Episode 10 Season 4

MAIYA: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Beyond the Verse, a poetry podcast brought to you by PoemAnalysis.com and Poetry+. I'm Maiya and I'm here with my co-host Joe today to talk about Alfred Lord Tennyson. We will be looking at two poems in particular by Tennyson, Ulysses and Tithonus. I, for one, cannot wait to get into these poems. We are talking about the plight of the mythological hero, portrayals of mortality, and the exploration of Victorian ideals and anxieties and how they manifest in these poems. But before we get into the poems themselves, Joe, can you give us a bit of a rundown of Alfred Lord Tennyson's life, early upbringing and his poetic career?

JOE: Yeah, I'd love to Maiya. So welcome everybody to our final episode of season four. We're really happy to have you all here. any of you're here for the first time, please do go back and check out previous episodes from this series and indeed from our previous catalog of 50 [00:01:00] episodes, I still can't believe it, but last week was our 50th, so very happy to have you here now onto Tennyson.

so Tennyson was born in 1809 in Lincolnshire. There's a very famous statue of him outside Lincoln Cathedral as I recall, and he grows up in a middle class family, one of 12 children. So this enormous family life, very talented, very bright child at school, ends up going to Cambridge University where he really begins to establish himself as a prodigious, poetic voice. And this is demonstrated by the fact that he won the Chancellor's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1829 while studying at Cambridge University for a poem ‘Timbuctoo’. also made some really, really important friendships during his time at Cambridge, particularly, with one of his fellow students, Arthur Henry Hallam. And Maiya and I are gonna get into why that relationship is so important to understanding Tennyson's career a little bit later on. So, in terms of some of his key publications, after he leaves Cambridge, in 1832, ‘The Lady of Shalott’ and ‘The Lotos Eaters’ is published these two different poems, again, very much, influenced by classical mythology and a series of themes that Tennyson goes on to explore over the course of his career. [00:02:00] Crucially in 1833, that friend I mentioned earlier on, Arthur Henry Hallam dies unexpectedly at the age of just 22. Again, Maiya and I are gonna get into this because it, it's so important to understanding the rest of his career. Moving forward to 1842, the poems ‘Break, Break, Break’ and ‘Ulysses’, one, the ones we're talking about today, are published. And the next major event I wanna focus on is 1850, because 1850 is when Tennyson already at this point, established as one of the key poetic voices in Britain takes over from William Wordsworth, who passed away as the poet laureate of the United Kingdom.

Maiya and I have done an episode earlier on this series. About Simon Armitage, the current poet laureate, and we talked in that episode about how Tennyson kind of defines the role for everyone that comes after him. He serves as poet laureate from 1850 until his death in 1892, an incredible 42 year span.

And one of the things we spoke about in that episode is unlike lots of poet laureates who perhaps have already produced most of their great work before taking on the role, Tennyson continues to publish career defining poems even [00:03:00] after assuming the role 1854 ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is published.

Maiya and I have done an episode exclusively about that poem in the past, so do go and check that one out. And in 1860 he publishes ‘Tithonus’, the other poem we're gonna be focusing on today, although as we're going to explore that poem, began much, much earlier. The original writing process began way back in the 1830s. He continues publishing towards the end of his life. and when he passes away in 1892, there was a period of kind of national mourning.

There was a real sense, even within his lifetime that this was a truly great poetic voice. So this is a really rich and varied career and Maiya and I are gonna be looking at a particular period in it and how these two poems really help us get insight into who this man was and what kind of a poet he was becoming.

I think Maiya, it would make sense for us to start with this figure Arthur Henry Hallam, because I'm conscious of the fact that listeners who might not know much about Tennyson, perhaps won't know this name, but he's so important when it comes to understanding who Tennyson was.

So can you tell us a little bit more about Arthur Henry Hallam, his impact on Tennyson's career?

MAIYA: [00:04:00] Absolutely. And as you rightly pointed out, Joe, Alfred Lord Tennyson was incredibly bright, incredibly intelligent, and as a result when he joined Cambridge, he actually became part of a very exclusive group of writers, philosophers, thinkers called the Apostles.

now the Apostles, effectively were what I think we would term now as a sort of debate club, but effectively what they did was they took the best and brightest at Cambridge, and they put them in a room together to discuss things.

Now, this is where he met Arthur Henry Hallam. The reason we're focusing on this particular relationship between Hallam and Tennyson is because they, in effect, were best friends and this is such a profound loss to experience at 22 and it really shapes a lot of Tennyson's work going forward. The two poems we've chosen to talk about today are directly related to that death.

