Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Lady of Shalott and Other Poems

I love structure. Love it. Free verse is alright, but if I am to bother reading something that somebody else wrote, I want it to be better than I could write myself. Any guttersnipe can write passable free verse (and no doubt some would argue with me, but this is my blog, ha ha). Anyway, the best poets in my mind are those who use form as well as content to deliver their message.

Hence, my interest in Tennyson. Although his work is a little more visual than auditory, I still like that he bothers to think about meter and rhyme in his work. For this reason I read In Memoriam, and was so pleased that I subsequently picked up this item. Though this particular anthology was grouped according to period, not according to merit, and thereby included a few really forgettable stinkers, there were enough thought-provoking, insightful selections to keep me happy and make me want more.

It is not simply his style that draws me to Tennyson, however. That was just the initial draw. I find it curious to look inside the mind of one whom I trust to be completely honest and precise, but who has experienced things I have not. I can follow Tennyson up to a certain point, when he talks about isolation, longing and regret. It is when he touches on what may be his special topic, friendship, that I grow most unfamiliar and correspondingly most interested. Tennyson seems to have tapped into a source of deep and priceless emotion which I have not, and I am intensely curious to experience it.

You see, I don't have lifelong friends to whom I am closer than a brother. I suppose Sherri and Chad are the closest things, but even they have been around a comparatively short time. What Tennyson describes are friendships so deep and unifying that they cannot be severed. Not only mind and heart are vibrating in unison, but spirit as well. I crave such an intimate bond of love, for I know that I can hold up my end. I simply have yet to meet someone who can bear up under the experience for an extended period of time.

But enough about me, back to Tennyson. The keystone of the collection is, of course, The Lady of Shalott, which I found to be a compelling allegory of human experience. Tennyson borders on the philosophical here, leaning to the Cartesian side a little, as he describes a lady who strives to capture life, but can only manage to do so twice removed: once by reflection and once by representation. When she finally experiences the fact of existence, stepping out of her isolation, the experience is so treacherously beautiful that she dies. Tennyson manages to capture a ponderously difficult idea and pin it to the page with aplomb and sympathy that I'm not sure I could manage. Also worth note is, of course, The Lotos-Eaters, which nicely complements The Lady of Shalott's sense of weariness, but presents the other side of the experience. My personal favorite, however, is The Palace of Art. Although a bit awkward in places and lacking the artistic merit of the aforementioned two, it reminds me of my own tendency to cerebral isolation and admonishes me to allow others into my well-decorated interiors. It is with this in mind that I have finally given out the address of this Blog to a few select friends so that I, too, may ". . .hear the dully sound / Of human footsteps fall" around my inner sanctum (275-6).