Songs from THE PRINCESS

Beginning with the publication in 1792 of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, the rights and functions of women were widely discussed. Tennyson, sensitive to all the problems of his age, turned to this subject in The Princess. No impetuous reformer, he avoided the excesses of those who regarded the question from a political and economic point of view, emphasizing, instead, the right of women to participation in the cultural heritage of the race-their right to education. Some years after the publication of The Princess, women's colleges were founded at both Cambridge and Oxford; Oxford has recently (1920) opened all her privileges to women students, without reservation. In general, Tennyson claimed for woman every opportunity to develop "All that not harms distinctive womanhood," i.e., all that is not injurious to woman as lover, wife, and mother. It was to emphasize this latter aspect of the problem that he added, in the third edition, the half dozen songs between the cantos.

SWEET AND LOW

6. the dying moon: the setting moon which, in line 15, is paling in the dawn.

THE SPLENDOR FALLS

The sunset glory of the first stanza is recalled by a single word in each of the two following stanzas: what word?

9. scaur: (or "scar") bare rock. Now SLEEPS THE CRIMSON PETAL (321.) 167. Danaë: a princess of Argos whom Zeus visited in the form of a golden shower.

IN MEMORIAM

Unlike "Lycidas" and "Adonais," Tennyson's great elegy is the expression of a profound personal loss: his affectionate admiration of Arthur Hallam was unbounded. "This temperate, eloquent, enthusiastic being came to Tennyson like a revelation of what he himself would be, but could not. Hallam had the constant high spirits which Tennyson rarely achieved, the large, lucid, and eager speech which was never his, the pioneering energy, the questing individuality to which he could not rouse himself; while in common they shared a reflective love of virtue, of great thoughts and of beautiful ideas not too curiously defined" (Fausset, Tennyson: A Modern Portrait, 1923). Hallam called

forth all that was best in Tennyson, corroborating it and inciting to visions beyond; and when he died the poet was thrown back upon himself. For seventeen years he brooded over his memories, his grief, and the ultimate problems of life and death, writing short poems (called "sections" in the notes, below) from time to time, rearranging them, revising them, till at length the series possessed a certain completeness and unity. The form of stanza that he used was one employed by Ben Jonson and Lord Herbert of Cherbury and generally forgotten; Tennyson made it his own, giving it a slow, grave music befitting his complex moods and solemn meditation.

In the following arbitrary plan, each subheading gives only the main topic running through the group of sections it follows, and several of the individual sections may have little or no bearing upon it. Compare the plan for "Adonais," page 691, above.

(1) BEFORE THE FIRST CHRISTMAS: THE

25-26. Let knowledge in us dwell: Cf. "Love Thou Thy Land," lines 17-20 (page 310).

32. thy light: knowledge (see line 23). Throughout this stanza Tennyson has in mind the misuse of knowledge suggested in the preceding stanza. Compare the two stanzas with Wordsworth's "Desire we past illusions" (page 55).

33. Forgive what seemed my sin in me: The true nature of our sin (as of our worth, in the next line) is known only to God; our standards of merit are human. Cf. Psalms, CXLIII, 2: "In thy sight shall no man living be justified."

I. 1. him who sings: "As far as I recollect I referred to Goethe" (Tennyson, in 1880).

The "victor Hours" (line 13) might submerge grief quickly by submerging loveand thus contradict the principle of the "stepping-stones": contrast the goals indicated in the first and last stanzas of this section.

II. 7. the clock: i.e., in the churchtower, shaded by, or behind, the yew-tree in the churchyard.

III. 3. sweet and bitter in a breath: These are fellows in Sorrow (line 1).

8. dying sun: Science supposes the sun to be gradually cooling. Therefore even the sun, the source of life, concurs with earth's deserts (line 7) in echoing the mourner's sense of waste and futility in

nature.

