Idylls of the Hearth: Enoch Arden and the Creation of Paradise
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Idylls of the Hearth:
Enoch Arden and the Creation of Paradise
A. G. Ruperto
A Thesis in the Field of English Literature and Writing for the degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies
Harvard University
November 2017
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Abstract
This thesis examines a theme of natural theology exhibited in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s
“Enoch Arden.” It surveys the text’s thematic experiments with scenery and spirituality, as well as the strategies governing its narrative during the cultural and religious transformation of
Victorian England. Modernist epistemology has exposed Tennyson’s devotion to nature poetry, as well as his progressive understanding of spirituality through acute observation and visualization of the environment. This study traces that progress from the poet’s celebrated early works to the later and lesser-known Idylls of the Hearth, published as Enoch Arden, Etc. “Enoch
Arden,” the titular installment of this publication, will be the primary focus of my research. This poem displays a phenomenological view of nature, where spiritual connections manifest between characters and their settings—a theme pervading many works throughout Tennyson’s career, when he sought spiritual enlightenment above literary fame, and rural habitation above modern luxury. My readings are informed by interdisciplinary contributions to Tennysonian literature including biographies, contemporary studies, and periodical reviews. My research concludes that natural theology operates as the central feature of “Enoch Arden,” and many of Tennyson’s narratives. It demonstrates that by textually conceptualizing environmental designs, and humanity’s place within those designs, the poet remedied his lifelong anxieties about the existence of God and an afterworld.
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Dedication
For my parents—my idols.
If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever.
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Acknowledgements
To simply acknowledge the following people would not suffice, because I owe them a debt of gratitude. On this long journey through the ALM program I have had the privilege of working with Sarah Powell, my academic advisor, Talaya Delaney, my thesis advisor, and
Professor Robert Kiely, my thesis director. Thank you, Sarah, for introducing me to the Harvard community, and for helping me navigate the field of English literature. Thank you for exhibiting a high standard of decorum, intellect, poise, and warmth that reminded me why I was seeking my degree, that I was in the company of serious academics, and most importantly, that I was in the company of good people. Thank you, Talaya, for patiently listening to all of my convoluted ideas, and subtly teaching me the ways of thoughtful redirection. Thank you for your guidance, your grace, and your wisdom. Thank you for being present and available. Thank you for being a bridge over troubled water, and a flame in the dark. Thank you, Professor Kiely, for imparting your knowledge to this humble student. Thank you for taking a chance on me, for entrusting me as your faculty aide and your thesis candidate. Thank you for our conversations, and for your inspiration. Thank you for teaching me to be a better writer. Thank you for teaching me to be a better man.
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Table of Contents
Dedication …………………………………..………..……………………………....……...…... 3
Acknowledgements ………………………………..…………..………..……………...... 4
List of Tables …………………………………………………………...…...…...……...... … 5
I. Introduction ………………………………………………………...…....………....……. 6
II. Natural Theology and Tennyson’s Early Career ……....……...…...... …...……...… 22
III. Natural Theology in Enoch Arden .…...……...………………...... …...………...…...… 33
IV. Summary and Conclusions …………………………………….……………...…....….. 59
V. Bibliography …………………………………………………..……...…………...….... 63
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Chapter I
Introduction
A complex depiction of Alfred, Lord Tennyson as both naturalist and spiritualist can be traced through a range of scholarship generated since his tenure as poet laureate of Victorian
England. Framed in a culture of industrialization and scientific discovery, his legacy endures as much for his convoluted religious beliefs as for his skill as a writer. The metaphorical presence of God dominates Tennysonian literature, pervading the minds of its characters as well as the settings they inhabit. Often this includes a theological paradox of doubt and faith, reflecting the broader context of 19th-century Anglicanism when laypersons felt compelled to reexamine the depths of their convictions.1 Modernist epistemology has contributed much in this regard to the tributive elegy “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” and generally maintains that Tennyson struggled to define his beliefs in the natural and supernatural worlds following the unexpected death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam. This notion is perpetuated in a well-known biography written by Sir
Harold Nicolson,2 who claims that “the death of Hallam was, as in the whole of ‘In Memoriam,’ fused into his almost morbid perplexity about faith and doubt and immortality” (128). In fact,
Tennyson’s conflict with religion preceded the loss of his friend. His doubts about faith and immortality were built on a lifelong obsession with nature, which he perceived as calculating and chaotic, productive and destructive, wondrous and merciless. While nature had granted Hallam
1 The Victorian Anglicans were pressed between the Protestant Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Many felt the adoption of a foreign version of Christianity was against nationalistic values, while the arrival of the industrial revolution and modern culture tested their beliefs as Christians altogether. 2 All references to Nicolson are to Tennyson: Aspects of His Life, Character and Poetry (New York: Doubleday, 1962).
7 life, it had then abruptly taken it from him. Tennyson was forever vexed by the injustice of such death, which had come prematurely to many gifted and virtuous human beings. He began to question the fundamental tenets of Christianity, including the benevolence and existence of God, and the concepts of a human soul and an afterlife. But he also questioned the modern Victorian’s disengagement with nature, which seemed unnatural and somehow at odds with God’s plan.
With this in mind, he painstakingly searched for signs of rebirth in his surroundings, while struggling to balance domestic normalities with the complex, invisible laws of faith. In this way his career suffused literary artistry with natural theology.3
Epitomizing the modern Renaissance man, Tennyson took an extracurricular interest in natural sciences like astronomy, biology, and geology at an early age. His departure from writing was impelled not only by the rapid modernization of post-industrial England, but also by the toxic atmosphere that permeated his household.4 AJ Meadows notes that the young Tennyson was “struggling to cope with his personal problems,” including the dysfunction within his family, and therewith “set himself a rigorous program of study...something approaching half of these studies were devoted to science” (112).5 This routine prompted a teleological examination of Christian cosmogony, specifically the creation of the earth and the presence of unseen forces.
For all its complexity, Tennyson began to see the universe as possessing a systemic exactness, like the thumbprint of God. According to Nicolson, he enjoyed a sort of “earth worship” that
3 Natural theology is typically defined as a branch of philosophy of theology which attempts to either prove God’s existence, define God’s attributes, or derive correct doctrine based solely from human reason or observations of the natural world. 4 The infamous ructions of the Tennyson family preceded Alfred’s fame. George Tennyson was a violent alcoholic, embittered after being disinherited in favor of his younger brother, Charles, who lived in a castle. One of twelve children, Alfred held a lifelong fear of epilepsy and mental illness, predominant in his family and misunderstood in Victorian medicine. His brother Arthur also suffered from chronic alcoholism, while his brother Edward was admitted to a mental institution in 1833. 5 All references to Meadows are to Astronomy and Geology, Terrible Muses! Tennyson and 19th- Century Science (Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London: Vol. 46, No. 1, 1992).
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“smacks often of the microscope.” Eventually, the quest for technical knowledge became one of spiritual reification. Tennyson was especially concerned with life after death, creationism, and the arcane foundations of religion. He committed to explore these mysteries, consciously and subconsciously, in his writing. And it was this state of suspense, between heaven and earth, to which he owed his stylistic debts.
Tennyson’s poetic career developed on the heels of his predecessor, William
Wordsworth, who served as Britain’s poet laureate from 1843 to 1850. Together they bookmarked the beginning and end of the Victorian era, while leaving an indelible mark on the literary world. Wordsworth’s romantic poetry utilized a refreshingly colloquial language laced with psychological observation and philosophical inquiry.6 Tennyson, meanwhile, brought a progression from the more simple and ascetic style of traditional rhyme poetry to a newer narrative poetry, including dramatic monologue.7 “Ulysses,” his reimagining of Homer’s
Odyssey, is considered a pioneering example of this technique, where Tennyson’s aging, introspective hero somberly recounts his nautical voyages and mercantile pursuits, and realizes his discontent with domestic life after returning home to Ithaca:
It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. (88)8
6 Like Tennyson many of Wordsworth’s poems, such as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” are replete with environmental metaphors: “I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o’er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils; beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze.” 7 A poem written in the form of a speech of an individual character; it compresses into a single vivid scene a narrative sense of the speaker’s history and psychological insight into his character. 8 Tennyson: Poems (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, New York, 2012).
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Dramatic monologue is also featured in Tennyson’s later prosaic works like Idylls of the King and “Enoch Arden,” in which the poet’s voice is replaced with that of a character or omniscient narrator. Tennyson used this mode of writing to lend personal and situational insight into his characters’ thoughts, effectively making them more lifelike and relevant. But rather than florid rhyme or superfluous style, he would rely on scenic depictions to convey deeper meaning.
As England urbanized, Tennyson became more preoccupied with his surroundings, and an implicit correspondence developed between his characters and scenery. He found a unique canvas for his writing in the great outdoors, where he perceived something beyond artificial construction and human ambition. It was something bordering on the supernatural, with a mind of its own, and a decipherable formula for the mysteries of the universe. He began to rely on environmental patterns as evidence of a divine framework, and routinely applied this framework as a stage for his poetry. A self-taught understanding of the earth, sea, and stars consistently manifests in his works, where elemental forces create a link between mortal and celestial entities.
Many scholars came to appreciate this feature of his writing, including the Victorian astronomer
Sir Norman Lockyer, who commemorated his contributions to nature poetry in Tennyson as a
Student and Poet of Nature.9 In Tennyson’s poems Lockyer observes that “although nature appears cruel in her methods, all changes lead to ultimate good” (22). Nicolson, for his part, recognized that “the nature poetry of Tennyson so often deals, on the one hand, with the tiny and incidental phenomena of the foreground and, on the other, with the vast and illimitable movements in the background,” but failed to sufficiently expand on Tennyson’s commitment to nature themes by saying “on Tennyson’s nature poetry there will be much appreciation to be lavished at a later stage” (238). Tennyson’s works are also considered by many of his readers to
9 All references to Lockyer are to Tennyson as a Student and Poet of Nature (Macmillan and Co: London, 1910).
10 be pastoral in their narrative form. And indeed, much of his writing can be identified through this type of literature, which typically highlights an agrarian backdrop as the crux of a profound religious lesson. But as Randy Fertel explains, “pastoral” is too simple a concept to apply to
Tennyson’s works.10 This is especially true of Idylls of the King, where King Arthur must endure a hostile wilderness outside the protected walls of Camelot: “As a pastoral figure, Arthur learns that things are not so simple as they had seemed when he first rang in the Golden Age, that simplicity does not suffice. Both the title of Tennyson’s poem and his central character partake of pastoral associations, but they do so only to call into question the pastoral ideals of spontaneity, simplicity, innocence, and the benignity of nature” (339). Good and evil, therefore, are often mutually exclusive in Tennyson’s narratives. The forces of nature, and surely the forces of man, are unpredictable and nonlinear.
