the lotos eaters

عضو جديد

Context

The English poet Alfred Tennyson was born in Sommersby, England on August 6, 1809, twenty years after the start of the [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and toward the end of the [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. He was the fourth of twelve children born to George and Elizabeth Tennyson. His father, a church reverend, supervised his sons’ private education, though his heavy drinking impeded his ability to fulfill his duties. His mother was an avid supporter of the Evangelical movement, which aimed to replace nominal Christianity with a genuine, personal religion. The young Alfred demonstrated an early flair for poetry, composing a full-length verse drama at the age of fourteen. In 1827, when he was eighteen, he and his brother Charles published an anonymous collection entitled Poems by Two Brothers, receiving a few vague complimentary reviews.

That same year, Tennyson left home to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, under the supervision of William Whewell, the great nineteenth-century scientist, philosopher, and theologian. University life exposed him to the most urgent political issue in his day—the question of Parliamentary Reform, which ultimately culminated in the English Reform Bill of 1832. Although Tennyson believed that reform was long overdue, he felt that it must be undertaken cautiously and gradually; his university poems show little interest in politics.

Tennyson soon became friendly with a group of undergraduates calling themselves the “Apostles,” which met to discuss literary issues. The group was led by Arthur Henry Hallam, who soon became Tennyson’s closest friend. Tennyson and Hallam toured Europe together while still undergraduates, and Hallam later became engaged to the poet’s sister Emily. In 1830, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, to Hallam’s great praise. However, within the larger critical world, this work, along with Tennyson’s 1832 volume including [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] met with hostile disparagement; the young poet read his reviews with dismay.

In 1833, no longer able to afford college tuition, Tennyson was living back at home with his family when he received the most devastating blow of his entire life: he learned that his dear friend Hallam had died suddenly of fever while traveling abroad. His tremendous grief at the news permeated much of Tennyson’s later poetry, including the great elegy [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] This poem represents the poet’s struggles not only with the news of his best friend’s death, but also with the new developments in astronomy, biology, and geology that were diminishing man’s stature on the scale of evolutionary time; although [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] Origin of Species did not appear until 1859, notions of evolution were already in circulation, articulated in Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-33) and Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844).

Tennyson first began to achieve critical success with the publication of his Poems in 1842, a work that include[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and other famous short lyrics about mythical and philosophical subjects. At the time of publication, England had seen the death of [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], Byron, [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], and indeed all of the great Romantic poets except [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]; Tennyson thus filled a lacuna in the English literary scene. In 1845, he began receiving a small government pension for his poetry. In 1850, Wordsworth, who had been Britain’s Poet Laureate, died at the age of 80; upon the publication of “In Memoriam,” Tennyson was named to succeed him in this honor. With this title he became the most popular poet in Victorian England and could finally afford to marry Emily Sellwood, whom he had loved since 1836. The marriage began sadly—the couple’s first son was stillborn in 1851—but the couple soon found happiness: in 1853 they were able to move to a secluded country house on the Isle of Wight, where they raised two sons named Hallam and Lionel.

Tennyson continued to write and to gain popularity. His later poetry primarily followed a narrative rather than lyrical style; as the novel began to emerge as the most popular literary form, poets began searching for new ways of telling stories in verse. For example, in Tennyson’s poem “Maud,” a speaker tells his story in a sequence of short lyrics in varying meters; Tennyson described the work as an experimental “monodrama.” Not only were his later verses concerned with dramatic fiction, they also examined current national political drama. As Poet Laureate, Tennyson represented the literary voice of the nation and, as such, he made occasional pronouncements on political affairs. For example, [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] (1854) described a disastrous battle in the Crimean War and praised the heroism of the British soldiers there. In 1859, Tennyson published the first four Idylls of the King, a group of twelve blank-verse narrative poems tracing the story of the legendary King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This collection, dedicated to Prince Albert, enjoyed much popularity among the royal family, who saw Arthur’s lengthy reign as a representation of Queen Victoria’s 64-year rule (1837-1901).