Both poems were originally written in 1833, immediately Hallam’s passing, even though they were published much, much later. There's a real tension between the emotional gravity of that experience and then the editing that goes [00:05:00] into it. And it's a conversation I'm really excited to get into because I think it's going to provide such a rich understanding of the foundations of these poems and. I find it quite interesting that one of the things that we talk about in this podcast quite a lot is how much context can actually shape the poetry. And whether you should just take poems at face value. Often that question is left unanswered, and we can say, yes, of course you can take their childhood, you can take an experience they had and you can apply it to this poem.

But you can't always make those safe assumptions. These poems are absolutely inarguably related to that loss. So it's a really interesting one for us to take those poems, . Especially being that they were eventually published years apart to explore his one, changing attitudes towards mortality or if they change at all. And two, to actually really cement these poems with that incredible, incredible loss that he experienced. So that's why we're focusing on these two poems today. I would like to start with Ulysses, because I think as the earlier published poem, it gives us more of an insight into [00:06:00] specifically how he developed between that loss and this initial poem.

Of course, Ulysses is a famous mythological character. So Joe, would you actually like to give us, before we launch into maybe reading the poem, a bit of context about who Ulysses was and why we've chosen this character for this poem?

JOE: Yeah, I'd love to. So, Ulysses, for anyone who's not aware, is the romanized name of the Greek hero, Odysseus. So the Hero of the Odyssey. Many of our listeners, I'm sure will be excited for the Christopher Nolan film coming out. Maybe we'll even do an episode near the time on the Odyssey itself. But this great trickster figure from Greek mythology, the man who came up with the idea for the Trojan horse that eventually broke the deadlock of the Trojan War and whose 10 year journey home from Troy, is the subject of the Odyssey.

It's this story about how Odysseus is simultaneously blessed with great, intellect and great wit, but is also kind of cursed by arrogance and pride and creates problems for himself, and then is forced to solve them sometimes with. Divine [00:07:00] intervention on his side and sometimes with actions of the gods that try to prevent him from getting home.

Now, what's really interesting about this poem is we pick up with the character of Ulysses long after the return from Troy and the great heroic pursuits of his youth have now faded into the distant memory. And one of the things I'm so curious to explore with you, Maiya, is why Tennyson as a man in his early twenties is drawn to this figure of Ulysses in the first place.

But crucially, why is he drawn to this older embittered, increasingly pessimistic? Version of that character when actually in many ways as a man in his early twenties, Tennyson should have felt like many young men and women in their twenties do that the world is out there in front of them, that life as an adventure, that there is possibility and that they could be drawn to the earlier iteration of this character who's about to go off to war or, you know, go off and do exciting quests and adventures.

Tennyson's not like that here. Tennyson is focusing on the older bedraggled version of this great hero, and I'm really curious as to why that is. So that's a little bit of information about the figure of [00:08:00] Ulysses, but I think our listeners will probably benefit from hearing the poem. So I'm gonna go ahead and read the poem ‘Ulysses’ now .

It little profits that an idle king by this still hearth among these barren crags matched with an aged wife. I mete and dole unequal laws unto a savage race that hoard and sleep and feed and know not me. I cannot rest from travel. I will drink life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed greatly have suffered greatly, both with those that loved me and alone on shore. And when through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades vexed the dim sea. I am become a name for always roaming with a hungry heart. Much have I seen and known cities of men and manners, climates, councils, governments, myself, not least, but honored of them all, and drunk delight of battle with my peers far on the ringing planes of windy [00:09:00] Troy.

I am part of all that I have met. Yet all experience is an arch where through gleams, that untraveled world of whose margin fades forever and forever. When I move, How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust, unburnished, not to shine in use as though to breathe. Were life. Life piled on life. Were all too little and of one to me, little remains, but every hour is saved from that eternal silence.

Something more a bringer of new things. And vile it were for some three suns to store and hoard myself and this gray spirit yearning and desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle.

Well, loved of me discerning to fulfill this labor by slow prudence to make mild a rugged [00:10:00] people and through soft degrees, subdue them to the useful and to the good. Most. Blameless is he centered in the sphere of common duties, decent not to fail in offices of tenderness and pay. Meet adoration to my household gods when I am gone.

He works his work I mine. There lies the port, the vessel puffs, her sail, there gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners souls that have toiled and wrought and thought with me, that ever with a frolic welcome, took the thunder and the sunshine and opposed free hearts, free foreheads. You and I are old, old age hath yet his honor and his toil.

Death closes all: but something ere the end. 



JOE: Some work of noble note may yet be done. Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks. The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs the deep moans [00:11:00] round with many voices. Come my friends. It is not too late to seek a newer world push off and sitting well in order.