Tennyson often disguises biblical lessons from his readers, and throughout his career he used imagery and phrasing from the Bible for inspiration. The King James Version11 was especially helpful in furnishing him with rich and varied ideas, which require his readers’ care and contemplation to fully understand. Edna Moore Robinson observes that “The Bible is familiar to all. Tennyson’s other material is less familiar. The way of using the familiar, once clearly seen, is a key to the use of the unfamiliar” (ix).12 She also notes that “he frequently reversed the order or meaning of a scriptural expression or gave it an unexpected change of application...Tennyson is found comparing non-scriptural things with scriptural in such a way as to give the outside thing greater clearness or greater beauty” (7). This is certainly true of “Enoch
Arden,” which apart from its title scarcely resembles the non-canonical Book of Enoch. This is
10 All references to Fertel are to “Anti-pastoral and the Attack on Naturalism in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.” (West Virginia University Press: Victorian Poetry 19.4, 1981). 11 All references to the Bible are to The Authorized King James Version (Oxford UP, 1998). 12 All references to Robinson are to Tennyson’s Use of the Bible (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1917).
11 because most of Tennyson’s scriptural parallels lie below the surface of his works, visible only to the discerning scholar. He would often interpret scriptural themes and expressions in a modern context, while Victorian England was becoming more uncertain of its religious identity. By reforming Christian doctrine in this manner, he sought to clarify and evolve his own sense spirituality. These trends are evident in his works, which also evolved throughout his career.
Robinson notes that these “larger modes and attitudes definitely had a chronological succession.
They evidently coincided with the main divisions or periods of the poet’s artistic life and work...Tennyson’s own personal experiences, moreover, vibrated in sensitive sympathy with all the great scientific and theological evolution and revolutions of the sixty years through which his poetical work extended” (12). To be clear, any reader of Tennyson’s can understand the breadth of religious significance in his works. The stanzas of “In Memoriam,” for example, are replete with notable terms like “Eden,” “Mary,” “paradise,” “seraphic,” and “Son of God,” while the blank verse of “Enoch Arden” incorporates at least eighteen examples of biblical terminology into its prose. But for all their biblical allusions and connotations, the simple underlying message in Tennyson’s works is to find faith, meaning, and purpose in the natural cycle of life and death.
An avid reader will notice that his stories usually come full circle to reveal a redeeming message in the conclusion—one that provides hope for life after death. If a pastoral ideal could not be found in his immediate surroundings, Tennyson would find it in his stories. His works, therefore, are not simply pastoral, they are theological.
For Tennyson, storytelling operated through material and immaterial constructs, whereby he could confront the uncertainty of his everyday life. His emotional reaction to the environment was itself a product of his fevered thoughts of life after death, and his obsession with biological realism raised questions about the natural objective of a mortal human being. This feature of his
12 writing ripened with age, along with his own spiritual beliefs, which were staggered against
Victorian customs. Where Victorian society conceptualized normal domestic life in terms of safety, enclosure, and artificial amenities, he saw it as a delicate balance between environments created by man and those created by God. Factories, cathedrals, and lavish estates were to him a departure from God’s work. Instead, nature held the key to man’s destiny and purpose. John D.
Rosenberg13 elaborates that his writing “transports us into a world more still, more mysterious, and clearer than that of our waking lives. To turn the image around, Tennyson’s dreams are more vivid than our realities. He is not an escapist, as his critics of the past generation have foolishly charged, but a hyper-realist” (307). Likewise, the later works of Tennyson’s career, especially
Enoch Arden, Etc., were about more than his own professional ambition. They provided an outlet for his cognitive development, to define tangible and intangible realities, and to make sense of his planetary existence. Like many Victorians his faith was put to the test, and he became entrenched in what Michael Tomko calls “a Victorian war between science and religion” (113).14
Ultimately there was no epiphanic moment in Tennyson’s lifetime to reassure him of the existence of God. Instead, it was the self-correcting ability of almighty nature that constantly restored his faith. Somewhere, someone or something was in charge.
A retelling of “The Fisherman’s Story” and “The Sermon” was suggested to Tennyson by his colleague Thomas Woolner, at the behest of Emily, Lady Tennyson, to relieve a spell of inactivity while summering at his estate, Farringford, on the Isle of Wight. Tennyson’s reputation as a recluse was espoused in part because of his aversion to crowded urban environments, while the remoteness and natural beauty of his Farringford allowed him to enjoy provincial activities
13 All references to Rosenberg are to Tennyson and the Landscape of Consciousness (Victorian Poetry, 12.4, 1974). 14 All references to Tomko are to Varieties of Geological Experience: Religion, Body, and Spirit in Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” and Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” (West Virginia University Press: Victorian Poetry, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2004).
13 like gardening and tree carving. In many ways this adopted lifestyle embodied the pastoral image
Tennyson so often portrayed in his works. But as Emily knew, it could also trigger an inveterate symptom of idleness. In 1859, following the success of Idylls of the King and the early childhood of sons Hallam and Lionel, his writing stagnated. It was at this point that Emily wrote to
Woolner “I wish you would give Alfred something to do...Beyond all price to me would be a worthy subject...one which would fix him” (Nicolson 160). Woolner responded with two plotlines, which Tennyson later titled “Enoch Arden” and “Aylmer’s Field.” Both stories had roots in English folklore, and beyond a schematic outline Woolner’s contribution was limited.
But some scholars have been quick to assign inflated credit to him, suggesting that Tennyson brought little creativity to the works provided. Patrick G. Scott finds this “conspiracy” to be a distorted account of events, as there were critics who would exaggerate that “Woolner supplied nearly every detail” (9).15 Scott rightly disputes such claims, insisting that “Tennyson was not slavishly following somebody else’s outline,” and recalls Hallam Tennyson’s assessment of “The
Fisherman’s Story” and “The Sermon” as “very slight sketches...which my father considerably enlarged and altered” (9). Regarding “Enoch Arden,” Scott finds that Nicolson’s stilted evaluation “gave a false picture of the poem. Tennyson chose the subject deliberately himself and chose one particular version at a time when the general story was current in many forms. He wrote his poem, and polished its style, with considerable care, and in no special hurry. He had chosen also the version which showed the returning seafarer as most heroic and self sacrificing”
(11). A close reading further reveals Tennyson’s expansive development of the story by naming its characters and constructing their individual narratives, as well as by highlighting geographic
15 All references to Scott are to Tennyson’s Enoch Arden: A Victorian Best-Seller (Lincoln: Tennyson Society Monographs, No. 2, 1970).
14 and religious symbolism. The revised title is also uniquely symbolic,16 invoking The Book of
Enoch and the biblical ancestor of Noah—whose seagoing ark echoes the story’s nautical overtones—while “Arden” likely derives from the Forest of Arden in Shakespeare’s As You Like
It.17 “The Fisherman’s Story,” then, belongs to English folklore. But “Enoch Arden” belongs to
Tennyson.
“Aylmer’s Field” was based on Woolner’s prose treatment of “The Sermon,” which was purportedly derived from historical accounts in Suffolk. But the story effectively became
Tennyson’s in its structure, style, and thematic heft. John Batchelor18 identifies the “promising resonances” the concept had for the poet, including that “several of its details could be directly linked to his own early manhood” (269). Sir Aylmer Aylmer’s rebuke of his daughter Edith’s relationship with Leolin, the brother of a low-born parish rector, brought back memories for
Tennyson of his bygone romance with the wealthy Rosa Baring, who rejected his courtship because of his lower social status, as well as the disinheritance of his father, Reverend George
Clayton Tennyson, from the family fortune. And while Lady Emily thought the story “very grand and very finely told,” her husband did not find it easy to adapt. According to Batchelor,
“Woolner’s prose treatment did not engage him. He took long breaks from it” (270). Vital to
Tennyson’s pursuance of “The Sermon” was its landscape imagery, which he relied on to smoothen the complex prose and scheme. Francis Bertram Pinion19 finds that “Unlike “Enoch
Arden,” it fails to sustain general lucidity, and tends to be labored. Tennyson found the story
16 According to Elizabeth Waterston, “Tennyson’s wife didn’t like the title [Idylls of the Hearth] and as a tribute to the idyllic domesticity she had created for him, he renamed the book” (The Crawford Symposium, 61). 17 On his deathbed, Tennyson repeatedly asked for his copy of Shakespeare’s plays. 18 All references to Batchelor are to Tennyson: To Strive, to Seek, to Find (London: Pegasus, 2014). 19 All references to Pinion are to A Tennyson Companion: Life and Works (London: Macmillan, 1984).
15 incalculably difficult to tell, the facts being so prosaic, but liked the landscape and cottage- garden scenes—a reversion to idyllic vignettes” (169). These idyllic vignettes would become a recurring theme in Tennyson’s poetry, and the vessel for many of his creative ventures. While showcasing his talent for dramatic visualization, they also represent a quintessentially English notion of territorial providence.20 “Aylmer’s Field” is replete with topographic symbolism, including a physical barrier between parishioners and the landed gentry. This theme mirrors one of divine retribution where Sir Aylmer Aylmer, sardonically described as “that almighty man, the county God,” becomes obsessed with hierarchical birthrights and “mammon-worship,”21 leading to the ruin of his ancestral home. The tragic events that unfold juxtapose the powers of mortal and organic creation. Just as “the great Hall was wholly broken down, and the broad woodland parcelled into farms,” so too does “Aylmer’s Hall” make its reversion to “Aylmer’s
Field.”
The synchronization of nature and religion in Enoch Arden, Etc. cannot be overemphasized. Virtually every narrative in this publication is governed by elemental forces that issue the salvation or damnation of its characters. We see this from the start in “Enoch
Arden,” as young Enoch, Annie, and Philip build sand castles “among the waste and lumber of the shore,” only to “watch them overflow’d” (10). According to Winston Collins,22 “the conflict within Enoch between temporal material values and spiritual values of permanence constitutes the main matter of “Enoch Arden.” The poem opens with a description of a world of natural mutability in which human endeavors and humanity itself seem doomed by the flux of the sea
20 In the unpublished poem “Hail, Briton!” Tennyson responds to the ‘revolts’ and ‘revolutions’ afflicting mainland Europe, grateful for the independence endowed to England as an island nation surrounded by water: “God bless the narrow seas! I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.” 21 A term from the New Testament, meaning the worship of money. 22 All references to Collins are to Enoch Arden, Tennyson’s Heroic Fisherman (West Virginia University Press: Victorian Poetry, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1976).
16 and time” (47). This natural cycle continues into adulthood, as Annie’s suitors vie for her affection by promoting idyllic lifestyles. But as we so often see in Tennyson’s narratives, only one party can attain domestic bliss. Typically in these narratives, idyllic environments are bestowed only to those who seek redemption from within, while inhospitable environments befall those who seek the meretricious profits of materiality. Consequently, Enoch’s quest for adventure and fortune leaves him shipwrecked on a deserted tropical island, an “Eden of plenteousness,” where he is driven mad by isolation and regret. But unlike Sir Aylmer Aylmer, his faith endures. He perceives signs of divinity in every aspect of his environment, such as the
“winding glades high up like ways to heaven” and the “great stars that globed themselves in heaven” (39). Faith alone delivers his salvation and rescue. Conversely, Sir Aylmer Aylmer’s lack of faith robs him of his idyllic lifestyle, relegating him to a barren wasteland. In retrospect,
Tennyson’s own withdrawal from mainstream society was an effort to realize his idyllic dream, which was compounded by the fear he had of organic and spiritual desecration. Robert Bernard
Hass23 explains that he “perceived nature as a harmonious place where humans and animals lived out their lives in a providentially designed cosmos. On the other, however, he viewed nature as a destructive force” (674-675). As such, Tennyson’s landscapes come to life in literary form, adapting to suit or repel their inhabitants. They act with a conscience, as an extension of God’s will. And surely, after so much contact with her destructive force, it was the laureate’s wish to live in harmony with nature.