In 1884, the Royals granted Tennyson a baronetcy; he was now known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He dedicated most of the last fifteen years of his life to writing a series of full-length dramas in blank verse, which, however, failed to excite any particular interest. In 1892, at the age of 83, he died of heart failure and was buried among his illustrious literary predecessors at Westminster Abbey. Although Tennyson was the most popular poet in England in his own day, he was often the target of mockery by his immediate successors, the Edwardians and Georgians of the early twentieth century. Today, however, many critics consider Tennyson to be the greatest poet of the Victorian Age; and he stands as one of the major innovators of lyric and metrical form in all of English poetry.
Analysis and Themes

Tennyson’s poetic output covers a breadth difficult to comprehend in a single system of thematics: his various works treat issues of political and historical concern, as well as scientific matters, classical mythology, and deeply personal thoughts and feelings. Tennyson is both a poet of penetrating introspection and a poet of the people; he plumbs the depths of his own consciousness while also giving voice to the national consciousness of Victorian society.

As a child, Tennyson was influenced profoundly by the poetry of Byron and Scott, and his earliest poems reflect the lyric intensity and meditative expressiveness of his Romantic forebears. These early poems demonstrate his ability to link external scenery to interior states of mind. However, unlike the Romantics, whose nature poems present a scene that raises an emotional or psychological problem, Tennyson uses nature as a psychological category. In [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] for example, he uses Keatsian descriptions of the natural world to describe a woman’s state of mind; he conveys via his natural setting the consciousness of a woman waiting vainly for her lover, and her increasing hopelessness.

Not only is Tennyson a poet of the natural and psychological landscape, he also attends frequently to the past, and historical events. [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and the poems within Idylls of the King take place in medieval England and capture a world of knights in shining armor and their damsels in distress. In addition to treating the history of his nation, Tennyson also explores the mythological past, as articulated in classical works of Homer, Virgil, and Dante. His [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] and [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] draw upon actual incidents in Homer’s [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. Likewise, his ode “To Virgil” abounds with allusions to incidents in the great poet’s [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], especially the fall of Troy. Tennyson thus looked both to historical and mythological pasts as repositories for his poetry.

Tennyson’s personal past, too, figures prominently in his work. The sudden death of his closest friend Arthur Henry Hallam when Tennyson was just 24 dealt a great emotional blow to the young poet, who spent the next ten years writing over a hundred poems dedicated to his departed friend, later collected and published as [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] in 1850. This lengthy work describes Tennyson’s memories of the time he spent with Hallam, including their Cambridge days, when Hallam would read poetry aloud to his friends: thus Tennyson writes, “O bliss, when all in circle drawn / About him, heart and ear were fed / To hear him, as he lay and read / The Tuscan poets on the lawn!” Tennyson grapples with the tremendous grief he feels after the loss of such a dear friend, concluding famously that “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.”

“In Memoriam” also reflects Tennyson’s struggle with the Victorians’ growing awareness of another sort of past: the vast expanse of geological time and evolutionary history. The new discoveries in biology, astronomy, and geology implied a view of humanity that much distressed many Victorians, including Tennyson. In Maud, for example, he describes the stars as “cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand/ His nothingness into man”; unlike the Romantics, he possessed a painful awareness of the brutality and indifference of “Nature red in tooth and claw.” Although Tennyson associated evolution with progress, he also worried that the notion seemed to contradict the Biblical story of creation and long-held assumptions about man’s place in the world. Nonetheless, in “In Memoriam,” he insists that we must keep our faith despite the latest discoveries of science: he writes, “Strong Son of God, immortal Love / Whom we, that have not seen they face, / By faith, and faith alone, embrace / Believing where we cannot prove.” At the end of the poem, he concludes that God’s eternal plan includes purposive biological development; thus he reassures his Victorian readers that the new science does not mean the end of the old faith.

Tennyson also spoke to his Victorian contemporaries about issues of urgent social and political concern. In “The Princess” he addresses the relations between the sexes and argues for women’s rights in higher education. In [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] he speaks out in favor of a controversial diplomatic maneuver, the disastrous charge on the Russian army by British troops in the Crimean War. Thus, for all his love of the past, Tennyson also maintained a lively interest in the developments of his day, remaining deeply committed to reforming the society in which he lived and to which he gave voice.

Themes, Motifs and Symbols

Themes

The Reconciliation of Religion and Science

Tennyson lived during a period of great scientific advancement, and he used his poetry to work out the conflict between religious faith and scientific discoveries. Notable scientific findings and theories of the Victorian period include stratigraphy, the geological study of rock layers used to date the earth, in 1811; the first sighting of an asteroid in 1801 and galaxies in the 1840s; and Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection in 1859. In the second half of the century, scientists, such as Fülöp Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, and Louis Pasteur, began the experiments and work that would eventually lead to germ theory and our modern understanding of microorganisms and diseases. These discoveries challenged traditional religious understandings of nature and natural history.