Smite the sounding furrows for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars until I die. It may be that Gulfs will wash us down. It may be we shall touch the happy isles and see the great Achilles whom we knew though much is taken, much abides, and though we are not now, that strength, which in old days moved earth in heaven, that which we are, we are one equal temper of heroic hearts.

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive to seek to find, and not to yield.

So it's very intimidating to read a poem like that, especially because those final few lines were read so beautifully by Dame Judi Dench in the James Bond film Skyfall. If memory serves me correctly. So shout out to Judi Dench, friend of the podcast. I think Maiya, [00:12:00] there's so much in that poem and there's so many angles that you can explore it from.

I have kind of a sense of where I would like to look, but I'm still reeling from the act of reading the poem. So do you mind starting us off? Where would you like to look?

MAIYA: Well, thank you for that beautiful reading. Joe, I think You definitely have a rival to Judi Dench there. She's got some real competition. I think where I would like to begin with this poem is really the impression of gravitas that this poem provides.

you'll be able to tell listeners from, Joe's reading that this poem really carries the weight of those kind of classical allusions with it. There sense of history and worth and value that accompanies this poem. what I find really strikes me with this poem Is that actually this impression that we get is only from Ulysses himself. It's only from the narrator., I'd really like to launch Joe, I into how those classical allusions, the retellings of great deeds and experiences in life is impacted by the [00:13:00] fact we only have him as a narrator. I think there is definitely a tension here between how he analyzes his own life as speaker and how we compare it to Telemachus.

So as we learned from this poem, Telemachus was Ulysses’ son. Now, in his own right, Telemachus was known as a great ruler. However, he was not deemed to be heroic. He was not as ambitious and did not seek the same great experiences that his father did. So to bring it back, the question I really want to ask listeners here is, given we have this imbalance, given we have this tension, what is the purpose of using a direct speaker? For me, I would argue for this poem, and I'd be interested Joe to know if you have a sort of different opinion here, is that I think this is intentional from Tennyson because when you offer only one point of view, you immediately have to question whether there is the truth in this narrative or not.

As a reader, you have to find your own way within the poem in the same way that if you were having a conversation with someone, you wouldn't necessarily take everything they say at face value. One [00:14:00] of the queries that comes up time and time again in our podcast, especially when we're talking about mythology, is how history is written by the winners and what impact does that have on the stories of those who were deemed lesser, deemed less heroic. And here, I think Tennyson's choice to use a singular narrator and yet explore such a vast array of experiences, really offers us, as a reader a unique point of view. It allows us to almost be the judge at the end of his life. and instead of using factual evidence, instead of using the voices of many to support the fact that he was this great hero, the slightly more negative portrayal that we're getting here. That sort of bitter language that is being used, I think does a huge amount of work to support the idea that we should be questioning this narrative. and again, to root back to the fact that this poem is written after the loss of a great friend. I think it really puts an interesting spin on this because this is a young man, Tennyson at the time, writing about someone who has become bitter in [00:15:00] old age. Do you think, Joe, that this is maybe a slightly backwards way of actually elevating someone who has died in his youth , because we have this quite judgmental narrative that's coming through. is The argument here that youth and dying when you are so young allows you to retain a sort of innocence and purity and vivaciousness that you don't get in old age, because old age also comes with the sorrow of all those experiences. it's a question that I've really thought about when I was researching this, and I, I'd love to know your opinion.

JOE: Yeah, it's a really interesting question and I think the first thing to mention is that some listeners, given we're talking about Arthur Henry Hallam will be surprised that we're not talking about the poem ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’, which is a poem, that is written very much, with the death of his friend as its central focus.

What we are doing is looking at poems where it's more of a kind of background focus. And I think in many ways that might be the more interesting way in which, grief is portrayed when it's not the single object of one's focus. But it's something that permeates through the [00:16:00] poem.

And I think with regard to your question about youth as compared to kind of embedded old age, both. The act of dying young and the act of growing old embittered are both imagined states for Tennyson. Tennyson has not died young when he writes his poem, nor is he yet an old man. So he is playing with what he imagines these things to be, and it's no surprise I think that he picks this older figure of Ulysses for that reason.

But we also get the reference to Achilles at the end of this poem. I think this is crucial because Achilles is very much the archetypal hero who dies young, and therefore, as Maiya mentioned, when you die young, you remain young, you remain youthful and beautiful or strong. Whatever qualities or characteristics you had in your youth, you never lose.

Whereas your contemporaries who grow older, we have to view those people. As older men and women because we see them as older men and women. And while we might remember how youthful and powerful or strong or beautiful they were, it's always tempered by the way in which those qualities fade with age.

