"The Two Voices" is a poem written by future Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom Alfred, Lord Tennyson between 1833 and 1834. It was included in his 1842 collection of Poems . Tennyson wrote the poem, titled "Thoughts of a Suicide" in manuscript, after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833. The poem was autobiographical. [1]
Tennyson explained, "When I wrote 'The Two Voices' I was so utterly miserable, a burden to myself and to my family, that I said, 'Is life worth anything?'" (Hill, 54). In the poem, one voice urges the other to suicide ("There is one remedy for all" repeated on lines 201 and 237); the poet's arguments against it range from vanity to desperation, yet the voice discredits all. The poem's ending delivers no conclusions, and has been widely criticized[ according to whom? ]—the poet finds no internal affirmation, invoking "solace outside himself" (Tucker). "The Two Voices" was published following a ten-year span (1832-1842) in which Tennyson did not publish anything, coinciding with what some call "one of the deafening silences of Victorian literary history". [2]
The poem is written in Iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme consisting of tercets (three lines of matching end rhyme). [3] It is 205 stanzas long (615 lines). It was praised for its depth and style.
The poem is believed to have been written in an experimental form of poetic dialogue: "Tennyson's chief purpose in writing the poem: the creation of a sustained poetic dialogue—the exploration of a road ultimately not taken in Tennyson's career." [4]
The poem follows the poet's struggle to argue convincingly against the voice that suggests suicide, which twice in the poem declares that "there is one remedy for all":
Then comes the check, the change, the fall,
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall,
There is one remedy for all. (ll. 163-165)
"Cease to wail and brawl!
Why inch by inch to darkness crawl?
There is one remedy for all.” (ll. 199-201) [5]
"The Two Voices" attracted the attention of the nineteenth-century philosopher and social scientist Herbert Spencer, who believed some of the theories between the poem and his own book, The Principles of Psychology, were interconnected. [6]
Jerome Buckley asserted that the poem is "tinged with Satanic irony", and "the voice of negation, cynical and realistic, puncturing a desperate idealism, forced upon the reluctant ego an awareness of man’s fundamental insignificance" and that it "remains intense as the colloquy of denial with doubt in the dark night of the soul". [7]
Basil Willey claimed: "Tennyson, in my view, should not be blamed…for failing to find a solution where no solution exists; nor should he be accused of wishful thinking when he asserts... that the Heart has its reasons of which Reason knows nothing." [8]
William R. Brashear's "Tennyson's Third Voice: A Note" points out that the argument is between "Dionysian" (emotional human nature) and "Socratic" (intellectual) voices. The Dionysian ("the still small voice") is of conscious, subjective fact. It "does not call upon the poet to reason, only to see that "it were better not to be".
The Socratic voice, whose "optimistic arguments are all objective", "utilizes a full assortment of rationales ranging from scientific faith in progress to Platonic ideas of immortality. But...it is feeble and impotent against the subjective fact."
The third voice is "hopeful rather than optimistic" and "simply bolsters the poet against the overpowering vision of futility". [9]
The poem has also received a considerable amount of criticism as one of Tennyson's less impressive poems. Published after a ten-year dry spell, being a more experimental poem for Tennyson, there are those who believe it does not exemplify his poetic genius as well as some of his other pieces. "The Two Voices" has been criticized as unnecessarily long and lacking any sort of literary resolution, that it "seems to be one of those works whose end cycles back to the beginning". [10] The ambiguity between all the voices involved has been considered to be too much for even the experienced reader to interpret and the meaning is too difficult to decipher. [11]
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including Republican Ireland after December 1922.
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse".
"Ulysses" is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is a popular example of the dramatic monologue. Facing old age, mythical hero Ulysses describes his discontent and restlessness upon returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, after his far-ranging travels. Despite his reunion with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, Ulysses yearns to explore again.
Narrative poetry is a form of poetry that tells a story, often using the voices of both a narrator and characters; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not need to rhyme. The poems that make up this genre may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be complex. It is normally dramatic, with various characters. Narrative poems include all epic poetry, and the various types of "lay", most ballads, and some idylls, as well as many poems not falling into a distinct type.
