POETS OF THE LATER VICTORIAN AGE

In the Later Victorian period, a movement took place in England which resembled a new 'Romantic Revival'.
It was called the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
It was dominated by Rossetti Swinburne and Morris. These poets were interested in beauty.
They were quite satisfied with the beauty of diction, rhyme and imagery in poetry.
They made use of the legends of the Middle Ages, not as moral teaching but simply as stories.
In 1847, a young artist named Holmen Hunt came under the influence of Ruski's 'Modern Painters'.
With his friend Millais and D. G. Rossetti, he found a club, 'Pre-Raphaelite'.
Their motto was to study Nature and thus express genuine ideas in an unconventional manner.
It was to be direct and serious and heart felt in early Italian painting before the artificial style of Raphael.
The Pre-Raphaelite lasted for a very short time. But its effect was deep.
The Pre-Raphaelite school of poetry and not regard poetry as being prophetic or philosophical.
Their poetry had no concern with intellectual complications and or social conditions.
It was not an intellectual movement.
It brought back the idea that poetry deals with thought and feeling, that cannot be expressed in prose.
It gave greater importance to personal feelings over thought.
It introduced symbolism.
It insisted on simplicity of expression.
Their images were of mysticism.

A) Dante Gabrial Rossetti (1828-1882)

D. G. Rossetti was the chief force behind the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
He was the son of Gabrial Rossetti. His father was an Italian refugee. He was also a poet.
D. G. Rossetti studied drawing at a very young age.
His paintings had the magnificence of colours.
The same pictorial quality became the chief characteristic of his poetry.
Rossetti openly followed the profession of painter pursuing poetry as well.
In his poetry, Rossetti assumes the reality of the spiritual and moral world.
He was not a didactic poet.
His poetry can be divided into two groups - personal and impersonal poems.
In his poems, the personal note of love or grief of memory or hope is wholly dominant.
The poet's soul is absorbed with his individual being.
Rossetti was a supreme master of rhythm and music.
He gave his narrative in ballad form.
He chose the sonnet for the meditative form.
The vivid and intense simplicity of his diction corresponds with the watercolour paintings.
The sonnets flash the oil paintings.
His notable works are - House of Life sonnets, Dante at Verona, The Streams Secret, The Whiteship, The Bride's Pleasure and many more.

B) Christianna Rossetti

Christianna Rossetti had a similar temperament of her brother.
Many times she wrote under the influence of her brother.
But at times she was quite distinct.
Her sonnets have the same Italian form.
It also has colour, music and meditation.
But her range was wide.
She had a distinct sense of humour.
Her pathos was never surpassed.
The devotional poems have the utterance of religious awe.
Her notable works are 'Goblin Market(1861)', 'The Prince's Progress(1866)', 'Time Files(1885) and many more.
Later her Verse came as a posthumous volume after her death.

C) William Morris(1834-1896)

William Morris was an eminent designer and decorator.
He was chiefly interested in the Middle Ages.
His object of writing poetry was to revive the Gothic spirit.
These poems interpret the mysteries of the Middle Ages. The Victorians had forgotten all these. Tennyson also drew his inspiration for his 'Idylls' from the Middle Ages.
Morris tried to bring back to life the true spirit of the Middle Ages.
For nine years, after the Defence of Guenevere, Morris did not write anything.
Rossetti wanted him to become a painter.
Morris followed Chaucer.
He derived tales from the mythologies of northern Europe, but he treated them in a different manner.
Morris wrote poetry with the object of creating beauty.
His poems have a harmonious and musical flow.
He wrote in different forms - black verse, rhymed verse, complicated and simple stanza.
In all his poetry we find the love of adventure and attraction of an imaginary world.
In his poetry is seen human lives blooming.
Here there is no suffering, no unhappiness, that is caused by industrialisation.
His poetry is the result of the reaction of a wounded sensibility against the ugliness of the real world.
His notable works are - 'Earthy Paradise', 'Lover of Gudrun', 'Gettis and Volsunga' and many more.

D) Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

Swinburne is another Victorian poet who has an association with the pre-Raphaelites.
Swinburne was a musician.
His poetry has a sonority of rhymes. This links his verses together.
He imitated the English, Latin, Greek and French poets.
In a gathering at Oxford, he said, "Shakespeare without a doubt then Milton, the Shelley, then do not know what other people would do, but I should put myself.
There is no doubt that Swinburne is one of the great masters in metrical technique.
Swinburne's poetry deals with great romantic themes - revolt against society, the hatred of kings and priests.
He was also inspired by the French romantics Victor Hugo and Baudelaire.
Swinburne became known for his Atalanta in Calydon (1865).
His notable works are - "Before the Beginning of the Years", "Mary Stuart, The Garden of Proserpine", "The Triumph of Time", "Songs before Sunrise" and many more.
When he sings at his best, no one can deny him the title of a great poet.
He sings in Hertha of the birth and destiny of man.