Tennyson or Browning?

[jisbell00]

By popular demand:


The Lady of Shalott (1832), BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Part I

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly
Tremble in the water chilly
Round about Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.
The sunbeam showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early,
Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
Like an angel, singing clearly,
O'er the stream of Camelot.
Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,
Beneath the moon, the reaper weary
Listening whispers, ' 'Tis the fairy,
Lady of Shalott.'

The little isle is all inrail'd
With a rose-fence, and overtrail'd
With roses: by the marge unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken sail'd,
Skimming down to Camelot.
A pearl garland winds her head:
She leaneth on a velvet bed,
Full royally apparelled,
The Lady of Shalott.


My Last Duchess, BY ROBERT BROWNING
FERRARA

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

[Macavity]

In light mood this morning John, so I'll choose Tennyson's less weighty poem, though as I return during the day the Browning will no doubt prove a more rewarding experience. Eliot's Wasteland has been a lifetime reading

[jisbell00]

Speaking of ears, Eliot said Tennyson had a great ear. And tennyson said he tohught he could scan any word in the English language except perhaps scissors. Certainly the sonic patterns here are rewarding!

I'm sure you know the setup for the Browning: the duke is marrying again. On the wall, to the count's envoy, he points out his LAST duchess. And scene.

Did you ever see The Waste Land annotated by Pound? Pound did a lot to create the poem we know.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

'I choose Never to stoop'

What an assertion!

[jisbell00]

Yup, the duke is great at revealing more than he perhaps intends. One wonders how the count's envoy is feeling, not least about the daughter being married off.

Oh and Browning's language is consistently superb - I choose there, for instance.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Agreed John. A case of constructive criticism. The form was definitely influenced by Pound.

[jisbell00]

Pound was another poet with a great ear, and no fear of the new. It's too bad about his really pretty raging antisemitism, and what he did with it for Mussolini. I don't open him often these days.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Yes, that tradition of anti-Semitism is a long one in literature, and is evident in Eliot's poems as well, though clearly Pound's politics were louder. How much can the an appreciation of the literature be divorced from the author's life, especially in age of enthusiasm for literary biography? I remember enthusing about Dickens and my friend wanted to emphasize Dickens' treatment of women, especially his wife!

[jisbell00]

I know a fairly successful painter who refuses to pay any attention to biography. It's just the art. That's an approach, but since my criticism is heavily anchored in context as a means both to make sense of the art, and to situate it within human civilization, I end up pretty conflicted on the issue in my engagement. For instance, I pretty happily listen to Michael Jackson, but I can't stomach Mel Gibson. I think it's partly because Mel Gibson's aesthetic persona is to me inseparable from his hatefulness, which is not the case for Jackson. Twain using the n-word I take as part of his time, nto so very different from its use by rappers in 2023. I myself don't like it in either instance, but I make allowances. Plath using the n-word is harder for me, but she was insane and living on a knife's edge. Eliot did less with his antisemitism, so I have an easier time readsing him than Pound, but there are a couple of Eliot poems I'll avoid.

Treatment of women now. Hugo was a pig, and so really was Flaubert, Baudelaire was a misogynist. It's a very long list, which i address by restoring women authors to the pantheon, as much as possible. Take that, pigs!

Cheers,
John

[CalebPerry]

John, is there any chance that these two lines:

The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly

... originally had grave accents in them? Like this:

The yellow-leavèd waterlily
The green-sheathèd daffodilly

I just did an internet search, and I didn't find the poems with accents, so apparently Tennyson didn't put them in there.

I find that curious. In my view, a good poet who writes in meter will try to have a stressed syllable in the eighth place in lines of iambic tetrameter. If that is how Tennyson wrote it, then it would scan like this:

the YEL / ow LEAV / èd WAT / er LIL / y

If Tennyson didn't write in grave accents, then this is how it must be scanned:

the YEL / ow LEAVED / WAT er / LIL y

... and THAT is unusual (and also reads a little strange).

In other words, I consider it to be better form to have a hypermetric syllable than to end an iambic line with trochees -- and I imagine that Tennyson would have agreed.

The line after that is even stranger because it doesn't even have eight syllables:

The green-sheathed daffodilly
the GREEN / SHEATHED DAF / fo DIL / ly

I assumed that Tennyson would be more exact.

[jisbell00]

Hi Caleb,

I think most C19th poets had no trouble giving a syllable to -ed endings - we had that Keats example, for instance, high-piled as three syllables. i certainly read the Tennyson with those extra beats and assume he just didn't feel the need to indicate it. But you are quite right to point that out IMO.

Cheers,
John

[Macavity]

Understandable John. There are personal, historical and social contexts etc. Of course, how much a writer is disconnected from those contexts is also a factor. Shakespeare escapes the biography, but the lense of the historical context was part of my course studies, though meaningfulness is also the contemporary context and his timeless themes.

There has been some debate recently of publishers editing Roald Dahl books to remove 'controversy'.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/ ... ge-altered

[jisbell00]

Yeah, I don't believe in doctoring art to make it more 'palatable' to the public. Boo Roald Dahl sophisticators! You might just as well doctor a photo to remove non-persons from it, as they did in Kundera's Czechoslovakia. They left a floating hat. TBH, I find the process repulsive, as I suspect Orwell would have.

Yes, I think ti may be possible to distinguish a major flaw or even evil in the person but nto foregrounded in the art from one the art foregrounds. That's my excuse for listening to MJ but not watching Gibson, as I've argued. But then, it may simply be that MJ made the greater art and I am in consequence less ready to give it up. Chapelle makes that point about MJ vs. R. Kelly, to whom few listen these days, I'd guess. Also, Gibson I think is a hater, as Pound was a hater. MJ was not I think a hater, he was a freak. So I feel some compassion for him.

I did watch Heartbreak Ridge, if that's the comeback film Gibson directed about the conscientious objector. It was a conscious effort to see if he'd done any actual soul-searching or processing his fall from grace. A little, maybe. The film was improved by his absence in front of the camera.

France is busy rehabilitating Johnny Depp as we speak. I don't know his story, i just find the process very French.

Cheers,
John

[Morpheus]

John, I love both poems so it's a tough one. The Browning poem I studied at high school and managed to attain grade A in English Literature coursework against all expectations because English was very much my weak subject. The Lady of Shallot was my late Grandma's favourite poem. I've got personal attachment to both poems.

My favourite Tennyson poem is The Charge of The Light Brigade, which makes eerie reading in the light of the present situation in Crimea.

I have some opinions about Dahl and the current crop of children"s poetry publishers that I shall share by PM with you and Mac.

[jisbell00]

It's always nice for a poem to have an emotional memory! Both as good, frankly.

Cheers,
John