Status Updates From THE POEMS OF TENNYSON. Edit...

Idylls: The Passing of Arthur
King Arthur! BEAUTIFUL
1. Unexpected (thought it might be another poem about his tragically lost friend); 2. Captured Arthur’s last battle with Mordred and the three-time exchange with Bedivere to return Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake;
And 3. Arthur is carried away by the three black-veiled queens via the barge to Avalon!
Exactly as it was done in the movie Excalibur!❤️

Idylls Enoch Arden (end)
Sad, tragic, beautiful poem.
The ending is very predictable, but still it broke my heart.

Idylls: Enoch Arden (about 2/3’s done)
This is the story of three people in a love triangle
Two marry
The third stands aside
The husband goes missing at sea
The wife and the second man reunite
But you know it’s not going to end simply.
The missing man has to come back
There’s a Cary Grant movie that tells a similar tale ❣️😂
Betting the poem won’t have the same hilarious ending

Idylls: Enoch Arden (started)
A lovely story - so far - of three friends.

Pro Patris: four more homages to patriotic duty. Some very familiar lines.
Ode On Death of Duke of Wellington
The Charge of the Light Brigade
You Ask Me, Why, Tho’ Ill At Ease
Of Old Sat Freedom On The Heights

Pro Patri: The Revenge; The Captain
So we move from a long, ambitious elegy section to patriotically rousing poems.
The Revenge about a single boat taking on the Spanish Armada, and a captain who earns the reward his crew casts for him. Both tragic, both bloody.

Henry V married Catherine of Valois in 1420.
He was 34 years old, and as far as I can tell from this book, he simply had no time for women or a wife.
He was too busy figuring out where his next bankroll was coming from so he could pay for his soldiering escapades.
⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️

Elegies: In Memoriam (end - Canto CXXXI)
Approximately 2 decades of mourning a deeply-loved friend.
Tennyson captured his heart and soul in these lines.

But I am glad to leave them behind. It was often hard to absorb his grief.

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos CXXI - CXXX
Favorite line on this fair night from Canto CXXIV -

“The petty cobwebs we have spun.”

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos CXI - CXX

I have come to love Tennyson’s personifications. Nature, Science, Wisdom, Knowledge. He gives them human qualities and holds them in balance against each other. It is truly brilliant.

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos CI - CX
If you never read this long homage to Tennyson’s beloved friend, consider only reading Canto CVI. Unless something happens, it will be my favorite set of complete lines. They are timeless.

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos XCI - C
Most mournful line yet, from the beginning of Canto C -

“I find no place that does not breathe
Some gracious memory of my friend”

Working toward the end of this two decade long work
I believe it is 131 cantos long.

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos LXXXI - XC
Favorite line comes from Canto LXXXIX -

“He brought an eye for all he saw”

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos LXXI - LXXX
Favorite line is the final one from Canto LXXX

“Reach out dead hands to comfort me.”

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos LXI -LXX
Favorite line, first line from Canto LXIX

“I dream’d there would be Spring no more”

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos LI - LX
Tennyson claims in Canto LIX -
“My centred passion cannot move,
Nor will it lessen from to-day”

He drags your heart through his grief.

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos XLI - L
End of Canto L -
“Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.”

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos XXXI - XL
Favorite lines from the end of Canto XL
“My paths are in the fields I know,
And thine in undiscover’d lands.”

Elegies: In Memoriam, Cantos XXI - XXX
How did I not know that Canto XXVII is where two of the greatest lines of poetry originate? How?

“T’is better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”

I’m ashamed to say I have a degree in English.
Although I never studied Tennyson.
Perhaps I should have.

Elegies: In Memoriam, stanzas XI-XX
Such love for a friend departed.
In stanza XVI’s ending, Tennyson ponders having Arthur return to him and instead of questioning his departed friend’s appearance, he says,
“But I found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange.”

Remember, this long Memoriam was written over a two decade period.
Twenty years! And barely through it!

Elegies: To My Brother Charles Tennyson (a breathtakingly beautiful ode)
In Memoriam Arthur Henry Hallam (believe he was one of Tennyson’s best friends and it begins a two decade long iambic pentameter stanza-palooza)
In Memoriam, stanzas I-X (and many more to come) - my favorite is Stanza III. The personifications of Sorrow and Nature are lovely.

Songs: The Brook (peaceful and lilting, appropriate for children);
The Miller’s Daughter (tawdry and not for children, then wishful);
Sea Dreams (sad and endearing);
Romney’s Remorse (unsure what to make of this one);
The Lotos-Eaters (think this one’s clearly about the effects of different drugs 🤣)

Songs: The Princess
Have to admit I didn’t understand the gist of this one.
But a wise professor once told me that Tennyson was not the easiest read. We will move on without criticism 😁

Dramatic Monologues: Rizpah
A solemn lament by a mother whose only son was sent to the gibbet and she was not allowed to heard his final words.

Dramatic Monologues: Locksley Hall
You have to put aside your modern reasoning when reading Tennyson or you’ll come away from his poetry mad as a hornet, especially if you’re a feminist 😏

Dramatic Monologues: Maud, Parts II & III
Line to recall
“It is better to fight for good than to rail at the ill”

Dramatic Monologues: Maud, Part I, sections XXI-XXII (end)
Favorite line, near the end of section XXII
“My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead”

Dramatic Monologues: Maud, Part I, Sections XVI-XX
Oh is she stringing him along?
Is this unhappy wretch going to regret his love for her?