Hello friends, today we will discuss about Alfred Tennyson poem "Break Break Break".
Lord Tennyson:-
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in full Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater, (born August 6, 1809, Somersby, Lincolnshire, England—died October 6, 1892, Aldworth, Surrey), English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. He was raised to the peerage in 1884.Tennyson was the fourth of 12 children, born into an old Lincolnshire family, his father a rector. Alfred, with two of his brothers, Frederick and Charles, was sent in 1815 to Louth grammar school—where he was unhappy. He left in 1820, but, though home conditions were difficult, his father managed to give him a wide literary education. Alfred was precocious, and before his teens he had composed in the styles of Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott, and John Milton. To his youth also belongs The Devil and the Lady (a collection of previously unpublished poems published posthumously in 1930), which shows an astonishing understanding of Elizabethan dramatic verse. Lord Byron was a dominant influence on the young Tennyson.
His works :-
NOTABLE WORKS
“The Princess”
“Ulysses”
“Mariana”
“In Memoriam”
“Idylls of the King”
“Maud”
“Locksley Hall”
“The Lotos-Eaters”
“Enoch Arden”
“The Lady of Shalott”
His poems characteristics :-
Death-
He has also written many poems on death and expressing his grief in his poems shows us how a happy man or death happens. The great poets commonly take up the subject of death in their works, but it is rare to see a great poet treat death in such a sustained and deeply personal way as Tennyson does. Many of his greatest works were written in the aftermath of the death of his closest friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. “Ulysses” is about the great hero searching for life in spite of old age and coming death, and “Tithonus” concerns the weariness of life on earth when all one wants to do is fade into the earth and no longer linger on. “The Two Voices” is a debate about whether or not to commit suicide. “In Memoriam” is the poet’s lengthy meditation on his profound grief and his desire to know what happens after death as well as his occasional musing that he wishes to die and join his friend.
Nature-
Nature is also given a place in his poetry. They have also written very good poems on what is seen. Nature plays many roles in Tennyson’s poetry. Occasionally she is beguiling and sensuous, as in “The Lotos-Eaters.” In that poem the men sojourning on the isle are entranced by their natural surroundings and do not want to return to their normal lives. Nature is used as a metaphor for death (see “Break, break, break” for the former and “Crossing the Bar” for the latter). Finally, Nature can also be chaotic, hostile, and indifferent to Man.
Grief-
A lot of sad events happened in his life to show that he has written poems to express that we have got as part of a good poem. Grief permeates Tennyson’s poetry and was a major feature of Tennyson’s emotional life. He endured the deaths of his parents, the ensuing mental illness and addictions of many of his family members and, as a kind of muse, the death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam. His poems are frank discussions of despair and the trouble of using words sufficient to express it, and he demonstrates the significance of writing poetry in the face of sorrow and loss. In some of the poems his grief is overwhelming, and he does not know if he wants to continue living. In others he finds ways to manage his grief, coming to accept that sorrow may always be a part of one’s life, while acknowledging other things in life inspire happiness and hope.
Artistic Isolation-
He also wrote artistic poems along with fiction. There is some artistry in his poems. He is seen as a wonderful poet. Tennyson struggled with the question of whether great art had to be produced in artistic isolation or if engagement with the world was acceptable and would not cloud artistic vision. In “The Lady of Shalott” he examines this question. Her island is a safe haven for artists, and she creates her magic web in contentment.
Spirituality-
They believed in spirituality but they could not express it. Yet there is something spiritual in his poetry. Tennyson adhered to a Christian faith that can most vividly be seen in “In Memoriam,” but he was not wary of expressing his difficulties with that faith and religious belief, particularly in the wake of the death of Hallam.
Time-
The life cycle is also given a place in his poems and he has shown in his poems the different stages of human life. Many of Tennyson’s works reflect his working through the implications of time. Growing old and lingering on are laborious and enervating in poems like “Tithonus” and “The Two Voices,” while in “Ulysses” the title character wants to keep adventuring as long as he can.
