Alfred Lord Tennyson was a genius in the mid-Victorian. His works on the Lady of Shalott gave a powerful presentation of the anxieties and aspirations during those times.
During those times, the Victorian were known at questioning faith, the Bible, the past, and the self. More interested were the industry of man and not on the uniqueness of nature, which simply implied that man was made to govern and take everything for himself. Tennyson greatly called the attention to the industrialized misery and revolutionary anger of the poor.For Tennyson, people with a good grasped of examining the improving society, will consequently lost their sense of humanity and innocence.
This implied that as they sped up in the industry and make material wealth, they would experience it as a consequence. The loss of innocence is renounced in the work of Tennyson, which is The Lady of Shalott. In the Lady, the reader was forced to be in this situation or chose to live this life of isolation for the reasons of self inflicted seclusion and the fear of rejection by the exterior world.Then, it questioned the growth of consciousness, and showed women’s family structure, and presence of magical elements, and manner of death, so basically a woman’s lives. The Lady portrayed a stationary Lady where the Lady moves about the territory surrounding her home.For him, "A magic web with colors gay" tells the reader of the enchanted nature of the Lady’s artwork.
Wherein the mirror helped exposed the tapestry that is filled with misperceptions of the real world. Tennyson leaves the questions like ‘who put the curse on the Lady and why?’ unanswered.Next, denoted in Mariana, was a woman unjust with societal roles. It reflects the women in the 19th century in England. Mariana was the most famous poet in the Victorian period. Tennyson referred Mariana as `Measure for Measure' by William Shakespeare.
Mariana as cold, suicidal character, build by the technique of using inanimate objects of life, expressed her emotion.The mood in Mariana is depressive and was reflected to Tennyson and his family trait. Mariana is cyclical and minimal in nature that loneliness and isolation that is directed towards the central character were portrayed. Feelings and emotions, and to undertake a detailed mental-examination of feelings, thoughts, and motives and insensitivity were intensified in Mariana.
This also tells about getting miserable or unhappy with the present life, and getting frustrated with the partner.Then, The Lotus-Eaters and Ulysses, Tennyson in his mind and experiences, firmly fixed an emotion, belief, or quality gradually. The Homeric legend was here in these two poems. To recall, Odysseus need to pass an island where a magical fruit grew. Now he brought his men and sent three of them to explore the island.Then his men tasted the fruit and hauled back and weeping with complaints.
But no words came out to explain why his men need to be hauled back and weeping, and did not reasoned and heard what was to forget. Tennyson explained why Odysseus men need to rest, and that is for him, all things have rest and ripen towards the grave. He tells us that everything needs rest in silence. The sequence is ripened, fall, and die in silence.Tennyson did not clarify in The Lotos-Eaters the issue if there is no reward for good work since all will be ripen, fall, and latter die in silence. This poem is more on a critique of British work habits and Imperial duty, but Tennyson said that The Lotos-Eaters held no responsibility.
Tennyson used metaphor in The Lotos-Eaters that he made this poem appeared as a romantic escape from a life of continuing life and hardships, that British people knew only too well.BibliographyNagler, John. "A Critique of Empire and Toil in Alfred Lord Tennyson's ", 2007.Riede, D.
G. "Tennyson's Poetics of Melancholy and the Imperial Imagination." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 2000 (Autumn 2000): 659. ISSN 0039-3657. Project Muse.
“The Lady of Shalott and Industrialized Misery” 123HelpMe.com. 24 Aug 2007 ;http://www.123HelpMe.
com/view.asp?id=2763;“Tennyson's Mariana and Browning's'Porphyria's Lover." 123HelpMe.com. 24 Aug 2007 <http://www.
123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=2763>“Tennyson's Ulysses and The Lotos Eaters " 123HelpMe.com. 24 Aug 2007;http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=2763;;