Achilles doesn't have that. So on the one hand, there is this playing with almost casting himself as the Ulysses figure. And effectively the Ulysses figure in this poem [00:17:00] is bitter, as I said, and is reflecting on how having made it all the way home from Troy through this great quest, he kind of longs for those days.

He longs for the open seas, the adventure, the romance of youth and ultimately being king, you know, with his wife and his son, despite it being the motivation that brought him home in the first place, has now grown stale for him. He's bored by it. He feels, claustrophobic on Ithaca, his small island.

He wants to be in the great unknown. So there's definitely a sense to which I think Tennyson is using that elderly voice, reflecting effectively on the good old days as a means of. Tribute to his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, because Tennyson is imagining that those times he spent with him in Cambridge are the good old days that he himself will go on to look back on.

I think the presence of Achilles complicates this, however, because one of the key moments in the Odyssey, which of course Tennyson was very familiar with, is a journey into the underworld in which Odysseus actually meets the ghosts, the shade of Achilles.

What's really interesting about that passage in the Odyssey is it subverts our expectations because we expect Achilles to be defiant. And to say that he was [00:18:00] glad with the decision he made to go to Troy and to die young and for his legend to live forever, it's actually almost the opposite.

The figure of Achilles is incredibly kind of regretful and seems to think, well actually, you're a very long time dead. And you know, maybe I would've hung on to life a bit more if I'd known differently. So on the one hand, the reference to Achilles seems to be suggesting that Arthur Henry Hallam is going to be this youthful, immortal legend of a presence in Tennyson's life.

But Tennyson is too well educated not to know that the mention of Achilles also brings in that other message, which is actually, maybe Tennyson is worried that Arthur Henry Hallam didn't want this great eternal life. What actually he wanted was what most of us want ultimately, which is a relatively quiet, simple life that sees us dying in our beds at a very ripe old age. And I think. It's so complex and I think the, reference to Achilles in particular introduces that complexity without offering simple conclusions. We don't know necessarily which version of that story. Tennyson is looking to project onto the life of his friend.

MAIYA: I really love that point, Joe, and I think if anything, it's a very [00:19:00] complex exploration of the idea that the grass is always greener. One of the language aspects of this poem that always stands out to me is this idea of barrenness and emptiness.

And just to look at really the first answer of this, and I'm gonna read a few lines actually before I jump into this poem. So the very opening the poem says, It little profits that an idle king by this still hearth among these barren crags, matched with an aged wife. now for only three lines here. That is a huge volume of suggestions of barrenness. Of course, we have the barren crags. You have the still hearth. the hearth being the heart of the home. The impression that there is something missing, something incomplete here. An aged wife, of course with many allusions. When we talk about a husband and wife, there is an indication of fertility here. So when you have an aged wife description here, the indication is that she can no longer fulfill the duty that they see her needing to fulfill, which is that of bearing more children An aged wife implies the barrenness that is mentioned [00:20:00] beforehand. So we immediately have this impression that the speaker is not just bitter, but that there is actually something missing. There is a reasoning behind this. And as we move through the poem a few lines later, the speaker tells us this. He says, I am become a name for always roaming with a hungry heart. Much have I seen and known cities of men and manners, climates, councils, governments, myself, not least. Here we have the speaker Admit that through all of these experiences that hunger has never been sated. So again, Tennyson is putting a really interesting question to the reader by asking you, is it better to die young and have missed those experiences? Or is it better to live those experiences and still feel the emptiness? and on balance, I think because we don't really get a clear answer here, there is actually a suggestion that neither are good. None of these options are worth the cost of the misery that you feel from having an incomplete life, even at the end of it, [00:21:00] or the misery of having missed all those experiences in the first place. So what I really love about this poem is it's such a complex handling of grief Because of course, you know, one of the main phrases you hear when someone passes is, well, you know, well, at least they're at rest now. You know, I hope they rest in peace. But death is such a universal experience, and as I was reading this poem and researching into the death of Hallam, I thought about my own predicament.

What if I'd have lost one of my best friends aged 22 years old? When you are barely out of your teenage years that is so incredibly young and that sense of loss, that grief that weighs on you, and, you know, evidently weighs on Tennyson because he goes on to write about loss and grief thematically for the rest of his career. At what point can you speak as a witness to something so profoundly moving and make a correct judgment? I think the whole point of this poem is that judgment can't be passed, but he's offering a sort of open forum for readers [00:22:00] to put themselves in his shoes to understand that there are differing values depending on the sort of person you are.

Because I really find that in this poem you don't envy Ulysses. You don't find that there is happiness in his long and fruitful life. And no matter how many experiences he tells us about the core of the poem is the emptiness. He feels at not having more of them, because of course, you can get to the end of your life and feel as if you've achieved lots of things. But is it ever fair to say that you have achieved every single thing you've ever wanted to? Is that a reality of life and this poem just handles that question so deftly, I think it's such a stunningly complex poem. 

