Alfred Lord Tennyson's, 'Break, Break'

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“Break, Break, Break”
Religion is a powerful, prevailing entity, influencing mankind since before the inception of civilization; Christianity in particular, has had a profound impact on Western literature in modernity. Christianity defines the underlying message within Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Break, Break, Break.” Every line of the poem can be broken down and interpreted in a religious aspect. Highlighting each Christian reference in the poem through the utilization of allusions, Tennyson relates every line to important characteristics of the Christian religion to display his piety.
The poet ingrained Christianity in this poem from the title itself throughout the first stanza. The title of the poem- “Break, Break, Break”- is an allusion …show more content…

The speaker says, “O, well for the fisherman’s boy” (5): another allusion to the fourth chapter of the Book of Mathew when Jesus urges the men to become fishers of men. Jesus wants to capture the meaning of the word of God and spread it to the world as fishermen capture fish and spread the food their catch bears to the world. In addition, four of the twelve disciples were commercial fishermen before they followed Jesus Christ. Peter, Andrew, James, and John all stopped fishing for fish and began the fishing for men when the benignant Jesus walked out to the boat on the stormy Sea of Galilee and saved them all. Tennyson referring to the “boy” or son of the fisherman also references that Jesus was the Son of Man sent to Earth to bring humanity closer the Creator. In the following line, the poet claims that the boy “shouts with his sister at play” (6). This allusion relates to the twenty-first chapter in the Book of Mathew when Jesus shouts at the men conducting business in a place of worship. Jesus did not think that his brothers and sisters of humanity should play these games of bargaining and negotiating at the temple: a holy place. However, Tennyson did not lose hope for man and states, “O, well for the sailor lad,/ That he sings in his boat on the bay” (7-8). His declamation positively states that if the …show more content…

The speaker mentions “the stately ships go on/ To their haven under the hill” (9-10). These two lines reference the stately Ark that Jonah built to survive the forty days and forty nights of flooding on Earth to rid the world of its evils. The “haven” the ships were protected by is parallel to the protection God gave Noah and the other passenger during the terrible experience. The poet does not only refer to the destruction of the flood, but also stresses the optimistic future. He writes, “But O for the touch of a vanished hand,/the sound of a voice that is still” (12) as an allusion to the lasting effect of Jesus’ words after he ascended into Heaven. During Jesus’ short time on Earth, he spread many messages of the word of God far and wide. However, the true lasting effect of the Messiah is how he has affected the world from beyond his lifetime and after his ascension into Heaven. Since Jesus’ death, Christianity has become one of the worlds’ leading religions and affected millions of people. Jesus’ voice may be still, but the resonance of his powerful words is spread every

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