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The Idea of Mortality in Tennyson's Classical and Arthurian Poems: "Honor Comes with Mystery " Author(S): Gerhard Joseph Source: Modern Philology, Vol

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The Idea of Mortality in Tennyson's Classical and Arthurian Poems: The Idea of Mortality in Tennyson's Classical and Arthurian Poems: "Honor Comes with Mystery " Author(s): Gerhard Joseph Source: Modern Philology, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Nov., 1968), pp. 136-145 Published by: University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/435832 Accessed: 30-11-2015 08:28 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern Philology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 141.233.160.21 on Mon, 30 Nov 2015 08:28:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE IDEA OF MORTALITY IN TENNYSON'S CLASSICAL AND ARTHURIAN POEMS: "HONOR COMES WITH MYSTERY" GERHARD JOSEPH wo of AlfredTennyson's early To the extentthat Tennyson'smajor poems, "Nothing Will Die" and poetrytried to come to termswith this "All ThingsWill Die," open in their "dying sun," to reconcile the fact of verytitles the dialogue of contraryvoices decay and death with the beneficent that was to expressone of his obsessive God in whom he believed,his work may themes-the tragicinevitability of change be read as a lifelongstruggle to justify and human mortality.Throughout his the ways of a God of Love to himselfand work he was hypersensitiveto the possi- to his fellowVictorians. While the intellec- bilitythat a meaninglessdecay mightbe tual designof his theodicywas not start- the essentialprinciple of the cosmos. The linglynew, Tennyson did conveyhis vision oft-citedTennysonian "passion of the in the originaland powerfulimaginative past," the desireto fixin art momentsof structuresthat we associate witha major departedjoy, arose froma need both to poet. I should like in thisessay to sketch deny and pay a grudgingheed to ineluc- thatdeepening vision as it formeditself in table change. Such moving lyrics as the elegiac dignity,the allusiveness,and "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Break, Break, the sensuous concretenessof myth-to Break" capturethe lacrimaererum which suggest,in otherwords, that Tennyson's the memoryof days that are no more classical and Arthurianpoems, taken as a could make rise in the heart and gather body,explore the theme of naturalchange to the eyes of the poet. But it was the and human mortalityas the recurring mostcrushing personal instances of muta- confrontationof his eternal deities and bility-thedeath of a father,a friend,or a mortalheroes. son-that could transforma free-floating, habitual melancholyinto the intenseand I all-inclusivemourning of works like In Tennyson's earliest mythicconsidera- Memoriam and "Demeter and Perse- tion of mortality appears in "The phone." An apocalypticrunning down of Hesperides,"the fascinatingwork that he "all things" was the soft dirge that suppressedafter its initialappearance in Tennyson's priestessSorrow could hear his 1833 volume and that did not see echoing out from the death of Arthur printagain untilits publicationin Hallam Hallam to the extinctionof the human Tennyson'sMemoir of his fatherin 1897. race and to the finalwasting of the earth The body of the poem is the Song of the itself. Three Sistersthat the Carthaginiancom- hears while "The stars,"she whispers,"blindly run; mander,Hanno, sailingalong A webis wovenacross the sky; the westerncoast of Africa. In anxious Fromout wasteplaces comes a cry, song the Hesperidean Sisters ask their And murmursfrom the dying sun" fatherHesperus, the eveningstar, to help [In Memoriam,Vs. III].1 themkeep awake the dragonwho guards 1 All quotations from Tennyson's poetry, unless otherwise the sacred tree of the Hesperides lest noted are taken from The Poetic and Dramatic Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson,ed. W. J. Rolfe (Boston, 1898). Heracles, "one fromthe East," success- [Modern Philology, November, 19681 136 This content downloaded from 141.233.160.21 on Mon, 30 Nov 2015 08:28:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions MORTALITY IN TENNYSON'S CLASSICAL AND ARTHURIAN POEMS 137 fullysteal an apple fromit as his eleventh by the symbolof a holy fruittree in the labor. In the standardcritical explication, mythologicalsystems of the East.3 Because G. Robert Stange sees the poem as the apples are magic devices for gaining Tennyson'searly parable of the artist's immortality,the minorHesperidean god- secretlife, which must be activelydefended dessesmust againstthe destructive prying of theworld. ... watch,watch, night and day, The Hesperideansong defines"the spiri- Lest theold woundof theworld be healed, tual conditions under which the poetic The gloryunsealed, experience comes to life" and pays The goldenapple stolen away, rhapsodictribute to the raregenius of the And theancient secret revealed [11. 