Poets Tennyson and Eliot

1. PoetsTennyson and Eliot

2. Alfred Tennyson(1809 – 1892) Alfred Tennyson’spoetry developedat Cambridge throughcontact with the Apostles, a group of writersguided by Arthur Hallam. His suddendeathtraumatized Tennyson whowroteIn Memoriam, a series of lyricsthatbroughthimnational fame. Tennyson’sPoetry Sensations He combinedRomanticmotifs with a classicalatmosphere Pessimism Mainthemes: regret and loss Tennyson gives voice to love for adventures and a passionate idea of life His subjects are oftentaken from the past (as the Homeric Ulysses), revivedthroughimmagination: dreamingis an escape Rendering the impact of the physical world of the senses

3. DramaticMonologue: • poem set in a precisehistorical and geographicalbackground; • recited by a first-person speaker whotellsaboutcrucial moment of hisown life; • thereis a silentlistener; • the languageiscolloquial. the character’s moral faults emerge from the situation The best use of thisformwas by the Victorian poetRobert Browning.In My Last Duchessthe ‘actor’ of the monologueis an imaginaryDuke from the ItalianRenaissancewhotellsabouthis late wife, whose murder wasordered by the Duke himselfbecausehergoodmanners to everybodyseemed to him an insult to his social rank. Browningusedunconventionallanguage and he believed thatpersonalityis a multiplicity of selves He exerted a great influence on early 20th-century modernist poetry.

4. Tennyson’s Ulysses (1842) In thisdramaticmonologueUlysses cannotaccept the monotonous life at Ithaca: «And thisgrayspirityearning in desireTo followknowledgelike a sinkingstar,Beyond the utmostbound of human thought» Like Homer’s Ulysses, he is a restlessspirit, everopen to new experience; he finds the meaning of life in continuousmovement to pass the unknown «For always roaming with a hungryhearth.» Like Dante’s Ulysses, endlesssearchingbecomes a dangerous desire for forbiddenexperience «I will drinkLife to the lees.» «Oneequaltemper of heroichearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.» The poem can be readasTennyson’sopposition to Victorian decorum • G. Bargellini, Ulisse

5. Thomas Stearns Eliot(1888-1965) • He wasborn in the UnitedStatesbutlived in Europe. • The American poetEzra Poundexerted an enourmousliteraryinfluence on him. • During the 30s he found a way out of nihilismtowardChristian faith. The I phase of Eliot’s careerwasinfluenced by NIHILISM: • After World War II Eliot wasoccupied with drama, criticism and reviewing. • In 1948 he receivedNobel prizein literature. The Waste Land (1922) The poetsseeonlyruin and desolationaroundthem. Itexpresses the modernartist’s disillusionwith the world. • the mostimportantModernistpoem; • divided in fivesectionscharacterized by: He wasinterested in aspects of the decay of western civilizationafter WWI. • Fragmentation of structure; • Use of images, echoes and quotations from religious and philosophicaltradition; • «The Burial of the Dead» • «A Game of Chess» • «The FireSermon» • «Death by Water» • «What the Thunder Said» • Complexlanguage with use of stream of consciousnesstechnique; • Mythicalmethod; • Metrical pattern: linesvary in length and rhythm, so there are bothfreeand regular verses.

6. The Burialof the Dead The framework for the wholepoemisgiven by references to sterilityand fertility. These images are inspired by the relations betweenancientfertilitymyths and rituals of earlychristianity and by the medieval romances of the Holy Graal «The Burial of the Dead» is the first section and contains the mainthemes. The springisseenas a “cruelseason” thatbreaks the illusionofsafety and protectioncreatedby the winter. The contrastaridity/fertilityisestablished withimageswhichdescribe a fragmented and sterile world. « April is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain.Winter kept us warm, coveringEarth in forgetful snow, feedingA little life with dried tubers. » «Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,And the dry stone no sound of water. » They are modelled on damnedsouls of Dante’s Inferno. At the stroke of nine a procession of employeeswithoutidentity, draggingalong the London Bridge towards the heart of productivity:a river of undeadwhoevokes gloomyimagesofdeath. « Unreal city,Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so manyI had not thought death had undone so many.Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. » • E. Munch, Evening on Karl Johan Street

7. Powerpointcreated by: Chiarenza Concetto, Consolo Valeria, Di Mauro Laura, Magrì Enrico, La China Janice Classe QUINTA sez. B A. S. 2016 – 2017 Sources: A. Cattaneo – D. De Flavis, Millenium, Signorelli