JOE: I'd just like to pick up on that point because I think it's a really, really interesting one because one detail that we shouldn't overlook here is that, of course the heroic figure of Odysseus arrives home after 10 years entirely alone. He leaves Troy with multiple ships all crewed by his men, and he arrives home having lost all of them, some his fault and some [00:23:00] their fault, and some the fault of fate and the gods.

But that sense to which the thing that motivated him to get home to be reunited with his wife and son. Ultimately, this poem can kind of be read and, and maybe I'm back projecting here with the, looking at this poem after the advent of psychoanalysis the way in which we apply that to literature, but there's something about.

The, plight of a soldier with PTSD here, the idea that even though he needed the motivation of his loved ones back home to see him through to, to get him to go the extra mile to make it home once he's back, they can't understand him anymore because they haven't seen the things he's seen and the sense of isolation that Ulysses feels despite being surrounded by his immediate family.

I mean, Penelope, who is this incredible figure in the Odyssey, is reduced here to a nameless aged wife. Telemachus is treated quite dismissively in this poem. There's that haunting the simple line at the end of the second stanza. He works his work, I mine that sense to which they, they're not quite connected, he and his son.

And I wonder whether Tennyson, thinking about the loss of Arthur Henry Hallam [00:24:00] is projecting into the future himself and thinking. No matter what I achieve, there won't be people who really understand what it means to me. I won't be able to share it with the people that really matter, the ones who lived through it with me.

Because in the case of Ulysses, his crew is all dead. And in the case of Tennyson, his best friend, the person that kind of mattered most to him in his life, in his early twenties is also gone. And there is that very kind of Greek tragic sense of the weight of achievement that is made pointless because you can't share it with the people that matter.

And that's such a tragic through line that I think we can pursue in this poem. I'd like just to, to branch outside. We've been talking a lot about personal grief in this poem, but I think there is something bigger going on as well. And we said this, you know, many episodes of Beyond the Verse.

Look, the great poets are never only doing one thing. They're always able to layer personal, political, private, public things in the same poems. And I think I'm really interested in the way in which this poem tells us about Victorian life, Victorian culture, Victorian imperialism, because a lot of 20th century critics have looked [00:25:00] back at this poem and said that it speaks to that kind of restless sense of Britain in the 19th century, that was always looking to push, frontiers and boundaries and borders further and, obviously acquire a greater and greater slice of the earth for its empire .

I'm curious because I see a lot of that in there, but I'm, also interested in this notion of whether or not Tennyson is being slightly critical of leadership. Because if we look early in this poem, that very first line, we get the description of the, I. It little profits as an idle king, and I'm really drawn to this because whether or not you're an idle king in the context of Ulysses, is entirely up to Ulysses.

You know, he's not in a constitutional monarchy like the British royal family was in this period. He's an absolute monarch. So if he wants to be involved in the day to day, running of his kingdom, he can be, there's nobody preventing him. His idleness is entirely his own choice, but there is that sense to which he's bored of his own kingdom, and he's bored of his own people, and he mentions later on, he refers to them. as a savage race. He says, I mete and dole unequal laws unto a savage [00:26:00] race. There was a sense to which he kind of has disdain for his own people and he is drawn to the outside world. He wants to be back on the ship in Troy or in Calypso's Island or Circe’s island or these great, sites of his youth.

And again, I think there's a personal thing going on here and a political one. There's another death in the family that we haven't mentioned yet. We obviously talked a lot about the death of Arthur Henry Hallam. But two years before he starts writing this poem, Tennyson's father died in 1831 and he had to go home to look after the family to manage the affairs.

And it's fair to say that he found this constraining and he didn't particularly enjoy it. And there is that sense to which the restlessness of the young Tennyson is projected onto the older Ulysses. And the feelings might come from different places. 'cause Ulysses is an old man and Tennyson is a young man.

But that sense of the world being somewhere else and the routine of domestic life 

MAIYA: domestic life 

JOE: or running a kingdom day to day feel really pale in comparison. So I'm really interested in whether or not that's only a personal exploration of having to come home from his exciting life at Cambridge and run the home, or whether actually, it's also a comment [00:27:00] on Britain in the 19th century about Britain is perhaps too interested in the broader world in expanding empire and not as interested as it ought to be on domestic affairs, the plight of the poor, et cetera.

Because obviously this is a period of mass change, technological, social, scientific, and Tennyson perhaps is suggesting that maybe the ruling class of Britain is taking its eye off the ball has the wrong priorities. But Maiya, am I way off there or am I onto something? 

