Post by Alex on Dec 6, 2011 22:38:58 GMT -5
Tears Idle Tears by Alfred Lord Tennyson
For my poem analyses, I wish to look at Tennyson’s Tears Idle Tears, without going into any details I see several things that stand out already. Metaphors and similes are scattered throughout the poem. There also seems to be a repetition of the words “no more” at the end of every stanza. It has four stanzas and no rhyme scheme but I think it’s very powerful and sad, the overall poem. In the next few paragraphs, I hope to take it apart and put it back together again by the end.
While I didn’t have a good grasp of the poem on my first time reading, in my second time I was able to grasp some meaning out of it. The first stanza starts out and basically the first line means that the poet does not know what the idle tears mean. The second and third line talk about the “depth of divine despair and rise in the heart and gather in the eyes” this pulls into an image like a God or a Goddess crying, I don’t know why but I can just see this clearly in my mind, they’re crying so much from the bottom of their heart, their pain is so much that the tears end up rising from the heart and coming out as tears from the eyes. Again it emphasizes that the poet has no idea why he is so sad but he says that even though he’s looking at an happy autumn field he’s thinking and remembering days that are “no more” the “no more” part could be he’s thinking about the past.
In the second stanza, the reason for the sadness of the poet seems to be explained a little bit. The first two lines of this stanza again reminds me of Greek mythology, Hades and the Underworld. The next two lines explain that just as the friends are about to get here, the ship sinks, and the friends are now gone and again, with the last line the poet goes back to the memory of the days that his friend or friends or loved ones were there.
In the third stanza starting with the “dark summer nights” it immediate starts talking about being sad, and changing, from summer to autumn, things are dying and going to die or already dead and the theme of darkness keeps coming up in this stanza too, this all I think leads to the idle tears.
The last stanza goes back to the memories and how they are bittersweet. He remembers the love but they’re gone and by now the reader has the reason to believe this isn’t a friendship, but more a relationship that is no more not because the other person is dead (although death is mentioned) but because they left the poet. The first two lines mention “kisses” and “hopeless” which leads me to the conclusion about the lost love theory. “on lips that are for others” also further supports my lost love theory and the poet specifically says “first love” so he is more than likely talking about his first significant other who broke up with him.
I might be wrong, I might not be wrong but this is the way I see it. I don’t understand a lot of the in between stuff because poetry has never been my strong point. All in all, I think this was a short enough poem and very vivid in memory, I just hope I never have to read it again.