For most of his career, Tennyson was deeply interested in and troubled by these discoveries. His poem “Locksley Hall” (1842) expresses his ambivalence about technology and scientific progress. There the speaker feels tempted to abandon modern civilization and return to a savage life in the jungle. In the end, he chooses to live a civilized, modern life and enthusiastically endorses technology. In Memoriam connects the despair Tennyson felt over the loss of his friend Arthur Hallam and the despair he felt when contemplating a godless world. In the end, the poem affirms both religious faith and faith in human progress. Nevertheless, Tennyson continued to struggle with the reconciliation of science and religion, as illustrated by some of his later work. For example, “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After” (1886) takes as its protagonist the speaker from the original “Locksley Hall,” but now he is an old man, who looks back on his youthful optimism and faith in progress with scorn and skepticism.

The Virtues of Perseverance and Optimism

After the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, Tennyson struggled through a period of deep despair, which he eventually overcame to begin writing again. During his time of mourning, Tennyson rarely wrote and, for many years, battled alcoholism. Many of his poems are about the temptation to give up and fall prey to pessimism, but they also extol the virtues of optimism and discuss the importance of struggling on with life. The need to persevere and continue is the central theme of In Memoriam and “Ulysses” (1833), both written after Hallam’s death. Perhaps because of Tennyson’s gloomy and tragic childhood, perseverance and optimism also appear in poetry written before Hallam’s death, such as “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832, 1842). Poems such as “The Lady of Shalott” (1832, 1842) and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) also vary this theme: both poems glorify characters who embrace their destinies in life, even though those destinies end in tragic death. The Lady of Shalott leaves her seclusion to meet the outer world, determined to seek the love that is missing in her life. The cavalrymen in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” keep charging through the valley toward the Russian cannons; they persevere even as they realize that they will likely die.

The Glory of England

Tennyson used his poetry to express his love for England. Although he expressed worry and concern about the corruption that so dominated the nineteenth century, he also wrote many poems that glorify nineteenth-century England. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” praises the fortitude and courage of English soldiers during a battle of the Crimean War in which roughly 200 men were killed. As poet laureate, Tennyson was required to write poems for specific state occasions and to dedicate verse to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. Nevertheless, Tennyson praised England even when not specifically required to do so. In the Idylls of the King, Tennyson glorified England by encouraging a collective English cultural identity: all of England could take pride in Camelot, particularly the chivalrous and capable knights who lived there. Indeed, the modern conception of Camelot as the source of loyalty, chivalry, and romance comes, in part, from Tennyson’s descriptions of it in the Idylls of the King and “The Lady of Shalott.”

Motifs

Tragic Death

Early, tragic death and suicide appear throughout Tennyson’s poetry. Perhaps the most significant event of his life was the untimely death of his best friend Arthur Hallam at age twenty-two, which prompted Tennyson to write his greatest literary work, In Memoriam. This long poem uses the so-called In Memoriam stanza, or a quatrain that uses iambic tetrameter and has an abba rhyme scheme. The formal consistency expresses Tennyson’s grief and links the disparate stanzas together into an elegiac whole. The speaker of “Break, Break, Break” (1834) sees death even in sunsets, while the early “Mariana” (1830) features a woman who longs for death after her lover abandons her. Each of that poem’s seven stanzas ends with the line “I would that I were dead.” The lady in “The Lady of Shalott” brings about her own death by going out into an autumn storm dressed only in a thin white dress. Similarly, the cavalrymen in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” ride to their deaths by charging headlong into the Russian cannons. These poems lyrically mourn those who died tragically, often finding nobility in their characters or their deaths.

Scientific Language

Tennyson took a great interest in the scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century, and his poetry manifests this interest in its reliance on scientific language. “The Kraken” (1830), which describes an ancient, slumbering sea beast, mentions a “cell” (8) and “polypi” (9). Section 21 of In Memoriam alludes to the 1846 discovery of Neptune. There, a traveler tells the speaker not to grieve for his friend. Rather than grieve, the traveler says, the speaker should rejoice in the marvelous possibilities of science. Section 120, in contrast, features the speaker wondering what good science might do in a world full of religious doubt and despair. Other poems praise technological discoveries and inventions, including the steamships and railways discussed in “Locksley Hall,” or mention specific plants and flowers, as does “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832, 1842). Taking metaphors and poetic diction from science allowed Tennyson to connect to his age and to modernize his sometimes antiquarian language and archaic verse forms.

