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Homer, Iliad

Though not referenced directly in “The Lotos-Eaters,” the Iliad is important background context for the poem. This epic recounts the conclusion of the 10-year Trojan War that preceded the Odyssey, which narrates the additional 10 years it took Odysseus and his mariners to get home to Ithaca. If the mariners in Tennyson’s poem are so existentially worn out, it’s in part because they’re coming off of a decade of war.

Homer, Odyssey

The Odyssey takes its title from its hero: Odysseus. This poem traces the tumultuous 10 years after the Trojan War, during which Odysseus faced numerous obstacles and delays while trying to sail home to Ithaca. One of the delays occurs in the ninth book, where Odysseus and his mariners land on an unknown island. There they sample the mysterious local fruit, which causes some of their company to grow weary and consider abandoning their homeward journey. This is the episode Tennyson developed into “The Lotos-Eaters.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”

“Ulysses” is the other great poem Tennyson wrote based on the Odyssey. In many ways, though, the two poems have opposing themes. Whereas “Ulysses” features an aging Odysseus expressing his desire to set off on one last adventure, “The Lotos-Eaters” emphasizes the possibility of being done with action.

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Walt Whitman was a contemporary of Tennyson, living a parallel, though rather different life in the United States. Compared to Tennyson’s cultural and aesthetic conservatism, Whitman was exuberantly progressive. One way Whitman’s exuberance expressed itself on the page was in his innovative use of long poetic lines. Curiously, Tennyson also experimented with extended line lengths in “The Lotos-Eaters,” and particularly in the eighth stanza of the Choric Song. Yet whereas Whitman’s long lines communicate a sense of irrepressible energy, Tennyson’s lines suggest a lethargic sense of heaviness.

Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene

For the opening section of “The Lotos-Eaters,” Tennyson famously adopted the unique stanza form Edmund Spenser developed for his sixteenth century allegorical epic, The Faerie Queene. In most respects, the poems have very little in common in terms of themes or subject matter. However, it’s worth reading some of Spenser’s poem to get a feeling for the particular cadences made possible by his stanza form.

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