- Last seen on May 31 9:16 AM 2006. Member since May 31, 2006.
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on Break, break, break by Alfred Lord Tennyson, on May 31, 2006There is a sense that his grief has isolated him because he can only write what he feels, not say it: "I would that my tongue could utter". It contrasts with the shouting and singing of the next stanza to suggest a further distancing from life in general.
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on The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson, on May 31, 2006
More than just a love poem
It's also a poem about being a poet or an artist. Tennyson liked to use the woman and the poet interchangeably, and here we have a woman who weaves all day (her art) and cannot have an unmediated relationship with reality because of the curse of the poet: that the poet cannot participate directly in life because isolation is necessary for creativity. The mirror is the imagination, which reflects reality but is not the same. The idea of Lancelot failing her could be the failure of the reader to fully enter into the world of the poet, with the Lady of Shalott dying because of the mutual exclusivity of real life and the creative life. -
on The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold, on May 31, 2006I'd be careful about viewing this as a positive ending. "And then he thinks he knows" is hardly definitive. There is a sense that this "unwonted calm" is as untrue as the things we say and do in our everyday lives. It is like "Dover Beach" in his desire to use love as something to make up for the lack of support offered by the Christian faith or Romantic nature, but Arnold never seems to fully escape the "darkling plain". Interestingly, both poems were written after his marriage and honeymoon, as if the reality of marriage failed to live up to his expectations...
