The Voices at the Turning of the Times

窦瑞芳 郭恒达

Abstract：Victorian age is the age full of fundamental changes in the society. At this turning of times, many poets spoke out their anxiety about this world, like Alfred Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, their poems express their anxiety and helpness about the new world and their sadness and loneliness about the loss of the old world. Certaintly there are also some poets like Thomas Hardy who were more ready to face the new world soberly and accepted the reality directly. Probably they alredy realized the coming of the new world could not be stopped anyway. These are the voices at the turning of the times . The aim of this essay is to find out such voices by doing a comparative study on the three poets and their poems

Key words: Victorian Age；Tennyson；Arnold；Hardy

中图分类号： H319文献标识码： A文章编号：1672-1578（2011)09-0020-02

1 The historical background

In the Victorian Age, Britan was going through a process of developing into a capitalist country. And due to the great development of science and technology geared up by the Industrial Revolution, Peoples modes of thinking and living habits had been changed fundamently. The Victorians had a great faith on the devlopment of the science and the Industrial Revolution but lost an interest on humaninties and arts. The middle class were indulged in the rush for materials. Meanwhile, the cultural traditions and religion beliefs had already gone out of peoples minds. Darwin's The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man shook the theoretical basis of the traditional faith. More and more people began to doubt the existence of God. And the whole society was in a crisis of faith. At this turning of times, several voices are made out by some great poets of the Victorian Age who express their feelings on the change of times. And in this short essay, only three poets and their poems are to be analysized, that is, Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hardy, Who are the representatives of the poets of the Victorian Age.

2 Alfred Tennyson and his poems

Alfred Tennyson was often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. “Living in a time of great social and ideologiical changes, his poetry voices, the doubt and anxiety of his age and the faith in the power of love and instinct in the human soul.”(Xia shangli, 2005) In 1850, he published his greatest work In Memoriam and Tennyson was appointed the Poet Laureate. It is an elegy on the death of his friend Hallam, yet less than half of its l00 pieces are directly connected with him. The poet here does not merely dwell on the personal bereavement. As a poetic diary, the poem is also an elaborate and powerful expression of the poet's philosophical and religious thoughts, his doubts about the meaning of life, the existence of the soul and the afterlife, his faith in the power of love and the soul's instinct and immortality. Such doubts and beliefs were shared by most people in an age when the old Christian belief was challenged by new scientific discoveries.Therefore, “Tennysons In Memoriam is the profound relections of his time and people at the end of the century on the dying belief, the past tradition and a rooted faith in humanity and the meaning of life.” (Xia shangli, 2005) Such themes and ideas mentioned in In Memorian are the vocies form all of the Tennysons poems and also the voices at the turning of times. At this point, the short poem “Break, Break, Break” is to be anaysized so that the themes and ideas from Tennyson could be understood compeletly.

In the poem, the sea is regarded as the sea of faith, which is broken in the face of the fishermans boy and his sister, and the sailor lad but they all ignore such scene and focus their attentions on what they are doing. Therefore, the poem gives us two piece of picture, one descrbing the wave of sea is broken into pieces in all directions when it rushes into the cliff, one describing the fishermanboy and his sister shout and play at the seaside and a ship is moving slowly and quietly with the sailer boy signing in his boat on the bay. These two pictures combined together tell us the authors moods--realization of the truth of reality and a feeling of helpness for a lost life.

3 Matthew Arnold and his poems

Matthew Arnold is the famous poet and critic in the Victorian age. As a poet, he is not very productive and the scope of the subject matter of his poems is a bit small to some extent. However, his poems are better at reflecting the loss of the faith on the old civilizations and the social problems under the cover of the prevailing economical prosperity compared with the other poets of the same Age. “In his poetry he reflects on the doubt of his age, and he conflict between the science and religion. And in his opinion, poetry should be a criticism of life and was destined to take the place of religion as mans principal moral guide.” (Gao Jihai, 2005) Therefore, Arnold is greatly concerned with culture. And the current conditions of culture in the Victorian age cause cultural anxiety prevailing in Arnoldiain poems. He, as a serious thinker and a reponsible intelledctual, is willing to guide the mass out of the mess of the newly-risen industrial and imperial country. He was aware of the loss of faith, mechanization and enslavement of human beings, the distance and isolation among people. However, pessimistic and unhappy he was, he tried to enlighten and ennoble his audience for better culture, though sometimes confused himself because of his historical localization. In all of his poems, “Dover Beach is Arnolds most outstanding philosophical poem, in which the confused and doubtful minds of man and his age are shown.” (Xia shangli, 2005)

In the first stanza, “The moon lies fair” seems to suggest that the poet is gratified and ready to enjoy the tender moonbeam casting upon him and his love. The word “fair” can also be used to describe a woman. But the “the moon-blanched land” does not give a feeling of happiness. Both the moon and the land turn pale, which is similarly unearthly as the moonbeam in the forest. It leaves the image of a sorrow-laden heart with endless sadness and infinite tragic sense. Arnold was always in the anxiety of losing and parting. He was saddened by the distance between human-being and felt the cruelty from both nature and people. Though the moon seems fair, it has a ghostly terror, lifeless and cold. And the “the eternal note of sadness” in the last sentence weighed the favor of sadness, terror and lonliness.

