The Lotos-Eaters

Poetry | Alfred Lord Tennyson

Romantic Elements in Tennyson's Poem

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What romantic elements do you find in Tennyson's poems that you have studied Alfred Lord Tennyson - is one of the greatest English poets He belongs to the Victorian era - However he is a Romantic at heart In many of his poems we find ideas that belong to the Romantic period Romantic poets focus on deep feelings the beauty of nature the power of imagination and the desire to escape from real life Here we will find out the romantic qualities in his famous poems Deep Emotions and Personal Feelings Romantic poems are filled with strong personal emotions These poets speak from the heart The speakers in Tennyson s poems also express deep personal emotions They feel very sad lonely tired and hopeless In Oenone written in Oenone expresses her sadness for her lost love Paris Oenone is sad because Paris left her for Helen She loved Paris deeply

but he betrayed her Now she feels heartbroken lonely and tired of life Oenone says Beautiful Paris evil-hearted Paris It shows her deep sadness She calls him evil-hearted because he broke her heart In Tithonus written in Tithonus is gifted with immortality but not eternal youth So he grows older and older but cannot die He expresses his deep pain in this line Me only cruel immortality consumes Moreover Locksley Hall feels deeply personal In this poem the unnamed speaker expresses his sadness and frustration about his lost love Amy He thinks he could not marry Amy because he had no money or social status These deep emotions and personal feelings are key romantic elements Beauty of Nature Romantic poets love nature deeply For them nature is not just a background it is something living and full of meaning Tennyson portrays very soft beautiful and dream-like pictures of nature in his poems In The Lotos-eaters the island is full of magical beauty It is full of streams soft light and quiet air In the distance there are tall snowy mountains glowing in the sunset The red sunset stays longer than usual The valleys are quiet The nature in this poem is peaceful silent and unchanging The poet says A land where all things always seem d the same The nature here makes people feel lazy and forgetful This is exactly what happens to the sailors when they eat the lotos fruit Similarly in Oenone the valley of Mount Ida is full of flowers mists waterfalls and pine trees The nature matches Oenone s sadness beautiful but no wind no insect sounds the flowers droop the bees rest inside the lilies As the poet writes The grasshopper is silent in the grass The purple flower droops In Tithonus the poet shows the soft beauty of dawn The goddess of dawn brings light and the sky becomes golden So like the Romantics Tennyson uses nature not just for decoration but to reflect the feelings of the heart Escape and Rest Romantic poets often want to leave the real world and go to a peaceful dreamy place They are tired of the harsh world illness and pain We see this in Tennyson s poems too In The Lotos-eaters the sailors eat the magical lotos fruit and forget everything They do not want to go back to their homes or continue their journey They sing Our island home is far beyond the wave we will no longer roam They feel tired of life and just want to rest forever In Tithonus the speaker also wants to escape He wants to escape from immortality Even in Locksley Hall the speaker dreams of a perfect future world where people live in peace and science brings joy This dream is also a kind of escape from his unhappy present Imagination and Supernatural Ideas Romantic poets use their imagination freely They use myths gods and magical stories Tennyson also mixes imagination with real emotions In Tithonus the speaker is not a normal human he is mythical and supernatural He is someone who lives forever beside the goddess of the dawn In The Lotos-eaters the magical fruit makes people forget everything Time stops and the land feels unreal The whole setting is a product of the poet s imagination In conclusion Tennyson s poems are full of Romantic elements His speakers are emotional and honest His descriptions of nature are soft and dreamy His characters often want to escape from real life He also uses imagination and myth to create magical worlds All these things show that Tennyson followed many of the important ideas of Romantic poetry in his own beautiful style

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