Victorian Verse - Maud - I.xviii - Tennyson

I.xviii

This canto is similar to the first in the absence of the decoration often expected of Tennyson.  It has a loose, conversational rhythm, irregular rhyme scheme - although there is rhyme throughout - and stanzas of varying length.  There is much repetition and rephrasing of ideas and images.  This structure, and the conversational syntax, seems to reflect the narrator's thought processes as he switches from Maud to reflections on the nature of Life, Love and Death, and back to Maud.  It may reflect the chaotic, even psychotic, mind-set of the narrator that some critics have commented on.  The narrator also uses a wealth of allusion to the Bible, in particular, as he seeks for images to define his beloved.

The narrator has taken advantage of Maud's brother's absence in town to declare his love to her in the garden where they meet.  She seems to reciprocate.  However, there is something in his actions of lurking in the garden that we might see as “stalking”.  She seems unaware of his presence.  This canto idolises the girl and reflects on the transcendence of Love over Death and how Love can bring meaning into the world.

I

I have led her home, my love, my only friend, 

There is none like her, none. 

And never yet so warmly ran my blood 

And sweetly, on and on 

Calming itself to the long-wished-for end, 

Full to the banks, close on the promised good. 

"Home" refers to himself - he has brought her to where he believes she should be - with him.  He likens his blood, his passion, to a river, almost overflowing its banks, running full to the sea, - the "long-wished-for end", which is reciprocated love.

II

None like her, none. 

Just now the dry-tongued laurels’ pattering talk 

Seem’d her light foot along the garden walk, 

And shook my heart to think she comes once more; 

But even then I heard her close the door, 

The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone. 

The repetition in the first line emphasises his passion.  The personification of the laurels is typical Tennyson (see also comments on “In Memoriam”).  It hints at the chattering tongues of others, as if he is aware that this love is illicit - or at least, not exactly being encouraged by her brother.  He is excited that the sound might have been her footsteps, but disappointed when he hears the door slam and realises she has gone into the house.  In likening the door of her house to "Heaven" he transitions to a comparison of Maud with Eve, in the next stanza.

The whole of the next two stanzas are addressed to a spreading Cedar of Lebanon - a tree with wide-spreading branches which can grow to an immense size - under which the narrator is lying and where he seems to be spending the night.  The syntax is confusing.  The main clause starts as a question, but there is no question mark and the subordinate clauses, which describe the tree and its location, make up most of the stanzas.  So the main clause is: "O, art thou sighing for Lebanon...Dark Cedar (?)".

III

There is none like her, none.

Nor will be when our summers have deceased.

O, art thou sighing for Lebanon

In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious East,

Sighing for Lebanon,

Dark cedar, tho’ thy limbs have here increased, 

Upon a pastoral slope as fair, 

And looking to the South, and fed 

With honeyed rain and delicate air, 

And haunted by the starry head 

Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, 

And made my life a perfumed altar-frame; 

And over whom thy darkness must have spread 

With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 

Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 

Shadowing the snow-limbed Eve from whom she came. 

The narrator is asking the tree if it is longing for its homeland, when it seems to be “sighing” as the breeze blows through it, even though it has grown here in southern England where the air and rain is just as sweet as in Lebanon, because (by inference) Maud lives here (the "starry head").  The "perfumed altar-frame" suggests that he is going to spend his life in devotion to her from now on.  He is sure that the tree must have been as happy to spread its branches over Maud as its ancestors were to spread theirs over Eve in the Garden of Eden, and makes a direct link between "snow-limbed Eve" and Maud, who is of course a “daughter of Eve”.  Note the economy of the phrase "thornless garden" to describe Eden.  Before the Fall, of course, the plants had no thorns, and all was peaceful and harmless.  This is reminiscent of John Milton's phrase "faded roses" which is the first reference to death in his epic poem "Paradise Lost", where Adam brings back a bouquet to Eve and sees that she has eaten of the Tree of Knowledge:

"From his slack hand the Garland wreath'd for Eve

Down drop'd, and all the faded Roses shed:"

In those two words, all the horror and sorrow of the Fall is encapsulated. 

IV

Here will I lie, while these long branches sway, 

And you fair stars that crown a happy day 

Go in and out as if at merry play,

Who am no more so all forlorn,

As when it seemed far better to be born

To labour and the mattock-hardened hand

Than nursed at ease and brought to understand

A sad astrology, the boundless plan

That makes you tyrants in your iron skies,

Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes,

Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand

His nothingness into man. 

