VICTORIAN POETRY PROJECT
1. READ ALL WORKS LISTED BELOW; read with special care the ones assigned to
your group
2. Think about how your particular romantic theme is manifested in your poems.
3. Present in class on a brief report (7-9 minutes or so for each group)
4. Create a handout and three multiple choice, AP style questions on your poems.
5. You may wish to note how texts agree or disagree with each other—or portion to be
allotted to you. You may need to elaborate with helpful definitions (what is the ‘woman
question’?), a quick summary of each text, a discussion of how your theme is manifested
in each work, and a discussion of a key passage (maybe two if needed) in each text.
Don’t be surprised is your poet loses faith in the doctrine he is promulgating. Literature is
made of dialogue, sometimes dialogue with oneself!
6. Make sure that your presentation/discussion is lively, informative, and entertaining!
Each of the following concepts has been presented as the hallmark of Romanticism.
Victorian Poetry
Faith and Doubt : (Three People)
Tennyson, In Memoriam,
Arnold, “Dover Beach,”
Hardy, “The Impericpent
The Victorian Poet and History: (Two People)
E. B. Browning, “The Cry of the Children,”Social protest poetry.
Tennyson, “Charge of the Light of Brigade,” British masculinity.
REMEMBER!!!!
Hardy, “The Convergence of the Twain,” 1945
The Victorians and Death (not a taboo topic for Victorians): (Two people)
Tennyson, “In Memoriam,” 1 and 7 Example of Victorian cult of death.
Tennyson, “Crossing the Bar,” Most popular Victorian poem?
R. Browning, “Prospice,”
Confidence in Progress: (One Person)
Tennyson, “Ulysses,” 1213
Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters,” (the flip side of Ulysses)
Dramatic Monologue as Genre: a Victorian response to the Romantic ‘conversation
poem’ (?): (Two People)
Browning, “My Last Duchess,”
Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”
BRIEFLY Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and “Lotos-Eaters” as examples of
the dramatic monologue
What happened to the Romantic theme of Nature? (Two People)
Tennyson, “Flower in the Crannied Wall,”(is this the same as Wordsworth?)
Arnold, “Lines Written in Kensington Gardens,” (same as Wordsworth?)
Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” (CLOSE READING ONLY)
Nature II: (Three People)
Hopkins, “Pied Beauty,” 1653 (define ‘inscape’)
Hopkins, “The Windhover,” 1652 (just do a close reading of this)
Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush,” (poem for a new century!)
The “Victorian Woman”/The “Woman Question”: (Three People)
Tennyson, “The Lady of Shallot,” 1204 (Read the title character as prisoner of
Victorian domestic ideology—what is the island? The loom? Camelot?)
Rossetti, “Goblin Market,” (erotic?)