Nature Imagery in Tennysons In Memoriam and Arnolds To Marguerite--Continued and Dover Beach :: Comparison Compare Conatrast Essays

Nature Imagery in Tennysons In Memoriam and Arnolds To Marguerite--Continued and Dover BeachTwo poets who used an abundance of record imagery in the Victorian period were Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Matthew Arnold. In Tennysons In Memoriam, he utilizes many different aspects of nature as metaphors to describe his emotions after the remnant of a close friend. Arnolds poetry uses different types of water as metaphors in To Marguerite--Continued and Dover Beach. In the posening of Tennysons poem, he describes an old yew tree. The tree, to him, is dead and at this proterozoic point of his grief he cannot find any life in the nature surrounding him. The old yew which grapsest at the stones/ That name the underlying dead,/ Thy fibers net the untroubled head,/ Thy roots are wrapped about the bones (2.1-4). Therefore he sees the tree as an extension of the graves it grew on. The roots are entangled most the dead bones and are as dead as the skull of the person, unable to dream ever again . The world around the tree and grave will begin again to bloom, but Tennyson feels the tree will not change and keep its gloomy appearance throughout the year. He is sick for thy stubborn hardihood (2.14) and seems to appetite to be equal the tree. For if he were also dead, he would not have to feel the pain he is experiencing. He likens his poetry to nature also. He uses words, like weeds... (5.9) to envelope himself from the pain. His poem is this poor flower of poesy (8.18) but he writes it anyway since it once pleased his dead friend. I go to plant it on his tomb./ That if it can it there may bloom,/ Or dying, there at least may die (8.22-24). At this point he is considering the possibility of life continuing, at least through his poetry. Yet he does not seem to care about this possibility strongly. If there is no life within his poetry, then he feels its proper place is dead with his friend. Further into the poem, the immediate frenzy of grief has subsided, and he reflects u pon his grief more calmly. Calm is the morn without a sound,/ Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only through the faded leaf/ The chestnut pattering to the ground (11.1-4). His natural surroundings are quiet, which he feels are suited to this submit in his grief.