Now that he knows that Maud reciprocates his love, the narrator can look upon the world more positively.  He can lie under the tree, looking up at stars that now twinkle merrily, as if to celebrate this happy day.  When he was “forlorn”, he had wondered whether it would have been better to have been brought up without an education, as a working man with hands hardened by manual labour, rather than be educated and learn that the stars and the universe ("sad astrology") were indifferent to Man and these "cold fires" (oxymoron) merely emphasised Man's ("His") insignificance.  The imagery here is of the new technology – furnaces to smelt iron – and recalls William Blake’s poem “Tyger, tyger” with the lines:

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain? 

This is a controversial point to make in Victorian times - the universe is the work of God and should reflect his Creation.  This is indicative of the narrator's state of mind - but also a recurring theme in Tennyson's poetry, which questions the nature of faith and God.

V

But now shine on, and what care I,

Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl

The countercharm of space and hollow sky,

And do accept my madness, and would die

To save from some slight shame one simple girl.

Now the stars seem cheerful and he can choose to ignore their nihilistic message as he has Maud (“a pearl”, precious and a symbol of purity) to live for and protect, which gives meaning to the world.

VI

Would die; for sullen-seeming Death may give

More life to Love than is or ever was

In our low world, where yet ’tis sweet to live.

Let no one ask me how it came to pass;

It seems that I am happy, that to me

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,

A purer sapphire melts into the sea.

The narrator is now not afraid to die in the service of Maud; indeed, he suggests that the possibility of Death makes Love, and hence life, even sweeter.  It is a mystery how it happened, but it brightens the whole world, the green of grass and the blue of the sea.  These images are equated with Maud elsewhere - her feet in the grass and the blue of her eyes.

VII

Not die; but live a life of truest breath,

And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs.

Oh, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs,

Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death?

He does not want to dwell on Death, but live his life fully and justly.  He is prepared to fight for what he now believes in and dismiss fears of death.  “Spice" here means to be aware that in the midst of life, we are in death, as it says in the Bible.  The "drinking-songs" refer to songs sung before going into battle - there is a similar reference to men singing and drinking in Tennyson's great poem "Ulysses".

Make answer, Maud my bliss,

Maud made my Maud by that long loving kiss,

Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this?

“The dusky strand of Death inwoven here

With dear Love’s tie, makes love himself more dear.”

It is clear from this stanza that the two have exchanged kisses, which has convinced him of her love for him and that she is now “his”.  He seems to be urging her to commit to more - a very improper suggestion to make to a young Victorian girl who is under the protection of her family, possibly betrothed to another and only seventeen!  His argument is again that the presence of Death makes Love even sweeter.  

VIII

Is that enchanted moan only the swell

Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay?

And hark the clock within, the silver knell

Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white,

And die to live, long as my pulses play;

But now by this my love has closed her sight

And given false death her hand, and stol’n away

To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell

Among the fragments of the golden day. 

May nothing there her maiden grace affright!

The "enchanted moan" has sexual connotations and he goes on to refer to "bridal white" - her virginity - which has already wasted "twelve sweet hours.  He refers to the clock chiming as a "knell", which is the tolling of a bell at a death.  Rather, these sweet hours should have been spent making love, in response to the passion in his blood - his "pulses".  The oxymoronic "die to live" is a pun, as used in Shakespeare, on orgasm.  However, alas for him, it is late and Maud has gone to sleep and is dreaming, still innocent.

Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell.

My bride to be, my evermore delight,

My own heart’s heart, my ownest own, farewell;

It is but for a little space I go:

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell

Beat to the noiseless music of the night!

Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow

Of your soft splendour that you look so bright?

I have climbed nearer out of lonely Hell.

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below,

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell.

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe

That seems to draw—but it shall not be so:

Let all be well, be well.

This final stanza is a farewell to the sleeping Maud, who has retained her virginity - her "maiden grace", - at least for now!  The intensity of his passion is evident in the repetition and rephrasing, “heart’s heart/ownest own”, as he struggles to articulate his desire.  The idea of possessing her is also present in the repeated “My”.  But he too is becoming sleepy, and decides to leave, or maybe sleep, for “a little space”.

The “ye” in the next line could be addressed to Maud, but it is more likely to be to the stars, which he had seen as “pitiless”, but which now he believes are in tune with the world below them and which beat in time to the "music of the spheres" ("the noiseless music") which was a classical, philosophical concept about the harmony of proportions between the celestial bodies.  He wonders whether the earth itself has moved nearer to them, as they look so bright.  Certainly, he feels that he has come nearer to them, now his love has dispelled his loneliness, and, perhaps, the sorrow of his father’s death.  He and the stars (and Maud) are united in a joyous unity of the soul. 