Courage-
A great characteristic of his poetry is courage. Courage is also seen in the characters in his poems.Many of Tennyson’s greatest poems feature individuals displaying great courage, especially under duress. Courage is a universally admired virtue, but during the Victorian age and for the British in particular, it was extremely important.
His one poem:
Break, Break, Break Discusse in this video....
Original poem :-
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Explain :-
There were many tragic events in his life. First the death of his parents and then the death of his dear friend. So in his shock and in his memory he thought of writing this poem. As he sat on the shore of an ocean he saw everything happening around him and then waves of thoughts began to run through his mind and he began to feel the emptiness of his friend. Write this poem to express your own words. He has written this poem addressing the bouncing waves. That hey the waves of the Sea Break Break Break.
Death
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He has also written poems on death. Is that which depends on the tragic events in their lives. But this poem is what he created by taking nature as a metaphor. In which he has shown his grievance and his jealousy by showing the way the sea speaks.His poems have a wonderful art of taking nature as a metaphor.This short poem carries the emotional impact of a person reflecting on the loss of someone he (or she) cared for. Written in 1834 right after the sudden death of Tennyson’s friend Arthur Henry Hallam, the poem was published in 1842. Although some have interpreted the speaker’s grief as sadness over a lost lover, it probably reflects the feeling at any loss of a beloved person in death, like Tennyson’s dejection over losing Hallam.
The poem is four stanzas of four lines each, each quatrain in irregular iambic tetrameter. The irregularity in the number of syllables in each line might convey the instability of the sea or the broken, jagged edges of the speaker’s grief. Meanwhile, the ABCB rhyme scheme in each stanza may reflect the regularity of the waves.
Summary of this poem:-
In the first line he sees the sea bouncing with the waves, disrupting his experience of peace. He said that these bouncing waves came and hit the stone lying on the side and made a noise while the words in my mouth were not even capable of coming out. He is himself and is unable to express the thoughts that have arisen in his mind. When this roaring sea it seems kind of weird. The roaring ocean waves remind him of what he has lost.
In the second stanza he reveals how lonely he feels. On the one hand, the fisherman's boy is having fun fishing with his sister. The sailor on the other side of the sea is with his boat and what a beautiful song he is singing. But I am living a very lonely life here. The poet is irritated by it. They realize the loneliness, the experience shows in this stanza.
In the third stanza the poet sees the “stately ships” moving to their “haven under the hill,” either to port or over the horizon. Either way, they seem content with a destination. But the mounded grave is no pleasant haven, in contrast. That end means the end of activity; there is no more hand to touch, no more voice to hear. Again the speaker is caught up in his internal thoughts, his memory of the mourned figure overshadowing what the speaker sees around him. The critic H. Sopher also interprets the contrast in this stanza as such: “The stateliness of the ships contrasts with the poet’s emotional imbalance; and the ships move forward to an attainable goal ... while the poet looks back to a ‘vanish’d hand’ and a ‘voice that is still.’”
In the fourth stanza the poet states that the waves collide with this shore around the turn. Once comes then keeps going back, then comes back again and collides. When death is not like that once a man dies he does not come back again. So they think to whom to tell this my pain, to whom to explain. I feel empty I have lost something. Even the memories of my friends can't come back now. It was everything to me. But now even though I am hoping for it, it is impossible for it to come back like these waves. It is a sheer reality.Nevertheless, both the sea and the speaker continue with their useless but repeated actions, as though there is no choice. The scene evokes a sense of inevitability and hopelessness.
Concluded:-
In this poem the poet does not wait for his lost person to return because it is impossible. Which is a sheer reality.While the feeling here could involve merely the loss of a romantic relationship, it seems more poignant if the speaker has no hope for the return of the one who is lost. Without a death, there is no opportunity to connect the “hill” to a mounded grave, the “still” voice would be harder to interpret, and the “day that is dead” would be a weaker metaphor.
Words :-1850
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