Tennyson would write numerous poems based on Arthurian legend, culminating in his vast blank-verse epic Idylls of the King, although his earlier, shorter (though still substantial) poem ‘Morte d’Arthur’ offers a great way into Tennyson’s Arthurian world and is a good point of departure for an analysis of Tennyson’s engagement […]
Tag: Victorian Poetry
A Short Analysis of Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’
By Dr Oliver Tearle A poem about growing old, but written when Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) was a young man in his early twenties, ‘Ulysses’ has been analysed as a response to the death of Tennyson’s close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam.
A Short Analysis of Tennyson’s ‘The Lotos-Eaters’
‘The Lotos-Eaters’ is quite a long poem, but we’ve included it below in its entirety before offering some words of analysis. ‘The Lotos-Eaters’ was published in Tennyson’s 1832 collection, which appeared when he was still in his early twenties. The Lotos-Eaters ‘Courage!’ he said, and pointed toward the land, ‘This […]
A Short Analysis of Matthew Arnold’s ‘Growing Old’
On Arnold’s little-known meditation on growing older ‘Growing old’s like being increasingly penalised for a crime you haven’t committed.’ So said the great novelist Anthony Powell, summing up the sense of injustice that accompanies the onset of old age. There’s even a word for a fear of growing old: gerascophobia. […]
A Short Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Ivy-Wife’
A summary of a Hardy poem by Dr Oliver Tearle Thomas Hardy wrote hundreds of poems over a period spanning more than 50 years; he supposedly wrote his last poem as he lay on his death bed in 1928. Although some of his poems are anthology favourites and well-known, there […]