The Victorian public received Enoch Arden, Etc. with widespread acclaim and concentrated criticism. On its first day of publication in August of 1864, more than seventeen thousand copies were sold in England alone. Tennyson was then already well-known as poet
23 All references to Hass are to The Mutable Locus Amoenus and Consolation in Tennyson’s In Memoriam (Rice University: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Vol. 38, No. 4, 1998).
17 laureate, and much was expected of him by his fans and literary peers. Following his successful venture into Arthurian legend with Idylls of the King, his latest idylls24 presented something altogether different to his readership. Elizabeth Waterston finds that “Tennyson’s move to the domestic idylls was deliberate, even sacrificial. It was a late development of the laureate’s conviction that the poet should move from his palace of art down to the vale of ordinary life”
(61).25 In contrast with his earlier poems, Angela O’Donnell finds that these later idylls
“represented a different stage of his poetic career. In those later poems, Tennyson used the idyllic techniques he had developed and perfected...the use of a natural setting as the correlative of human feeling” (140).26 What remains clear is that Enoch Arden, Etc. targeted both the religious and secular staples of Tennyson’s readership, including the mainstream media.
Harper’s Magazine lauded “Enoch Arden” with unalloyed praise, proclaiming it “as holy as an angel’s dream, and all but as palpitatingly human as one of his parables who spake as never man spake...a story so sweetly sad, so heavenly pure, might, without desecration, undulate in rippling cadences from seraph tongues, as they float on the wavelets of the ever shining river” (Scott 2).
Critics, on the other hand, found the publication as a whole to be an over-touted departure from
Tennyson’s previous works. The Victorian poet Edward Fitzgerald thought that the laureate had
“come down to very little, from great things,” while historian George Malcolm Young lampooned his writing as “vapidly pontifical, and almost embarrassingly silly” (3). Still other reviewers had mixed feelings. The British Quarterly Review27 confessed that “‘Enoch Arden’
24 Just prior to its release, Times Magazine notified readers that the title had been changed from Idylls of the Hearth to Enoch Arden, Etc. Later editions were published as Enoch Arden and Other Poems. 25 All references to Waterston are to The Crawford Symposium (University of Ottawa Press, 1979). 26 All references to O’Donnell are to Tennyson's English Idyls: Studies in Poetic Decorum (Studies in Philology, 85.1, 1988). 27 All references are to The British Quarterly Review (Vol. 1-83, 1845).
18 does not delight us equally with the modern-antique Arthur of Mr. Tennyson’s last volume,” and found “Aylmer’s Field” to be “more attractive, we think, than the sailor’s long trial and painful end” (479). It was, however, the gradience of later reviews that left modern scholars with room for discussion. Among them, Scott determines that “‘Enoch’ went immediately to the hearts of his readers, yet has come to be so badly regarded by modern critics that it seldom receives serious attention. Criticisms of the poetry itself all come from people holding clear ideas of what the laureate ought to have been doing...‘Enoch Arden’ was the first of Tennyson’s poems to make an impact on the whole of the reading public...and that modern readers have been patronizing in their attitude to Tennyson’s ‘Enoch Arden’ has in part been the fault of Sir Harold
Nicolson” (4). In fact, Nicolson’s biography is noticeably incomplete in dealing with what he calls “the Farringford period,” and his efforts to define this pivotal time in Tennyson’s career are relatively nonplussed: “The mid-Victorian period can make no appeal whatever to the modern mind. And unfortunately it is by this third period, the Farringford period, by the Idylls and
‘Enoch Arden,’ that he is now condemned. These poems of the Farringford period are for the most part intellectually insincere. I have decided in the pages that follow to ignore this third period. It might be possible to make a defense for the Idylls and for ‘Enoch Arden.’ But in spite of this, it will be wiser, and in the end fairer to Tennyson, to leave this period for the judgment of future generations” (232). But in spite of the absence of critical and historical parity, Enoch
Arden, Etc. has received more serious attention over the course of time. Tennyson’s eidetic comprehension of landscapes and his contributions to Victorian theology can now be appreciated for their true merit.
19
The purpose of this thesis is to illuminate a theme of natural theology in the first publication of Enoch Arden, Etc. released in 1864 by Edward Moxon & Co.28 This publication includes “Enoch Arden” at its forefront, followed by a compendium of poems including
“Aylmer’s Field,” “Sea Dreams,” “The Grandmother,” “Northern Farmer,” “Tithonus,” “The
Voyage,” “In the Valley of Cauteretz,” “The Flower,” “Requiescat,” “The Sailor Boy,” “The
Islet,” “The Ringlet,” “A Welcome to Alexandria,” “A Dedication,” and a series of shorter
“Experiments” including “Boadicea” and “In Quantity.” From first to last, or at random, each poem demonstrates a significant relationship between scenery and spirituality. In order to provide a fair and detailed analysis, my primary focus will be “Enoch Arden,” which was the inspiration for the publication itself. As such, a preliminary examination of this poem in its own context is required, and a subsequent examination it as part of a collective work must follow. I will survey primary sources regarding Tennyson’s use of natural theology in this work. Relevant historical and biographical information will be provided to substantiate my research and convey the ethos of Victorian culture during the poet’s lifetime. I will analyze my evidence to identify
Tennyson’s ontological relationship with the environment, allowing the thematic structure of
“Enoch Arden” to guide my reading. Through these methods I plan to understand his determinations about the body and soul, and their relation to the earth and beyond.
The paucity of modern scholarship dedicated to “Enoch Arden” is the primary limitation of this research. Despite its widespread popularity critical studies of this poem have been woefully inadequate, while studies of more notable works like “Ulysses,” “In Memoriam
A.H.H.,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Locksley Hall,” and Idylls of the King remain prevalent. This includes a general neglect of Tennyson’s evolving views on religion, which he continued to explore during his formative years at Farringford. Tennysonian studies are
28 All references are to Enoch Arden, etc. London: Edward Moxon & Co, 1865. Print.
20 commonly demarcated by themes of melancholy, misanthropy, and mysticism. But this perspective mostly corresponds with earlier cornerstones of the poet’s career. Therefore it can be proposed that the idylls identified in this thesis demonstrate a gradual reconciliation with religion, channeled through a therapeutic lens of nature. This is supported by Tennyson’s insatiable appetite for answers to natural and supernatural phenomena, and the frequency with which he employed biblical and environmental content in his later writing. His perspective was both contrary and complementary to the climate of Christianity in Victorian England, when religious tradition clashed with modern dissention, and the dawn of a new century loomed nearer. The following questions will be addressed: How do environmental elements affect characters and their habitats in “Enoch Arden”? What insight does Tennyson provide through a theme of natural theology? How does Tennyson’s poetic technique in this poem differ from his previous works? What about the publication made it so immediately popular throughout
England? How do the selected works adhere to or diverge from the Church of England under
Queen Victoria? How did Tennyson’s Christian upbringing define his religious outlook later in life? What conditions led to the pedantic and cynical response of critics regarding this publication? What does the publication reveal about Tennyson’s personal and professional development? How was Tennyson able to reconcile the concepts of God, the human soul, and the afterlife through observations of the environment? My expected conclusion is that Tennyson remedied his psychological distress and religious misgivings through persistent exploration and visualization of nature. Through a literary platform, within his characters’ habitats, his life experiences were redefined, allowing him to resolve his doubts about divine providence.
Moreover, this publication makes the wholesale portrayal of Tennyson as a maudlin, introverted dreamer both outdated and inaccurate. Rather, he was a discerning artist in delicate
21 synchronization with his surroundings, who sought to reaffirm his faith by perceiving divine designs in the environment. In this way he found meaning in mortality, order in chaos, and heaven on earth.
22
Chapter II
Natural Theology and Tennyson’s Early Career
Tennyson’s love of nature developed at an early age. Born 1809 in Somersby,
Lincolnshire, a picturesque village bordering the eastern coast of England, he spent his childhood surrounded by scenic beauty that made a lasting impression on his perception of the world.
Outside the rectory where his family lived was a constant source of agriculture, horticulture, and oceanic climate that fostered an organic relationship with the environment. Far removed from the commotion of cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool, where steel factories and steam engineering dominated the landscape, Somersby embodied a holistic, antiquated side of English culture that was at risk of being lost in time. And while the nation’s population had doubled since the turn of the century, fewer families were able to enjoy a rural country lifestyle.
Early on Tennyson felt a certain detestation for the rapid and reckless modernization of Victorian
England. He saw the benefits of advancing science and medicine, but also the downfalls of material consumption and status, which had come at the cost of England’s rich and storied landscapes. And yet for all the aesthetic beauty of Somersby, “home” must have been a vague term for the future poet laureate.
Under the care of his father, Reverend George Clayton Tennyson, and his mother
Elizabeth, the daughter of a neighboring village vicar, young Alfred was taught that religion operated under the pretexts of love and wrath. George was notably irascible, having been forced into the clergy after being disinherited from the family fortune in favor of his younger brother,
23 who received a castle and beaconship.29 He fell prey to alcoholism, often dispensing his frustration on his children while dictating their educational regimens. Hereditary illnesses also plagued the Tennyson household. Among Alfred’s eleven siblings, several suffered from debilitating epilepsy, while others developed symptoms of alcoholism, opium addiction, and mental psychosis. Such afflictions, hereditary or not, seemed to him a curse from nature, which he struggled to understand for many years. These factors would contribute to his initial misgivings about religion, inevitably leading to his escapism in the practice of writing.
Tennyson first dabbled in poetry during his adolescence. By the age of twelve, he had already written a 6,000 line epic poem. George Tennyson recognized his son’s innate talent for reading and writing, and encouraged his poetic ambition.30 But this sentiment was obscured by his explosive nature, which often led to physical quarrels at home. It can be said that Tennyson was psychologically scarred by his father’s choices, creating a troubling, repetitious portrayal of family life throughout his writing. Typically in his works there can be no perfect familial bliss for at least one member—a black sheep, a scapegoat, a sacrificial lamb. Until the removal of this offending member, the family and its domestic bliss are in jeopardy. In his study of Victorian domesticity, Donald S. Hair notes that many of Tennyson’s narratives “fall into a pattern of separation and reconciliation...a family broken up and reunited” (49).31 For all their inherent gifts, the Tennyson family’s reputation was overshadowed by rumors of ruction and disarray.
Alfred’s literature was naturally flavored by this dysfunctional environment, and its resonance is
29 Charles Tennyson d’Eyncourt derided his nephew Alfred’s laureateship and success, believing his own side of the family to be financially and intellectually superior to that of his older brother’s. 30 During his son’s teenage years he remarked, “If Alfred die, one of our greatest poets will have gone” (Kunitz 610). 31 All references to Hair are to Domestic and Heroic in Tennyson’s Poetry (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981).
