Alfred Tennyson believed that a period of day of reckoning followed Romanticism, which aroused feelings of uncertainness refering the hereafter. With the publication of Darwin ‘s ‘Origin of Species ‘ , and the rapid growing of industrialization and wealth, the Victorian ‘s experienced a great period of alteration. Many Victorians mourned their old manner of life, and therefore distanced themselves from this new altering universe, which made them experience boundlessly isolated. They suffered from an “ dying sense of something lost, a sense excessively of being displaced individuals in a universe made foreigner by technological alterations that had been exploited excessively rapidly for the adaptative powers of the human mind ”[ 1 ]. Human felicity was being sacrificed and this sense of insecurity necessarily led to frights of isolation. Furthermore, after the decease of both Tennyson ‘s closest friend, Hallam, and of Byron, whom Tennyson greatly admired, he experienced great consciousness of isolation himself from the outside universe. Therefore, Tennyson began to show his feelings of uncertainness, loss and isolation into his authorship ; poesy was his signifier of therapy.
Through many of his verse forms, Tennyson skillfully linked external scenery to the interior province of head. Therefore, it is “ the power of making scenery, in maintaining with some province of human feeling ”[ 2 ]which makes Tennyson ‘s composing so powerful. The esthesis which Tennyson depicted most strongly was melancholic isolation, which in ‘Mariana ‘ , is conveyed through the consciousness of an abandoned adult female. Tennyson farther explores an stray ego through the fabulous character, ‘Tithonus ‘ , where he alludes to the consciousness of a adult male who is trapped inside his ain universe and isolated from the external.
‘Mariana ‘ is written as a third-person words, which helps the reader empathise with her agony in a deeper context. It is a verse form of subjectiveness ; she is surrounded by a universe of objects, yet feels wholly isolated from the outside universe, “ Mariana is herself stuck in topographic point, trapped in the verse form ‘s syrupy linguistic communication and in her ain obsessional chorus. ”[ 3 ]Therefore, the verse form has a self-contradictory nature ; Mariana desires to be rescued from her heartsick province of head, but the poem relies on a sense of emptiness and isolation. The limited direct address, other than Mariana ‘s insistent chorus, expresses a place of enduring silence, which farther intensifies Mariana ‘s heartache, isolation, and her black passiveness towards her depressing being.
Conversely, ‘Tithonus ‘ is a dramatic soliloquy picturing a adult male who has the possible to see and see the universe for infinity because he has been granted immortality. However, since he is cursed with ‘immortal age beside immortal young person ‘[ 4 ]( line 22 ) , he experiences the same feeling of solitariness as Mariana. Tithonus ‘ state of affairs is to a great extent dry, since he will everlastingly be surrounded by the verve of life and people, yet cipher can sympathize, since merely he has been granted immortality. Tennyson is portraying a sense of premonition, foregrounding how we are haunted by the determinations we make in life and the effects of our actions are ever prevailing ; “ Tithonus demonstrates the danger of fulfillment ”[ 5 ]. Tennyson is therefore picturing the negative effects of human desire, and proposing how the Victorian period was quickly altering, possessing a sense of day of reckoning, “ the continuity of atrocity and bloodshed, and the greed of the freshly rich destroyed his hopes that humanity was traveling upwards ”[ 6 ]. Both ‘Mariana ‘ and ‘Tithonus ‘ allude to a sense of loss and an uncertainness refering their hereafters, ensuing in their ageless sense of isolation ; these esthesiss reflected Tennyson ‘s, and many others provinces of head during the Victorian period.
Tennyson ‘s descriptions of the natural universe in ‘Mariana ‘ convey hapless false belief, since the portraiture of the external reflects her internal province of head. The nouns in the first stanza evoke a universe of objects, yet the adjectives used to depict them are dark and drab, ‘Blackest moss ‘[ 7 ], ‘Broken sheds ‘ , and ‘Lonely moated grange ‘ ( lines 1, 5 and 8 ) exemplifying how Mariana is imputing her ain feelings to inanimate objects. They represent how she is experiencing ; broken, down and entirely. Melancholy is therefore depicted as wholly ocular, and the deficiency of sound and action through the verse form illustrates Mariana ‘s privacy. Furthermore, the image of ‘nails ‘ ab initio suggests strength, since nails are frequently used to construct something strong, and to fall in things together, yet Tennyson depicts how the ‘Rusted nails fell from the knots ‘ ( line 3 ) , symbolizing that everything in Mariana ‘s life, including her lost love, has fallen apart. Tennyson is once more reflecting on the Victorian sense of loss, reenforcing the rapid alterations which were being made.
The alliterative phrase, ‘The clustered marish-mosses crept ‘ ( line 40 ) insinuates the word ‘nightmarish ‘ , picturing Mariana ‘s place, and the personification of the moss crawling adds to the morbid rhetoric and melancholy images picturing Mariana ‘s dark existence.A Tennyson farther utilizations vowel rhyme with repeat of the ‘O ‘ sound throughout each stanza, ‘Aloof ‘ , ‘Loathed ‘ , ‘Lonely ‘ , ‘Broken ‘ , ‘Old ‘ ( lines 75, 77, 8, 5 and 66 ) , making a plaintive tone, which echoes and mimics Mariana ‘s concluding statement to the verse form, ‘Oh God ‘ ( line 84 ) , showing her concluding want to decease. Her helpless and weary tone, reflected by the ‘O ‘ sound encourages us to sympathize with her, since we realise she has cipher to protect her from the chilling outside universe. Tennyson is once more bring downing his positions of the fright of the ‘unknown ‘ which the outside universe held for him and others in the Victorian period.
