A deep dive in Public and Private poetry in Victorian Britain

Content Warning: Mentions of Slavery

There was a huge difference between what would’ve been considered public poetry or private poetry in Victorian Britain, whether it was published to be read or not. A public poem would’ve been something widely published or distributed with something concerning the general public as a whole and back in Victorian England it became easier than ever to access poetry. The newspapers at the time ‘provided a national distribution system for poetry first published in books and London periodicals, reprinting verse for readers who never saw it in its original form’ (Hobbs, P.84). A more private poem would be for just that individual or a small group of individuals and in this case published in a more specific setting with a different set of readers. More specifically however, I believe the relationship between public and private lies within the actual poems themselves. It is important to consider who they have written for and who’s reading them but also the tone of the poetic voice and what it is trying to achieve.

Notably one of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s most famous poems is The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854). It tells the story of the six-hundred soldiers who lost their lives in one of the most famous military disasters of the Crimean War. In the Battle of Balaklava, British soldiers were told to charge blindly in to battle, resulting in massacre. Because of this, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, being the Poet Laureate at the time, published this famous poem in newspapers across Britain, making it publicly available to the general public. The first version ‘appeared in The Examiner, 9 December 1854, and the first edition of Maud and Other Poems, 1855. The second version is as it appeared in Maud and Other Poems, London: Moxon, July 1855’ (Camlot. P.30). This shows that this poem was widely available for the public to read. As the audience to the poem is the nation we can see this poem as invoking patriotism, a celebration of the bravery these soldiers had even though they have died in vain. Tennyson specially points out that ‘someone had blundered’ (Line 12), which places the blame elsewhere, not on the soldiers. For it is ‘theirs not to make reply/ theirs not to reason why/ theirs to do and die’ (Lines 13-15), we see that the calvary do not question this blunder but only follows orders.

The third stanza is where we start seeing solid repetition. Three times canons are mentioned within the stanza therefore instilling panic in the reader whilst also showing the scale of this disaster, this is the build-up to the main battle. Within the fourth and fifth stanza the reader is placed within the of the battle. It brings the immersive idea of being in that situation. The language becomes sporadic, there’s more charged energy used to create that chaotic atmosphere of the battlefield. As this poem was published after the charge had already took place, this is a response to something the reader would already know has happened therefore an ‘oral reading of the poem requires a sympathy first with the poem's initial attempt to capture the unified affective response of British newspaper readers’ (Camlot, P.30), however, by putting them in the thick of the action would evoke more feelings after such event. After the charged nature of the fourth and fifth stanza, the speaker closes the poem with the shortest stanza of six lines. The tone immediately shifts to a calmer yet patriotic voice signalling that the battle is over but how the reader must ‘honour the charge they made’/honour the light brigade’ (Lines 53-54).

In a stark contrast to declaring, patriotic voice of The Charge of the Light Brigade we look towards the fifty-fourth section of Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H (1850). Here, we see the poetic voice in deep grief over the loss of a close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. The title of this poem shows his friends initials which shows the dedication to the deceased, to place them in the title is an honour or ‘opaque as any symbol invoked to represent him’ (Hsiao, P.174). The voice expresses difficulty in maintaining his faith as he tries to grasp the philosophical concept of why bad things happen to good people. Written in Iambic tetrameter to keep the rhythm of mourning clear throughout the poem, we can feel sympathy with the voice as he goes through this journey alone.

Unlike The Charge of the Lightbrigade, this is an internal monologue, this is a private poem filled with private thoughts and a journey through mourning. The poetic voice seeks comfort throughout the poem making it appear more vulnerable and maybe more likeable? If a reader can empathise with the voice, they would take more away from the poem. Which is why in this specific section of In Memoriam A.H.H ‘the act of mourning is arranged as a series of stages, its progress is revised into a linear process (Hsiao, P.176), this is showing the slowly but surely the poetic voice is attempting to overcome the grief, this in turn shows their strength, it’s almost uplifting. There is a regular rhythm throughout which can show the consistency for the voice’s grief with only two breaks in the poem. The first one appearing in the eighth line when an extra syllable is added to the rhythm. Although this isn’t enough to break the rhythm, we can start to see the composure the voice has start to crack. This is then followed by the three breaks the reader experiences in the fifteenth line. The three pauses occur after the voice declares ‘Behold, we know not anything/ I can but trust that good shall fall’ (Lines 13-14). The voice tries to be positive before breaking entirely in the form of three pauses as after this they question who they are before comparing themselves to ‘An infant crying in the night’ (Lines 18-19), this suggests that the only way humans truly know how to articulate themselves is by crying. Irene Hsiao states that the ‘genre In Memoriam most resembles is the sonnet sequence, with its continued treatment of a single emotional obsession over the course of many related short lyrics’ (Hsiao, P. 178). This is not only agreeable with Tennyson’s In Memoriam but also with Christina Rossetti’s Monna Innominata (1881).