24 often conjured in his portrayals of social stability. It is no wonder, then, that he found comfort in the grass, the trees, the sky, and places beyond his earthbound existence.
In 1827 Tennyson left home to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. In that same year he published his first work, Poems by Two Brothers, written in conjunction with his brother
Charles. The publication attracted the attention of an undergraduate literary club called “The
Cambridge Apostles,” headed by one Arthur Henry Hallam. While initially poetic competitors,
Hallam and Tennyson grew close, sharing a number of academic and contemplative interests.
During their collegiate careers they would often visit Somersby, where Hallam was introduced to
Alfred’s sister Emily, to whom he later became engaged. This fateful union was to prove the making of the early Tennyson and his poetic career. Compared to the family friction that had disrupted his youth, Hallam was a newfound source of comfort. The two friends toured Europe together between semesters, and even played tangential roles in the Spanish War of
Independence by accompanying rebel forces in the Pyrenees, which Tennyson later poeticized in
“Oenone.” It was during this time that Tennyson certified his interest in exotic settings, such as
Timbuktu, Mali, which he poeticized as “Timbuctoo” at Cambridge College—a poem earning him the coveted Chancellor’s Medal for Poetry.
In 1833, while vacationing abroad with his father, Hallam suddenly and unexpectedly died of a stroke at the age of twenty-two, casting Tennyson into years of depression. Over the course of the years following this tragedy, Tennyson voiced an impassioned ode to his friend, which was finally published in 1849 as “In Memoriam, A.H.H.” Widely considered to be
Tennyson’s magnum opus, it was also the first of his epic poems, comprised of a series of cantos
25 with a prologue and epilogue, and written in four-line stanzas of iambic tetrameter.32 Its structure is often referred to as a “poetry of fragments,” incorporating multiple parts, flashbacks, commentaries, and complex prose—more like future modern-day narratives than the linear movements of Victorian poetry up to this time. It is at its core a pastoral elegy which incorporates the past, present, and future aspects of a man shaped by his surroundings. It is not only Tennyson’s tribute to the earthly passing of Hallam, but also a roadmap to his early creative thought. The poet questioned how such a vibrant, worthwhile life could be taken from the earth, and his mourning slowly turns to acceptance when he sees Hallam’s death in another light, as a transmutation to something possibly better than before. This realization was stimulated by
Tennyson’s infatuation with natural science, and the spiritual coloring of his earthly surroundings. As noted by E.E. Snyder, “Tennyson returns to geology as support for spiritual interpretations, reading the spiritual back into the physical world as evidence of divine direction without looking to it to explain the spiritual” (43).33 Snyder also finds that “while Tennyson maintains that the soul will retain its individual characteristics, the identification of the spiritual force of Hallam’s soul with the force of geological change has not only reconsecrated the world, but also mingled Hallam with God, acting through Nature in a strange Trinity. The image of
Hallam’s spirit in the world enables Tennyson to posit God and Nature as no longer at strife”
(45). On Tennyson’s cerebral roadmap, this was the first intersection of artistry and theology.
“In Memoriam” also reflected Tennyson’s continuing interest in the developing science of natural selection. In the years since he had attended Cambridge University, he had become familiar with Charles Darwin’s ongoing study of biological evolution. And while it would be
32 This style became known as the “In Memoriam” stanza: “I held it truth, with him who sings, To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones, Of their dead selves to higher things.” 33 All references to Snyder are to Tennyson’s Progressive Geology (University of Sheffield Press: Victorian Network, 2.1, 2010).
26 years before the publication of On the Origin of Species, Victorian science had begun to evolve and include more detailed and gross descriptions of the world. These forward-looking trends prompted new ways to envision past, present, and future habitats on earth. And just as
Tennyson’s poetry broke ground in his imaginary worlds, Darwin’s contribution had its own poetry of change. Rosenberg explains that “the shock that evolutionary science posed to
Christian faith was as devastating to the Victorians as the dread of a nuclear holocaust is to us.
That annihilating shock is nowhere more feelingly or profoundly voiced than in “In Memoriam,” published a decade before Darwin’s Origin of Species” (306). Mrs. Emily Tennyson, a devout
Christian, disapproved of Darwin’s theory, claiming that “even if the Darwinians did not, as they do, exaggerate Darwinism, to God all is present. He sees present, past, and future as one.” Her husband, however, found evolution to be “a great truth, but only one side of a truth that has two sides.”34 Tennyson was also influenced by the idea of transmutative species presented in Robert
Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which had caused a storm of controversy in the Victorian scientific community about the theological implications of an impersonal environment functioning without direct divine intervention. He saw the theories of
Darwin, Chambers, and other scientists as an unthreatening progression of natural history, sharing a belief that natural selection drove all organic life toward more efficient, perfected forms. His son Hallam—posthumously named after Arthur Hallam—later found themes of evolution in various sections of “In Memoriam,” calling it “a mode of simultaneous discovery,” where poetry and science influenced one another. On the other hand, Tennyson believed that man’s material advancement was less critical than his spiritual evolution, which could not readily be put into material terms. Lionel Stevenson notes that he was “too much of a scientist to deny evolution as a physical principle, but his strong instinct of faith insisted that it should somehow
34 Leonee Ormond. Alfred Tennyson: A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 1993), p. 449.
27 be reconciled with the belief in God which is independent of rationalistic proof. This soon merged into the mission of helping other people to a reconciliation of science and faith” (84).35
But while Tennyson portrayed himself as a devout Christian, his critics saw him as still questioning God and heaven, leading his poetry to cast a gloom over nature and humanity itself.
This dilemma is exemplified throughout “In Memoriam,” as the poet questions how God’s exquisitely crafted world could be so unforgiving to its own progeny:
Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life. (II. 136-139)
Hallam’s death came to reflect Tennyson’s perception of mortal and everlasting life. Rosenberg finds that “In Memoriam” “is one of the few poems in which an attempt is made to see man as a biological phenomenon with a past, present, and future” (303). The future state of this biological man, perhaps even his transcendence beyond a corporeal form, would occupy Tennyson’s conscience for the rest of his life. He continued a pathological hunt for answers to natural and supernatural phenomena, compartmentalizing mankind into two distinct physical and spiritual bodies.36 These exercises served as a reminder of the finiteness of life on earth, but also of nature’s infinite gifts. Kerry McSweeney37 observes that “the stages by which Tennyson’s isolating grief and separation from nature’s cycle of change gradually gave way to a healing identification with this cycle,” while Augustus Strong admires his masterful handling of a
“natural religion,” going beyond traditional Christian beliefs (87). Tennyson would continue his
35 All references to Stevenson are to Darwin Among the Poets (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1932). 36 Following his father’s death in 1831, Tennyson reportedly lay in bed trying to conjure his spirit, to no avail. 37 All references are to McSweeney are to The Pattern of Natural Consolation in In Memoriam (West Virginia University Press: Victorian Poetry, 11.2, 1973).
28 interests, queries, and explorations of this natural religion in the Idylls of the King, and later in the Idylls of the Hearth.
The Idylls of the King38 represented Tennyson’s attempt to appeal to a wide-ranging audience of myth-lovers and folklore enthusiasts in narrative form. It also presented an opportunity for him to once again capitalize on a theme of man’s struggle with his environment.
The narrative prose resonated with Englanders, who were keen to discover a reimagined, lifelike version of their greatest medieval hero. O’Donnell remarks that “whether the subject be domestic or heroic, contemporary or ancient, blank verse seems to be a major formal element in the composition of any Tennysonian idyl” (128). But there also existed an underlying commentary of the nation’s physical and spiritual trajectory, of which Tennyson was blatantly aware of. Fertel sees these Idylls as only somewhat idyllic when comparing Britain’s Golden Age to the Victorian era, “when men were men and nature was uncluttered by factories and waste” (339). He also finds a subversive “anti-pastoral” tone in the narrative, where nature itself could have more than one face, being pleasantly pastoral or deathly challenging. In the face of that challenge, mankind was likely to falter and fall back to some lower form, “back into the beast.” While King Arthur and his knights retain a glorious position within the walls of Camelot, outside these walls
Tennyson creates a wild, desolate environment of monsters and wastelands. And like so many
Tennysonian works, the environment, as controlled by God, can twist and turn the narrative unexpectedly. Meanwhile, Victorian England was sacrificing its own environment for industrial commerce, prompting Tennyson’s continuing commentary about the consequences of human ambition, and the aftermath left in its wake. Thus, it is only when his characters repent from within that they can enjoy nature’s gifts. We see this in the moments leading up to King Arthur’s final battle with Mordred, when he looks inwards, outwards, and upwards to God:
38 All references are to Idylls of the King (Dover Publications: New York, 2012).
29
I found him in the shining of the stars, I mark’d Him in the flowering of His fields, But in His ways with men I find Him not. (247)
Tennyson’s landscapes symbolize human consciousness, and his ability to envision scenery with unusual clarity and detail creates a dreamlike quality that, as some scholars have noted, seems more vivid than our waking realities. Not unlike the forthcoming tale of “Enoch Arden,” King
Arthur’s narrative concludes when he embarks on a ghostly ship to another state of consciousness. After all his earthly gains, his spirit reaps the ultimate reward of transcendence, and in his last waking mortal moments he visualizes a journey to the Celtic afterworld:
To the island—valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows; but it lies deep-meadow’d, Happy crown’d with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound. (257)
Exactly why the poems that were to become Enoch Arden Etc. resonated with Tennyson in the twilight of his career is a question every scholar of his work should ask. From the perspective of an artist, a writer, and a poet laureate, we can assume that he recognized the literary adaptability of these works, and saw a chance to expand on yet another feature of English folklore. From the perspective of a man, a father, and a descendent of his clan, we can assume that he did not want to submit to his demons, and that something about the heroic fisherman moved him. In “Enoch Arden” Tennyson continued to explore man’s inherent ambition for domestic ideals, and the relinquishment of those ideals required to understand his own spirituality. For Enoch, this includes the acceptance of the sea as his home, of God as his captain, and of the afterlife as his final destination. When consciously lost to his loved ones, he becomes wraithlike, a shell of his former self. With his shipwrecked stranding and isolation comes a
30 profound spiritual awakening. When relegated to the status of hunter-gatherer, he begins to see
God’s grandeur in every facet of his environment: “the glows and glories of the broad belt of the world, all these he saw” (40). Natural phenomena grant him a perspective that his wife Annie and his friend Philip, despite all their creature comforts, do not possess. And while his earthly identity is lost, his spiritual identity is gained in its absence. It could further be argued that through the character of Enoch, Tennyson was able to envision his own best self. The simplicity of the poem and its thematic parallels suggests that he was not only writing for the masses, but also for personal gratification. By contextualizing Enoch as a hero, an Englishman, and a
Christian, Tennyson could better understand his own purpose in life, not as poet laureate but as a human being. Enoch’s purpose was to fish, Tennyson’s purpose was to write, and both served a purpose greater than themselves. This was an important circumnavigation of the poet’s career, which had been fraught with physical and emotional conflict. It formed a sense of referentiality within the boundaries of heaven and earth, a to-do list for this life and the next. Enoch’s sacrifice was to let God be the master of his ship; Tennyson’s was to abandon his search for the physical manifestation of God, and recognize that signs of divinity existed in the world around him.
