Themes
The Reconciliation of Religion and Science
Tennyson lived during a period of great scientific advancement,
and he used his poetry to work out the conflict between religious
faith and scientific discoveries. Notable scientific findings and
theories of the Victorian period include stratigraphy, the geological
study of rock layers used to date the earth, in 1811;
the first sighting of an asteroid in 1801 and
galaxies in the 1840s; and Darwin’s theory
of evolution and natural selection in 1859.
In the second half of the century, scientists, such as Fülöp Semmelweis,
Joseph Lister, and Louis Pasteur, began the experiments and work
that would eventually lead to germ theory and our modern understanding
of microorganisms and diseases. These discoveries challenged traditional
religious understandings of nature and natural history.
For most of his career, Tennyson was deeply interested
in and troubled by these discoveries. His poem “Locksley Hall” (1842)
expresses his ambivalence about technology and scientific progress.
There the speaker feels tempted to abandon modern civilization
and return to a savage life in the jungle. In the end, he chooses to
live a civilized, modern life and enthusiastically endorses technology. In
Memoriam connects the despair Tennyson felt over the loss
of his friend Arthur Hallam and the despair he felt when contemplating
a godless world. In the end, the poem affirms both religious faith
and faith in human progress. Nevertheless, Tennyson continued to
struggle with the reconciliation of science and religion, as illustrated
by some of his later work. For example, “Locksley Hall Sixty Years
After” (1886) takes as its protagonist the
speaker from the original “Locksley Hall,” but now he is an old
man, who looks back on his youthful optimism and faith in progress with
scorn and skepticism.
The Virtues of Perseverance and Optimism
After the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, Tennyson
struggled through a period of deep despair, which he eventually
overcame to begin writing again. During his time of mourning, Tennyson
rarely wrote and, for many years, battled alcoholism. Many of his
poems are about the temptation to give up and fall prey to pessimism,
but they also extol the virtues of optimism and discuss the importance
of struggling on with life. The need to persevere and continue is
the central theme of In Memoriam and “Ulysses”
(1833), both written after Hallam’s death.
Perhaps because of Tennyson’s gloomy and tragic childhood, perseverance
and optimism also appear in poetry written before Hallam’s death,
such as “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832, 1842).
Poems such as “The Lady of Shalott” (1832, 1842)
and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854)
also vary this theme: both poems glorify characters who embrace
their destinies in life, even though those destinies end in tragic
death. The Lady of Shalott leaves her seclusion to meet the outer
world, determined to seek the love that is missing in her life.
The cavalrymen in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” keep charging
through the valley toward the Russian cannons; they persevere even
as they realize that they will likely die.
The Glory of England
Tennyson used his poetry to express his love for England.
Although he expressed worry and concern about the corruption that
so dominated the nineteenth century, he also wrote many poems that
glorify nineteenth-century England. “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
praises the fortitude and courage of English soldiers during a battle
of the Crimean War in which roughly 200 men
were killed. As poet laureate, Tennyson was required to write poems
for specific state occasions and to dedicate verse to Queen Victoria
and her husband, Prince Albert. Nevertheless, Tennyson praised England
even when not specifically required to do so. In the Idylls
of the King, Tennyson glorified England by encouraging
a collective English cultural identity: all of England could take
pride in Camelot, particularly the chivalrous and capable knights
who lived there. Indeed, the modern conception of Camelot as the
source of loyalty, chivalry, and romance comes, in part, from Tennyson’s
descriptions of it in the Idylls of the King and
“The Lady of Shalott.”
Motifs
Tragic Death
Early, tragic death and suicide appear throughout Tennyson’s
poetry. Perhaps the most significant event of his life was the untimely
death of his best friend Arthur Hallam at age twenty-two, which
prompted Tennyson to write his greatest literary work, In
Memoriam. This long poem uses the so-called In
Memoriam stanza, or a quatrain that uses iambic
tetrameter and has an abba rhyme scheme.
The formal consistency expresses Tennyson’s grief and links the
disparate stanzas together into an elegiac whole. The speaker of
“Break, Break, Break” (1834) sees death even
in sunsets, while the early “Mariana” (1830)
features a woman who longs for death after her lover abandons her.