Alfred Austin was an English poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or refused the honour. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury in the General Election of 1895. Austin's poems are little remembered today, his most popular work being prose idylls celebrating nature. Wilfred Scawen Blunt wrote of him, “He is an acute and ready reasoner, and is well read in theology and science. It is strange his poetry should be such poor stuff, and stranger still that he should imagine it immortal.”
The poem "In Memoriam A.H.H." (1850) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is an elegy for his Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died of cerebral haemorrhage at the age of twenty-two years, in Vienna in 1833. As a sustained exercise in tetrametric lyrical verse, Tennyson's poetical reflections extend beyond the meaning of the death of Hallam, thus, "In Memoriam" also explores the random cruelty of Nature seen from the conflicting perspectives of materialist science and declining Christian faith in the Victorian Era (1837–1901), the poem thus is an elegy, a requiem, and a dirge for a friend, a time, and a place.
"The Charge of the Light Brigade" is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. He wrote the original version on 2 December 1854, and it was published on 9 December 1854 in The Examiner. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom at the time. The poem was subsequently revised and expanded for inclusion in Maud and Other Poems (1855).
Maud, and Other Poems (1855) was Alfred Tennyson's first published collection after becoming poet laureate in 1850.
— From Cantos 27 and 56, In Memoriam A.H.H., by Alfred Tennyson, published this year
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
"Invective Against Swans" is a poem by Wallace Stevens from his first book of poetry, Harmonium (1923).
"Flower in the Crannied Wall" is a poem composed by Alfred Tennyson in 1863 beside the wishing well at Waggoners Wells. The poem uses the image of a flowering plant - specifically that of a chasmophyte rooted in the wall of the wishing well - as a source of inspiration for mystical/metaphysical speculation and is one of multiple poems where Tennyson touches upon the topic of the relationships between God, nature, and human life.
Historical poetry is a subgenre of poetry that has its roots in history. Its aim is to delineate events of the past by incorporating elements of artful composition and poetic diction. It seems that many of these events are limited to the phenomenon of war, merely because war in and of itself foments not only hostilities amongst men, but also severely transposes the character of a society in general. The poetry of Walt Whitman, for instance, reflects scenes of the American Civil War which occurred during his lifetime.
The Princess is a serio-comic blank verse narrative poem, written by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1847. Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1850 to 1892 and remains one of the most popular English poets.
"Mariana" is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published in 1830. The poem follows a common theme in much of Tennyson's work—that of despondent isolation. The subject of "Mariana" is a woman who continuously laments her lack of connection with society. The isolation defines her existence, and her longing for a connection leaves her wishing for death at the end of every stanza. The premise of "Mariana" originates in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, but the poem ends before Mariana's lover returns. Tennyson's version was adapted by others, including John Everett Millais and Elizabeth Gaskell, for use in their own works. The poem was well received by critics, and it is described by critics as an example of Tennyson's skill at poetry.
"The Day-Dream" is a poem written by Alfred Tennyson that was published in 1842. It was an expanded version of his 1830 poem "The Sleeping Beauty". It was further altered in 1848 for a dramatic performance for a private gathering with Tennyson starring as the Prince. "The Day-Dream" discusses the nature of sleeping and of dreaming, especially in relation to individuals that would want to escape from reality. The poem also compares the act of poetry with dreaming and asserts that the two are the same.
Poems, by Alfred Tennyson, was a two-volume 1842 collection in which new poems and reworked older ones were printed in separate volumes. It includes some of Tennyson's finest and best-loved poems, such as Mariana, The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Two Voices, Sir Galahad, and Break, Break, Break. It helped to establish his reputation as one of the greatest poets of his time.
Nicholas Snowdon Willey also spelt Nicholas Snowden Willey (1946-2011) was an English poet.
"The Kraken" is a sonnet by Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) that describes the Kraken, a mythical creature. It was published in Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830).
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