There is a momentary twinge of doubt that everything is going to end happily-ever-after, in the "dark undercurrent of woe" and the hyphenated break in the next line, but he rallies and prays that all will be well with his love and their life together.

Victorian Verse - Maud I.xi - Tennyson

An earlier post gives a link to a long and somewhat difficult essay on this long poem.  It was described by Tennyson as a "Monodrama" - what we call a "dramatic monologue".  The narrator is a persona created by Tennyson who tells us a (disjointed) story about the death, probably by suicide following a failed business venture, of his father; the wooing of a childhood sweetheart who has returned to the place of their childhood, and the consequences of the narrator killing her brother in a duel.  The killing takes place "offstage" - the last section gives the narrator's reaction to the death after he has fled abroad, reports the death of Maud, and reveals his decision to go to war in the Crimea, partly to hide from his crime and partly to seek redemption.  There is general agreement among critics that the narrator is unhinged by the death of his father and that much of the poem reflects psychosis and obsession.  There are also sections which hark back to the emotions of In Memoriam, particularly when reflecting on the power of Love.  The central story is intertwined with reflections on the new theories on evolution and the meaning of life in a world of scientific discovery, on the morality of war, and the role of religion.

This section follows the narrator's re-meeting with Maud and the beginning of his plan to woo her for his own.  He has seen her pass in her carriage and at first thinks her cold, haughty and disdainful. However, a chance meeting in the village and in the church reveals a softer side and she clearly remembers their childhood and seems friendly towards him.  He is encouraged to pursue her. However, a complication is her brother's dislike of him and the arrival of a friend, a man newly-rich, who the narrator believes has come in search of Maud as a bride.

Maud  is written in a variety of metres, reflecting the mood swings of the narrator.  I.xi is written in iambic trimetre - a jaunty metre of three stressed beats and has a regular rhyme scheme of ababcdc.  This may seem at odds with the subject matter, which is a reflection on the supremacy of Love in a life fulfilled.  However, given its position in the whole poem, it can be seen as summing up the action that has gone before with a note of determination to pursue his goal of winning Maud's love, whatever the obstacles in his path and a fervent hope that he will not die before he achieves his goal.  It also harks back to Canto 27 of In Memoriam:

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

The poem is notable for the relative absence of Tennyson's usual poetic techniques, although the alliterated "f" in the first stanza, the repetition of phrases but with changed word order and the regular rhyme scheme keep it tightly structured and deceptively simple. It appears to be written in a simple vernacular, except for the repeated "quite" in the second stanza that breaks the rhythm, emphasising the poet's fervent desire to find love.

Maud - I. xi

I

O let the solid ground

Not fail beneath my feet

Before my life has found

What some have found so sweet;

Then let come what come may,

What matter if I go mad,

I shall have had my day.

In the opening quatrain the poet expresses his hope that he will not die before he finds love - the sweetness that others have found.  Even if he goes mad later (and it is disturbing that he sees this as a possibility, given the tone of the poem as a whole, with its increasing paranoia) he will at least have experienced the emotion.  The echo of the expression "even a dog has its day" is, again, a suggestion that all is not well with this man.

II

Let the sweet heavens endure,

Not close and darken above me

Before I am quite quite sure

That there is one to love me;

Then let come what come may

To a life that has been so sad,

I shall have had my day.

The next stanza recaps the idea, this time with a vision of heaven darkening above him in death, in opposition to the first stanza, where death was portrayed as the falling away of the ground.  It is as if he is poised between the two on a knife edge. His need for reassurance about the presence of someone who loves him is conveyed by the repeated "quite", as if he finds it difficult to believe it himself.

Victorian Verse - In Memoriam - XCV - Tennyson

This poem comes much later in the In Memoriam sequence and reflects an element of consolation and solace - the third phase of classical mourning. The raw grief of VII - "Doors..." -  has given way to affectionate recollection and a more spiritual response to death.  Tennyson wrote In Memoriam over more than ten years, gradually exploring and coming to terms with what the death of his friend meant to him at the spiritual, religious and moral level.

What is happening?  A brief synopsis.