Monna Innominata is a collection of twelve sonnets showcasing the gradual death of the poetic voice. Like Tennyson’s In Memoriam, we’re again looking at an internal monologue only this time in a Petrarchan sonnet form and these are not about finding love but this is the aftermath of love. Sonnets as a form of poetry are normally personal, a pondering of one’s feelings, making them a more private form of poetry. Specifically look at her fourth sonnet in Monna Innominata we hear the poetic voice’s thoughts of lost love. This would’ve been different to the reader at the time as ‘the self is not only sung about, but the self is also to sing forth as a part of its sane activity in a threatening world’ (Weathers, P.88). The poem starts strong with ‘I loved you first’ (Line 1). The past tense tells the reader that the speaker has already gone through this heart break and is more pondering over it. This is breaking the male tradition of pondering over love and moving on to the female perspective of love. Most sonnets are read as public declarations of love and yet this one is softly spoken to oneself, making it a more private affair. E. Fay states that both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti used ‘a troubadour figure to express the female poetic voice despite romantic precedence specifying that figure as a masculine and silencing one’ (Fay, P, 213) and you can see this within the sonnet.

The first four lines of this sonnet have a solid rhyming scheme before slowing going into a more sporadic rhyming scheme. This mirrors her feelings for love slowly dissolving as the sonnet progresses. Once we reach the third line we’re hit with a biblical reference of the dove, a well-known sign of peace, love and renewal. The reader slowly follows as the voice comes to the realisation that her relationship wasn’t all she believed it to be. As we head towards the volta of the poem the speaker points out that at ‘one moment [yours] seems to wax more strong’ (Line 5) thus showing the reader that at one point in the romantic affair the speaker believed that the partners love was stronger than themselves. The use of ‘wax’ (Line 5) is interesting as it can melt when warm suggesting that perhaps they always thought this wasn’t true but wanted to live in the lie that someone might love them more than they love back. Here, the reader would feel sympathetic towards the voice as they’re showing their most vulnerable side.

As this is a Petrarchan sonnet we hear the voice questioning the love they had with this mysterious partner for the first eight lines. We follow the feminine voice slowly realising that their feelings may have been misconstrued. The volta of the sonnet comes with ‘weights and measures do us both wrong.’ (Line 8). Right here is the penultimate point of the sonnet where the speaker realises that there was an unequal power dynamic within their relationship. After this point we see the voice answering and clarifying her feelings not to others but to herself, keeping it private to only themselves for ‘rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine’ (Line 12). There is a shift in tone after the volta. After the voices realisation about her relationship we read a less romantic sonnet, it seems more emotional, more fragile than the voice the reader is used to.

In a similar “soap box” voice to Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s controversial The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point (1848) follows the same firm and declaring voice but under the guise of a black female slave. This dramatic monologue was published in the abolitionist gift book, The Liberty Bell. Gift books during this time ‘were representative of the high tide of American cultural self’ (Thompson, p.161) so when The Liberty Bell started publishing it was more ‘concerned with pointing out that all was not well in the United States (Thompson, P. 161). The form of a dramatic monologue closely mimics a performance which openly is a public form, not only this but the topic matter surrounded this poem is one of public importance and is being used for societal change therefore needed to be read by many to make that change. Even though this was published in the United States it still comes from a English writer and at the time of writing ‘Victorian Britons exercised broad licence to criticize the slave trade and human bondage’ (Huzzey, P. 44) even though it was seen as a ‘natural stage of human history that had become corrupted by the unnatural international slave trades of "advanced" nations’ (Huzzey, P. 46) Furthermore, with this being published in an abolitionist gift book the audience for this specific poem are already opposed to slavery and due to the charged nature of this poem, the audience will already have strong feelings about slavery before reading it. There is a controversial aspect surrounding this dramatic monologue with modern readers as it poses the question of who has the right to tell this story. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a white, English woman writing this poem with the voice of a enslaved black women, whilst in London where slavery had been abolished for a gift book in the United States where slavery was still legal.