V. its laws. VII. The function of the sea in "Break, Break" (page 320; note, page 722) is here performed by the sounds and sights given in the third stanza.

3. nature: i.e., the body and

1. house: the house of Hallam's father in Wimpole Street, London. IX. 1. Fair ship etc.: Hallam died suddenly in Vienna, on the Danube; a sailing vessel brought his body from the Mediterranean to the port of Dover, whence it was conveyed for burial in Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, overlooking the meeting of the Severn River and Bristol Channel, a few miles below the Wye (the river of "Tintern Abbey") events and places repeatedly alluded to in subsequent sections.

10. Phosphor: morning star.

Lucifer, the

2. calm despair and wild unrest: See XI, 16; and XV, 15.

17-20. That dies not etc.: See

28. from veil to veil: piercing one mystery after another. XXXI. 16. that Evangelist: St. John; see John, XI, 1-44. "He," in the line before, refers to Lazarus. XXXII. 1. Her: Mary's. In the third stanza, Tennyson follows the view that the sister of Lazarus was the same as Mary Magdalene; see John, XI, 2, XII, 3. XXXIII. 3. has centre everywhere: can find everywhere expressions or symbols of "the law within" (line 14) - instead of being entirely centred in "heaven" (line 6) and Jesus (line 11).

14. the law within: See "Enone," lines 162-164, page 308, and the

note.

XXXIV. The question of immortality revives the doubt which came upon the poet in the first darkness of his grief (III).

5-8. This round of green etc.: (Supply "is," from line 3, before "Fantastic beauty.") The beauty of earth and sun, if there were no spiritual truth behind it, would be merely fantastic, like that produced by the human imagination when it is strongly creative but superficial.

11. Of things all mortal: God himself would be a transitory thing to the

believer if he could have no experience, in his "own dim life," of a kind of life that is eternal (lines 1-2).

XXXV.

ages.

II. æonian: lasting for æons or

18-24. If Death were seen etc.: The sense of eternity is a prerequisite not just a result of the growth of human love. If the human spirit had recognized death as absolute ruler, love would never have risen above the gregariousness and sensuality of nature. XXXVI. Compare the idea of XXXIII. 5. Wisdom: i.e., God's wisdom. 7. a tale: i.e., the Gospel nar

rative. XXXVII. 1. Urania: See note to "Adonais," line 12, page 691.

6. thy Parnassus: As the seat of Apollo and the Muses, Mount Parnassus is here used for the poetic art itself; "laurel," in the next line, for success in that art.

9. my Melpomene: his tragic Muse. Why "earthly" (line 13)? 23. the master's field: Cf. lines

2-4, 17-20. XXXVIII. 2. under altered skies: lacking the companionship which lent charm to the landscape and (next stanza) to the seasons. See XXII, 1-8.

XXXIX. The sequel of II, III. Written in April, 1868.

3. fruitful . . . smoke: "The yew, when flowering, in a wind or if struck sends up its pollen like smoke" (Tennyson's note).

XLI. The sequel of XXX, lines 21-28.

15-16. the gulfs etc.: "The eternal miseries of the Inferno" (Tennyson).

23. secular to-be: "æons of the future" (Tennyson); "secular" in the sense of "pertaining to the progress of ages.' XLII. See the introductory note on "In Memoriam," page 723, above. 2. still: always.

5. so may Place retain us still: i.e., the unseen world may provide ideal "unity" (line 3), as well as ideal progress; see XXX, 27-28; XLI, 23-24.

XLIII. 6. might it: it might.

7-8. And silent traces the flower: Quiet recollection of its life on earth might be the only activity of the departed soul, during its "intervital gloom" (line 3).

15. prime: dawn. - Tennyson's idea here is analogous to the Christian doctrine of a general resurrection on the last day. See, for example, First Thessalonians, IV, 13-18.