The Ancient World

Like the romantic poets who preceded him, Tennyson found much inspiration in the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome. In poems such as “The Lotos-Eaters” and “Ulysses,” Tennyson retells the stories of Dante and Homer, which described the characters of Ulysses, Telemachus, and Penelope and their adventures in the ancient world. However, Tennyson slightly alters these mythic stories, shifting the time frame of some of the action and often adding more descriptive imagery to the plot. For instance, “Ulysses,” a dramatic monologue spoken by Homer’s hero, urges readers to carry on and persevere rather than to give up and retire. Elsewhere Tennyson channels the voice of Tithonus, a legendary prince from Troy, in the eponymous poem “Tithonus” (1833, 1859). He praises the ancient poet Virgil in his ode “To Virgil” (1882), commenting on Virgil’s choice of subject matter and lauding his ability to chronicle human history in meter. Tennyson mined the ancient world to find stories that would simultaneously enthrall and inspire his readers.

Symbols

King Arthur and Camelot

To Tennyson, King Arthur symbolizes the ideal man, and Arthurian England was England in its best and purest form. Some of Tennyson’s earliest poems, such as “The Lady of Shalott,” were set in King Arthur’s time. Indeed, Tennyson rhymes Camelot, the name of King Arthur’s estate, with Shalott in eighteen of the poem’s twenty stanzas, thereby emphasizing the importance of the mythical place. Furthermore, our contemporary conception of Camelot as harmonious and magnificent comes from Tennyson’s poem. Idylls of the King, about King Arthur’s rise and fall, was one of the major projects of Tennyson’s late career. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert envisioned themselves as latter-day descendents of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and their praise helped popularize the long poem. But King Arthur also had a more personal representation to Tennyson: the mythic king represents a version of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, whose death at twenty-two profoundly affected Tennyson. Hallam’s death destroyed his potential and promise, which allowed Tennyson to idealize Hallam. This idealization allows Tennyson to imagine what might have been in the best possible light, much as he does when describing King Arthur and his court.

The Imprisoned Woman

The imprisoned woman appears throughout Tennyson’s work. In “Mariana,” a woman abandoned by her lover lives alone in her house in the middle of desolate country; her isolation imprisons her, as does the way she waits for her lover to return. Her waiting limits her ability and desire to do anything else. “The Lady of Shalott” is likewise about a woman imprisoned, this time in a tower. Should she leave her prison, a curse would fall upon her. Tennyson, like many other Victorian poets, used female characters to symbolize the artistic and sensitive aspects of the human condition. Imprisoned women, such as these Tennyson characters, act as symbols for the isolation experienced by the artist and other sensitive, deep-feeling people. Although society might force creative, sensitive types to become outcasts, in Tennyson’s poems, the women themselves create their own isolation and imprisonment. These women seem unable or unwilling to deal with the outside world.

The Lotos-Eaters is a [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] by [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], published in Tennyson's 1832 poetry collection. It was inspired by his trip to Spain with his close friend [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], where they visited the [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] mountains. The poem describes a group of mariners who, upon eating the [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], are put into an altered state and isolated from the outside world
Background

During summer 1829, Tennyson travelled to Spain, with his close friend Arthur Hallam, in order to help a group of Spanish rebels in northern Spain. While there, Tennyson was able to experience the Pyrenees, which influenced a few of his poems, including [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], The Lotus-Eaters and "[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]".^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]} The Lotos-Eaters was published in Tennyson's 1832 collection of poetry. Like many of the other major poems in that collection, it was later revised for Tennyson's 1842 collection.^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]} In the 1842 version, Tennyson adds a stanza before the last stanza, which describes how one can be whole even when there is loss. The stanza is connected to Tennyson's feelings after Hallam died in 1833.^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}
Poem

The mariners are put into an altered state when they eat the lotos. During this time, they are isolated from the world:^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave

To each, but whoso did receive of them

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave

Far far away did seem to mourn and rave

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;

And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,

And music in his ears his beating heart did make. (lines 28–36)

The mariners explain that they want to leave reality and their worldly cares:^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,

And utterly consumed with sharp distress,

While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things,

And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown;

Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,

'There is no joy but calm!"—

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? (lines 57–69)

The mariners demonstrate that they realize what actions they are committing and the potential results that will follow, but they believe that their destruction will bring about peace:^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,

And in a little while our lips are dumb.

