Alfred Tennyson was born in the early 1800’s to his parents, George and Elizabeth (Fytche) Tennyson. Tennyson wasn’t a very well known poet until he published some of his poems about his best friend, Arthur Hallam. His poems pertain to his own life and feelings after the death of Hallam. In his poem, In Memoriam A.H.H., Tennyson writes about his depression about losing his best friend. After his best friend’s death, Alfred Tennyson wrote some of his best poems about his grief and losing someone special in your life.
As a child, growing up for Alfred Tennyson was a struggle. He dealt with family tension, and alcoholic and abusive father and mental illnesses. Alfred Lord Tennyson was born on August 6th, 1809. He was the fourth child of twelve. He was forced to be religious by his parents. Tennyson lived a hard life growing up his father was an alcoholic and abusive.
His brother suffered from mental illness which Alfred developed later on in life. Tennyson suffered from extreme short-sightedness — without a monocle he could not even see to eat — which gave him considerable difficulty writing and reading, and this disability in part accounts for his manner of creating poetry.
Tennyson composed much of his poetry in his head, occasionally working on individual poems for many years. During his undergraduate days at Cambridge he often did not bother to write down his compositions, although the Apostles continually.
Alfred Tennyson’s poems were written about happy feelings in life and how life is a gift. Tennyson’s poems before Hallam’s death were very delightful. They were known to have the effect to make the reader feel as though it is spring time. The success of his 1842 poems made Tennyson a popular poet, and in 1845 he receive...
... middle of paper ...
...er. St. James Press, 1991. Web.
"Poetry for Students." "Tears, Idle Tears.". N.p., 1999. Web. 31 Mar 2011.
"Poetry for Students." "Ulysses.". N.p., 1999. Web. 31 Mar 2011
"The Explicator." Literature Resource Center. N.p., 2002. Web. 31 Mar 2011.
Everett, Glenn. “Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Brief Bio.” The Victorian Web. Pickwick papers, n.d. web 15 Feb. 2011
Markley, Arnold. “An Overview of “All things will Die.”” Poetry for students. Detroit: Gale. Web. 1 March 2011.
Kelly, David. “Critical Essay on ‘A Farewell” Poetry for students. Ed. Elizabeth Thomason Vol. II. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Web August 3 2001
“Overview: “Now Sleeps the Crimson Pedal.”” Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Web. 1 March 2011
“Explanation: All things Will Die.” Exploring Poetry. Detroit: Gale 2003. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 1 March 2011
In "In Memoriam A. H. H.," a new kind of elegy with roots in the elegiac tradition, Tennyson writes, "For words, like Nature, half reveal/And half conceal the Soul within" (1045). The truth of Tennyson's statement appears in Theodore Roethke's "Elegy for Jane: My Student Killed by a Horse." Roethke conceals much about himself as a person yet reveals much about himself as a poet when he puts his grief into words.
...r’.” Poetry for students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol. 43 Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?>.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord. “Maud; A Monodrama.” Tennyson’s Poetry. Ed. Robert W. Hill New York: W. W. Norton, 1971. 214-215.
Ramazani, J. (1994). Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy From Hardy to Heaney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Edgar Allan Poe is known for his many works that are dark and mysterious. He became known as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe had a dark, troubled life growing up. Both his biological parents died when he was a young boy and was separated from his siblings when another family adopted him. His foster father was in the tobacco industry, but Poe did not want to be involved in that business. He wanted to write. He went to college with very little money. He was so embarrassed by his poverty that he came back home, only to find that his fiancée got engaged to someone else in his absence. He left again, before finding out that the only mother he had ever known was dying of tuberculosis. By the time he returned she had already been buried. Allan, his foster father, helped Poe get into the United States Military Academy at West Point. Allan remarried and did not invite Poe. Poe was angry and wrote Allan detailing all the wrongs Allan had committed against him and threatened to get himself kicked out of the academy. Poe’s wife got tuberculosis, which had already taken the lives of his mother, brother, and foster mother.Because Poe had such a dark, difficult life, he used his poems to reflect his life.