MAIYA: I'm so glad you brought it up, Joe. 'cause it's one of the things I was really keen to get my teeth into with this poem. Interestingly, the lines that I was looking at were not from the start of this poem, but from the later part of this poem, and especially the really beautiful phrasing of the lights begin to twinkle from the rocks.

The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs the deep moans round. With many voices come my friends, it is not too late to seek a newer world. I think that absolutely plays into this impression that you started to build Joe in the, as a king, he's starting to become bored with his people, with his [00:28:00] station in life, with the state of the city itself And I find that. This absolutely reflects, as you say, on his personal circumstances, but also to the much greater Victorian anxieties that are starting to come about at the time. As you rightfully noted, this is a period of huge technological innovation and change, and any period of technological innovation and change is going to come with some form of dissent.

There are going to be people who will be much more comfortable with duty and order and the standard way of things, because of course, any change is a terrifying concept, especially when change is happening at such a rapid rate. Now, I absolutely think this poem mirrors the personal onto the public.

It's something that I know we spoke about quite a lot in our last episode of Beyond the Verse, where he talks about Louise Glück's poetry, and it's interesting to me that we're using mythological sources again because it's such a fascinating, carryover to explore, you know, , the public versus the private.

And I think that is very much at play here. Those [00:29:00] anxieties manifest in a nervousness for the future. And I, I revert again to the lines that I mentioned. It is not too late to seek a newer world instead of appreciating the beauty of what we have here. There is instead a sort of anxiety that's brought about by the fact that that is not enough to please, it's not enough to settle and the phrasing of that idea of newer world, I don't doubt for a second, is something that was circulated in the Victorian times when people were talking about progress entering a new world, one that embraces innovation, one that embraces change. There is a message in this poem that I think in many ways can be applied to. Victorian innovation, it can be applied to that personal sense of, loss, of experience, is that the journey to death is a death in itself because Tennyson creates a poem where every beautiful moment, every achievement is undercut by something else. Instead, a perfect example is the introduction of Telemachus. Praising his son and talking [00:30:00] about how his son was one of his achievements.

Not that I think that's the best way to talk about your family members, but it would be a great opportunity to uplift him instead. His achievements are also undercut. They are set against each other and it speaks to something about the human condition. I think Victorian or modern, there is an innate desire in humans to achieve more. ambition is something that is at the core of, I think, who we are as human beings. the question that is asked about ambition here and whether it can be balanced against the cost of it at certain points, the suffering that accompanies it can only be weighed against the personal experience that Tennyson has had in which the suffering that he has experienced, the loss of his father, the loss of his best friend have started to make him bitter. So we revert, I guess, in many ways to your first question at the top of this poem, Joe, which is, why have we used the voice of this old man, someone who is bitter and someone who has had these experiences and doesn't seem to appreciate them? I think it's Tennyson’s own reflection, the, the mirroring of [00:31:00] how grief can manifest as something. so incredibly awful that it carries the weight of experience with it despite your age. Because of course death is a, a universal experience. Everyone is going to lose a loved one at some point in their life, and yet individual suffering is consistently here weighed against collective suffering.

I think that's a really interesting point that Tennyson starts to play with in this poem. So I think it's about time we moved on to Tithonus, our next poem, because this really solidifies some of the concepts we've already started talking about. And I want to clarify to listeners as well that, as we mentioned at the top of the episode, both of these poems were originally written in 1833 immediately after Hallam passed away, and yet Tithonus wasn't published until 1860. that's just under 30 years later. So there is an experience argument that we can absolutely get into here, which is how does age of the poet, the experience that he's had in his life, impact how he [00:32:00] edits this poem More so than perhaps publishing something whilst it's fresh, whilst you've just written it whilst you're in the throes of that grief. So as we jump into this poem, I'll read the first two stanzas five stanzas long. I would massively recommend listeners to go on PoemAnalysis.com and check out this poem because it is so beautiful.

And Joe, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this. So this is Tithonus. The Woods decay. The woods decay and fall. The vapors weep their birth into the ground. Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath. And after many a summer dies, the swan. Me only cruel immortality consumes. I wither slowly and thine arms here at the quiet limits of the world. A white haired shadow roaming like a dream. The ever silent spaces of the east, far folded mist and gleaming halls of morn. Alas for this gray shadow. Once a man so glorious in his beauty and thy choice who madest him, thy [00:33:00] chosen that he seemed to his great heart. None other than a God. I asked thee, give me immortality. Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile like wealthy men who care not how they give, but thy strong hours indignant worked their wills and beat me down and marred and wasted me. And though they could not end me, left me maimed to dwell in presence of immortal youth, immortal age beside immortal youth. And all I was in ashes can thy love thy beauty make amends, though even now close over us, the silver star thy guide shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears to hear me. Let me go, take back thy gift. Why should a man desire in any way to vary from the kindly race of men or pass beyond the goal of ordinance where all should pause as is most meet for [00:34:00] all? Now this poem explores the story of Tithonus, and Tithonus was, a mortal man in Greek mythology who fell in love with Eos, the goddess of the dawn. And in the original story, it's my understanding that Eos was so in love with Tithonus, that she asked Zeus to grant him immortality, but instead of granting him immortality and immortal youth in order to live forever, as you know, the youngest, freshest version of yourself, he only granted him immortality.