“Enoch Arden,” as much if not more than any other work of Tennyson’s, represents the polarities of life on earth and life after death. Therefore, internal and external realities are grounded in the consciousness of his characters. For all its melancholic plot points, it is primarily a celebration of what is and what is to come.
As Victorian times were fraught with concerns over cultural and social stability,
Tennyson knew how to picture the empire as a metaphor familiar to his audience. He saw the sweeping changes throughout England as a threat to his fellow man’s best interests and relationship with God. But if we mine the Tennyson canon, we can learn how he dealt with
31 various subjects including lapses of British power, shifting boundaries of national identity and religion, weakening domination by the upper classes, and the irreversible transformation of the
English landscape. This is because in addition to being a profound thinker, Tennyson was a reflection of his times. Saddled with chaotic life experiences, his work required him to picture society as equally chaotic. He regularly wrote about the fears society imagined from the working class, portrayed as rough, threatening, and capable of bringing radical change to a structured society. But he could also offer consolation through portrayals of characters moving toward a better and brighter future. His poetry then became a vehicle of spiritual prosperity. Through his writing he made an effort to guide readers away from the popular customs of the Victorian world toward an understanding of self, of God, and of the vastness of the universe. This is a lesson well taught by his protagonists, whose representations garnered the heartfelt affection of his readers, including Queen Victoria.39 Anne Humpherys notes that the wild popularity of Enoch Arden,
Etc. reflected “something primal” in Tennyson’s readership, and that “the narrative pattern itself touches on universal human fears” (332).40 In a world where he perceived so much moral imperfection, the laureate portrayed his characters as equally imperfect. They are fallible and flawed, but also heroic. According to Batchelor, “the dead Arthur Hallam, the dead Enoch
Arden, and the dead King Arthur were all models of manhood and virtuous behavior. Tennyson believed from deep within himself that perfect human beings could exist, and that one of the functions of art was to display them as role models in a world that was too often materialist and flawed” (268). “Enoch Arden,” therefore, is not a work of quandary, but a work of absolution.
39 Concerned with the extramarital nuances of “Enoch Arden,” Queen Victoria paid Tennyson a visit at Farringford, where she inquired about the motives of his characters. When the laureate explained that Enoch wanted only for the happiness of his loved ones, no matter the arrangement, the Queen emphatically replied “God bless him! He did right, after all.” 40 All references to Humpherys are to Enoch Arden, the Fatal Return, and the Silence of Annie (West Virginia University Press: Victorian Poetry Vol. 30, ¾, 1992).
32
Just as man was made in God’s image, the noble fisherman from the little port was made in
Tennyson’s.
33
Chapter III
Natural Theology in “Enoch Arden”
Macrocosmic and microcosmic landscapes dominate the pages of “Enoch Arden.” A scenic scope is conveyed in the poem’s opening lines, where the omniscient narrator describes
“long lines of cliff,” a “chasm” filled with “foam and yellow sands,” “red roofs about a narrow wharf,” a “moulder’d church,” and a “hazelwood,” all lying within a “cuplike hollow” (9).
Tennyson transmits this panorama through a bird’s-eye view of a “gray down” located “high in heaven,” and a single street that “climbs to one tall-tower’d mill.” This description immediately frames the narrative with inward and outward imagery, depth and height, expansion and retraction, broad strokes and fine details. It is not unlike God’s creation of the earth in Genesis.
According to Leonee Ormond, these details might have reflected those of Tennyson’s own surroundings: “The ‘little port’ of the poem could be in Tennyson’s own Lincolnshire, but the landscape of the poem, with its ‘long lines of cliff,’ its ‘chasm,’ its ‘narrow cave’ and its beach backed by ‘a gray down’ is not that of the North Sea coast. It is close to the views that Tennyson would have seen walking in the area around Farringford” (156). Just as Tennyson was surely influenced by his environment, so too are the poem’s protagonists, Enoch, Annie, and Philip, influenced by theirs. The land and sea manipulate their evolution as human beings, beginning in childhood when they “play’d among the waste and lumber of the shore, hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn,” and as they “built their castles of dissolving sand to watch them overflowed” (10). Every trace of their presence, even a “little footprint,” is “daily wash’d away.” Collins notes that the poem “opens with a description of a
34 world of natural mutability in which human endeavors and humanity itself seem doomed by the flux of the sea and time” (47). This transition from scenic to squalid imagery prepares the characters for an uphill climb towards a bountiful, permanent habitat. Furthermore this allows the characters, who are defined by their material stature and status, to expand and retract, physically and spiritually, within their environment. In this way Tennyson forms an immediate contrast between creation and disorder, idyllic and imperfect.
Topography is used to define economic and spiritual rank in “Enoch Arden.” While
Enoch, a “rough sailor’s lad, made orphan by a winter shipwreck,” inherits a life of poverty,
Philip descends from the privileged station of his father high up in the “tall-tower’d mill,” literally inheriting life above Enoch, who originates from the sea. The two rivals represent geographic and socioeconomic polarities. Annie lies in the middle of these polarities, like a planet with two orbiting stars. From building oceanside sandcastles their visions of domesticity evolve “in the cave that ran beneath the cliff,” where the children play at keeping house. In this dank, desolate environment Enoch and Philip conceive idyllic homes for Annie. Their goal is to supplant her rugged exterior world with one of interior man-made comforts. The outside world, however, is Enoch’s natural domain. He represents the raw, hardened qualities of nature. And being “stronger-made,” he triumphs over Philip in physical combat. Philip represents the fragile domestic cast, out of his element in the wilderness. The “new warmth of life’s ascending sun” then signifies the dawn of the characters’ adulthood. Enoch, a renowned sailor and master of his craft, sets his fortune aside to “make a home for Annie, neat and nestlike, halfway up the narrow street that clamored toward the mill” (12). His ambitions move him higher up the topographic scale toward Philip’s man-made mill. In this we see his efforts to improve his station and create an idyllic home, while Annie is categorized by her nesting creature comforts. Philip, meanwhile,
35 owes his livelihood to man-made contraptions and inherited wealth. He represents the future of mankind—insulated from nature, nurtured by a providence of fortune and modern appliance. But
Enoch’s livelihood and strength are provided by the sea below. He is at one with the ocean, even possessing a supernatural ability to thwart its death-dealing power: “Thrice he had plucked a life from the dread sweep of the down streaming seas.” However, Enoch’s alliance with the sea will fluctuate throughout the narrative, as he tries to wrangle its power for his own benefit. As Collins explains, “the power of the sea and of time in ‘Enoch Arden’ are designed as constraints on its human characters and, in effect, on the human soul. Enoch possesses his own vital power to face the sea’s destructive force. He also radiates a spiritual force. After presenting him as a man in whom the natural and spiritual merge, Tennyson shows the growing conflict between them within him” (48). But despite his orphaned and indigent background, his fortune and misfortune,
Enoch’s faith in God remains the strongest of all. He is all at once the most worldly character of the story and also its most firm believer in forces unseen. He symbolizes man’s connection with nature, as well as his connection to places beyond the material world.
Nature plays a decided role in Enoch and Annie’s romantic union. It is decided on a
“golden autumn eventide” when they join the other villagers in the woods to forage for nuts.
Philip, meanwhile, remains at home tending to his bedridden father. Here Tennyson reminds us of the difference between Philip’s domestic value and Enoch’s primal value. Philip realizes this difference when he arrives later, “just where the prone edge of the wood began to feather toward the hollow,” to observe the star-crossed lovers and Enoch’s “weather-beaten face, all kindled by a still and sacred fire, that burned as on an altar” (13). Enoch seems to possess mystic power, something above the grade of a normal human being. On the contrary, Philip appears weak and reptilian as he “groan’d and slipt aside, like a wounded life crept down into the hollows of the
36 wood” (13). It is as if Philip is burying himself in earth and shadow, while Enoch thrives in the open air. The narrator frequently relies on these metaphors to express a character’s perception of the world, and its effects upon their existence.
After matrimony and fatherhood, Enoch upholds a responsibility to provide for his family. This includes a responsibility to provide Annie with an idyllic home, or more specifically with artificial luxury. But Annie’s notion of an idyllic home is not the same as Enoch’s. Enoch provides because it is his duty as a husband, a father, and a man. But his true home, as we know, is “abroad on wrathful seas.” All who know Enoch know him as a man of the sea, including the people to whom he sells his catch of the day. His “ocean-spoil in ocean-smelling osier, and his face, rough-redden’d with a thousand winter gales, not only to the market-cross were known, but in the leafy lanes behind the down, far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, and peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall” (14). His reputation as a natural-born sailor reaches far and wide, and his name connotes a mythic quality. His role, therefore, is not that of domestic caretaker. It is as one who brave the elements, testing the limits of his physical and spiritual being. It is ironic, then, that
Enoch’s portentous injury occurs where there “opened a larger haven thither used Enoch at times to go by land or sea” (14). At this moment, when he is caught between land and sea, docked in unfamiliar territory, Enoch falters. The accident casts him down from his station, relegating him to “a nightmare of the night.” This life-changing incident also signals the birth of Enoch’s sickly son, while his fishing competitors “crept across his trade, taking her bread and theirs.” But while he is consumed by “doubt and gloom,” Enoch remains “a grave and staid God-fearing man” (15).
No sooner does he pray to God for his family, “save them from this, whatever comes to me,” than his captain arrives with a new proposition for adventure, and Enoch “all at once assented to it, rejoicing at that answer to his prayer.” In fact, Enoch prays not only for the sake of his family,
37 but for the sake of his own ambition. Collins notes that “Enoch’s purpose here is far less selfless than those to which he dedicated himself earlier; this one is not so much a ‘noble wish’ for his family’s well-being—they are merely wedged into his main purpose of achieving personal material success” (48). This momentary lapse of self-serving indulgence will lead Enoch to his doom, and also his salvation.
Tennyson constructs the moments leading up to Enoch’s voyage with scenic flare, describing his previous misfortune as appearing “no graver than as when some little cloud cuts off the fiery highway of the sun, and isles a light in the offing” (16). These descriptions possess fourfold resonance, for Enoch, for the omniscient narrator, for Tennyson, and for the reader.
