Critical Analysis Of 'The Splendor Falls On Castle Walls'

“The splendor falls on castle walls” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, despite its talk of beautiful scenery by a castle and his discussion of the color, light and sound there is a more underlying somber theme. He is writing about the memories that are left behind when someone leaves, moves on or dies and how some things are passed from person to person like an echo bounces off the walls of the mountains but also how those memories can also be lost like how an echo eventually loses the sound. While he says the echo is dying, it could be interpreted as someone not only dying but leaving in a different way such as moving away and the memories fading just from not seeing them. The speaker also appears to be alone while talking about everything so maybe

The speaker starts out by saying they die, still referring to the bugle calls echoing through the mountains. He goes on to say they faint over the scenery. This falls in line with the echoes dying like he said at the end of each stanza. It then switches from third to first person where the speaker includes himself. This time the echoes do the opposite and grows rather than dying as they go on forever. Tennyson also say these echoes “roll from soul to soul” which sounds like a different type of echo than the echoes from the bugle that are “flying” and more like a message or a story being passed from person to person. These echoes are like the memories of loved ones that we pass on to our family members after they have passed on. It is interesting that he uses echo here because typically people see echoes as fading as time passes while he says that the echo grows. He finishes off the stanza very similar to the first stanza except he changes the last line slightly. It is still an answer from the echoes but this time he leaves out the bugle and the echoes are only

A bugle itself will not blow, a person needs to be behind it for it to make a sound. Echoes cannot fly, nor can they die. He uses this personification to give some sense to the echoes going out across the land and the dying to show how the echoes fade as time goes on. He also says “They faint on hill or field or river” which an echo cannot do either. The last lines have the echoes and the bugle answering the original call which personifies the speaker hearing the bugle echoing back to