Lord Tennyson Alfred's "In Memoriam"

Reading about Lord Alfred's life was interesting, to say the least. I couldn't help but wonder if someone had made a movie about him. His life is filled with so many ups and downs, that it's remarkable he came out the way he did. I thought starting his biography with his grandfather's words of, "There, that is the first money you have ever earned by your poetry, and, take my word for it, it will be the last", was brilliant. It definitely sets Alfred up to be the protagonist.

Reading "In Memoriam" was a very long and difficult task. It took me a while to get into his wording, but once I did, the reading picked up its pace. The poem was written over a span of three years and it focuses on Alfred's grieving over the death of a close friend. It's amazing to me that, instead of the poem being a drawn-out sob-fest, Alfred resolves his feelings towards the end. I thought it was cool to see, through poetry, a person deal with their emotions. Usually, most of the poetry I've read deals with the author focusing on one emotion and running with it. While "In Memoriam" does focus a lot on despair and depression, he does see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Alfred, in the beginning of the poem, writes, "Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her Raven gloss, Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground... (600)". From this quatrain alone, you can see he is fresh with grief. I base that on the idea of drinking to help deal with pain, and people usually do that in the beginning of the grieving process. Later, towards the middle of the poem, he writes, "Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow... (605)" To me, Alfred is at a later point in grieving, where he misses the subtle memories of his friend. While in the beginning of grieving, people are usually overwhelmed with a loss because it takes them by surprise, the later aspects of the process involve missing certain characteristics about an individual. In Alfred's case, it was probably his friends presence through tough times. Towards the end of the poem, Alfred uses far more positive and uplifting words than before. He writes, "My love involves the love before; My love is vaster passion now, Tho' mixed with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more. (614)" This proves that Alfred has come to terms with his loss and is ready to move on. I thought it was an excellent way to end the poem because I think most people can relate to that pain, or even learn from it.