Tennyson has enjoyed a quiet evening with friends in a garden.  There is little noise and it is warm.  His friends go off to bed before him and, left alone, memories of Hallam return.  He seems to hear or see his dead friend speaking to him in the fallen leaves - it is so vivid that at one point their souls seem to unite.  Tennyson hears "truths" about the nature of Life, Faith, Love, Loss - he becomes in tune with spiritual matters - the "pulsations" of the world.  As the vision fades, he doubts for a moment what it is he has learned or what he "became" when he seemed unified with the dead Hallam and the spirit of the world.  But in that moment of doubt, a breeze blows across the garden as dawn breaks, bringing a promise of a new day.  If nothing else, this gives him a tentative feeling of hope or progression.

This is weighty stuff.  Tennyson himself admits that he can hardly put it into words. There is a mass of rather difficult writing on this poem on the internet, which is considered the climax of the whole sequence.  Taking it line by line can do little more than try and pick it apart and leave you to draw your own conclusions.

XCV

By night we linger'd on the lawn[LC1] ,
For underfoot the herb[LC2]  was dry;
And genial warmth; and o'er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn;

And calm that let the tapers burn
Unwavering: not a cricket chirr'd:[LC3] 
The brook alone far-off was heard,
And on the board the fluttering urn[LC4] :

And bats went round in fragrant skies,
And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes
That haunt the dusk, with ermine[LC5]  capes
And woolly breasts and beaded eyes[LC6] ;

While now we sang old songs that peal'd[LC7] 
From knoll to knoll, where, couch'd at ease,
The white kine [LC8] glimmer'd, and the trees
Laid their dark arms [LC9] about the field.

But when those others[LC10] , one by one,
Withdrew themselves from me and night,
And in the house light after light
Went out, and I was all alone,

A hunger seized my heart; I read[LC11] 
Of that glad year which once had been,
In those fall'n leaves which kept their green[LC12] ,
The noble letters of the dead:

And strangely on the silence broke
The silent-speaking words, and strange
Was love's dumb cry defying change
To test his worth; and strangely spoke

The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell
On doubts that drive the coward back,
And keen thro' wordy snares to track
Suggestion to her inmost cell[LC13] . 

So word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch'd me from the past,
And all at once it seem'd at last
The living soul was flash'd on mine[LC14] ,

And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is[LC15] , and caught
The deep pulsations of the world,

Aeonian music [LC16] measuring out
The steps of Time--the shocks of Chance--
The blows of Death. At length my trance
Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt[LC17] .

Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame
In matter-moulded forms of speech,
Or ev'n for intellect to reach
Thro' memory that which I became[LC18] :

Till now [LC19] the doubtful dusk reveal'd
The knolls once more where, couch'd at ease,
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees
Laid their dark arms about the field[LC20] ;

And suck'd from out the distant gloom
A breeze began to tremble o'er
The large leaves of the sycamore,
And fluctuate all the still perfume[LC21] ,

And gathering freshlier overhead,
Rock'd the full-foliaged elms, and swung
The heavy-folded rose, and flung[LC22] 
The lilies to and fro, and said[LC23] ,

'The dawn, the dawn,' and died away;
And East and West, without a breath,
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death,
To broaden into boundless day.[LC24] 

---

 [LC1]Note the alliteration to give a feeling of indolence

 [LC2]grass

 [LC3]onomatopoeia – focus here is on the silence by mentioning sounds that are NOT heard

 [LC4]A “board” is a table. I think it is a candle in a pot which is giving a wavering flame and a faint sound.

 [LC5]A fur which is white with black spots; from the winter coat of a stoat.

 [LC6]It is not entirely clear whether he is referring to the bats themselves or the moths they are catching.  The “or” suggests he is talking about something other than the bats, as does the “ermine”.  Bats are not spotted – some moths are. Tennyson is quite particular  in his descriptions of nature.

 [LC7]Their singing rang out like bells

 [LC8]Archaic word for cattle.  Tennyson uses archaisms for romantic effect

 [LC9]Personification – to give a feeling of safety and protection, enclosure

 [LC10]His friends

 [LC11]“Read” means “took meaning from” rather than literally reading as a book

 [LC12]He sees the green leaves on the ground as a symbol of the dead Hallam, dead before his time like the leaves.  He reads in them a “message” from the dead man.

 [LC13]These two stanzas can be paraphrased:

He “hears” the words of the dead break the “silence”.  His love cries out in defiance as “change” (time? distance?) tests the worth of his love; his “faith and vigour” (life-force) speak out showing his boldness in daring to doubt or wonder what happens to the dead and he is brave enough to follow trains of thought (“wordy snares”) that might even lead him to dark conclusions (“inmost cell”) about death (and by inference, faith and religion).

