Good morning everybody. Good. Nice to see you
today. How is poetry like with you? Good?
Are you ready with your reports, responses?
Not yet? You are rewriting them again or what? But
I told you from the very beginning, you have to
make them ready all the time. Now imagine I
collect all of them now, what would you do? And I
started marking them.
So those who are ready, bring them here. Those who
are not ready, I don't know, it's up to you. But I
need them today, yes. Your response? Huh? No, I'm
not taking them next time, you know?
Okay. You have to submit them today, but before,
like, here, you submit them here. Okay? Your
reports and your responses.
All the reports, I said.
I told you, like, the reports and the response
should be every day with you. Okay, go ahead.
Okay. As a teacher, I have two coffee mugs. The
other one, I'll bring home. I'll bring the plate.
Okay.
No,
you just give all of them. Okay, good.
Okay, so let's start. I'm going to like to pick
out here.
So she didn't write anything.
This is yours? Okay, come and read it.
The Daffodils. William Wordworth, the sensitive
and romantic poet. At the beginning, he was very
sad and had a deep pain of loneliness there.
However, something changed him from the sorrow to
the pleasure completely. It is the daffodils which
fluttering and dancing in the breeze. The poet is
an emotional man who feels the daffodils which are
ordinary to anyone. Because of the romanticism era
which had those poets who have the eye, the
emotional eye and the musical eye. Is it a report
or response? Yes, no, it's a report about the last
pictures. Yeah, but I don't see any reporting, you
know, it is like, it sounds like a response. Is
that a report or response? Report. But it's not
like, it doesn't have a report in a way. Okay,
thank you. Yes. Yes, you.
I appreciate like some people think that it is
very frightening to stand here. And I understand
her fear, you know, it's not easy. Yesterday when
I was writing my daily report, Write in my daily
report I imagined myself in front of the camera
and I found that it's very frightening situation I
decided that I wanted to read my report in the
next lecture to break this frightening and I
really will do that That's why she decided you
know Now when I stand up in front of the camera
it's more bitter of my imagination Anyway last
lecture I was absent because I was very ill but I
watched it on my computer Last lecture was a nice
one. At the first, Dr. Akram asked about our
report and chose some students randomly. Then he
explained what was explained in the previous
lecture by some students. There was an atmosphere
of activity and participation. The time of lecture
passed very quickly and the doctor asked us if we
have any questions about this poem. Then he left
the class. Okay. Yes. Yes.
Saturday's class was a memorable day for me, since
Dr. Akram started his lecture choosing randomly
students to report. And this was my turn to do.
Really, I don't remember anything except myself
reporting. After the class finished... Did I
choose you last time? Many students asked me the
same question that Dr. Akram asked, why I was
shivering. The truth that I had to change some
words in the middle of my report. Therefore, in
the middle, I reported orally. I was afraid not to
find the appropriate words. I learned from that
situation that I have to do what I have to do
without any change. Why didn't you submit it
quickly? Because I... Where is that?
Okay, do not submit any now, you know, that's it.
Good. So today we're going like to see, huh? No,
realize them at home, you know. Okay, today we're
going to see the Victorian poetry. When we're
talking about Victorian age or Victorian poetry,
like, why do we call it Victorian?
Yeah, Queen Victoria, like,
took over. Queen Victoria took over in 1837.
And she died 1901. So she ruled England for a very
long time. Now, the Victorian Age was a different
age. It witnessed many revolutions. It witnessed
like the scientific revolution, the industrial
revolution, Like many revolutions in that age, and
even religious revolution, it was characterized by
a great deal of skepticism and uncertainty.
Why? Why do you think, you know, what was
happening in the Victorian Age? As we saw in the
Romantic period,
I mean, the Industrial Revolution started to
change the nature of life. So this continued. This
case continued in the Victorian Age. Yes? In the
Victorian Age, just like you said, it continued,
but it was even more complicated. It was worse?