So he continued to age all the way through his immortality until, as we understand at the end, he's a skeleton of a man. He's just a shadow. There's almost nothing left of him in this poem, there's two explorations I'd really like to start with, and I'll, I'll hand over to you, Joe, for kind of a, a deep dive into these. is what's the symbolism of the changing of the relationship here Instead of Zeus being the one to grant the immortality. Instead it was Eos, it was the lover. So what impression does that actually give to the reader? And secondly, I'd really love to dive into the actual [00:35:00] symbolism of Eos being the goddess of the dawn and the representation of immortality at the end of Tithonus’ life. So I'll hand over to you. Where do you want to begin with those two questions? 

JOE: Well thank you Maiya, for a lovely, lovely reading of Tithonus. It's such a moving poem. I'm always surprised by how moving I find it, whenever I hear it read and especially read as beautifully as you've just done on your first point. in the poem, have Tithonus be the one who asks for immortality himself rather than Eos.

Ask on his behalf is a really curious one. I think there's a couple of reasons. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well. I think first and foremost, it allows the voice of Tithonus be imbued with a greater degree of guilt and regret, because of course, it's hard to regret an action that you never took.

So by focusing in on what Tithonus has done rather than what someone has done for him, we get to experience the true sense of shame and guilt and regret rather than something projecting somebody else. But I think it's part of a wider trend that we also saw in which is [00:36:00] that it sounds counterintuitive, but Tennyson chooses these mythological figures in order to talk about normal people.

Ulysses is an elevated figure, and yet ultimately the things he's tussling with in that poem are concerns that we all face when we grow old. The loss of our vitality, the lack of contentment, the way in which. The life of an older person, perhaps is boring in comparison to a younger person's life.

Tithonus obviously is immortal as we've mentioned. He cannot die and he's in many ways completely atypical, and yet his concerns about wanting to die, wanting to have this suffering brought to an end are again, distinctly human emotions. These are things that lots and lots of older people experience every year, every day.

The sense to which I've lived enough. the life I'm now leading is a pale comparison to what came before it, and I would like to see it ended. And I think the decision to remove the central presence of the goddess of the Dawn, as a key participant in the way in which he got immortality, allows us to focus on the elements of them that are truly human.

And again, it seems counterintuitive, but I think [00:37:00] Tennyson is interested in people and he uses these divine figures as a vehicle to explore the human condition rather than be interested in them because of the things that make them different to us. And we spoke about this as well with Louise Glück, I think, and so many great poets do it, that realization that the thing that makes demi gods interesting is not the God, but the demi, the human part of these figures is the thing that draws us to them, because that resembles us.

And ultimately all humans are interested in themselves and, and the human condition. And I think structurally there's something going on here. Before I throw back to you to answer your own question, because I wanna hear what you've gotta say about the dawn. I think that the form of these poems is really interesting.

They're both written in blank verse. And for any of your listeners who aren't familiar with blank verse, it is unrhymed, iambic pentameter. to our modern poetic ear, we might think that that seems quite, archaic. But actually before the kind of birth of free verse as a dominant poetic form blank verse was one of the ways in which poets could write that reflected the patterns of everyday speech.

Most words in the English language are, I am, and it being unrhymed creates a sense of normality. [00:38:00] And again, I think this form is designed to emphasize the human qualities of these speakers. They are speaking to us like normal people. We get their voice in dramatic monologues, written in blank verse.

It's not elevated, it's not hard to understand, and I think that that emphasis on the ordinary is the key here. Amidst these extraordinary circumstances like Ulysses being a great hero, or like Tithonus being immortal, they are tussling with very, very mundane challenges that many of us go on to face.

MAIYA: You've touched on something in both of these poems that I think is really critical and it's that impression of humanity. Actually, one of the standout formal choices in both of these poems is how they're enjambed. I think they offer strangely two very distinct impressions of each poem in Ulysses.