Let us alone. What is it that will last?

All things are taken from us, and become

Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have

To war with evil? Is there any peace

In ever climbing up the climbing wave?

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

In silence—ripen, fall, and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. (lines 88–98)

Although the mariners are isolated from the world, they are connected in that they act in unison. This relationship continues until the very end when the narrator describes their brotherhood as they abandon the world:^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d

Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world;

Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song

Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,

Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;

Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,

Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,

Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;

Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell

Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,

Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore

Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;

O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. (lines 154–173)
Themes

The form of the poem contains a [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], which connects it to "[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]", [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], and Rizpah. However, Tennyson changes the monologue format to allow for ironies to be revealed.^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]} The story of The Lotos-Eaters comes from Homer's [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. However, the story of the mariners in Homer's work has an opposite theme than Tennyson's since the latter's mariners are able to recognize morality. Their arguments are also connected to the words spoken by Despair in Edumund Spenser's [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط], Book One. With the connection to Spenser, Tennyson's story depicts the mariners as going against Christianity. However, the reader is the one who is in the true dilemma, as literary critic [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] argues, "The final irony is that both the courageous Ulysses and the mariners who eat the lotos have an easier time of it than the reader; they, at least, can make choices and dissolve the tension."^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

Tennyson ironically invokes "The Lover's Tale" line 118, "A portion of the pleasant yesterday", in line 92 of The Lotos-Eaters: "Portions and parcels of the dreadful past". In the reversal, the idea of time as a protector of an individual is reversed to depict time as the destroyer of the individual. There is also a twist of the traditionally comic use of repetition within the refrain "Let us alone", which is instead used in a desperate and negative manner. The use of irony within The Lotos-Eaters is different from Tennyson's "[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]" since "the Lady" lacks control over her life. The mariners within The Lotos-Eaters are able to make an argument, and they argue that death is a completion of life. With this argument, they push for a release of tension that serves only to create more tension. Thus, the mariners are appealing yet unappealing at the same time.^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

In structure, The Lotos-Eaters is somewhere between the form of Oenone and The Hesperides. In terms of story, The Lotos-Eaters is not obscure like The Hesperides nor as all-encompassing as Oenone but it still relies on a frame like the other two. The frame is like The Hesperides as it connects two different types of reality, one of separation and one of being connected to the world. Like Oenone, the frame outlines the song within the poem, and it allows the existence of two different perspectives that can be mixed at various points within the poem. The perspective of the mariners is connected to the perspective of the reader in a similar way found in The Hesperides, and the reader is called to follow that point of view in order to enjoy the poem. As such, the reader is a participant within the work but they are not guided by Tennyson to a specific answer. As James Kincaid argues, "in this poem the reader takes over the role of voyager the mariners renounce, using sympathy for a sail and judgment for a rudder. And if, as many have argued, the poem is 'about' the conflict between isolation and communality, this meaning emerges in the process of reading."^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

The poem discusses the tension between isolation and being a member of a community, which also involves the reader of the poem. In the song, there are many images that are supposed to appeal to the reader. This allows for a sympathy with the mariners. When the mariners ask why everything else besides them are allowed peace, it is uncertain as to whether they are asking about humanity in general or only about their own state of being. The reader is disconnected at that moment from the mariner, especially when the reader is not able to escape into the world of bliss that comes from eating lotos. As such, the questioning is transformed into an expression of self-pity. The reader is able to return to being sympathetic with the mariners when they seek to be united with the world. They describe a system of completion, life unto death, similar to [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]'s "[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]", but then they reject the system altogether. Instead, they merely want death without having to have the growth and completion before death.^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}
Critical response

Tennyson's 1832 collection of poems was received negatively by the [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]. In particular, the April 1833 review by [ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط] claimed that The Lotus-Eaters was "a kind of classical opium-eaters" and "Our readers will, we think, agree that this is admirable characteristic; and that the singers of this song must have made pretty free with the intoxicating fruit. How they got home you must read in Homer: — Mr Tennyson — himself, we presume, a dreamy lotos-eater, a delicious lotus-eater — leaves them in full song."^{[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذا الرابط]}

عضو

gorgeous dndn keep moving forward

عضو متألق

thanks Dina

» The Lotos-Eaters by Alfred Tennyson