Yeah, it was more like deep in the society. So it
created a lot of problems. It became even worse
and there were a lot of things to deal with. So
the poets or the literary writers, they felt like
they need to tackle these problems. They need to
bring them to light and to find something. Okay,
what are these problems? You know, thank you for
mentioning problems, yes?
and the government treated the country as if it
was their own property. And they didn't allow the
new generation and young generation, especially
the educated people, to make their way through the
government. They made like. So they monopolized.
They made a lot of educational institutions, but
they didn't use the educated people in the
government. So they created a problem for
themselves. So there was class division, you know.
You know, there was hierarchy and social
hierarchy. We're talking about high class, the
aristocratic. We are talking about an emerging
class, which is called, you know, the middle
class, the Philistines or the Philistines, you
know, those materialistic people and the other,
the lay people, you know, the other people. Okay,
so you're talking about the ills, the problems,
the abuses. Do you have anything like in mind
about the abuses? You know, who was abused? Women
were abused. Children were abused in factories.
What else? But what was like the radical or the
element which changed, you know, the whole life of
the people? Religion, what happened to religion?
Yeah, the church was corrupted and we saw that
corruption in the Victorian Age.
What do you mean secularism? Like people became
very secular? Okay, what made them become very
secular? After Darwin, okay, Darwin, who was
Darwin? Now, if you remember, like the 18th
century was, I mean, all the changes came from
physics and mathematics, but now the changes in
life came from biology. Darwin, who came up with
his theory, which is the evolution of species, the
development of species. And in this theory, he
speculated that the origin of man was a descending
monkey. So this changed. This was a fatal blow to
a creed which presupposed that God was a man. If
you are saying that God was a man, here you see
the result. Man, man's image, this image which was
maintained by the Elizabethan, man was seen by the
Elizabethan as a paragon of animals. Man was the
best, the most balanced. Now man is Like only an
animal, it is, you know, like a descendant,
developed species. A developed species. So this
made people feel like what? They are uncertain
about what will happen to them. About what will
happen to them. And there were many theories like
man, there is no... You know, this means like
there is no life thereafter. You know, there is no
doomsday. So all of this created a kind of
uncertainty. And people were like very suspicious.
If you don't have religion, because religion is
like a walking stick. So if you don't have
religion, you mean you lose balance in life. And
this state of uncertainty was caught by the poets,
the Victorian poets. Tennyson was a main Victorian
poet. In his poem Immemoriam, it's a famous poem,
he said, I'm an infant crying in the night, crying
for the light. See what I mean? The light was
religion. So people's lives were governed by
materialistic forces. Everything. People were
exploited. There was a great deal of exploitation.
So that was the case. Poets like Tennyson wrote
poetry of entrapment, poetry of being imprisoned.
So they were highly philosophical. They were
looking for a solution. Matthew Arnold thought
that culture was a solution because there was no
religion. So he tried
to call people, to call poets, to write poetry of
culture, to write poetry of aesthetics. And he
thought that poetry was the religion of the
future. This is what he thought. So as an
introduction, today we're going to see two poems
as an introduction to Victorian poetry, a poem
which you are familiar with called The Eagle, it's
here, and Dover Beach. So I'm giving these as
introduction because we are studying in this
course, Hardy, the oxen. You see? This is like the
Victorian. So this is today, these two poems are
like introduction to the age. Who can read this
poem?
Yes?
He clasps the crag with crocked hands, close to
the sun in lonely lands. Ringed with the azure
word, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him
crawls. He watches from his
One of admiration. He's personifying the eagle. He
clasps. What does it mean, clasp? Look at the, you
know, the letters here. He clasps the crag. Look
at the alliteration. So all the alliteration has
to do with power. Power, you know, the powerful
clutch. He clasped the crag with crooked hands.
Crooked hands like this. Crooked hands. close to
the sun in lonely lands, and then he goes up
there, close to the, you know, up, up, ring with
the azure world, like the highest, you know, in
the highest atmosphere. The sea beneath him, you
know, is crawling. The sea beneath him is like a
child which is crawling, is weak, very feeble. So
look here, the power of the eagle is stressed.
Now, he watches from his mountain walls, and he
watches, and like a thunderbolt, he falls. So why
is he envious of the eagle?
