Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' : Explanation 5 / Reference to Context


Are God and Nature then at strife,
       That Nature lends such evil dreams?
       So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life...

These lines have been taken from Lord Tennyson’s elegiac poem 'In Memoriam'. To be more specific, we must mention that this excerpt is from Lyric 55 of the said poem.

The poet, after the untimely death of his intimate friend named Arthur Henry Hallam, became mentally devastated. In this regard, we need to say that he composed these lines in the remembrance of his deceased chum.

Here, Tennyson oscillates like a pendulum between the Christian faith of the immortality of soul and the doubts born out of science. The poet wonders, therefore, that God and Nature might have a conflict between each other, since God represents eternal love but Nature emblematises the survival of the fittest. God infuses life but Nature ends us all one very day. In this context, God and Nature seem to be the combatants against each other. She appears to be careful though, she is actually too treacherous perchance.

Tennyson adds that Nature maintains every type of species, but she seems to be careless about each individual.

This stanza is written in the rhyme scheme of ABBA that constitutes a quatrain. Also, Nature has been thoroughly personified. Right here, the poet's sorrowful sighs can be audible. He feels broken down indeed. Moreover, the contrast between optimism and pessimism can be sensed in this elegy.


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