They are used to isolate scenic features and elicit visceral emotions. They are images familiar to everyone, creating a nexus between Enoch and his voyeurs. They also accentuate the organic and artificial components of life. In preparation for his journey, Enoch reluctantly sells his boat, an
“old sea friend.” The vessel assumes a spiritual quality, akin to Noah’s ark. It is more than just wood and cord, more than just a product of human engineering; it is a conduit between Enoch and the sea: “He loved her well—how many a rough sea he had weathered in her! He knew her, as a horseman knows his horse.” Enoch’s selling of his boat to leave Annie with an easier life is but a means to fulfill his role as domestic caretaker. He leaves her with goods and store, “having ordered all almost as neat and close as Nature packs her blossom or her seedling” (18). In fact, nature, with a capital “N,” is Enoch’s model for the craftsmanship of his home. It represents the work of his creator; it represents perfection. But Enoch’s true home is out at sea, in far-off places, with his horse. And he who was “fortune’s favorite” at this moment loses his favor with
God, because, as Collins says, he has “placed his trust in God to bring him riches” and has
“subjected himself to fortune by seeking the false goods of the mutable natural world rather than
38 the true good of the eternal spiritual world” (48). Enoch’s attempt to manipulate the land and sea for his own benefit leads to catastrophe, revealing the underlying satire of the story. To most readers he exemplifies a selfless, upright man striving to provide for his family. But the point is that Enoch does not need to leave home. Rather than accept his injurious fate and cherish his remaining days with his family, he is seduced by his wanderlust. He no longer fishes to make a living, but for adventure. Annie’s instincts rightfully tell her they will not meet again, and that the happiness of their hearth will not last. Robinson compares her fears that “I shall look upon your face no more” to the New Testament, when Paul’s friends “Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto the ship” (Acts 20:38).
Enoch’s physical departure prepares us for his spiritual resurrection. He appears confident and steadfast, but he also senses the possibility that he may not return. Before he leaves he prostrates in prayer, and “as a brave God-fearing man bow’d himself down, and in that mystery where God-in-man is one with man-in-God, pray’d for a blessing on his wife and babes whatever came to him” (19). But while Enoch has already performed a kind of ceremonial death rite, he remains spiritually present. There is an ominous sense that he knows he will not return.
Collins expounds on this subconscious awareness of Enoch’s forthcoming doom: “Before he leaves, he speaks of God’s providence and the need to place one’s trust in Him; however, it is clear to the reader what he has done and what will happen” (48). Enoch then tells Annie “this voyage by the grace of God will bring fair weather yet to all of us. Cast all your cares on God, that anchor holds. Is He not yonder in those uttermost parts of the morning? If I flee to these can
I go from Him? And the sea is His, the sea is His. He made it” (21). Tennyson employs Biblical parallels here, with phrases taken directly from the First Epistle of Peter, the First Epistle of the
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Hebrews, Psalms 139, and Psalms 195. Annie Robinson notes that these ideas are “perfectly unified by the single idea of comfort that the God who cares for the sea cares for the sea-faring man” (39). In using these diverse sources, Tennyson developed a new method for scriptural handling by intelligibly joining disparate allusions into a unifying expression. While Enoch’s persona is torn between the person he wants to be and the person he is meant to be, a part of him seems prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, because heaven awaits him. Perception, time, and familial relationships conspire to frustrate his understanding of his own existence, so he retreats to his instinctive fisherman persona and “turn’d the current of his talk to graver things in sailor fashion, roughly sermonizing on providence and trust in Heaven” (20). As Annie watches his vanishing sail dip over the horizon, she “mourn’d his absence as his grave,” and from this point on his physical form will unalterably change. It is the first step towards his enlightenment.
In Enoch’s absence Philip seizes his opportunity to secure his union with Annie. After the domestic structure and stability Enoch built falls into ruin, Annie repeatedly asks herself “What would Enoch say?”41 Philip offers to pay for her children’s schooling, and while his financial ambitions are genuine, his romantic ambitions are self-serving. He assures her that “it would vex him, even in his grave, if he could know his babes were running wild like colts about the waste”
(25). This reminds us of the nature tropes that pervade the narrative from the start, when Enoch,
Annie, and Philip “play’d among the waste and lumber of the shore,” as well as the animalizing metaphors of humans as “colts” and other creatures. It is also not incidental that Philip imagines
Enoch’s grave as a place of less disturbance than the “waste” above on solid ground, because
Philip descends from a social hierarchy symbolized by topographic elevation. The ocean, the
“waste” of the shore, and the danish barrow are barriers between his world and Annie’s. It is not surprising, then, that throughout the narrative he is the character who displays the least reverence
41 An ironic resemblance to the modern Christian motto “What would Jesus do?”
40 for God. Ironically, Annie refers to him as “God’s good angel,” and despite her wavering faith she “called down a blessing on Philip’s head,” leaving him “lifted up in spirit.” From this point on Philip becomes a Christian pantomime, even assuming the name “Father Philip.” He indulges
Annie’s children with schoolbooks and organic gifts, including garden-herbs and fruit, the “late and early roses from his wall, or cronies from the down, and now and then, flour from his tall mill that whistled on the waste” (27). By focusing on his material value, Philip becomes more clear, more significant, and more human than Enoch, who appears “uncertain as a vision or a dream, faint as a figure seen in early dawn, down at the far end of an avenue, going we know not where” (28). His opportunity to propose for Annie’s hand in marriage comes when, once again, the family goes foraging for nuts in the woods, where Enoch had once secured his union with
Annie. In this scene Philip appears “like the working bee in blossom dust blanched with his mill”
(29). He has transformed from his previous animalistic state, when “one dark hour here in this wood, when like a wounded life he crep’t into the shadow.” Now, in Enoch’s absence, he flourishes like a busy bee, and declares to Annie “after all these sad uncertain years, we might still be happy as God grants to any of His creatures” (32). But when Annie asks him to wait one year for her hand in marriage, Philip “beheld the dead flame of the fallen day pass from the
Danish barrow overhead.” The flame in his heart is extinguished for another day and another year, symbolized by the changing features of the horizon and the transition from day to night.
When Philip punctually returns one year later, after “autumn into autumn flash’d again,” Annie asks for more time still. This is another example of how Tennyson uses scenery to control his narratives and his characters. Environmental metaphors show that his characters are governed by forces beyond their understanding, and that they are reciprocal signs of one another.
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The framing of Enoch’s location is shifted again when Annie looks to her Bible for answers to his whereabouts. Waking from her slumber, she is “compass’d round by the blind wall of night,” a figurative suggestion that she is controlled by natural phenomena within her artificial environment. She manages to find her Bible and opens to a page at random, then blindly places her finger upon the text and “pray’d for a sign, ‘my Enoch is he gone?’” The spot where her finger lies reads “Under a palm tree,” and in these words Annie mistakenly believes Enoch to have found paradise: “Lo! Her Enoch sitting on a height, under a palmtree, over him the Sun...he is happy, he is singing Hosanna in the highest: yonder shines the Sun of Righteousness, and these be palms whereof the happy people strowing cried “Hosanna in the highest!” (36). Here again
Tennyson uses scriptural comparison, borrowing phrasing from the Book of Judges42 as well as the Book of John, specifically when the people of Jerusalem in preparation for Jesus’ arrival
“took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the
King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord” (John 12:13). Annie’s vision further represents a paradisal cliche that domesticated humans associate with tropical environments. But as the reader will learn, Enoch is stranded on a deserted island somewhere in pacific ocean. His new home is not paradisal, but purgatorial. It is a place between life and death, a speck of land in the middle of a vast ocean. Robinson considers this to be a scene where “thought-transference is a faithful guide, whereas the use of the Bible results in the wrong impression,” and one that shows Annie to be “biblically misled but also simple and religious” (42). Thus Annie is intuitively, but not actively, religious. Despite her findings in the Bible, the external qualities of the world trouble her, and she is unconsciously devoid of internal peace. When she and Philip are finally wed, she continues to sense the absence of a moral and spiritual compass. She is afraid to
42 “And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Beth-el in Mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgement...And he said unto him, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me” (Judges 4:5-6:17).
42 be left alone or even to open the door to her home, for fear of the empty reality she might find inside. She uses the Bible as a coping mechanism and a means to recontextualize her life. But she never loses the haunting feeling that Enoch still lives, and even senses his spiritual presence in her surroundings: “a footstep seem’d to fall beside her path, she knew not whence: a whisper in her ear, she knew not what” (36). Annie’s soul remains unfulfilled primarily because Enoch no longer exists in tangible form. Faith and the unknown do not provide the instant physical gratification she needs. But after giving birth to her new son, this “mysterious instinct wholly died.” In childbirth Annie obtains a new tangible connection, a part of her that illuminates her dim perception of the world. And in this way her domestic ideal is restored. Enoch, however, approaches physical and spiritual limbo. His domestic ideal, the life he and the reader had once hoped for, will be lost to memory—a frame where no one resides.
We rejoin Enoch on his doomed voyage aboard the ship “Good Fortune.” While the reader knows of the dark eventuality to come, Tennyson makes abundant use of scenic metaphors to frame the earth as a place of beauty, and portrays the ship as a living entity braving the forces of nature:
The ship ‘Good Fortune,’ tho’ at setting forth The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook And almost overwhelm’d her, yet unvext She slipt across the summer of the world, Then after a long tumble about the Cape And frequent interchange of foul and fair, She passing thro’ the summer world again, The breath of heaven came continually And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, Till silent in her oriental haven. (37)
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Enoch, who the narrator calls “fortune’s favorite,” experiences the adventure of a lifetime. It is exactly what he had been hoping for while bedridden following his injury, when life seemed to have lost its lustre. Departing from the Bay of Biscay between France and Spain, he and his crew travel across the equatorial “summer of the world” toward the South African Cape of Good
Hope, then back across the equator toward Asia and the South Pacific. This is a vicarious vacation for Tennyson and the reader. It is a geographical celebration, a portal to far-off parts of the world that the people in rural villages like Enoch’s could only dream of. But Tennyson never lets us forget that Enoch is always under nature’s control and at her mercy. The “breath of heaven,” a symbolic force of God, sends his crew “foul and fair weather.” As we know, and as every reader familiar with the fisherman’s story knew, this adventure will come at a cost, because nature and fortune are fickle forces:
Less lucky her home-voyage: at first indeed Thro’ many a fair sea-circle, day by day, Scarce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head Stared o’er the ripple feathering from her bows: Then follow’d calms, and then winds variable, Then baffling, a long course of them; and last Storm, such as drove her under moonless heavens Till hard upon the cry of ‘breakers’ came The crash of ruin, and the loss of all But Enoch and two others. Half the night, Buoy’d upon floating tackle and broken spars, These drifted, stranding on an aisle at morn Rich, but loneliest in a lonely sea. (38)
Here Tennyson’s narrative demands that we engage with it, that we interact with its multiple perspectives and shifting temporal sequences. The ebb and flow of Enoch’s voyage gives the
44 reader hope and then rips it away, as though we are on the ship ourselves, praying for fair weather. Only God and the narrator, however, can control the fate of the Good Fortune. Enoch’s adventure, which initially fared so well, becomes a nightmare, with periods of calm followed by moonless tempests that finally wreck the ship. All hands and their booty on board are lost, except for Enoch and two other souls. Supported by the debris of the doomed vessel, the image of
Enoch drifting among his riches juxtaposes his earlier depiction as master of the sea. He is now relegated to a state of flesh and bone, no longer in control of his own destiny. We are reminded of the futility of his monetary ambition, and the riches he gained stand in stark contrast with the wealth of natural sustenance he finds on his new island residence:
Not want was there of human sustenance, Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots; Nor save for pity was it hard to take The helpless life so wild that it was tame. There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge They built, and thatch’d with leaves of palm, a hut, Half hut, half native cavern. So the three, Set in this Eden of all plenteousness, Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content. (39) Though removed from civilization, Enoch and his companions have all they require to live their daily island lives comfortably. But in this “Eden of plenteousness,” heaven has been transposed with hell. Fraught with worldly goals and desires, Enoch and his shipmates find no peace on this new earth. As Collins observes, “the isle soon becomes a parody of Eden, and Enoch’s life there becomes a death-in-life. His suffering is the punishment that corresponds to his transgression: having separated himself from his family and community...and Enoch comes into closer communion with the divine through his isolation and suffering” (49-50). At this point Enoch’s
45 narrative becomes more ontological. His spiritual identity supplants his mortal identity. He has entered a state of limbo—a right of passage before he can earn his place in Heaven.