Mariana ‘s isolation is intensified when nature distorts her world, misdirecting her into believing that something, or person, is present. The 5th stanza depicts how ‘The shadow of the poplar fell/Upon her bed, across her forehead ‘ ( lines 55-56 ) , which represents the tree as a phallic symbol, foregrounding Mariana ‘s sexual desire for her absent lover ; its ‘shadow ‘ is therefore an illustration of how nature can be barbarous and lead oning. Not merely are at that place ocular allusions of the house commanding Mariana ‘s senses, but the house besides evokes noises, ‘The doors upon the flexible joints creaked ‘ ( line 62 ) , giving Mariana hope that person may be at that place for her, yet we know nature is deceiving her senses. Furthermore, ‘Unlifted was the clinking latch ‘ ( line 6 ) indicates from the adjectival, ‘clinking ‘ , that person is present, yet the fact it is ‘unlifted ‘ farther adds to Mariana ‘s place of desperation and isolation. All of the sounds represented in this verse form are associated with nature or Mariana ‘s milieus, and bear negative intensions, such as ‘hinges creaked ‘ , ‘flitting chiropterans ‘ , ‘shrill winds ‘ , ‘wainscot shrieked ‘ ( lines 62, 17, 50 and 64 ) ; nature therefore dominates the address throughout the verse form, contrasting bleakly to Mariana ‘s internal agony silence.
The usage of shadows is besides evoked through ‘Tithonus ‘ , when he describes himself as a ‘White-hair ‘d shadow rolling like a dream/The ever-silent infinites of the East ‘ ( lines 8-9 ) , proposing that he has assimilated himself with nature, floating around the sky, surrounded merely by silence. Therefore, he has absorbed himself with nature, yet still feels a sense of privacy, farther underscoring the fact he is entirely. Furthermore, through comparing himself with a cloud, Tithonus is exemplifying his ain feeling of insignificance in the universe, which conveys his slow impairment, since clouds have small physical presence and finally scatter.
The silence that pervades the verse form besides adds to Tithonus ‘ isolation. Aurora, his married woman, grows more beautiful ‘In silence ‘ ( line 44 ) and the one mention to sound is made when Tithonus references, ‘That strange vocal I heard Apollo sing/While Ilion like a mist rose into towers ‘ ( lines 62-63 ) . However, the usage of the past tense instantly distances this music and besides foreground how he does non even have music for company, which reinforces his isolation. The music which Tithonus used to hear is juxtaposed with the quieting ‘mist ‘ which Tithonus appears to hold associated himself with ; the music he one time heard has disappeared, merely as Tithonus, like the mist, has a desire to vaporize and disappear from his universe. Therefore, like in ‘Mariana ‘ , nature is mocking him ; he longs to be the mist and have the power to melt away, yet his immortality refuses him this want, and emptiness will forever consumes him.
Nature has a cyclical construction, since after its decease, it has the ability to re-grow into something new. Conversely, Tithonus will turn old and wither, but ne’er dice, which is why he wishes to absorb himself with nature. The cyclical mode in which nature operates is shown through the iambic pentameter in the first stanza, which gives a regular, rhythmic sound to the gap of the verse form, ‘The forests decay, the forests decay and autumn ‘ ( line 1 ) . The beat is song-like and wellbeing, since it signifies how nature re-grows even after decease. However, this harmoniousness is broken up with the lines ‘Me merely barbarous immortality/ Consumes ; I wither easy ‘ ( lines 5-6 ) . An abnormality is introduced, since this phrase is separate from the remainder of the stanza, conveying the strength of nature juxtaposed to Tithonus ‘ incapacitated state of affairs. The enjambement and debut of the adjectival, ‘cruel ‘ , adds farther strife to the stanza, repeating the mode in which Tithonus has disrupted the flow of nature and changed the construction of human life. Tennyson ‘s moral voice comes through the verse form when Tithonus provinces, ‘Why should a adult male desire in any way/To vary from the charitable race of work forces? ‘ ( lines 28-29 ) Tennyson is therefore warning the reader about the dangers of hubris and how it finally leaves you entirely in the universe. He is knocking industry during the Victorian period, and portraying how it was wrongly giving human felicity for wealth and power.
Tennyson therefore illustrates his position of the stray ego through ‘Mariana ‘ and ‘Tithonus ‘ , whilst he clearly portrays how the Victorian ‘s felt a sense of something lost due to the rapid alterations which were taking topographic point in their society. Both verse forms expose discerning ideas inside the internal mind, reflecting the dying heads of those in the Victorian period who had concerns sing the hereafter. This finally created frights of isolation, and a sense of distance from the universe they were accustomed to.
Word count- 1, 570