I will discuss the similarities by which these poems explore themes of death and violence through the language, structure and imagery used. In some of the poems I will explore the characters’ motivation for targeting their anger and need to kill towards individuals they know personally whereas others take out their frustration on innocent strangers. On the other hand, the remaining poems I will consider view death in a completely different way by exploring the raw emotions that come with losing a loved one.
“Death, the end of life: the time when someone or something dies” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). The definition of death is quite simple, the end of life is inescapable. I chose to write about death and impermanence because it is something we all must inevitably face. People often deal with death in a number of different ways. Although it is something that we must eventually face, it can be hard to come to terms with because the idea can be hard to grasp. Some of us fear it, others are able to accept it, either way we all must eventually face it. In this essay I will look at two different literary works about death and impermanence and compare and contrast the different elements of the point of view, theme, setting, and symbolism. The comparison of these particular works will offer a deeper look into words written by the authors and the feelings that they experiencing at that particular time.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 21. Print.
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
By rethinking the carpe diem theme, Andrew Marvell makes his point more effectively than many other poets working with the same ideas. Using the methods described above, he makes the ideal scene of timelessness more concrete, so that when it is swept away the alternative seems all the more frightening and imperative. In this way he recreates a feature of real life- death is imperative, but trivialities can often make it seem distant. Invariably, however, it will greet us all.
Alfred Tennyson gifted the Victorian Era, and the literary world with two iconic poems. The author explored the themes of personal development and culture clash in one of his most famous poems, “Ulysses”. Tennyson also discovered and analyzed the themes of love and death through his renowned and eminent poem, “Tears Idle, Tears”. The poet was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire in 1809 in the East Lindy district of England. Tennyson experienced numerous amounts of difficulties in his childhood and growing adolescent phases that spilled into his adult life. These trials and tribulations became a foundation and source of inspiration for Tennyson, who used them as a stimulus and catalyst to aide his literary progress and ideas. Two of the most prominent poems that Tennyson wrote were “Ulysses “and “Tears Idle, Tears”. These poems defined the peak of his literary endeavor and symbolized the struggles that Tennyson had experienced in his life. Throughout time readers have been able to distinguish a direct correlation between his life journey and the poems he crafted.
Toward the end of the poem, Auden begins to use hyperboles to demonstrate how his world feels diminished after the passing of his lover. For instance, when Auden writes, “I thought that love would last for ever,” he is using a hyperbole because at some point we all die so therefore, by logical reason, it is impossible for a love to truly last forever. When Auden later writes, “Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,” he is expressing how his physical world too may as well be over because he has lost his one true love. In some aspects, he wants nature to heed his grief; “He wants the world to reflect the emptiness within him.” Auden has successfully incorporated the use of hyperboles throughout his poem Funeral Blues to further prove the harsh reality of how it feels for the love of your life to die and to be left with nothing but
As the last few days of summer fade away, and September's end brings promises of a cold, sad autumn, the feast of Michaelmas has come and gone, and one can not help but be reminded of D. H. Lawrence's "Bavarian Gentians," a poem that commences by reminiscing of the sad days at the end of September, when summer has finally departed along with its intoxicating and life-giving breath. Like the days that separate summer from autumn, Lawrence's poem, one of his last, is a sad and dreamy read. It seduces audiences with its slow dance with blue death. It speaks to students with its melancholic passion. It breathes life into the last days before death.
Tennyson's poetry has stood the test of time because it successfully paints a time and place and reflects the feelings of the people in it. His ability to capture the feelings of uncertainty and loss that were characteristic of this time period, through his use of descriptions, diction, and pathetic fallacy made his poetry not only pleasing to the ear, but also historically important. He surpassed Wordsworth and other poets of his generation as Poet Laureate because his poems capture the important social issues of the Victorian Age such as the shift in religious belief as a result of science, the confusion surrounding women's roles in society, and the isolation that came as a result of the rapid social and economical changes that occurred.
Alfred was a talented child. Alfred was born on October 21, 1833, in Stockholm, Sweden. Alfred's grades in school were very high. To expand his vocabulary, Alfred memorized dictionary page after page. As a child, Alfred was talented.