Yes? Because he lacks what the eagle has, freedom,
the ability to catch and do things. And all of
this, yes, he lacks the freedom. So this is a
metaphoric expression of man's ability in the
Victorian Age to leave this sense of entrapment,
sense of imprisonment. They were psychologically
imprisoned. As you said, the intellectuals were
not given the chance. The intellectuals felt that
they were imprisoned by the emergent philosophies,
the emergent values, the church, the corruption,
the evil forces. Because when we are talking about
materialism, we are talking about the evil forces
that clash at night. you know, monopoly,
exploitation. Okay? So this is just... In this
short poem, Tennyson was trying to show that, you
know, the Victorian mind was crippled. You know,
you are not like the eagle. The eagle has the
freedom to go up, to come down, but you are
entrapped. You are psychologically entrapped. And
this shows how, you know, the people were
suffering. Matthew Arnold, in his poem, Dover
Beach, was looking for an answer. You know,
Matthew Arnold was looking for an answer. He
wanted
like people to change. So at the end of the poem,
he was crying. What was he crying? Matthew Arnold.
No, no. Have you ever read Dover Beach? Do you
know Dover Beach? Have you ever read Dover Beach?
Now, he cried, ah, love, let us be true to one
another for the world. I mean, in his poem, he
depicts, you know, clearly, an image of what was
the Victorian Age like. It was an age of richness
and misery. It was an age of many theories, but a
great deal of skepticism,
doubt.
So this is here, as you see in this poem.
He represents the Victorian Age. This is the past.
was okay. The past of the Victorian Age was okay.
I mean, the early Victorian Age was okay, but the
late Victorian Age was full of suffering, agony.
Here, the word he portrays is a deceptive word. A
word which was rich from the outside, but, you
know, impoverished from the inside.a world which
was beautiful, rich, like buildings, factories,
roads, the railway,
a lot of commercial transactions. So England
became the richest country in the world. Even
England became the empire because they became the
largest empire. It was at the expense of the
people themselves. The sea is calm tonight. The
tide is full.
Everything was beautiful. It's very romantic. The
sea is calm tonight. The tide is full. The moon
lights fair upon the straits on the French coast.
The light gleams on his gun, the cliffs of
England. So I think this reminds us of Wordsworth.
It's an image of harmony where everything is
glowing. And like, in fact, in this poem, he was
with his wife in a hotel near Dover Beach. And
suddenly he tells her, come, come. Come. Sweet is
the night air. Sweet is the night air. But
suddenly he heard a voice. Only from the line of
spray where the sea meets the moon, blanched land.
Listen, you hear the grating roar. What is the
grating roar? Of the pebbles. You know, because
the waves are throwing the pebbles, the stones.
And what does this make? Grating roar. You know?
And this contradicts with what? Contradicts with
the serenity, the tranquility of the sea is gone.
So metaphorically, he wanted to show how the
Victorian Age was from the outside lovely,
beautiful, but from the inside, It was terrible,
you know? So the Great Engrower is a
metaphor of the withdrawal of religion, the
withdrawal of the moral values, and the advent of
selfishness, hypocrisy, abuses, you know? So he
did that in a very good way.
And this begins and ceases. It is monotonous. It
begins and ceases. You know, it is persistent. It
is not just one time. It is persistent. It keeps
revisiting. Begins and ceases and then begins
again with tremulous cadence. It is not
systematic. So when something is not systematic,
it is not unexpected. It is abrupt. And then it
brings the eternal note of sadness. This makes me
sad. It reminds me. So the sound of the waves
throwing the pebbles reminds him of what? It made
him sad. Why? What did this sound remind him of?
It reminded him of the problems of the Victorian
Age. It made him sad. Because sometimes when you
see something lovely, okay? Okay. You forget your
trouble, like what happened to Wordsworth, and my
heart dances with the devils. But here, when he
heard this roaring sound, he remembered the
problems, the corruption, the problems of his age,
and he started complaining. He became very sad.
And he started to generalize that by saying,
Sophocles, long ago, heard it. This eternal
sadness, this note, this sadness is there. As if
he wants to say, this sadness, the corruption, the
abuses have been there since the dawn of history.
