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In Memoriam is an elegy to Tennyson's friend Arthur Hallam, but bears the hallmark of its mid nineteenth century context - "the locus classics of the science-and-religion debate. " Upon reflection, Hallam's tragic death has proved to be an event that provoked Tennyson's embarkation upon a much more ambitious poetic project than conventional Miltonian elegy, involving meditation upon the profoundest questions faced by mankind. Scientific advancements, most notably in the fields of geology and biology, challenged the beliefs that form the foundation of Christianity: the belief in a beneficent God responsible for creation and ensuing superintendence and the belief in man's immortal soul. By the mid nineteenth century apologist arguments such as those of William Paley could no longer convincingly reconcile science and faith. In Memoriam stands as a work that truly represents the anxieties within the Victorian mind. Queen Victoria once remarked that In Memoriam was her closest consolation, after the bible, following her husband's death. This essay charts the consoling properties of In Memoriam and interrogates the notion of Tennyson as a reinvent of faith for the troubling scientific age.
There is a consensus among critics, such as Matches and Willey, that Lyell's Principles of Geology provoked much of Tennyson's troubling religious doubts that were to be compounded when his dearest friend was robbed from him. Lyell made no explicit challenge to Christian scripture (and indeed made attempts in his work to ensure readers did not interpret his work as such), but his assertion that the Earth's landscape was shaped by an extremely long and gradual process of weathering presupposed a much greater age for the Earth than was allowed for in biblical chronology. Essentially Lyell's theories questioned the Christian belief in Divine creation of the Earth over a period of seven days. Lyell's discussion of the discovery of fossilized remains of extinct animals was perhaps even more troubling because it questioned the existence of a beneficent providential power and the notion of divine superintendence. Principles of Geology was so earth-shattering because essentially it questioned the very validity of euthesitic belief, whether God really does have his eye cast on every sparrow that falls to earth. Brooke asserts that In Memoriam is "the story of the voyage of a soul" and in this spiritual odyssey LV and LVI represent the darkest stages of the journey.
They are Tennyson's trip through Hades. By personifying Nature and placing 'her' in opposition to God as a distinct power, Tennyson seems to imply a polytheistic belief that two, not one, seats of power exist. In these passages it seems that Tennyson perceives Nature to have greater influence over Earth and mankind. At the close of LV, God appears as distant and hidden in darkness, leaving man in a state analogous with that of a child - weak, vulnerable and desirous of care: he falls "upon the great world's altar stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God, " (lines 14 - 15). Metaphorically darkness represents the secrecy surrounding God and the answers that he holds, a motif that is revised at the close of LVI: "behind the veil, behind the veil. " The repetition of the clause emphasises Tennyson's frustrations. Indeed God seems so distant and hidden that Tennyson's faith in his existence is weakened and he is only able to "feel" and "faintly trust, " not resolutely know.
The lack of conviction conveyed here through Tennyson's semantic choices illustrates an emergence of disillusion with eu theistic belief. The existence of the Christian conception of a loving god is called into question, and it is implicitly asserted that the conception of Nature conveyed in these passages may be the true, di theistic, conception of God. That "of fifty seeds she often brings but one to bear" (LV line 7 - 8) envisages a large picture of organic existence, despairing of divinity's low value of individual beings, which seems to be but mere tiny components in a grand scheme. The uncaring Divine Being is "so careful of the type" (species) but not of the individual. The use of person found in those lines is repeated within Nature's dramatized voice in line six of LVI: "I bring to life, I bring to death. " The person demonstrates Nature's failure to distinguish between the concepts of life and death, just as she refuses to pay the same care to individual as the species. Life and death become meaningless.
The use of dramatized voice personalise's the issues. Here Nature is not a scientific system of laws but a consciously cruel being with a cold biological perception of man which is demonstrated by line seven of LVI: "the spirit does but mean the breath" - rejecting any notion of spirit as a transcendent sacred entity, playing upon the Latin translation of "spirit. " The existence of eternal life separate from the body is denied. Tennyson does not abolish faith in these passages, he reinvents his faith- one that is centred upon depressing di theistic belief. Tennyson emerges from the spiritual desolation later in his journey in CXVIII. Here Tennyson claims evolutionary theory for the faithful, using its scientific model to hypothesis a kind of spiritual evolution. He applies the motif of constant physical development found in evolutionary theory to a model of pious spiritual improvement.
Tennyson asserts that man is not only more advanced than the faun, ape and tiger biologically but also spiritually. He asserts that man does not only presage biologically advanced generations, but spiritually advancement that comes following physical death. Evolution is also seen as something that can occur within generations through the endurance of hardships. The anaphora used in the account of such hardships reveals a pounding resolve, contrasting the downbeat despair of LV and LVI. It is important to consider the fact that Tennyson has doubts, to the extent of a spiritual crisis, does not diminish his faith. This idea is expressed in XCVI.
The opening of this passage employs direct address, using the deictic expression "you. " The addressee is revealed in the following line to be towards a particular individual, one with "light-blue eyes." The addressee is exceptionally kind and compassionate- someone who is "tender over drowning flies. " Though she is widely felt to be Tennyson's future wife Emily Smallwood, she is never directly named. That deictic expressions hold no concrete meaning by nature intensifies such ambiguity. The childishly innocent addressee may then be interpreted as a representation of the religiously pure who refused to allow the thought of the scientific age began to gnaw away at their faith. Following this interpretive course, the proclamation reported in line four that "doubt is devil born, " is attributed to this group.
The sentiment is emphasised by its structurally privileged position and alliteration, encouraging reflection from the reader. It is a view that essentially champions restriction of thought and a childish state of innocence. It in this ignorant state that flies may be mourned, an attitude partly endearing and partly ridiculous. The following stanzas present Hallam's experience of faith as distinct to that of his addressee's through use of metaphor.
Firstly, Hallam's attainment of faith is compared to an artistic struggle, recounting how Hallam "touched a jarring lyre at first" (line seven) but was able to progress to be able "to beat his music out" (line 10). The comparison of attainment faith to a physical battle follows: "he fought his doubts and gather'd strength" (line thirteen). XCVI is a turning point in the poem because it asserts that faith is not, and should not be, blind. Rather than being sinful Tennyson proclaims that "honest doubt" has a valid place in religion, and may indeed give rise to stronger faith, contradicting the proclamation reported in line four. Tennyson reinvents faith here in the sense that he refutes the perception of its strongest form being blind and un shifting. By writing "he would not make his judgement blind" (line fourteen) he imagines a healthy coexistence of faith and science, as Hallam is shown to have faith yet simul...
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