Enoch’s shipmates are also caught in physical and spiritual limbo. One of them, a young boy, experiences a three-year long “death-in-life” before passing away. The other meets his end after finding a fallen branch and “fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell sun-stricken.” Enoch reads these two deaths as a warning from God to “wait.” But in this act Lynn O’Brien finds that
“Enoch’s passivity, his fearful waiting, prevents his timelier arrival home, which would have obviated the need for his self-sacrifice. Enoch violates Tennyson’s conception of the necessity of aggressive male action when he fatefully chooses to nurse his injured companion—a feminine trait—rather than continue the struggle to return home” (179).43 However, Enoch’s choice to remain island-bound is not an emasculating trap of Tennyson’s, but rather a reminder of the spiritual, sensible paragon he has come to represent. Nature has been very interactive throughout this journey, passing judgment with water, wind, sickness, and fire. Enoch sees God’s hand in the environment as being directly responsible for the fate of his shipmates, and under the circumstances one can imagine the many lingering illnesses that would befall a stranded sailor, just as we can imagine the “sun stricken” heatstroke of the second sailor and the mental swoons of reality amid this tropical prison. The sailors’ attempts to manipulate the environment, their refusal to contemplate their surroundings, leads to their premature demise. Only when alone and isolated does Enoch suspend his mortal struggle, and only at this point does he begin to observe the grandeur of God’s creations:
The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco’s drooping crown of plumes,
43 All references to O’Brien are to Male Heroism: Tennyson’s Divided View (West Virginia University Press: Victorian Poetry, Vol. 32, No.2, 1994).
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The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The lustre of the long convolvuluses That coil’d around the stately stems, and ran Ev’n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world, All these he saw. (40) From this perspective, Tennyson shows us that Enoch has been given a sneak peek of paradise, if only he allows himself to see it. At the cost of human contact, he even gains superhuman sight and hearing. He sees and hears, as if for the first time, the wooded mountain, the verdant fields and glens, the beauty, quickness, and sounds of all animal and plant life on the island. Where previously he had looked but had not seen, he now sees; where previously he had listened but not heard, he now hears. Though he remains stranded and lost in solitude, with his daily search for rescue unanswered, he begins to experience the world as he had not been able to on the populated mainland. And though he remains fixed in time and place, he discovers a new kind of wealth—he is biologically, psychologically, and spiritually enlightened. He is no longer tethered to the world of man, but rather to an ecosystem bursting with divine allusions. Enoch has clearly been chosen for something, and someplace, far more significant than his previous life. By focusing on his narrative in this way, Tennyson prepares him for martyrdom and sagedom.
Tennyson uses audible and visual symbols to frame the differences between Enoch’s physical and spiritual cognition. Familiar signs of life, large and small, appear to him in cinematic sequence. One moment he sees a “golden lizard on him paused,” and another hears the
“myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, the league-long roller thundering on the reef, the moving whisper of huge trees that branch’d and blossom’d in the zenith, or the sweep of some precipitous rivulet to the wave” (40). But even though he is granted this new sensory ability,
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Enoch’s former life continues to preoccupy his thoughts. He is haunted by “phantoms” of his past, memories that “moved before him haunting him, or he himself moved haunting people, things and places, known far in a darker isle beyond the line” (41). This “line” actually represents the ocean’s horizon. But for Enoch it is a divide between the civilized world, the afterworld, and the world he presently inhabits. It is the point he looks toward every day for salvation, for a ship and a sail; a point he cannot reach, but also the point that sparks the most fascination in his eyes:
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices; The blaze upon the waters to the east; The blaze upon his island overhead; The blaze upon the waters to the west; Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise, but no sail. (41) The “blaze” of the sun illuminates every aspect of Enoch’s world. It provides a sightline to his horizon and his surroundings; it provides him with chemical nourishment and warmth; it cultivates life around him. But it also has the ability to drain his remaining physical strength.
Lockyer notes of this scene that “We find the story of a day woven in a most graphic manner into the account of Enoch Arden’s life on the desert island” (49). Enoch is graphically reminded every day of the magnitude of his loss. Thus it is his responsibility to synchronize with his environment, and play by its rules. Under the circumstances he begins to feel that he is part of a greater universal puzzle. The sun seems to flaunt its power; the ocean seems to speak its own language, and the stars themselves seem to shield a heavenly dimension beyond his own. But the past weighs on his psyche, and he recalls the idyllic dream he had once created:
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The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes, The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill November dawns and the dewy-glooming downs, The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, And the low moan of leaden-color’d seas. (42) Like his new home, the highlights of Enoch’s previous life had been the sights and sounds of nature. His divine gift of supersonic hearing even brings him notice of Annie and Philip’s wedding through the “pealing of his parish bells.” What he lacks, however, is interaction with another human soul. And as he embraces his physical martyrdom, the reader may consider a recurring theme in biblical scripture, where divine revelation comes at the cost of mortal desire.
The biblical Enoch, for example, saw revelations of God’s plans for the future, and was given the gift of prolonged life at the cost of repeatedly losing his loved ones. Tennyson’s Enoch experiences his own such conflict, prematurely aging and losing sense of the passing of time:
“Over Enoch’s early-silvering head the sunny and rainy seasons came and went year after year”
(42). But his years of vigilance are finally paid off, when the forces of nature send another ship to his rescue:
His hopes to see his own, And pace the sacred old familiar fields, Not yet had perish’d, When his lonely doom came suddenly to an end. Another ship (She wanted water) blown by baffling winds, Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course, Stay’d by this isle, not knowing where she lay. (42-43)
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Enoch’s deliverance is preordained. Just as nature levied his punishment, it also issues his salvation. When he nearly loses all hope of spotting a sail in the distant seascape, reminiscing about his “sacred old familiar fields,” nature propitiously sends one “across the break on the mist-wreathen isle.” The newly stranded seamen are in need of water, the proverbial essence of life. They are unwittingly encroaching on another sacred ground, a wild environment that has become a human habitat. Enoch hears their desperate clamor, and steps down down from his mountain gorge appearing “hardly human,” even otherworldly, to the ship and her crew. He is a shade of his former self, more animal than man. He is “strangely clad” and unkempt, and frightens his new crewmates with his lunacy and rage. Yet he seems to possess an uncanny knowledge of the terrain, and is able to lead the sailors to the fresh water that will sustain them on their journey home. When Enoch’s “long-bounden tongue was loosen’d” he is finally able to resume human speech, and is welcomed aboard the ship. At this point his physical being reflexively morphs back into its civilized form.
Readjusting to human interaction, Enoch toils among his new shipmates, and it is not long until his thoughts turn longingly towards Annie, his children, and his homeland. Tennyson portrays these fleeting thoughts through descriptions of nature, and specifically of England: “His fancy fled before the lazy wind returning, till beneath a clouded moon He like a lover down thro’ all his blood drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath of England, blown across her ghostly wall” (44). Finally, Enoch completes his cyclical return to the harbor from which he departed ten years earlier. But upon his return he is uncertain and rootless, having been separated from his domestic world for so long: “But homeward—home—what home? Had he a home?” (45). As
Enoch begins to make his way inland, Tennyson fills his peripheral vision with environmental imagery. But his world is now cast in muted colors. It is a dank, muffled shade of its former self,
50 consumed by the elements: “Bright was that afternoon, sunny but chill; till drawn through either chasm, where either haven open’d on the deeps, roll’d a sea-haze and whelm’d the world in gray; cut off the length of highway on before, and left but narrow breadth to left and right of wither’d holt or tilth or pasturage” (45). Though the afternoon begins bright and sunny, there is already the presentiment of a chilling, darkening change. This is a world caught between a “sea-haze” on one side, and a “narrow wither’d” earth on the other left to provide for man’s sustenance. Even animal dwellings seem to have lost their lustre: “On the nigh-naked tree the Robin piped disconsolate, and thro’ the dripping haze the dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down.” Not only do animals appear despondent upon Enoch’s return, but nature itself seems to despair the closer he gets to Annie and Philip’s dwelling: “Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom; last, as it seem’d, a great mist-blotted light flared on him, and he came upon the place.” This state of gloom reflects Enoch’s internal suffering, and the mist-blotted light of Philip’s home is a specter of the domestic dream he left behind. Collins observes that “When he returns to the village he left before he enters a withered and mist-shrouded world...The old familiar world differs from the tropical isle he left in every respect but one: Enoch is solitary in both. His suffering and punishment continue, and the horrors of isolation are as great here in the human world as they were on the desolate isle” (50). Tennyson marks the tenor of this scene with ecocentric salience.
Forces of nature follow Enoch throughout his narrative, and environmental settings reflect the various stages of his spiritual growth. But of all the storm’s he has weathered, this will be the greatest.
Upon his homecoming Enoch finds ghosts of his past. His physical symbols are always that of which is absent, and he sees none of himself in this new world’s imagery. His return to the house where he and Annie lived reveals only a bill of sale nailed to the door, and no life or
51 light within. The house he once constructed, like his family, is lost to him. As Philip had once descended the hollow of the down, Enoch now descends to a desolate coastal harbor and a familiar tavern from his younger days. There he finds an old haunt, a decaying relic, and a shade of the past lingering only with the ghosts of warm bodies: “A front of timber-crost antiquity, so propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old, he thought it must have gone” (46). Miriam Lane, the tavern’s proprietress, inherits the property from her deceased husband, and like Annie’s store it echoes with memories of better days. “Brown, bow’d, broken,” Enoch is so physically battered that he is unrecognizable to others. And without realizing who he is, Miriam tells him the story of his forlorn household. Hearing of Annie’s life with Philip, and of his own presumed demise,
Enoch’s face remains motionless: “O’er his countenance no shadow past, nor motion.” He is hurting, but he reveals nothing. His physical being has endured so much that now only his spiritual being is stimulated. Still, the thought of seeing Annie plagues him, and he is driven forth one night to seek what was once his.
From the wild hilltop beyond, Philip’s home becomes a magnet for Enoch’s lost hopes and dreams. The light from his hearth contrasts with the blaze over Enoch’s island purgatory, “as the beacon-blaze allures the bird of passage, till he madly strikes against it, and beats out his weary life” (48). As Enoch approaches, Tennyson reminds us once again of his rival’s topographic superiority, “For Philip’s dwelling fronted on the street, the latest house to landward.” Philip has ventured as far from the sea as possible, signifying his advanced station and wealth. He mimics nature with his garden, but it is artificially designed, “with one small gate that open’d on the waste, flourish’d a little garden square and wall’d; and in it throve an ancient evergreen, a yew tree, and all round it ran a walk of shingle, and a walk divided it” (48). Here
Tennyson’s vividness demands that his readers clearly picture Annie and Philip’s separation
52 from the threats of the unknown wilderness beyond their garden gate. This image creates a barrier between the natural and artificial worlds, a barrier between the Ray family and Enoch.
