Keywords on the Victorian Age
Victorian Age:
Science: Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud – psychology->Human mind/motivation
Religion:
Empire:
Technology: steam engines, trans Atlantic Telegraph line, big ships, railways, stamps, street lights. Mostly mobility and communication.
City: Upper-class (etiquette) Middleclass (servants) lower class (survival)
Nature:
Art:
Man:
Matthew Arnold
In Harmony with Nature:
Stanza 1:
““In harmony with Nature” Restless fool” – The tone is set, he is ridiculing the romantics, who see nature as something beautiful and good.
The rest of stanza 1 the narrator is saying that it is impossible to be in harmony with nature. To imagine that we, humans can be “like nature strong, like nature cool”.
Stanza 2:
“Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more.” – the human race has the same attributes as nature (cruelty and stubbornness) but humans are also able to feel pity and remorse, which is both good and bad.
“Man is sick of blood” –
Stanza 3:
“Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest;” Here is another contrast between nature and man. Man needs to be able to rest, but as long as nature is unpredictable, which it is and always will, man will not be able to rest. “Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave” Again the narrator points out that man and nature are incompatible. Man does, in most cases, fear the grave and man are able to forgive debts. That is what makes us human however it also makes us weak. A weakness, which isn’t, in any way, present in nature. It links up very well with the next line that says, “Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest” It’s not that nature is evil; it just doesn’t hold the attributes which makes humans human. Nature has no conscience and it’s not mild, nature does not forgive because it does not judge, nature is cruel because it shows no mercy.
The three last lines of stanza 3 sums up the message of the poem. “Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never
Science: Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud – psychology->Human mind/motivation
Religion:
Empire:
Technology: steam engines, trans Atlantic Telegraph line, big ships, railways, stamps, street lights. Mostly mobility and communication.
City: Upper-class (etiquette) Middleclass (servants) lower class (survival)
Nature:
Art:
Man:
Matthew Arnold
In Harmony with Nature:
Stanza 1:
““In harmony with Nature” Restless fool” – The tone is set, he is ridiculing the romantics, who see nature as something beautiful and good.
The rest of stanza 1 the narrator is saying that it is impossible to be in harmony with nature. To imagine that we, humans can be “like nature strong, like nature cool”.
Stanza 2:
“Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more.” – the human race has the same attributes as nature (cruelty and stubbornness) but humans are also able to feel pity and remorse, which is both good and bad.
“Man is sick of blood” –
Stanza 3:
“Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest;” Here is another contrast between nature and man. Man needs to be able to rest, but as long as nature is unpredictable, which it is and always will, man will not be able to rest. “Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave” Again the narrator points out that man and nature are incompatible. Man does, in most cases, fear the grave and man are able to forgive debts. That is what makes us human however it also makes us weak. A weakness, which isn’t, in any way, present in nature. It links up very well with the next line that says, “Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest” It’s not that nature is evil; it just doesn’t hold the attributes which makes humans human. Nature has no conscience and it’s not mild, nature does not forgive because it does not judge, nature is cruel because it shows no mercy.
The three last lines of stanza 3 sums up the message of the poem. “Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never