68-72]. that can flourish poetic imagination only That the "old wound of the world" may in a Western of art cut offfrom garden referto the fact of nature's mutability the of The sophistries ordinaryhumanity. and man's death is suggested by the of himself, daughters Hesperus,Hesperus Miltonic contextthat the poet supplies. and the who the tree dragon guard repre- Tennyson'sepigraph to thepoem, sentthe artistwho both nourishesthe tree of imaginationthrough song and at the Hesperusand his daughtersthree, That about same timedraws his vitalityfrom it.2 sing thegolden tree, Whilesuch a readingis in partconvinc- is taken fromthe Epilogue to Comus,in ing, thereare severalimportant lines that which the AttendantSpirit describeshis it does not seem to explain. What, for Edenic home (11. 976-1,023). That same instance,is "the old wound of the world" passage alludes to the mythof Adonis, that would "be healed" (1. 69) were the whose archetypal"deep wound" (11.999- golden apple stolenby Heracles? Or why 1,000) did indeed have its correlativein would "the world.. be overwise" (11. the old wound of the world, as a late 63-64) should the fruitbe taken? The Victorianlike Sir James Frazer has des- symbolicresonance of Tennyson'smyth- cribedin detail and as such sophisticated ological poems is unrestrictiveenough for mythologistsas Miltonand even the early us to see that while the "ancient secret" Tennyson would have known. Further- that Heracles intendsto steal may indeed more, given such a Miltonic key as the be thevatic key to poeticcreativity, it may Epigraph,we cannotavoid an association at thesame timebe theformula of immor- betweenthe "old wound" of "The Hes- talitythat would explain such otherwise perides"and the "wound" thatearth feels puzzlinglines. whenEve firsttastes of the apple in Para- The eternallife that man has attempted dise Lost (IX, 780-84), a wound that to wrestfrom the gods sincethe beginning bringsdeath and mutabilityinto the world.4 of time has frequentlybeen represented 3 See George Stanley Faber, The Origins of Pagan Idolatry (London, 1816),III, 231. W. D. Paden,in Tennysonin Egypt: 2 G. RobertStange, "Tennyson's Garden of Art: A Study A Study of the Imagery in His Earlier Work (Lawrence, Kan., of The Hesperides," PMLA, LXVII (1952), 732-43, and 1942),pp. 154-55,believes "The Hesperides"to be a thorough- reprinted in Critical Essays on the Poetry of Tennyson, ed. goingadaptation of Faber,a famousmythologist of theearly JohnKillham (London, 1960), pp. 99-112, fromwhich my nineteenthcentury whose work, Paden argues, supplied quotationsare taken."The Hesperides"was firstsingled out Tennysonwith a continuingsupply of myth,symbol, and as an interestingearly work by T. S. Eliot,who read it as an imagery.According to Faber's interpretationof all gentile illustrationof Tennyson'sclassical learningand masteryof mythologiesas versionsof a Mosaic archetype,the Garden meter (Essays Ancient and Modern [New York, 1936], pp. of the Hesperideswas a typeof Eden and Ararat,the Hes- 176-78). Douglas Bush seconded Eliot's high valuationof perideantree an adaptationof thefatal tree in Eden, and the the "remarkableHesperides," calling it "the purestpiece of HesperideanSisters themselves a triplicatedEve. Stange(n. 2 magic and mystery" (Mythology and the Romantic Tradition above), p. 109,feels that there is no conclusiveevidence that [Cambridge,Mass., 1937],pp. 200-201).It is theBush implica- Tennysonwas exposedto Faber's work. tion that "The Hesperides,"with its "weird mythological 4 The extentof Milton'sprofound influence upon Tennyson incantation,"is a workof pure mythmakingwhose music is is treatedin "Milton and Tennyson,"a chapterin JamesG. an end in itselfthat the Stangeessay is clearlyintended to Nelson's The Sublime Puritan: Milton and the Victorians counter. (Madison, Wis., 1963),pp. 106-25. This content downloaded from 141.233.160.21 on Mon, 30 Nov 2015 08:28:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 138 GERHARDJOSEPH The old woundof theworld that assures tion whetherhe gains the object of his the inevitabledeath of man differentiatesquest or not,because the gods are able to him fromthe gods. It mustbe kept from fendhim off or betrayhim with the weapon healing so that the Olympiangods will of mystery.The Sistersknow that remain unchallenged: Honorcomes with mystery; If thegolden apple be taken, Hoarded wisdombrings delight [11. 47-48]. The worldwill be overwise[11. 63-64]. Elsewherein his poetryTennyson claims Should Heracles,the hero in quest of the for his own uses the "quiet Gods" of ancient to steal the secret,manage apple Lucretius'De rerumnatura, deities who, and take it back into the East-the world "carelessof mankind," of activityand everydaylife in Tennyson's lifelongsymbolic geography-such "wis- ... lie beside theirnectar, and the bolts dom" in thepossession of humanitywould are hurl'd presumablyheal the wound and thereby Far belowthem in thevalleys, and theclouds threatenthe serenityand the veryrule of are lightlycurl'd Roundtheir withthe the gods. It is absolutelyimperative to goldenhouses, girdled world; their "eternal pleasure" (1.
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