XLIV. 4. the doorways of his head: "The dead after this life may have no remembrance of life, like the living babe who forgets the time before the sutures of the skull are closed; yet the living babe grows in knowledge, and though the remembrance of his earliest days has vanished, yet with his increasing knowledge there comes a dreamy vision of what has been; it may be so with the dead; if so, resolve my doubts, etc." (Tennyson's note).

6. the hoarding sense: the memory, hoarding sense impressions.

8. A little flash, a mystic hint: Cf. Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality," stanza IX (page 42). XLV. 10. clear memory: Contrast the "mystic hint" and "dim touch" in the preceding section (lines 8, 11). The idea of the present section is that the departed soul, unlike the infant soul, may have a clear memory of its past, since such memory belongs to a developed personality. XLVI. 4. Lest life etc.: Lest the vital energy so essential to our development should be sapped by brooding mem

10. For life etc.: in the case of those who have succeeded in outliving their youthful passions.

12. those that eddy etc.: giddy youths, living without law.

LV.

This and the next section show the mood of III and XXXV strengthened by broodings upon all that is inhuman in nature, and widened by application to human life as a whole. For a similar mood in Keats, see the "Epistle to Reynolds" (page 238).

1. the living whole: Cf. the preceding section, line 8. 7. type: species.

15-16. the great world's altarstairs up to God: the immemorial and widespread institution of prayer, our recourse in hours of trial-leading us, through trial, toward the divine. The suggestion may be that the world has built up those "altar-stairs" gradually, under the urge of troubles and ignorance.

LVI. 2. scarpèd: cut (by man ог nature) perpendicularly. - Tennyson refers, in this stanza, to the fossil remains of extinct species.

13-16. Who trusted God was love etc.: This stanza repeats in condensed form the thought of the first three stanzas of the preceding section.

16. ravine: rapacity. (A more common form is ravin; both forms are pronounced: ra'vin.)

22. Dragons of the prime: the strange, huge animals of prehistoric ages.

Charles. LXXX.

2. thee: Tennyson's brother

8. stayed: securely fixed.

16. reach: shall reach.

LXXXII. This is the sequel of LXXIII. 5-6. Eternal process etc.: Cf.

1. wilt thou: if thou wilt. 13-16. And set thee forth etc.: In his moods of relaxation the poet will write so fancifully that some future readers will consider his sorrow unreal. LXI. Compare XLIV.

12. The soul of Shakespeare:

See lines 3, 4. LXVIII. 8. Reveillée: commonly pronounced, in England, with the accent on the second syllable.

LXX. 7. palled: wrapped in palls or mantles.

LXXII. On the anniversary of Hallam's death.

6. reverse of doom: the death of Hallam, a sudden turn of fate. LXXIII. 14-16. while the soul etc.: The "general Soul" (as in XLVII, 4) possibly the soul within the poetserves and uses the power for good that was in Hallam.

LXXIV. 11-12. knowing Death

- or

pre

8. one: a spirit.

53-56. the imaginative woe etc.: The matter of art is remembered experience, which the artist reshapes in a higher, impersonal form. Hence, in turning his trouble into verse, the poet broke the force of his personal grief- but at the same time established it for good in his heart and imagination. Cf. line 69 ff.

98. these things: the symbols and fancies providing an unreal communion with his dead friend (lines 93-96). Supply "namely" at the beginning of this line. LXXXVI. This poem is the sequel of LXXXIII. Like the west wind that it addresses, it sweeps through all nature, from the sunset clouds toward the eastern star. The effect of nature here is just the contrary of that rendered in LVLVI.

1. ambrosial: delicious; here, in respect of the odors carried by the wind from wet flowers and woods, doubtless in springtime: cf. lines 3-4, 6, 10, 14. 5. rapt: hurried along.

7. horned: winding, as in Virgil's "corniger fluvius" (Eneid, VIII, 77). LXXXVII. 40. The bar of Michael Angelo: The portrait of the great artist shows a marked ridge over the eye-brows.