Karen’s Reviews > The Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson > Status Update

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.
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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.