Poetry Notes Tennyson and Browning "The Lotus-Eaters" The poem creates a moral opposition between indolence and work. Consider Carlyle in Past and Present. Is the Mariners's desire for rest and unconsciousness (death) a feasible response or option? The poem critiques industrial life--you might see Barrett Browning's "The Cry of the Children"--pg 112, lines 77-88--predicated on routine, repetition, monotony.

Note that Tennyson takes a brief episode from The Odyessy and develops it into a poem for the Victorian present--see opening footnote to the poem.

We can consider the poem as an expression of addictive desire. Eating the lotos fruit is a means of forgetting--lose consciousness and enjoy only the pleasure of immediate experience--physical sensation. (Look at language and images of the poem that reinforce this idea--use of subjunctive verb tenses, for example.) So, the poem becomes a moral opposition between action and indolence. However, the end of poem does suggest that the mariners are trying to convince themselves that retirement is preferable. What is the first word of the poem?

Another way of reading the poem is to consider it as an analysis of industrial life--the burden of consciousness, which reminds individuals of what work really is--repetition, routine, estrangement--the conditions produced by factory life and on the island of the lotos eaters are the same! The images and language of the poem reveal this too. Consciousness is tied to work. You'll want to trace this idea through the poem and decide if this is an appropriate answer to industrial life. What is the point of work? Is work always negative? Can it be positive?

Consider the video on Queen Victoria's Empire we watched. Workers are disconnected from what they produce--work for the sake of work. Conditions on the island replicate industrial life. Note that the poem is written using Spenserian stanzas: ababbcbcc; nine lines with the first eight in iambic pentameter and the last line an Alexandrine (iambic hexameter--six feet). This helps to replicate the dreamy, languid, musical mood of the poem, the effect of eating the lotos fruit. Opening five stanzas--natural or normal order is upset/dreaminess/sleepiness/sameness Narcotized state--Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale?  Use of repetition, alliteration (o's and a's), Spenserian stanza--effect on reader. Also, notice the effects of repetition and disjunction with meter and imagery. Alliteration also underscores/creates the poem's hypnotic effects. But in the Choric Song--stanza lengths vary and meter is more discordant.

See stanzas 3, 4. Consider the first word of the poem and the last lines.

See stanzas 2, 5  Exhaustion (work) causes the need for passivity and rest.  "We will return no more"//"we will no longer roam"

The first 45 lines describe the arrival of the mariners and the description of the land of the lotos-eaters. Note the effects of the fruit beginning with line 28. Also, time and nature seem to be out of order.

 The next eight stanzas are the Choric Song, which is sung by the mariners. This is where the ideas of work, toil, escape, rest, and death are most provocatively revealed.
Stanza eight gives us a problematic view of the mariners as gods who seem unconcerned with the plight of men.

"THE LADY OF SHALLOT"

1. Poem as an expression of desire--Lady of Shallot wants to live in the world outside her tower, but she cannot escape her curse. (The myth is the curse.)

2. Poem is a critique of the curse itself--power and social relationships. (The curse is the myth.)

Compare to "Ulysses" - how is the past used here?  What (values) does Camelot represent? (Order? Social conventions and stability? Work and productivity?)

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"My Last Duchess" & "Porphyria's Lover" Dramatic Monologue

But let's also consider the "drama" in dramatic.

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"MY LAST DUCHESS"

What is the poem's situation? The Duke wants to warn his next wife through the agent? Secure a dowry? What has happened to his Duchess? How does the poem reveal ideas about power and control

How does the Duke react to the agent?

How do we characterize the Duke? Is he mad?---moral judgment?

If he's not mad, he's creating through language (recreating himself for the agent, his next wife, and readers) Instead of Poet (Browning) Speaker (Duke), we have Poet (Browning) Speaker (Duke) Creates/Projects Identity (Language)

The Duke wants to become what he was not with his first wife--a man in control--and have us and the agent not judge him. He transforms what his life with the Duchess should have been.

Perhaps not mad but obsessive neurotic

Gender--The Duchess exhibits a presence--a female subjectivity--she's "speaking" even though she's dead. Her glance (8), "as if she were alive" (2, 47). She defies him and challenges his position, role, and identity

What does the poem reveal about marriage in the Victorian period?

"Andrea del Sarto"

The faultless painter

  1. His lack of ambition and identity as a "craftsman" (vs artist)--Man's reach should exceed his grasp
  2. His relationship with his wife--opening and ending of the poem. Views her in idealized terms?

Oppositions in the poem enhance the conflict

Emphasis on "grayness"