 [LC14]The “at last” suggests that this is the communication with Hallam that he has been seeking – at first, he missed his physical presence, but over time this has mutated into a more spiritual need.

 [LC15]The “is” is a noun, not a verb, here.  It means the essence of things, the “deep pulsations”.  What these actually ARE is not clear except that it appears, from the next stanza, to be a sense of the unity or harmony of the world, both physical and spiritual - a totality of experience to be lived – which is made up of Time, Chance and Death.

 [LC16]Everlasting music – this is probably also a reference to the “music of the spheres” which the heavens were believed to make as they rotated in harmony.

 [LC17]This moment of clarity does not last long.

 [LC18]He admits that it is difficult to express what he felt in words or even thought

 [LC19]“Until now” – there is clarification and renewed confidence coming in what happens next

 [LC20]He recaps the opening scene of the poem

 [LC21]A breeze blows over the scene bringing a message

 [LC22]Note the movement in these verbs as the wind blows over the garden, compared with the “linger’d”.  Suggests the strength of his conviction.

 [LC23]The wind is speaking to him, heralding the dawn – a symbol of new beginnings.

 [LC24]Resolution comes in the realisation that the world is a totality, there is both life and death, and that this enables him to move on.  The possible hope for the future – is it a religious afterlife?  It is an interpretation which the Victorians would have appreciated, but not necessarily one that Tennyson is advocating here.

Victorian Verse - In Memoriam VII - Tennyson

In Memoriam is an ELEGY – a poem which mourns someone’s death.  The form originated in Greece and classical elegies follow a set structure in response to the death –lament (crying and wailing), praise of the dead person, consolation and solace – a reconciliation with the fact of death and often, hope of a better life to come.   There are elements of this tri-partite structure in Tennyson’s long poem, written over a period of more than 10 years.  At first his grief is overwhelming and he focuses on his feelings.  He then moves into a period of doubting the meaning of life and questioning the doctrine of an after life.  There is, in fact, very little description or personal reference to Hallam as an individual.  The later sections struggle with this doubt and perhaps arrive at an uneasy resolution.  

This first extract is from the early part of the poem and could be categorised as a lament – the focus is on how Tennyson feels in the aftermath of his loss.  He is not yet sufficiently detached from the initial shock and grief to be able to either praise his friend or be comforted.  It is raw and painful.  Compare this extract with number CXIX which comes late in the sequence.  It starts in the same way.  Note the difference in emotion; there is a feeling of consolation or peace.

This, like the whole poem, is written in iambic tetrameter – lines with four iambic (unstressed/stressed – ti-TUM) beats with a consistent rhyme scheme - abba.  This heightens the feeling of obsession.  Variation is created by the use of enjambment.

In Memoriam - AHH

VII

Dark house[LC1] , by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely [LC2] street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly[LC3] , waiting for a hand,

A hand[LC4]  that can be clasp'd no more—
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep[LC5] 
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here[LC6] ; but far away
The noise of life [LC7] begins again,
And ghastly[LC8]  thro' the drizzling rain[LC9] 
On the bald street breaks the blank day[LC10] .

---

 [LC1]He opens with a direct address to the ”house” and, in line 3, the “Doors”.  He is asking these inanimate objects to look at him – “Behold me” (line 6); the personification emphasises the emptiness of the house and the contrast with the former welcome he received from Hallam at this house whilst he was alive. 

 [LC2]This alliteration is typical Tennyson – alliteration is one of his favourite techniques.  See it also in the last line.   Notice again the personification of the street – but “unlovely“ now that Hallam is not on it. 

 [LC3]Notice the enjambment emphasising his former emotions

 [LC4]The use of anaphora (repetition) is another feature of Tennyson.  Here he is using it to contrast his former meetings with Hallam and the present absence. Everything is the same – the house, the door - and yet utterly changed.

 [LC5]There is a sense here that he is aware of the extreme of his grief – is it normal?  People do, however, go back to places where they experienced happier times when they are in mourning.

 [LC6]This is an echo from the New Testament.  These are the words the Angel said to Mary Magdalene when she found Christ’s tomb empty and later mistakes Jesus for the gardener.  This is evidence of Tennyson’s worship of Hallam – there are other images of him as Christ-like in the long poem.

 [LC7]Life is reduced to “noise” only – sound without meaning.  A similar idea can be found in Macbeth – Life is “a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.”

