereof of manmade objects and nature. The Victorian period refers to the reign of Queen Victoria 1837-1901. The Victorian age influenced the development of poetry in many aspects and increased the use of sonnet as a poetic form. Poets of the Victorian period were influenced by romantic poets such as William Blake, w. Wordworth and Keats. Wordsworth is the link between romantic period and Victorian period until 1850. Tennyson who was queen victoria’s favorite poet succeeded him. Victorian poetry also provides the link between modernist movement and Romantic Movement of the 20th century. The Victorian period also saw the emergence of female poets like Christina Rossetti, the Bronte sisters and Elizabeth Browning. Romanticism on the other hand, comes from the word romance that simply meant story in medieval times. The romantic period refers to the time of cultural and literary movements in America, England, and Europe from 1770-1860. Romantic writers saw themselves as combating the Age of Reason. England at was experiencing transformation from an originally agricultural nation to an industrial one. Revolutions such as the French Revolution had a great impact on England. Although the works of William Godwin and jean Jacques Rousseau had much influence, the French Revolution had the greatest influence of all. In England, the initial support for the French revolution was idealist. However, most English intellectuals denounced the revolution, as it did not live to their expectations. The earlier literary writers that include William Wordsworth illustrated that poetry should express experiences through personal emotions and imagination. That the true experience is only to be defined in nature. The second generation of romantic poets that include John Keat, Geroge Gordon, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron combined intellect and emotion. However, most scholarly studies of the romantic period have focused on the “big six” that include Blake, Wordworth, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, and Keats. From time immemorial, writers have used natural objects and nature scenes to convey their messages. In the romantic age, nature was used to show appreciation for the God-given scenery as well as the relationship between man and nature. On the other hand, in the Victorian age, there was an ever-increasing middle class due to the industrial revolution with much focus on economic stability. Because of these changes, writers were concerned with the changing themes of romantics. They shifted from writing about nature to writing about change. In the 20th century, the World War I gave rise to an array of opinionated poets and poetic writers. War and life after the war motivated their passion (Fallis, 1976). This led to a modern poetry with a combination of nature and technology especially due to the advancements in science in the 20th century. Some poetic writers including Yeats believed that Victorian poetry was corrupted and decided embraced both romanticism and modernism. It is evident that both romantics and Victorians employed nature in their works from whatever angle. Romantics infused the smallest details of nature into their works; William Blake for example urges humanity to cultivate spiritual sensitivity to the tiniest components of landscape. He further urges humanity to see the world through a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower. However, Victorians are not interested in the particulars of the natural world. Robert browning for instance believes that elements of nature however repugnant are a source of artistic interest. Browning examines the external world from an outsider’s perspective but he is not intellectually disengaged from it. Gabriel Rossetti looks at nature as a multitude of disparate particulars. These particulars, according to him, are in competition (Greenblatt, et al, 2012). Wordworth and Blakes still used nature in their poetry with the hope of helping readers escape from the atrocities of the industrial age and inspire humans to be in solidarity with the nature around them. In so doing, they acted as examples to the next generation both in the Victorian and modernism phase. In the romantic age, poets were inspired by imagination, nature, and ordinary life. Industries were still struggling to find foot in society hence most people still lived in rural areas. Life was about leisure love and fulfillment hence poets concentrated on this. They incorporated imaginations in their portrayals of nature as well. As Wordworth notes that ‘’feelings’’ were missing in the works of his predecessors of the 18th century. Therefore, Wordworth embraced nature and subtle comments on change brought by the industrial revolution. Wordsworth states this about nature: “From Nature doth emotion come, and moods Of calmness equally are Nature’s gifts: This is her glory; these two attributes Are sister horns that constitute her strength. Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange Of peace and excitation, finds in her His best and purest friend, from her receives That energy by which he seeks the truth, From her that happy stillness of the mind.”  (Greenblatt, et al, 2012) Wordsworth believes that nature inspires the reason to write. He strongly believed that he was fixing problems that other poets had. He uses landscape with expressiveness and passion within his poetry. In his poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (Greenblatt, et al, 2006) , he expresses the beauty of nature and its effects human lives. He uses similes and personification to where he compares daffodils to a crowd. The daffodils twinkle, they seem to have more happiness than the waves. In his famous poem, Wordsworth describes a scene of peace where wisps of smoke are curling over the trees. He believes that human beings do not disturb the order of nature. The smoke he saw was from charcoal burners in the woods. He is trying to relieve us of the fear that that the green fields cease to be a paradise when human beings are in it. William Blake on the other hand, sees Wordworth’s poetry as un-spiritualized observation. He