The voice in this poem is one of a black female slave who has escaped slavery and is telling her story to a group of white pilgrims who have found her. The voice is one of strength and powers as she recalls all that has happened to her. It invokes anger within the reader, makes them question the humanity of some people and hopefully this anger will lead to the societal change to stop this from happening to others. This ‘powerful language violates the conventions of the dramatic monologue in one sense but fulfils them in another’ (Schaub, P.560) and you can’t help but agree, the strength of the voice is not usually heard within dramatic monologues however, it works in this one. The dramatic monologue starts strong with ‘I’ (Line 1). This is a personal account and everything about to be mentioned has happened to her. The first stanza tells the reader about the speaker, where she is and what she can see, it places the reader in that specific setting as if making them one of the pilgrims that found her and who she’s pleading to, thus evoking emotion within the reader as what would they do in this situation. The second stanza holds a Homeric tradition of inciting the muse, traditionally something where a hero asks for help to a higher power. By the poetic voice stating, ‘O pilgrims-souls, I speak to you’ (Line 8) this places her as a Homeric hero whilst also making the pilgrims the “higher power”. Placing the pilgrims as “higher” shouldn’t be a shock given the social climate to the United States at the time however by having the poetic voice ‘curse this land’ (Line 20) after creating that power dynamic shows not how angry she is but how desperate she is, there’s nothing left but to curse the land she has found herself on.

To conclude, the differences between public and private poetry can be narrowed down to two key aspects. The audience is it written for and/or the tone of the poetic voice. The Charge of the Light brigade has a very strong authoritative voice thus making the reader listen to it. Furthermore, it was published in several newspapers making it widely available to the general public. Similarly, The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point shares the same reasoning, it was written to be published in an abolitionist gift book where a lot of people will have access to it. Although the poetic voice isn’t as a authoritative it is still a strong voice with a story to tell.

Additionally, the form of a dramatic monologue is a very public form of poetry. There is a stark difference between the public poems and the private ones. The fourth sonnet of Monna Innominata and the fifty-fourth section of Tennyson’s In Memoriam both hold an individuals most private thoughts about two different types of heart ache, love in a relationship and grieving the loss of a close friend. Despite both pieces being published for anyone to read the tone of the poetic voice of both isn’t trying to tell the reader something or to get someone to change their views like the other two are, it is simply just working through their heart break, by themselves.

Works Cited: 

How Local Newspapers Came to Dominate Victorian Poetry Publishing, Hobbs. A, Januszewski. C, Victorian Poetry, Vol 52, No.1, Victorian Periodical Poetry, Spring 2014

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854), Camlot. J, Victorian Review, Vol. 35, No.1, Spring 2009

Calculating Loss in Tennyson’s In Memoriam, Hsiao. I, Victorian Poetry, Vol.47, No. 1, Tennyson at Two Hundred, Spring 2009

The Liberty Bell and Other Anti-Slavery Gift-Books, Tompson. R, The New England Quarterly, Vol.7, No.1, March 1934

The Margins of the Dramatic Monologue: Teaching Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”, Schaub. M, Victorian Poetry, Vol. 49, No.4, Winter 2011

Romantic Men, Victorian Women: The Nightingale Talks Back, Fay. Elizabeth A, Studies in Romaticism, Vol. 32, No. 2, Romanticism and the Feminine, Summer 1993

Christina Rosetti: The Sisterhood of Self, Weathers. W, Victorian Poetry, Vol. 3, No.2 Spring 1965.

4, from Monna Innominata, Rossetti. C, The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti, ed. R. W. Crump, London: Penguin, 2005

The Charge of the Light Brigade, Lord Tennyson. A, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, W. W. Norton and Company, London, 2018

54, from In Memoriam, Lord Tennyson. A, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, W. W. Norton and Company, London, 2018

The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point, Browning. E B, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. C. Porter and H. Clarke, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co. 1900