Each of that poem’s seven stanzas ends with the line “I would that
I were dead.” The lady in “The Lady of Shalott” brings about her
own death by going out into an autumn storm dressed only in a thin
white dress. Similarly, the cavalrymen in “The Charge of the Light
Brigade” ride to their deaths by charging headlong into the Russian
cannons. These poems lyrically mourn those who died tragically,
often finding nobility in their characters or their deaths.
Scientific Language
Tennyson took a great interest in the scientific discoveries
of the nineteenth century, and his poetry manifests this interest
in its reliance on scientific language. “The Kraken” (1830),
which describes an ancient, slumbering sea beast, mentions a “cell”
(8) and “polypi” (9).
Section 21 of In Memoriam alludes
to the 1846 discovery of Neptune. There,
a traveler tells the speaker not to grieve for his friend. Rather
than grieve, the traveler says, the speaker should rejoice in the
marvelous possibilities of science. Section 120,
in contrast, features the speaker wondering what good science might
do in a world full of religious doubt and despair. Other poems praise
technological discoveries and inventions, including the steamships
and railways discussed in “Locksley Hall,” or mention specific plants
and flowers, as does “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832, 1842).
Taking metaphors and poetic diction from
science allowed Tennyson to connect to his age and to modernize
his sometimes antiquarian language and archaic verse forms.
The Ancient World
Like the romantic poets who preceded him, Tennyson found
much inspiration in the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome. In poems
such as “The Lotos-Eaters” and “Ulysses,” Tennyson retells the stories
of Dante and Homer, which described the characters of Ulysses, Telemachus,
and Penelope and their adventures in the ancient world. However,
Tennyson slightly alters these mythic stories, shifting the time
frame of some of the action and often adding more descriptive imagery to
the plot. For instance, “Ulysses,” a dramatic monologue spoken by
Homer’s hero, urges readers to carry on and persevere rather than
to give up and retire. Elsewhere Tennyson channels the voice of
Tithonus, a legendary prince from Troy, in the eponymous poem “Tithonus” (1833, 1859).
He praises the ancient poet Virgil in his ode “To Virgil”
(1882), commenting on Virgil’s choice of subject
matter and lauding his ability to chronicle human history in meter.
Tennyson mined the ancient world to find stories that would simultaneously
enthrall and inspire his readers.
Symbols
King Arthur and Camelot
To Tennyson, King Arthur symbolizes the ideal man, and
Arthurian England was England in its best and purest form. Some
of Tennyson’s earliest poems, such as “The Lady of Shalott,” were
set in King Arthur’s time. Indeed, Tennyson rhymes Camelot,
the name of King Arthur’s estate, with Shalott in
eighteen of the poem’s twenty stanzas, thereby emphasizing the importance
of the mythical place. Furthermore, our contemporary conception
of Camelot as harmonious and magnificent comes from Tennyson’s poem. Idylls
of the King, about King Arthur’s rise and fall, was one
of the major projects of Tennyson’s late career. Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert envisioned themselves as latter-day descendents
of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and their praise helped
popularize the long poem. But King Arthur also had a more personal representation
to Tennyson: the mythic king represents a version of his friend
Arthur Henry Hallam, whose death at twenty-two profoundly affected
Tennyson. Hallam’s death destroyed his potential and promise, which
allowed Tennyson to idealize Hallam. This idealization allows Tennyson
to imagine what might have been in the best possible light, much
as he does when describing King Arthur and his court.
The Imprisoned Woman
The imprisoned woman appears throughout Tennyson’s work.
In “Mariana,” a woman abandoned by her lover lives alone in her
house in the middle of desolate country; her isolation imprisons
her, as does the way she waits for her lover to return. Her waiting
limits her ability and desire to do anything else. “The Lady of Shalott”
is likewise about a woman imprisoned, this time in a tower. Should
she leave her prison, a curse would fall upon her. Tennyson, like
many other Victorian poets, used female characters to symbolize
the artistic and sensitive aspects of the human condition. Imprisoned
women, such as these Tennyson characters, act as symbols for
the isolation experienced by the artist and other sensitive, deep-feeling
people. Although society might force creative, sensitive types to
become outcasts, in Tennyson’s poems, the women themselves create
their own isolation and imprisonment. These women seem unable or
unwilling to deal with the outside world.