notes that natural objects will always weaken and obliterate. Blakes uses nature to describe love and life and incorporates images of the industrial revolution as well (Greenblatt, et al, 2012). He personifies nature in “The Ecchoing Green” and “Earth’s Answer”. In “Earth’s Answer”, where the earth raises up her head and sees her lights flee and locks covered with despair, he implies that the earth is alive and grays like humans. From “The Ecchoing Green”, the sun rises and makes the skies happy as the birds of the bush sing louder. In these lines, he alludes to a happy sky that makes causes birds to sing as humans basking in the sun do (Fallis, 1976). Blake mentions several industrial objects in “The Tyger” and “A Divine Image”. From “The Tyger”, “In what furnace was thy brain? / What the hammer? / What the anvil/ What the chain?” and from “A Divine Image”, “ The Human Form, a fiery Forge, / The Human Face, a Furnace sealed, / The Human Dress is forged Iron/ The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge”. In these lines, he portrays the images of the industrial revolution and he seems to have firsthand knowledge on it. Blakes comments a lot on manmade objects in some of his poems but his poetry still encompasses scenes of nature and love that he uses to draw his readers towards the oppressions of that time. A writer by the name Bruns from the modern language association differentiates between romantic writers and Victorian writers. He states that romantic authors are more inclined to apply metaphors to explain growth and decay and theorize about certain strategic events (Perkins, 1995). On the other hand, Victorians own the history they use because neither nature nor circumstances remain constant. Instead, the dominant aspects of their history are politics and religion. in the modern world, there is a change in past stabilities of society, culture and religion. Now, authors expand on evolving vocabularies from science and technologies such as radio and televisions. Greenblatt continues to argue that literature is dynamic and new writers seek new forms that will register great alterations in human experience (Bruns, 1975). This means that things were happening so fast in England during the 20th century hence writers had to keep up (Greenblatt, et al, 2012). This is similar the romantic and Victorian periods. The romantic authors wrote about life experiences while the Victorian authors concentrated on change and war. As such, modern authors write about life experiences, change, and war alike. Poetry began to change as insistence on clear and precise images arose due to the fuzziness in romantic poems and superficial emotionalism. William Butler Yeats was an Irish playwright and poet and a great literary figure of the 20tgh century. He was the driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival. He was awarded a nobel peace prize in literature in 1923. He belonged to the protestant Anglo-Irish minority most of whose members consider themselves English (Fallis, 1976). Yeats poetry employed ordinary life and familiar traditions. He also had a profound interest in poetic techniques. Yeats began as a romantic poet but eventually embraced both romantic and modern styles as he found Victorian poetry argumentative and directed away from the poet’s consciousness to a world outside of himself. Yeats poetry also includes romantic displays of nature and a bit of Victorian industrialism. In “The Wild Swans at Coole”, Yeats has used scenes of nature like the “/The woodland paths are dry /The trees are in their autumn beauty / Upon the brimming water among the stones/ Under the October twilight the water / Mirrors a still sky / Are nine-and-fifty swans” (Fallis, 1976). Like Blakes and Woodsworth, he has personified nature to show the connection between the natural world and humans. Yeat also made changes from romantic poetry to modern language through his poem, “The Sorrow of Love”. This poem in 1891 was in romantic style but changed to modern style in 1925. He revised the poem to enhance accuracy and meaning. For instance, he changed “quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves / the full round moon and the star-laden sky”, to “The brawling of the sparrows in the eaves, / the brilliant moon and all the milky sky”. One can note that nature is more personalized and accurate from this revision (Fallis, 1976). Conclusion The poetry of Blake and Wordsworth were the epitome of romantic poetry through their portrayal of nature and manmade objects. Victorian poets tried to imitate their infusion of nature but concentrated on industrial changes and socio-economics of their time. Romantic literature centered on nature and feelings at a time when reading was to escape from the bustles of the French and industrial revolutions (Perkins, 1995). Victorian literary came to be at a time that all literary writers were focusing on change. As the 20th century clocked, there was destruction of nature by the World War I hence, readers were concerned with war and survival. Sciences saw a boom and authors incorporated this into their works. Modernistic poetry revolved romantic ideals with an increase that Yeats referred to as colloquial and precise. Poetry has not changed profoundly; nature cannot really disappear from poetry even moving towards the 21st century. Yeats enjoyed romantic poetry and despised Victorian poetry but evolved a more acceptable and modern form of romantics. REFERENCES 1. Greenblatt, S., et al. (Eds.) (2012). The Norton Anthology of English Literature (8th ed., Vol.2). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2. Bruns, G. L. (1975). The formal nature of Victorian thinking. PMLA, 90(5), 904- 918. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ 3. Fallis, R. (1976). Yeats and the reinterpretation of Victorian poetry. Victorian Poetry, 14(2), 89 100. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ 4. Perkins, D. (Fall, 1995). Sympathy with Nature: Our Romantic Dilemma. Harvard Review, 9, pp. 69-82. Retrieved on October 31, 2010 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27560488. Read More