| 520 |
|
|
|b This study intends to look into the reality of the conclusions Tennyson designs for many of his famous poems. The investigation reveals that the poet uses a variety of conclusions to end his poems, ranging from inconclusive, open-ended, confusing, contradictory, life-like, parable-like, and various others, perhaps to serve a certain purpose of his own that may help make his poetry more popular. \ A careful reading of Tennyson’s poetry gives an indication of his peculiar way of making conclusions. Christopher Ricks is one of those readers who is alert to this peculiarity, and during the course of his reading he has observed that many of Tennyson’s poems end with quotation marks, that twenty-nine out of Tennyson’s forty-five early contributions end with exclamation marks and a further five with question marks. Ricks goes on to apply his observations not only to the early contributions but also to the later ones, and finds that in In Memoriam “and the later poems do [Tennyson] use such an ending, though very infrequently.” (1) \ Some other readers like David W. Shaw lend support to and, perhaps, justify Ricks' above observations when they say that Tennyson’s “best poems combine directness and indirectness. Tremors of doubt and nuance express inward reserves. The poems tremble always at halfway points, at moments of transition or uncertainty.”(2) \ Some other readers talk about confusion, and accuse the poet of having a muddled mind. They maintain that Tennyson repeats himself again and again within the same poem to a point that the reader loses attention and becomes confused as he looks for the final conclusion. However, still others justify this method and consider it to be not a fault, but rather a necessity: \ Tennyson’s circular 'over and overing1 of ideas is not a defect of thought, but a method - one brilliantly employed and defended by Heidegger: ‘ordinary understanding demands that this circle be avoided because it violates logic, [but] we are compelled to follow the circle. This is neither a makeshift nor a defect. To enter upon this path is the strength of thought, to continue on it is the feast of thought. (3) \ Shaw continues defending Tennyson’s use of circular method of communication: \ Tennyson drives towards stable identity, and the endless refraction of such identity through masks and mirrors, make his poems circle back on themselves....but its energy, constructively released by the dissolving forms, allows Tennyson’s poetry to be no more stabilizing than the quick decay and change of concrete life permit. (4) \ Other readers go too far in accusing Tennyson of inability to present a comprehensive story. For example, T. S. Eliot maintains: \ “For narrative Tennyson had no gift at all, Tennyson could not tell a story at all... .Tennyson’s flawed sense of time lent itself not to narrative, not to charting events and outcomes, but to waiting, to suspense.” (5) \ Some other critics, however, display a somewhat more moderate stance and suggest that “Tennyson was uneasy about how to end a poem.”[any poem] (6)
|
