Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Lady of Shalott

• This lady (lady of shalott) lives alone on this island (shalott)

• she can see camelot from her island since its down the river

• but this mysterious curse says that she cant even look in the direction of camelot let alone travel there

• she can only see camelot through this mirror that she has

• and she weaves tapestries based on the images she sees in the mirror

• then one day through the mirror she sees this really hot knight riding down to camelot

• its worth mentioning that this knight is lancelot who, if bbc’s merlin is anything to go by, is definitely fairly attractive

• and she is so distracted by his chiseled muscles and godlike handsomeness that she just has to see more of it, and she looks in the direction of camelot

• immediately her mirror cracks and the weather begins to storm

• the lady writes her name on this boat that she finds and then gets on the boat

• as the boat starts to move the lady starts like singing?? think ophelia from hamlet

• and then eventually the boat reaches camelot but shes already dead

• and then lancelot finds her dead body and he’s like huh shes kinda hot

Tears, Idle Tears from The Princess

• i have no memory of reading or discussing this but alright

• the princess is a long narrative poem that contains a number of songs

• utilizes repetition and long vowels

• represents a pleasing image, cuts it down, and makes it bittersweet

  • victorian ideal

• melancholy attitude towards the end

• alliteration in the beginning

• tears coming out of our eyes and we don’t know whats happening

Crossing the Bar

• tennyson requested this poem to be put at the end of all collections of his poetry

• bar is a sandbar in the ocean

• crossing the bar is dying, and the pilot is god

• tennyson doesn’t want people to grieve for him

• victorian ideal of doubt versus faith

Robert Browning

My Last Duchess

• based on the life events of the duke of ferrara, an Italian nobleman

• after the dukes first wife died, he made arrangements to remarry

• the poem is about the duke showing a painting of his first wife to this guy who represents the father of the woman he is now going to marry

• the poem is about the duke talking about his first wife

• he basically just complains about her

• he says that she flirted with other guys too much and allowed them to flirt with her

• she would be flattered by the advances of other men and not just her husband

• he says she was too easily impressed and would be happy about everything too easily

• she accepted gifts from all the men who gave her gifts and she would be equally happy and grateful about all of them, and the duke is upset because she seemed to equate those gifts with the duke’s gift of his “name,” or essentially royal status

• the duke says his wife should've been the most grateful for what he gave her

• then the duke talks about how she would smile at him, but she would smile the same smile at everyone else and it made him upset

• he started to command her and her smile started to go away

• its kind of implied that he made her depressed and somehow caused her death

• then the duke goes right back to talking about his new marriage

• the poem ends with the duke being like anyway look at my other cool paintings

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

• robert just really misses england

• what can i say? england is his city

Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach

• strait of dover, in between England and France

• essentially just talking about the authors feelings while thinking about dover beach

• the experience of being by the sea and near the cliffs

• another poem talking about the experience of feeling small next to the ocean and how nothing really matters next to the ocean because we are so small and the world is so big

• the poem also talks about standing by the sea and the cliffs and feeling deep sadness that the world seems to just ignore

• calm imagery in the beginning makes the poem seem peaceful

• then eventually states that the waves bring sadness

• sophocles relates the waves to human misery

• over time sees the tide going out further (or is it farther? idk) and further away

• lack of faith is lack of hope

• ends on positive note, talking to his love

• the world is only beautiful on a surface level but underneath there is heartache and misery

Thomas Hardy

The Man He Killed

• war poem

• talking about a man the speaker killed

• he killed the man because they were enemies in war, but had they met in other circumstances they would have probably been friends and gotten a drink together

• the poem talks about how odd it is that we kill people in war just because they are on the other side even though these same people, had we met them in different circumstances, would be people we would have a drink with and be friends with

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hurrahing In Harvest

• lots of alliteration

• hills are majestic

• that’s basically it really

Pied Beauty

• pied animal = one that has spots

• glorifying god for making things with spots

• we associate purity with things that are whole, but even imperfect things are beautiful

• he just really likes spots i guess

A.E. Housman

Loveliest of Trees

• narrator is 20

• he wants to use all his time (he thinks he’ll live to 70) seeing the pretty trees

today he will go to the woodlands and look at the trees

When I Was One-and-Twenty

• humorous tone

• the guy is heartbroken and he’s being super dramatic about it

• he knew nothing when he was 21, but now he’s 22 and he knows more things

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnet 43

• we all thought Shakespeare wrote this but in reality this lady wrote it

• love sonnet, just talking about how deeply Elizabeth loves her husband

• the whole poem is really just Elizabeth saying how much she loves this guy

• there isn’t really much more to it honestly