4/7/09 The Victorians and Religion: Tennyson, In Memoriam 56, Arnold, "The Study of Poetry" and "Dover Beach"; Browning, "An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician"

Today: We're introducing another major Victorian poet, Matthew Arnold, but we'll do this in a roundabout way, by talking about the Victorians and religion.

Let's start with the problem, page 1993. First, the context: In Memoriam, the long poem sequence of which this poem is one part, was written to work through Tennyson's grief after the death of Arthur Hallam. Religious issues are near the fore of the poem, because Hallam's death causes Tennyson to question his belief in God.
The poem asks questions appropriate to the theodicy, something we've discussed before: if God is good and all-powerful, why is there suffering in the world? Why did Hallam, one of the best and brightest of his generation, have to die? In the poem, Hallam's death serves as a springboard for Tennyson to explore the whole range of religious doubt and eventually affirmation of belief.

The first line in 56 refers to the poem before. In that poem, he has asked whether God and nature are at strife, since nature, while "careful of the type," is "careless of the single life." In other words, nature seems to ensure that species live and reproduce, but individual lives don't seem to matter at all: "of fifty seeds," Tennyson writes, Nature "often brings but one to bear." Worth remembering that life span was much lower in those days, and infant mortality much higher.

In 56, Tennyon's doubt and despair reach one of their depths. [Read stanza 1.] The reference here is to something I think I've mentioned before: Lyell's Geology, published in 1830 (long before Darwin's Origin of Species), which pointed out that the fossil record shows both that many species have lived and died that are no longer on this earth, and that life has been on the earth for millions of years longer than people had thought.

How Victorians dealt with religious doubt varied tremendously. We've seen one reaction already: Elizabeth Barrett Browning rejects conventional, institutional religion (consider Aurora Leigh's reaction to her pious aunt), but affirms private piety and faith (remember her feeling saved by her "relations in the Unseen"). Tennyson ultimately affirms his faith in In Memoriam, although I would agree with T. S. Eliot's assessment that the poem is religious not because of the quality of its faith but because of the quality of its doubt. Today, we'll look at two more reactions: Browning's and Arnold's. We'll start with Arnold

"The Study of Poetry" (2127)

"Dover Beach" (2105)

 

"Karshish"