"Tears, Idle Tears" is a lyric poem written in 1847 by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) 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 ...

(1809–1892), the Victorian-era English poet. Published as one of the "songs" in his ''The Princess'' (1847), it is regarded for the quality of its lyrics. A Tennyson anthology describes the poem as "one of the most

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

ian of Tennyson's poems and perhaps his most famous lyric".Hill (1971), p. 114. Readers often overlook the poem's blank verseHough, Graham (1951), p. 187. "'Tears, Idle Tears'." In Killham (1960), p. 186–191.—the poem does not rhyme. Tinternabbey1993 L

Analysis

Tennyson was inspired to write "Tears, Idle Tears" upon a visit to

Tintern Abbey Tintern Abbey ( cy, Abaty Tyndyrn ) was founded on 9 May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow. It is situated adjacent to the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye, which at this location forms the bo ...

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, wit ...

, an abbey that was abandoned in 1536. He said the convent was "full for me of its bygone memories", and that the poem was about "the passion of the past, the abiding in the transient."

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

also wrote a poem inspired by this location in 1798, "

", which develops a similar theme. While Tintern Abbey may have prompted the poem, it seems unlikely that its powerful emotion derives only from a generalised feeling for the past. The final stanza in particular strongly suggests Tennyson's unhappy attachment to the lovely Rosa Baring, whose wealthy family lived in Harrington Hall, a short distance from Tennyson's Somersby. Rosa's family evidently disapproved of Rosa's continued relationship with the son of Somersby's alcoholic clergyman, and she ultimately severed the connection. The "kisses . . .by hopeless fancy feign'd/on lips that are for others" and the ''cri de coeur'' "Deep as first love, and wild with all regret" seem to have little to do with Tintern Abbey, and much to do with a personal disappointment in love. (Ralph Wilson Rader, ''Tennyson's'' Maud: ''The Biographical Genesis'', 1963) "Tears, Idle Tears" is noted for its lyric richness, and for its tones of paradox and ambiguity—especially as Tennyson did not often bring his doubts into the grammar and symbolism of his works. The ambiguity occurs in the contrasting descriptions of the tears: they are "idle", yet come from deep within the narrator; the "happy autumn-fields" inspire sadness. Literary critic Cleanth Brooks writes, "When the poet is able, as in 'Tears, Idle Tears', to analyze his experience, and in the full light of the disparity and even apparent contradiction of the various elements, bring them into a new unity, he secures not only richness and depth but dramatic power as well." Critic

Graham Hough Graham Goulden (or Goulder) Hough (14 February 1908 – 5 September 1990) was an English literary critic, poet, and Professor of English at Cambridge University from 1966 to 1975. Life Graham Hough was born in Great Crosby, Lancashire, the son of ...

in a 1953 essay asks why the poem is unrhymed, and suggests that something must be "very skillfully put in hyme'splace" if many readers do not notice its absence. He concludes that "Tears, Idle Tears" does not rhyme "because it is not about a specific situation, or an emotion with clear boundaries; it is about the great reservoir of undifferentiated regret and sorrow, which you can brush away...but which nevertheless continues to exist". Readers tend not to notice the lack of rhyme because of the richness and variety of the

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

sounds Tennyson employs into the poem. ( T. S. Eliot considered Tennyson an unequalled master in handling vowel sounds; see, for example, Tennyson's " Ulysses".) Each line's end-sound—except for the second-last line's "regret"—is an

open vowel An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue. In the cont ...

or a

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

or consonant group that can be drawn out in reading. Each line "trails away, suggesting a passage into some infinite beyond: just as each image is clear and precise, yet is only any instance" of something more universal. The poem, one of the "songs" of ''The Princess'', has been set to music a number of times.

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. His principal ...

put the lyric to music in the 19th century, and

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

' pianistic setting of 1903 was described by ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' as "one of the most beautiful settings in existence of Tennyson's splendid lyric".Kennedy, Michael (1992). ''The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams'', Oxford University Press, 51. .

Notes

References

* Hill, Robert W., Jr., ed. (1971). ''Tennyson's poetry; authoritative texts,

juvenilia Juvenilia are literary, musical or artistic works produced by authors during their youth. Written juvenilia, if published at all, usually appears as a retrospective publication, some time after the author has become well known for later works. ...

and early responses, criticism''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. . *

External links

* {{Alfred Tennyson Poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1847 poems