See? And Sophocles, do you know anything about
Sophocles? Sophocles. He was a Greek, playwright,
philosopher. What did he write? Oedipus? Antigone?
Have you heard of Antigone? I'll be telling you
later because I think here we have an illusion of
Antigone who was a lady who was engaged to her
cousin, but her cousin, I mean, Phyllis, I think,
wanted to protest against his uncle, the king, I
mean, the father of Antigone. So he, the king
sentenced him to death and ordered that his body
should not be buried. So Antigone was in a moral
conflict whether to obey her father, you see the
orders of her uncle, father, you know, it is
uncle, sorry, not father, or to bury her, you
know, the body of her brother. And finally, she
decided to bury. She was herself, you know,
executed. She was the fiancé of you know, the
king's son. So the king was in a moral conflict
also. You know what's been a moral conflict? It's
a conflict between two rights, whether to respect,
you know, the law of his country or to respect his
own feelings and passion. But finally, so it is a
story of death, sadness. This is the allusion in
this poem.
And he said, we also find, we here in England, we
find this note of human misery. The sea of faith,
and here, this is very essential, the sea of
faith. The sea of faith. What does he mean by the
sea of faith? Because here, we're talking about a
metaphoric sea. The sea of faith should what?
Should have fish? Fish and chips? What is the sea
of faith? What do you think? If we assume that we
have a sea of faith, what would it be like? The
sea of faith religion? Morality? Values? So let's
say if we have the sea of faith as full, so it
means we have love? Respect, piety, passion,
compassion. Okay, we have all this. Now when the
sea of faith is full, it means people, we have a
good society. But when the sea of faith is
retreating, it's a problem. So how was the sea of
faith in England during the late Victorian period?
How was it? It was like there was no sea of faith.
It was retreating. It was evaporating. And this is
what happened here. The sea of faith was once two
at the full round earth shore, lay like the folds
of bright girded fern. It was full. At the
beginning of the Victorian Age, the sea of faith
was full. But now, this is the problem. Now, I
hear its melancholy, long-withdrawing roar,
retreating to the breath. It is retreating, like
evaporating of the night down the vast, you know,
edges. It is evaporating and naked shingles of the
world and it leaves us like Uncovered,
unprotected.
Then this is what he's calling, how can we
overcome this problem or dilemma? He's calling a
love. A love, people, friends, you know, let us be
true. to one another. Let us be true. For the
world, this is the Victorian Age. This is how the
Victorian Age was. For the world, which seems to
lie before us like a land with dreams. That was
the, exactly, that was, you know, a perfect
expression of the Victorian Age. It was like the
land of dreams. What is like the land of dreams?
So what distinguishes the land of dream? It's
beautiful? It's beautiful. It's attractive, but it
is unreal. It is deceptive. It is illusive. That
was the Victorian Age. He was referring to the
beauty, to the richness of the age, but It was,
you know, from the inside, it was hollow. People
didn't have the faith. It was hollow.
And Allah let us be true to one another for the 413 00:33:08
wrote poetry to capture the spirit of the age.
Now, I hope that today's lecture is only an
introduction to Hardy because Hardy was a
Victorian poet,
you know, who wrote who started his career by
writing novels, but he ended his career by writing
poetry because he thought poetry gives the
messages quickly. So next time, we're going to
study Hardy, The Oxen. But this time, we're going
to conduct stylistic analysis. Okay? If you look
at Hardy, there is stylistic analysis. Okay? It
will be your presentation. Good. So thank you very
much. Do you have any question? Okay, get ready
for the quiz. So I'm giving the quiz at any time
starting from, you know, the quiz I told you, I'm
going to give you a line or two from the tiger and
you have to, you know, make a sketch into them.
You know, I told you. Okay, so I'm telling you I
might give you any line, you know, to scan it to
make, you know, the scansion of the line. You have
to study. I know I didn't tell you anything. You
have to research. You have to learn yourself,
okay, about the meter. And then here I'll give you
five minutes, two lines, you know, just to show
the meter, and that's it. Okay, yes. Thank you
very much and take care.