Those lines that run over seem to signal that impression of Ulysses that you get where he's kind of constantly at pace, he's constantly looking for the next thing. Whereas here in ‘Tithonus’, I think instead we have a meditation on continuity and how [00:39:00] the only thing that we have to bargain with in a human life is that stoppage endings are guaranteed.

Again, it's something that comes up time and time again for Tithonus who is immortal but continues to endure the sufferings of age. You know, we have this horrible retelling of the fact that he was maimed, he was beaten down and marred and wasted, and yet continue to survive that. Those enjambed lines instead indicate to a reader that There is no sense of reprieve because of course if you are immortal, but you continue to age. Where does that end? If there is no ending point, how do you ever reach peace? You know, the description that we get of this gray shadow once a man further highlights this sort of shade like impression we get. And I love the earlier Joe you brought up that interaction with Achilles and the regret that he had from dying so young in the face of ambition.

Because we have this shadowy figure again, that crops up and asks directly, let me go. So to answer my own question, [00:40:00] What is the purpose of having the immortality granted by the goddess and having the query be asked from the speaker? Tithonus’ voice becomes really important here because we are so intimately involved with his emotions in this poem that when he asks, let me go, take back thy gift, it's really resonant. It's impossible to ignore. And even formally, you know, I'm looking at the, poem in front of me now. it really stands out because you have a line that says, to hear me with a question mark, let me go, sits right in the middle of this line, and then take back thy gift, closes it.

even in such a short line, We have a sort of three part statement. a movement, towards a realization that this life is not one worth living. And I think Joe, you actually said it in our last episode on Louise Glück, which is that what makes life worth living is the fact that you can experience a limited number of things.

It makes them so much more worth it because you have to grab the experiences you can. and the way that the mythology of this story [00:41:00] functions here is fascinating to me because Tithonus has to watch the love of his life. Eos every morning the goddess of the dawn, he has to watch that dawn rise . And yet he feels as if he exists in a sort of shadowy land. The rebirth that is promised by the dawn isn't a gift that is granted to him. and I personally find that this tension in the poem. Really creates quite a unique space.

One of the, phrases that crops up a fair amount on our podcast is this idea of liminal spaces, spaces at the edge of existence or sort of areas between two different ideas. And I absolutely think the space that is carved out in this poem is one of uncertainty, is one of unhappiness. And the discomfort that we feel as a reader is very much at play in creating that space. So not only do we have a formal technique, but we also have an emotive technique. 

JOE: I think one of the things that interests me is the way in which these poems are simultaneously. Looking at the experience of [00:42:00] mortality from completely opposite angles and yet are saying something virtually identical. In the case of Ulysses, Ulysses longs for his youth ' cause he fears old age and death.

whereas Tithonus longs to die rather than longs to live again, he's lived long enough. Whereas Ulysses has driven by a desire to live more, and yet effectively they are coming from exactly the same place, which is the inevitability of change. And one of the things I think is so interesting is how Tennyson explores the simultaneous experience of things changing while remaining the same.

And In the case of Tithonus, the reference to the dawn, as you mentioned, and in this case it's his lover. But, you know, even if we're not all lovers of Eos, we all experience the dawn. And the dawn is a reminder of the cyclical nature of time. It is the same as it was yesterday, and yet it is also not the same as it was yesterday.

It's a new dawn and yet indistinguishable from the dawn that came before. We have a similar sense in Ulysses, with this notion of the world being boring and mundane and repetitive and seemingly nothing thrills him [00:43:00] about his life on Ithaca because it's all the same. And yet our passage through life is constantly changing.

the world of Ithaca at a glance may look identical day to day, year to year because it's the passage of life. People are living, dying, getting married, falling out, fighting, raising families, growing crops, and yet each individual moving through that life, they're affected by it.

There is a tension between the way in which the broad strokes of life don't seem to change very much, and yet each individual perspective of that permanent is colored by our own impermanence. And I think that's a really, really subtle thing that he's doing across these two poems, that relationship between things that are in flux and things that appear stagnant and dull and stale.

Now that I think is all we have time for today, but I, for one, loved that conversation. I've really enjoyed all the conversations we've had over this season of Beyond the Verse, another 10 episodes in the books. We've crossed the 50th episode boundary, that new landmark, [00:44:00] and we're already looking forward to getting to 75 and a hundred and a thousand.

But for now, it is goodbye from the team@poemanalysis.com for myself. And I just wanna say a final thank you to all of our listeners who've liked and subscribed, recommended the podcast either in this season or in the two years since we launched, we will be back for season five. We're gonna be exploring a whole other range of poets, movements, forms, and ideas.

I, for one, cannot wait, but for now, it's goodbye for me.

MAIYA: and goodbye from me with a massive, massive thank you to all our listeners until next season.