Lord Alfred Tennyson

Women in Waiting and Poet in Mourning &

Doubts

Outline• Introduction

• Waiting: – ”Tithonus” – “Mariana” – “The Lady of Shalott”(group presentation; a

female artist who has to die to join society)

• Mourning & Doubts: – “Tears, Idle Tears”– “In Memoriam” (51, 54-57)

Introduction

Tennyson

(1809-1892)

Suffering from Fears and Doubts• Born of a family ridden with epilepsy,

alcoholism, drugs and early deaths.• 1832 Poems (including "Mariana“ and “Lady of

Shalott”)

• Bitter Years of Fears (1832-1850): • negative reviews of 1832 Poems• death of Arthur Hallam 1833 “fears that he might become a victim of epilepsy,

madness, alcohol, and drugs, as others in his family had, or even that he might die like Hallam,…”

Work: "Ulysses," "Morte d'Arthur," "Tithonus," "Tiresias," "Break, break, break"

Upward turn• Poems (1842) –one volume with poems

radically revised, one poems inspired by Hallam’s death– A few stays in a hydropathical hospital. – More money from an insurance policy and

government pension; no worry over epilepsy – 1850 --marrying Emily Sellwood (whom he

was engaged with since 1936).

• In Memoriam (1850) Poet Laureate

”Tithonus”

Aurora e Titone by Francesco de Mura. Aurora was the Roman equivalent of Eos and often substitutes her as Tithonus’s consort.

Tithonus• Composed in 1833, published in 1860.

• Structure: – I. Tinthonus “a white-hair’d shadow” consumed by

immortality (unlike the mortal beings on earth)– II. The past recounted (“this gray shadow, once a

man”) and release pleaded (“Let me go.”– III. Eros described (the effects of dawn)– IV. “The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts”

I used to be changed by you and your balmy kisses

-- V How can my nature longer mix with thine?

Tithonus: Discussion Questions• Reading this poem as a dramatic

monologue, how do you interpret the silence of Eros? And the one of the speaker?

• How is the poem compared with “Ulysses,” “Ozymandias” or “The Blessed Damozel” in their different treatments of mortality and human wishes?

“Mariana” (1830)

Illustration by William Britten..

“Mariana” (1830)

1) “…lines 9 through 12 of

Tennyson's poem were used

for the catalog description

of the painting”

2) Millais—more sexualized

(Wikipedia)

Mariana" by Sir John Everett Millais (1851). © Tate

“Mariana”:• Background

– The poem-- inspired by Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure.

– The woman depicted, Mariana, was rejected by her fiancé after her dowry was lost, and lives a solitary life yearning for lost love.

• Structure – 7 stanzas, 1, 4, 6 about M’s experience during

day time, while the rest is set in the evening.

“Mariana”: Discussion Q’s• Pay attention to the image clusters; for

instance, that of decay and of sounds.

• Why can she hear the sounds of crow, cock, oxen, and the creaking of the doors? (“Unlifted was the clinking latch.”)

• Why is poplar mentioned twice in the poem?

• How does the poem end? Are there clues in the previous stanza for this ending?

“Tears, Idle Tears”

“Tears, Idle Tears”: Discussion Q’s

• Why are the tears “idle”?

• Try to find the paradoxical adjectives used in the poem? What kind of “dead” past does the poem describe? Why is it “sad,” “dear,” “strange” and “Death in life”?

• How is this poem, in its views of the past, compared with “Music, When soft voices die” or “When the Lamp Is Shattered” by Shelley

Tears, idle tearsTears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,Tears from the depth of some divine despairRise in the heart, and gather in the eyes,In looking on the happy autumn-fields,And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,That brings our friends up from the underworld,Sad as the last which reddens over oneThat sinks with all we love below the verge;So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

mortality

Seasonal changes

Tears, idle tearsAh, sad and strange as in dark summer dawnsThe earliest pipe of half-awakened birdsTo dying ears, when unto dying eyesThe casement slowly grows a glimmering square;So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feignedOn lips that are for others; deep as love,Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

Mortal ears and eyes

Past love

Background• “… the idea for this poem came to him

when he was at Tintern Abbey, not far from Hallam’s burial place” (source).

• Compare “Tintern Abbey” and “Tears” in terms of their treatments of the loss of the joys of youth. – That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no moreAnd all its dizzy raptures. Not for thisFaint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other giftsHave followed; for such loss, I would believe,Abundant recompense (“Tintern Abbey”)

IN MEMORIAM

'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all’ (XXVII)

Reception• To the most perceptive of the Victorians (and to

modern readers) the poem was moving for its dramatic recreation of a mind indisposed to deal with the problems of contemporary life, and for the sheer beauty of so many of its sections.

• To a more naive, and far larger, group of readers it was a work of real utility, to be read like the Bible as a manual of consolation, and it is surely to that group that the poem owed its almost unbelievable popularity. (source)

Discussion PointsI) Be near me when my light is low,…

-- When is company best needed?

-- What state is the speaker in? How does he describe human beings?

“…the sensuous frameIs rack'd with pangs that conquer trust;And Time, a maniac scattering dust,And Life, a Fury slinging flame.”

“men the flies of latter spring,…

Discussion Points54) Life and God--purposeful or purposeless?

Oh yet we trust that somehow goodWill be the final goal of ill,…

That nothing walks with aimless feet;…

Behold, we know not anything;I can but trust that good shall fallAt last—far off—at last, to all,And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?

Struggling between God and Nature

55) Are God and Nature then at strife,That Nature lends such evil dreams?So careful of the type she seems,So careless of the single life;

…

I falter where I firmly trod,…

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

56) Nature Man Answer?

'So careful of the type?' but no.From scarped cliff and quarried stoneShe cries, `A thousand types are gone:I care for nothing, all shall go.