English Literature / Unit 14 ENL 1344 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Identifying Victorian Poets From Their Lines
The idea
Use clues of form, subject and voice. A melodic Arthurian or elegiac passage suggests Tennyson; a self-revealing speaker in Renaissance Italy, Browning; a sonnet of personal love, Barrett Browning; a retreating sea of faith, Arnold; packed stresses, compound words and praise of God in nature, Hopkins; a fairy-tale with religious overtones, Christina Rossetti; a sensuous medieval or sonnet passage, Dante Gabriel Rossetti; a soldier's ballad or imperial theme, Kipling; a short lyric on lost youth in the countryside, Housman; a bleak, ironic view of fate, Hardy; invented nonsense words, Carroll. Then check the date and the form, because the period runs from the eighteen thirties to nineteen-oh-one, and Hopkins and Hardy reach into the twentieth century.
In practice
Clue, then poet.
Where people slip
A dramatic monologue may be Browning or Tennyson. Do not assign every monologue to Browning.
Your place on the trail
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