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Tiffany James

Mr. McCauley

Survey

04 December 2012

Romantic, Victorian, Modern Poem Analysis

Throughout history poets have chosen very different topics to write about. Each time

period also produced several different styles of writing. In the Romantic Period writers tended to

focus on nature and emotion, while writers in the Victorian Period tended to focus on change and

experimentation. Authors from the Twentieth Century and after like to focus on imagery and

hopelessness.

In the early poems we read most of the poets focused on nature and comparing people to

nature. This is due to the creation of the industrial revolution, which had caused peoples’ lives to

shift from peaceful, serene country sides, to chaotic city environments. This caused people and

poets especially, to revere nature for its beauty, but also for its ability to help man find his inner

self. An example of this is William Blake’s poem, “Nurse’s Song.” In the poem the reader can

see nature right from the start in the first two lines, “when the voices of children are heard on the

green, /and laughing is heard on the hill,” (Blake 1-2). After reading these two lines even I can

see the country side and how peaceful people back in the day must have found it. The last two

lines of the first stanza, “my heart is at rest within my breast, /and everything else is still,” (Blake

3-4), would give anyone the impression that the narrator enjoys being in the country and he

became at peace within himself. The poem also talks about birds flying in the sky and sheep

grazing on the hill. This is just another example of nature in the poem. However, the last two

lines of the poem, “the little ones leaped and shouted and laugh’d,” and “and all the hills

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echoed,” (Blake 15-16), produces the mental picture of happy times when life was simpler and

people gained pleasure out of the simple things in life.

The poem, “Nurse’s Song” also is a great example of how writers used emotion in their

poems. For example, “My heart is at rest within my breast” (Blake 3), makes a person think of a

calm, serene moment in time. It makes a person feel as though the narrator is happy and in a

good place in life. They don’t feel stressed or upset, but at peace within themselves. Another

examples is, “The little ones leaped and shouted and laugh’d/ and all the hills ecchoed” (Blake

15-16). These lines are obvious in the fact that they are chock full of emotion. The little kids

shouted and laughed, atomically tells the reader that this is a poem that is light and fun. That

everyone is happy and having a great time playing with each other. From these words you can

almost feel their joy at being free to play on the hill.

The things that writers wrote about in the Victorian Period are completely different than

what was written about in the Romantic Period. For example, in the poem “The Runaway Slave

at Pilgrims Point,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, it is possible to see how the topics of writing

have changed. For example, “I have run through the night, my skin is as dark” (Browning 5),

talks about a black slave who has escaped from his oppressor and owner. With this poem

Browning has entered into a completely different world. She has brought to light a topic that no

one before now had the balls to talk about. With this she opened the doors for many people and

made it acceptable for people to finally talk about the injustices that were happening over in

America. Another example is,

“I am black, I am black,

And yet God made me, they say:

But if He did so, smiling back

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He must have cast his work away

Under the feet of his white creatures,

With a look of scorn, that the dusky features

Might be trodden again to clay” (Browning 22-28).

These lines talk about an issue on the minds of many and somehow Browning has been

able to get inside the heads of the black people who are suffering under the care of their masters

in America.

Writers also experimented with their writing in the Victorian Period. For example, the

first lines of some of the stanzas start off with three words that are repeated twice. For example,

“I am black, I am black” or “ We were black, we were black.” This is something that wasn’t

done in the Romantic Period.

Just like the Romantic Period and the Victorian Period are different, the Twentieth

Century and after did a complete 180 in what was written about. Writers started focusing on

imagery and hopelessness. For example, in Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men” it is possible for the

audience to see that these men have lost all hope in themselves and in life. For example, “shape

without form, shade without colour,/ paralysed force, gesture without motion” (Eliot 11-12),

gives the reader a sense of hopelessness, like the narrators have given up. It’s like they believe

that they no longer exist within this world and are just invisible beings looking in from the

outside. For example, “remember us – if at all – not as lost/ violent souls, but only/ as the hollow

men/ the stuffed men” (Eliot 15-18), shows the audience that these men are not in the land of the

dead, but also no longer on earth. They are just wandering spirits who no longer fill anything;

they are hollow as stated in the poem. Any emotion or feeling they use to have is gone.

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Imagery has also become one the bigger aspects of writing in this new age. For example,

“there, the eyes are/ sunlight on a broken column/ there, is a tree swinging/ and voices are/ in the

wind’s singing” (Eliot 22-26), gives a ton of breath taking imagery. As the reader reads theses

lines, they can see and feel what the author wanted them to. Eliot compares the dead souls eyes

as the only light within a lightless void. And it feels like reader is there to see the tree swinging

and to hear the whisper of voices on the wind.

From one era to the next writers have developed their own style of writing and their own

idea of what topics they should write about and what is important to them at that moment in

time. As these writers found their own niche within their time era, they wrote poems that touch

on topics that people can still relate to today. The paper touched on how the Romantic Era

focuses on nature and emotion, while the Victorian Era focused on change and experimentation

and the Twentieth Century focused on imagery and hopelessness.

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Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen, editor. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Romantic Period

Volume D 8 th ed. New York City: Norton and Company, 2012. Print.

Blake, William. “Nurse’s Song.” Greenblatt. 122

Greenblatt, Stephen, editor. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Victorian Age

Volume E 8 th ed. New York City: Norton and Company, 2012. Print.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point.” Greenblatt. 1130-1137

Greenblatt, Stephen, editor. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Twentieth

Century and After Volume F 8 th ed. New York City: Norton and Company, 2012. Print.

Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” Greenblatt. 2543-2546