lord alfred tennyson women in waiting and poet in mourning & doubts
TRANSCRIPT
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Lord Alfred Tennyson
Women in Waiting and Poet in Mourning &
Doubts
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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)
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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"
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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
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”Tithonus”
Aurora e Titone by Francesco de Mura. Aurora was the Roman equivalent of Eos and often substitutes her as Tithonus’s consort.
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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?
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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?
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“Mariana” (1830)
Illustration by William Britten..
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“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
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“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.
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“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?
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“Tears, Idle Tears”
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“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
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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
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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
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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”)
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IN MEMORIAM
'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all’ (XXVII)
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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)
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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,…
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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?
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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.