lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

TENNYSON, BROWNING, & SOME OTHERSKkayydm(i$$9\Barncs'sHwomelyRbymes(i$5g\S\wnburne'sThe Queen Mother and Rosamund (1861), and(in 1862) George Meredith's Poems and Ballads andChristina Rossetti's Goblin Market and other Poems.This will suffice to indicate the manner in which, asthe century rounded the middle year, new poets werecoming into evidence, how closely chariot pressed uponchariot as they approached and passed the pillar atthe middle of the course, though the race may appearmore exciting to us who look back than to readers ofthe day. But this is not all. As in the years between1789 and 1798, new influences were in the air, newcurrents of thought were agitating the mind of Englandand Europe. Influences will not make poetry, but ifthe poets are there to receive them with other men,but on more sensitive plates, they will leave theirrecord in many and complex ways, especially if theseinfluences are of a metaphysical character. Politicalevents count for less except in so far as they seem togive, or to promise to give, to ideas actuality. It wasnot the events of the French Revolution which gaveus 'The Prelude, but the high hopes they excited inminds which had felt the influence of Rousseau's gospeland the disappointments that ensued.What the new forces at work were will be clear ifwe recall certain other publications of these years.They were not primarily political, though 1848 was astirring year. They concerned less men's politicalthan their religious outlook, for the early years of QueenVictoria's reign had witnessed a great recovery ofreligious and Christian feeling under the influence ofthe Evangelical movement and, modifying this influence,the development of a more liberal Christianity.And now the ebb was beginning.87