Victorian poetry:The word Victorian suggests a few features of the literature (and poetry) of the nineteenth century. In poetry and literature, it carries the suggestion of pessimistic subject, elegiac tone, lyrical expression, musical poetry, description of the misery of the poor or old people, theme of dissatisfaction with the loss of old values and sudden modernization and degradation of the society. The Victorian age in English literature was the age of Queen Victoria who ruled Britain in the nineteenth century. This age comes after the Romantic age and ends with the turning of the modern age of the twentieth century. The Victorian age was in many ways the most glorious age in the history of England, because it made unexpected progress in all spheres of life, and the British empire. It was an age of material prosperity, political awakening, democratic reforms, industrial and mechanical advancement, social upheaval, educational expansion, imperialism and empire-building, humanitarianism and all-pervading energy and activity in social life. However, it was strangely the time of pessimism for poets, writers and thinkers. Most scholars severely criticized the age and denounced all the external gloss and glitter of material prosperity and wonders of mechanical progress. There was a big gap between the rich and the poor, as shown by the novels of Charles Dickens, and the old values of society and religion were quickly fading away, as seen in the poems of Mathew Arnold. Tennyson is also a typical poet of the time who wrote elegiac poetry of gloom and despair. Along with that spirit of pessimism and doubt, there was also the romantic spirit of desire for the lost, past and the ideal. There was also in its literature the old romantic thirst for beauty, love and art. Most Victorian poetry was written in perfected musical stanzas, but its expression was usually lyrical and romantic. The present poem is typically Victorian in its subject (death and sorrow), tone (elegiac), expression (lyrical), theme (despair) and its musical quality. *Note: Browning is also a Victorian poet, but his poem "My Last Duchess" is not a typically Victorian poem in many ways. But, its theme of satire of a corrupted culture of the upper class is one thing that it shares with the typically Victorian poems.

Allegory: Allegory is a parallel story. If a single word or expression has an abstract and general meaning, it is called a symbol; but if the whole ‘story’ of a drama, story or poem has a symbolic meaning throughout, it is called an allegory. Read More...

Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds. The repeated consonants normally occur at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables. Read More...

Allusion: An allusion in a literary text is a reference to a personal place or event or to another literary work or passage. It does not have clear identification, that is, it does not tell directly what it stands for. Read More...

Animation: Animation is giving life to non-living objects. If a poet treats a lifeless concrete thing as having life, awareness, will-power, thought, emotion, etc, that is called animation. For example, if a poet says, "The moon is ‘smiling’ at me", he animates the moon. Read More...

Ballad:originally a kind of folk song; also sung with music; now recorded in writing, and also regarded as literature/ poetry. Read More...

Blank verse: Blank verse refers to the poetic lines that use iambic pentameter without rhyming. Read More...

Classical Poetry:The classical or neo-classical poets of the eighteenth century had had made poetry more social than personal, more intellectual than emotional and imaginative, more rule-based than spontaneous. Read More...

Conceit: The conceit is a striking metaphor. It is so original and unconventional that it not only strikes the reader into attention, but sometimes shocks them, being even objectionable or absurd at first. Read More...

Elegy: The elegy was originally the form of poetry on the subject of sadness, especially ‘complaints about love’. Read More...

Epic: One the oldest of the poetic forms, the epic is a long narrative poem, majestic both in theme and style, dealing with legendary or historical events of national or universal significance, involving action of broad sweep and grandeur. Read More...

Epic Simile: The epic simile is a figurative device first popularized by Homer in his epics. It is a comparison that may be as long as a dozen lines. Read More...

Heroic couplet: Heroic couplet is a pair of lines with iambic pentameter; the lines must also rhyme together. Read More...

Iambic pentameter: Iambic pentameter means ‘five iambic feet in a line’. ‘Iambic’ means a unit of rhythm with two syllables where the first is not stressed (U) and the second is stressed (S). Read More...

Image: An image is considered to be a picture created in the mind by words. Generally images are divided as visual images and abstract images. Read More...

Imagery: Imagery is the general term for the use of ‘images’ in poetry. The use of all kinds of concrete, metaphoric and more abstract is called imagery. Read More...