 [LC8]“ghastly” is used here close to the modern meaning of “awful” but also with the older meaning of “terrifying” which is closely related to “ghost” – an example of multiple layering of meaning in a single word.

 [LC9]Use of pathetic fallacy projecting his feelings onto the weather

 [LC10]One of the most famous lines in Tennyson’s poetry.  Note the alliteration of the “b” – like a hammer blow, the use of mono-syllabic words, the personification – the street is “bald”, as in devoid of life, the day is “blank” – empty and lifeless.  But the use of “blank” is also hyperllage (or “transferred epithet”) – the transference of Tennyson’s emotions to the street, now that it is devoid of Hallam.

Preparation for Victorian Verse - A2

The British Library website and The Victorian Web are good places to start your background reading on Victorian Verse.

Start here: Victorian Poetry  and Victorian Literature

You need to know something about the two, long Tennyson poems from which you are required to study extracts -  In Memoriam AHH  and Maud.  The extracts work as stand-alone poems, but the context is important.  A useful introduction to Tennyson can be found here.

I would strongly suggest that to understand Tennyson, and appreciate how good he is, you should read two of his shorter, and possibly greatest, poems - Ulysses and Tithonus.  Both are in the anthology.  Why they have been omitted from the selection I have no idea, except it suggests an effort to thematically link all the poems in the selection with each other.

There is a Browning society whose website is here

Here is information on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's: Sonnets from the Portugese

Elizabeth and Robert Browning were married.  It was a famous love affair as they had to elope: Elizabeth and Robert's marriage

There is extensive information on Robert Browning on the Victorian Web.  You should read some of his other dramatic monologues to understand his mastery of this form: Porphyria's Lover  and The Laboratory.

Here is information on Christina Rossetti.   You might want to read "Goblin Market" which is probably her most famous poem.  It will shed light on the other poems. There is a critique of it on the BL website here which is also useful for understanding something about her poetic form.

Art and Literature in the Victorian age are closely linked.  "Goblin Market" was illustrated by Christina's brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a famous pre-Raphaelite painter, and she also sat as his model: Ecce Ancilla Domini (Behold the Handmaiden of the Lord).  Here she is shown as the Virgin Mary hearing that she is to bear Christ.

Thomas Hardy is a very different writer.  Although born in 1840, he lived until 1928 and feels more "modern" than the other poets in this collection.  He is probably best known as a writer of novels,such as  "Far from the Madding Crowd " (1874) and "Tess of the D'Ubervilles" (1891) set in the legendary county of Wessex (modern Dorset/Hampshire) which deal with the lives of the rural poor in an England which had become increasingly urbanised and mechanised.

Hardy was also a social reformer.  Here is an interesting article: "You ain't ruined" which looks at Hardy's response to the Victorian (and modern?) link between sexual purity and moral virtue.

Further details on Hardy on the Victorian web.

Off-scene Violence in "A Streetcar Named Desire"

There are two acts of violence in Streetcar, both of which are "off-scene".  There are two possible reasons for this which you can explore. 

First, it is a convention of Greek tragedy that "no blood is spilled on stage".   “the most extreme forms of tragic violence are presented as off-stage events, out of sight but very much within the emotional reach of the audience.”  The whole article can be found here:  http://www.thoughtemporium.org/tragedy.htm

Worth reading as it is good for context.  Also, you will be reading Othello next year and you may want to consider why Shakespeare has Desdemona killed on stage by Othello, Iago kills Emilia on stage, and Othello kills Iago and himself on stage.  Hamlet is riddled with bodies on stage, as is Romeo and Juliet.  So a departure here.  And yet, Shakespeare adheres to conventions of Greek tragedy in other ways.  When did this break with convention happen?  What is the effect?  How do modern plays deal with it - like Streetcar - in comparison.

The second possible reason is that the contemporary audience were not ready for a depiction of this violence on stage.  You should know how this play was received.  it was considered by some to be 

crude and vulgar and they were not ready for this degree of "realism".  The Boston censors, where it tried out before Broadway,  wanted all the vulgar language deleted and the rape scene removed altogether.  Personally, I doubt Williams cared, but it is a possible reason you should consider to show openness to "other interpretations"  (AO5) and awareness of context (AO3)

Here is a link to a review by the New York Times on the first night review which is very positive and worth looking at for AO5.  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/23/theater/20120423-streetcar.html?_r=1& 

Here is a link to an essay bringing together the pre-New York try outs .    https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/jdtc/article/viewFile/1818/1781

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