Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

1. Compare "The Lady of Shalott" with "La Belle Dame Sans Merci " taking into account narrative context, plot, stanza pattern, and the use of nature imagery to create specific poetic effects. Document carefully the similarities and differences you discover. How do these distinguish Tennyson from Keats?

2. In the lecture I suggest reading "The Lady of Shalott" in aesthetic terms: Camelot is interpreted as "the real world" of commerce and practical action while Shalott is the place of "ivory tower aestheticism" where the artist works.
 Pursuing this lead, develop a reading of the poem that allows you to account for the figure of Lancelot, the breaking mirror, the writing on the boat's prow, and the Lady's death. What do you make of Lancelot's closing remark?

3. In Memoriam A. H. H.

--Lyric 5: consider the way poetic language is presented in this poem. In what ways does it fulfill its task, and in what ways does it fall short?

--Lyrics 7 and 119: These are referred to as the "dark house" lyrics, the first being written early in the mourning process, and the second considerably later. Describe the change that takes place in the lyric speaker's frame of mind between the earlier and the later lyric, pointing to specific words and phrases from which you derive your description.

--Lyric 11: The word "calm" is repeated again and again here; to what effect? I am not at all sure I find it calming; do you?

--Lyric 13: Here, the poet uses marriage as a metaphor to convey his sense of deep loss. What other effects does this image produce?

--Lyrics 72 and 99: Once again, the poet uses the strategy of returning to the same motif for the purposes of mourning. What effect does he achieve on this occasion?

4. What social function do you think a poem like "The Charge of the Light Brigade" serves? Is it in any way similar to the function played by an elegy like In Memoriam?
 

Some General Notes on the Dramatic Monologue

The dramatic monologue is a lyric form that gains especial popularity in the Victorian period.  It is used particularly effectively by Robert Browning and it is sometimes considered to be his invention, but it is also used by poets like Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Matthew Arnold, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, William Morris, Augusta Webster and others.
 Here are some of its most obvious characteristics:

--It is a form that allows the poet to represent and examine certain circumstances and their implications closely and sympathetically while at the same time adopting a distance from them. Often he or she will use irony to do this.

--By allowing the poet the option of withdrawing from the context he or she sets up, the dramatic monologue also allows him or her to avoid acting as a guide to the reader's experience or the evaluator of the material presented. (For instance, Browning may choose to transcribe the discourse of priests making us wonder whether all Catholics are not a thoroughly corrupt, mercenary lot; however, he does not thereby necessarily identify himself as anti-Catholic.)

--Because of the absence of a central guiding consciousness, the dramatic monologue emphasizes the subjective, historical, and relative nature of "truth."

--The supreme paradox of this form is that it presents itself as highly subjective even as it invites the reader to objectify it (as, for instance, pathological or symptomatic evidence).
 

Study Questions:

1.  Read the three dramatic monologues (two by Robert Browning, one by Tennyson) carefully.

2.  For each poem, describe the scenario dramatized: the setting (spatial and temporal); the participants in the scene; the context of events in which the action takes place.

3.  Having studied the poems closely in (2), hypothesize why the poet in each case might want to distance himself from the circumstances he represents.

4. "Manliness" in the early nineteenth century is believed to be made up of a blend of forthright honesty, courage, and earnestness (a moral seriousness and frankness that gets to the rhetorical point), as well as self-restraint and a readiness to put the good of others before one's own welfare. Bearing these attributes in mind, do you think that all the speakers in our monologues qualify as "manly"?

5. What is the status of women in these monologues, and what does each poem reflect about the poet's perspective on gender relations? Remember that the lyric speaker may not necessarily be articulating the views of the poet himself.

A particularly absorbing and informative essay on the political effects (or non-effects) of this form and its value for twenty-first-century intellectual life is Herbert F. Tucker's “Robert Browning's Message for Our Time” in Studies in Browning and His Circle. 25 (September 2003): 143-161.