Death in Life in Alfred Lord Tennyson's Poetry
Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Victorian poet, used characters from history and mythology for his poetry. Much of his poetry touches upon the subject of death and loneliness. For example, the Lady of Shallot dies when she looks beyond her inner world, Mariana lives in constant sadness over her departed lover, and Tithonus lives forever in an agony worse than death. With a background of melancholia, isolation or anguish Tennyson conveys themes of half-life and death-in-life by the use of uses imagery, symbolism and figures of speech.
In the dramatic monologue “Tithonus,” Tennyson instructs the reader that immortality is not necessarily a desirable thing as Tithonus tries to convince Aurora to make him mortal again. In the poem, Tithonus asks Aurora to grant him immortality, which she does. Although in actual mythology Zeus grants immortality, it is immortality and not eternal youth that Tithonus receives. Therefore, he now “withers slowly” with a fate worse than death since many jealous gods “beat me down and marred and waste me.” Tithonus presents the natural cycle of life followed by death by describing how first, “Man comes” then he “tills the fields” and finally “lies beneath”. However, his “cruel immortality” prevents him from following the same pattern. The rhetorical question, “Why should a man desire in any way/To vary from the kindly race of man…as is most meet for all?” indicates his realization of the absurdity in asking for immortal life. His wish to be immortal like the gods can be interpreted as alluding to Adam and Eve’s desire for the knowledge of God. Anyway, as a “soft air fans the clouds apart” (personification), Tithonus sees the “dark world” to which he be...
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...cument 1). Mariana lives in her own world, still believing that her lover will come, believing that “Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors,” and confounded by the “slow clock ticking, and the sound/Which to the wooing wind aloof/The poplar made.”
As evident in these three poems, “Tithonus,” “Lady of Shallot” and “Mariana in the Moated Grange,” Tennyson often portrays the world as a sad place. Many times, like in “Tithonus” and “Lady of Shallot,” there is a conflict between wishes and desires. Also, Tennyson often uses the outer environment to heighten the emotions experienced by the characters. In short, Tennyson is able to convey his themes of half-life and death-in-life through the use of imagery, symbolism and figures of speech.
Bibliography:
1. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/tennyson
2. http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/tennyson/losillus1.html
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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.
Blunden, Edmund and Heinemann, Eds. “Tennyson.” Selected Poems. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1960. p.1. print.
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson was one of the most famous poets of the Victorian era, some of his most famous poems include Ulysses, In Memoriam or Lady of Shalott. This paper will focus on his poem published in 1830 entitled Mariana. Mariana is Tennyson's well known poem, inspired by the charactre of the same name in shakespear's play Measure for Measure. T.S Eliot heard in Mariana 'something new happening in English verse”, and critics such as Carol Christ or Dwight Culler have “commented preceptively on its use of atomistic detail to create a landscape of strangeness appropriate to this sick-spirited maiden”. Mariana is a complex poem it is both a lyrical poem and a pathetic fallacy.
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.
Throughout Emily Dickinson’s poetry there is a reoccurring theme of death and immortality. The theme of death is further separated into two major categories including the curiosity Dickinson held of the process of dying and the feelings accompanied with it and the reaction to the death of a loved one. Two of Dickinson’s many poems that contain a theme of death include: “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” and “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”