In the second stanza, it is not the images affect us but the thought, which is about the symptathy for the human misery. Through calling back Sopheclos, Arnold speaks out the decline of culture and traditions and the crash of the faith caused by the industrial civilization and religion revolutions.

The third stanza manifests the theme of the poem, telling that the sea of faith has retreated. Words like “melancholy”, “long”, “vast edges” , “ drear” are employed to express the sad mood of the author.

In the last stanza, the author seems to point out the greatness of love. Yet, under the cruelty of the reality, It must be wondered whether love can cure the sickness of the society. And the poem is ended with “darkling plain” and “ignorant armies”, which shows a deadly despair.

4 Thomas Hardy and his poems

Hardy was a great writer in British literary history. His life spanned two centuries, from the 19th century to the 20th century. Therefore, some critics called him a transitional writer. Hardy was famous for his novels, but his true love was poetry. Hardy also witnessed the fundamental changes occurred to the society. However, he took a different attitude towards such changes. He was not dipped into the sadness on the loss of the old faith and life, the total confusment and helpness about the new world like Tennyson and Arnold. However, he took a sober attitude towards the every thing newly happened and face the social problems directly and recorded them in a realistic way.

In philosophical aspect, the figures like Darwin, Spencer, Schopenhauer, Hartmann affected Hardy deeply. Hardy stated that the editor and philosopher Leslie Stephen had a stronger influence on him. Throughout the rest of his life Hardy cherished Stephens friendship and no doubt his fiction and poetry owe much to the intellectual support Hardy found in such an impressive father-figure. As for Hardy, his beliefs had a great change during his life. Darwins ideas made a great influence on Hardy, and therefore, his thoughts changed a lot and gradually became an agnostic. Hardy read The Origin of'Species in the year when it was first published in 1859. Hardy himself admitted that this book caused enormous impact on his mentality. The theory of Evolution shook Hardys religious belief and led him to an agnostic. According to Hardy,the development of the will consciousness is an evolutionary process, just as the natural processes which Darwin described in his work.His thoughts changed from the devout attitude towards God to the doubtful attitude, and then, when he was 35, he lost his religious faith thoroughly. He became inclined to agnosticism. His acceptance to Darwinism led him to be interested in the universe. Contemporary scientific discoveries that man was trivial in the vastness of the universe made Hardy more receptive to philosophical views that challenged conventional conception of space and time. Hardys state of mind is one example of the conflict between the new scientific view of life which the nineteenth century produced and the whole attitude towards life which had been traditional to Western culture.

The poem is about the scene two lovers parting with each other. Form the poem, images such as white sun and graylish leaves, starving sod, fallen leaves, are collected so that the sad tone is set. And under the poets pen, such images are not only part of the scence but have the symbolic meanings. They tell us the story is sad. Therefore, nature is no longer the symbol of the beauty and goodness. They are only like the mess of people living in the world, born to live and bound to die. Hardy took a quiet different view with the Romantists like wordworth and his contemporary poet Tennyson on the issue of nature. He usually connected the natural things with the fate of the actor and embody the nature with the devastating power, like the natural imaged mentioned in the poem, which seemed to straggle the two lovers love.

5 Conclusions

At the turning of times,Victorians experienced fundamental changes. In such a social background, several voices are spoken out. Some people like Tennyson express their sadness and heplessness about the loss of the old faith and the new conditions of the soiecty and they could not hide their dislikeness and nostalgic feeling about the old world. Some people like Arnold, as the serious thinkers and responsible people, were willing to figure out some methods to lead the mass out of the state of loss of faith and immorality. However, they would not get rid of such thughts that their efforts would end up in naught, which also made them come into the complete despair. There are also some people like Hardy, confronting with the new changes occurred in the society, they kept a sober mind and accept the reality even though it is full of cruelty and coldness. Although they were also unhappy about the world, they are ready to spend more time to keep a realistic record of the reality and took the modernist view. Possibly Hardy told us what people would think after the totoal despair about the world. Tennyson and Arnold told us what people would think when they were on the way of despair. They all were the poet at the turning of times, yet voiced out different attitudes.

References：

[1]夏尚立. 英诗和英国诗人[M]. 临汾：中国科学文化出版社, 2005.

[2]高继海. 英国文学选读[M].开封：河南大学出版社, 2005.

作者简介：窦瑞芳，女，河南焦作人，贵州师范大学外国语学院在读硕士，研究方向为应用语言学。