Introduction:
It is a charge against the whole range of the Victorian poetry that it is imitative and derivative in character. G. D. Klingopulos brings to our notice in his essay The Victorian Scene this derivative character of the Victorian poetry and its dependence on the poetry of the Romantic poets. He says, "There is an unconscious dependence of one poet on the voice of another. We are justified in describing this (Victorian) verse as 'derivative'. Little Victorian poetry is free from this sort of indebtedness- to the movement, the vocabulary, the excitement, the attitudes-of Romantic poetry. For reasons ultimately moral, Victorian poets tended to avoid the directness of the greatest Romantic poetry, its effort to achieve a fresh perception of the world and of the powers of the mind, and to awaken wonder. They were attracted to its pastoral and less serious qualities."
His Deviating from Established Romantic Trends:
In Tennyson's poetry there are certain prominent Romantic tendencies, though in zest and zeal to be a teacher and champion of moral ideology he deviated from the established trends of the Romantic verse. In the works of the Romantic poets, particularly those of Coleridge, Keats, Scott and Southey, we do not find traces of moralising or didactic element. They were the poets who preferred medievalism to materialistic mundane life. Superstition, magic and witchery gripped their fancy. They were not prepared to make their poetic muse serve the cause of reform or moral regeneration of the society. Tennyson's poetry marks a parting of ways with some of the Romantic poets in this direction. His poetry deliberately sought to inculcate certain moral virtues, such as that of self-control and moral purity. He advocated a life of moral discipline and order. In advocating a puritan way of life, he exhibited little of the romantic fervour in his poetry.
Absence of Lively Imagination:
In keeping away from his poetry the romantic idealism of Shelley, Tennyson was not in the line of the Romantic poets. Shelley's visionary idealism is conspicuous by its absence in Tennyson's poetry. Moreover, Romantic poets were creatures of imagination. Their poetry pre-eminently consists of flights of imaginative fancy. Tennyson's poetry, particularly his Nature poetry, is without even such flashes of lively imagination as enliven the Nature poetry of Keats. His poetry is also singularly free from the imaginative richness of Shelley's myths. Under the influence of science, Tennyson laid greater emphasis of recognition than imagination. The distrust of absolute imagination in delineating the picture of Nature was contrary to romantic traditions of poetry. In this connection Nicolson has pointed out, *"There were some impersonal defects which were forced upon Tennyson by his age on account of its distrust of absolute imagination. For, we may observe in dealing with the Nature poetry of Tennyson that he placed accuracy of observation above imaginative qualities. The background of his poems are always scenes of landscapes which he had himself visited, their foreground and similes are drawn from the flowers that he himself had culled. "This precise and exact treatment of Nature is very much against the romantic treatment thereof by Shelley and Keats. Above all, Tennyson failed to deal with the subject of love, particularly physical love, in the manner of the Romantic poets like Keats and Byron. The fire of passion does not burn in his poems. Only in few poems, such as Fatima and The Gardener's Daughter, that fire leaps with a glow. Otherwise, tumultuous upsurge of passion as in Byron and Shelley is rarely to be found in Tennyson. In this respect too, Tennyson has not struck to romantic tradition in poetry. He cannot be called a Romantic poet in the sense in which we hold Keats and Shelley, though there are touches of romanticism in his works.
Romantic Feelings in His Love of Nature:
In some of the poems of Tennyson such as The Lady of Shalott, The Lotos-Eaters, The Dream of Fair Women, a romantic atmosphere of Nature is present. The old halo of romance is captured there. Their setting is romantic. Tennyson's descriptions of Nature and pastorals (William Wordsworth wrote about Dora to Tennyson: "Mr. Tennyson, I have been endeavouring all my life to write a pastoral like your Dora, and have not succeeded.") and the beautiful landscapes that he has painted are also full of romantic feelings. Like Keats, Tennyson also sought to present lovely spectacle of Nature surcharged with human feelings. In his love of Nature of its own sake, Tennyson carries on the romantic tradition.
His Love for Common Human Beings:
In his poems The Cobbler and The Northern Farmer, Tennyson expresses his love for common human beings. Though in this respect he could not be as intensive and genuine in feelings as Wordsworth was for the poor people, his interest in humanity is well marked in The Gardener's Daughter, The Miller's Daughter, The Northern Farmer and The Cobbler.
Melancholic Feelings in His Romantic Poetry:
Romantic poetry was characterised by a note of melancholy. Such a note can be easily detected in some of the poems of Tennyson. In Locksley Hall, Maud, Children's Hospital, In Memoriam, and The Lotos-Eaters, we feel the sense of romantic melancholy. In this connection Alfred Lyall has beautifully observed, "One might almost regard The Two Voices as continuing in deeper philosophic key, the melancholy musing of Locksley Hall, and the two poems might be labelled 'Dejection'. There is a similar disconsolate protest against the vanity and emptiness of life, there is the feeling of doubt and disillusion, of sombre self-examination, and that some vague longing for the battlefield is a remedy for the morbid sensibility that haunts so many studious men, which appeared later in Maud".
His Skill and Mastery in Poetry:
Tennyson's metrical skill and mastery of fine phrases and melody are in the line of Keats. His pictorial and colourful paintings recall to our mind Keats's method and style. The sweet music of his verse and the fine flow of his lines carry forward the line set up by Shelley. E. Albert says, "No one excels Tennyson in the deft application of sound to sense and in the subtle and pervading employment of alliteration and vowel music."
More A Classical Than A Romantic poet:
Tennyson is thus not a thorough Romantic poet, though there are a number of romantic elements in his poetry. He will be remembered as an artist and a thinker, though in none of them his approach is exactly like that of the Romantics. While keeping sometimes his affinity with them he breaks away in certain other respects and is more a Classical than a Romantic poet. Though Romantic in tone and temperament, he is largely Classical in form and structure of his poetry, He lays stress on the need of discipline in art, though there are traces of romanticism in it. In this connection Legouis and Cazamian have observed, "As the heir of Romantic tradition he completes and corrects it by incorporating into it the essential tenets of Classicism."