This theme mirrored much of Victorian society, which was still roiling with class separations, divisions in societal mores, and the threat of the working class. According to Marion Shaw,
“Enoch’s own thwarted and deluded homecoming converts Enoch into a parody of Victorian commercial enterprise” (160).44 In this brief vignette Tennyson clearly paints a picture of
Enoch’s animalistic wildness, and the civilized dependence of Annie and Philip on the material world they inhabit. And where Philip had once like a reptile “crept down into the hollow of the wood,” Enoch now “shunn’d the middle walk and stole up by the wall, behind the yew” (48).
Finally, atop the evergreen tree, “Enoch saw.” His human sight is returned only to reveal his greatest agony, a voyeuristic view of a domestic ideal where “cups and silver on the burnish’d board sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth” (49). Enoch sees Annie and Philip, his children and step children, enjoying the life he had always wanted, the life he traded for maritime adventure. For a moment he returns to his corporeal being, only to suffer once again:
Now when the dead man come to life beheld, His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe Hers, yet not his, upon the father’s knee, And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, And his own children tall and beautiful, And him, that other, reigning in his place, Lord of his rights and of his children’s love— Then he, tho’ Miriam Lane had told him all, Because things seen are mightier than things heard, Staggered and shook, holding the branch, and fear’d To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,
44 All references to Shaw are to “Tennyson’s Dark Continent” (Victorian Poetry, vol. 32, no. 2, 1994, pp. 157–169).
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Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth. (50)
After being stranded for so long, Enoch has now regained his sense of hearing, his sense of speech, and his sense of sight. He is finally able to experience the real world once again, but it is sensory overload. The reality he finds is not the one he left behind. It is a fate worse than death, one that shakes him to his core. And it is all he can do to withhold the supernatural “blast of doom” in his lungs. This is another example of Enoch’s control over the material world. It is also his greatest moral sacrifice, when he relinquishes his connection to mortal affairs by concealing his very existence. Rather than reclaim what is rightfully his, he chooses defeat, unhappiness, and death. It is the point when he comes closer to divinity, allowing his family to maintain their idyllic stability. And he chooses not to destroy it because he loves them, because he is a good man, because he has ascended beyond the realm of the living. He takes further precautions not to destroy this nocturnal bliss:
He therefore turning softly like a thief, Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot, And feeling all along the garden-wall, Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, Crept to the gate, and open’d it, and closed, As lightly as a sick man’s chamber-door, Behind him, and came out upon the waste. (50) At this point in the narrative there is nothing left to sustain Enoch in the real world. He has become death-in-life, like the young sailor who perished on his island purgatory. Feeling hopeless, he tries to kneel in prayer, but his feeble body fails him and he collapses, and finally he
“dug his fingers into the wet earth, and pray’d” (51). For all he has lost, Enoch’s symbiotic
54 relationship with the earth still exists, allowing him to speak directly to God. Lamenting to his
Lord with a kind of disembodied voice, he pleads for guidance:
‘Too hard to bear! Why did they take me hence? O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou That didst uphold me on my lonely isle, Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness A little longer! aid me, give me strength Not to tell her, never to let her know. Help me not to break in upon her peace. My children too! must I not speak to these? They know me not. I should betray myself. Never: not father’s kiss for me—the girl So like her mother, and the boy, my son.’ (51) Enoch questions the unintelligible motives of his creator, and wonders why he should be so afflicted in life. He wonders why he was spared from his tropic isolation only to find another kind of emptiness. He feels the intrusion of the past upon him, and an invasion of memories. For a moment he loses his kinetic communion with God, when “speech and thought and nature fail’d a little, and he lay tranced.” But he perseveres, and continues to pray for the strength to remain silent of his existence, to remain invisible. Though he is physically weakened, he is strong enough to subjugate his emotion and anger. He retreats from Philip’s topographic perch and walks back down to his place of solitude at the inn, back to the seaside where he ascended from.
In this moment he becomes more than flesh and bone. He becomes a model of Christian faith and sacrifice.
Enoch’s faith in God becomes the locus of his existence. His commitment to doing the right thing, and the thought of God watching over him, gives him strength. His internal spirit
55 then becomes the foundation of his physical activity: “His resolve upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore prayer from a living source within the will, and beating up thro’ all the bitter world, like fountains of sweet water in the sea, kept him a living soul” (52). For Enoch the thought of heaven has become more lucid than his waking life. It is his destiny and his destination. It is a place entwined with the material world, but independent of it. It is a place where he will find peace. As Collins notes, Enoch “does not continue to indulge in self-pity, but turns to God for comfort and guidance. His new purpose concerns spiritual rather than material well-being” (50). Enoch also wonders if Annie still thinks of him, and whether she grieves over the uncertainty of his fate. But rather than disturb her peace in life, he decides to give her closure in death: “After the Lord has call’d me she shall know, I wait His time” (52). In the meantime, he puts himself to work. He proves his earthly value in his mastery of coopering, carpentry, and of course fishing. Even in his weakened state he is more useful than the average man, but he refuses any charity of Miriam Lane’s. However, working for himself and not for Annie or his hearth, which was his motivation since childhood, brings him no joy: “There was not life in it” (53).
Time again takes on an insignificant, terrestrial quality, hanging heavy on Enoch’s shoulders, and “the year roll’d itself round again” until he falls ill. He feels death approaching. But while he senses his end his near, he “bore his weakness cheerfully.” Enoch looks forward to death, because he knows it is not the end but rather the beginning of a new adventure: “For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck see thro’ the gray skirts of a lifting squall the boat that bears the hope of life approach to save the life despair’d of, than he saw death dawning on him, and the close of all” (53). On earth Enoch is afloat, stranded. But death, his boatman, has finally come to his rescue. And the gates of heaven await.
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Before his demise Enoch reveals his identity to Miriam Lane, and makes her “swear on the book” that she will not tell his story until his after he is gone. At first Miriam does not recognize his appearance and stature, to which Enoch replies “My God has bow’d me down to what I am; my grief and solitude have broken me.” All that Enoch was, is, and will be is owed to his God, and even among a kindred solitary like Miriam Lane, his faith endures. He predicts that he has but three days to live, and proceeds to reveal his secrets. As Miriam listens, “fast flow’d the current of her easy tears,” while Enoch makes one last request: that she tell Annie he died
“blessing her, praying for her, loving her,” that she tell his daughter that his “latest breath was spent in blessing her and praying for her,” that she tell his son “I died blessing him,” and that she even tell Philip “that I blest him too” (56). For Enoch, spiritual affection and goodwill have become more important than physical communion. He has received the power of prophecy and spiritual blessing. And though his physical presence will fade, he will be remembered for his spiritual presence. While he agrees to let his children see him, he implores Miriam not to let
Annie, “for my dead face would vex her after-life.” This is because he knows that Annie, who is bound to the mortal world, could not withstand the sight of his corpse, or fathom the thought that his spirit had ascended to a better place. There he plans to meet his sickly son who perished prematurely, and he looks forward to their blissful reunion: “Now there is but one of all my blood, who will embrace me in the world-to-be: this hair is his: she cut it off and gave it and I have borne it with me all these years, and thought to bear it with me to my grave; but now my mind is changed, for I shall see him, my babe in bliss” (57). Here the vacillation between the mortal and spiritual worlds reaches its climax, confirming Tennyson’s dual-toned paradigm.
Three nights later Enoch arises, just as he had prophesied, when “there came so loud a calling of the sea that all the houses in the haven rang” (57). The sea calls to him—it is his home
57 and his mother, his judge and his savior, the source of all his joy and all of his pain, his calling in life and now his calling in death. He awakes and looks toward the water, espying something from afar—a ship. In this vision Enoch, like King Arthur, recognizes he is about to embark on his last journey, to parts unknown. This is not a hallucination, but rather the culmination of all his hopes and desires. It is his salvation, a vessel sent from the spirit world to carry him to a dimension beyond the horizon and beyond stars. Ready to meet his maker, Enoch “spread his arms abroad,” making the shape of the cross, and unleashes his last mighty breath: “A sail! A sail! I am saved.”
Just as a sail had come to save him from island prison, so too does one come to save him from the material world. The ocean water will carry him to glory.
The narrator makes no mistake in letting us know that Enoch was a “strong heroic soul.”
His story posthumously resonates with all who hear it, and he is buried so lavishly that “the little port had seldom seen a costlier funeral” (58). In his noble death Enoch surpasses Philip’s station, and the ordinary station of men. He becomes a myth and a legend, a model for truth, justice, and virtue. The emplotting of his fateful narrative from the beginning shows that Tennyson had meant to teach his readers a moral lesson. Scott explains that the Victorian public “needed explicit strong and simple moral values; the morality of the hearth provides a single, secular motivation for the story” (20). These moral values are treated within a scenic framework. While
Annie and Philip envisioned a “warm hearth” near the “tall-tower’d mill” of their village, Enoch envisioned “November dawns and dewy-glooming downs, the gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, the low moan of leaden-color’d seas, and the dewy meadowy morning-breath of
England.” Where Enoch’s attempts to provide domestic insulation and security had once blurred his moral compass, his wilderness survival brings renewed conviction. And where he had hoped to find fulfillment in returning home to the little port, he found a greater fulfillment in death. In
58 this character Tennyson encompasses his own dilemma with natural and supernatural existence.
He had fervently searched for signs of God in his physical surroundings, in his dreams, and in his psychological musings. The real prize, however, is “death-in-life.” It is in realizing that evidence of paradise pervades the natural world, but paradise itself can only be attained through personal sacrifice. Enoch finally comes to understand this. He becomes a biological phenomenon, fading into the land and sea, and rising in spirit. He is earth and water incarnate. And he is Tennyson’s greatest hero.
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Chapter IV
Summary and Conclusions
This study has focused upon the effects of natural theology in “Enoch Arden.” The theories I have worked out show that the phenomenology of nature corresponds to the phenomenology of religion in Tennyson’s writing. I have tried to isolate the literary features that are most concomitant with this theme, and have tried to demonstrate how landscape imagery corresponds with the poet’s spiritual mindset. By aligning him with other intellectuals, I have intentionally called into question the nature of human spirituality, as well as the innate abilities and downfalls of humankind. In a world that continues to modernize, just as Tennyson’s did, I have called into question the meaning of artificial, environmental, and spiritual symbols. In
“Enoch Arden,” spiritual understanding is achieved only when Enoch absolves himself of mortal ambition. As noted by Collins, “this progression is that of life growing out of death, the garden out of the wasteland; it is also the progressive development by which Enoch grows into a
Tennysonian hero” (53). Enoch, moreover, is an exception to the norm. He is not an everyman or an archetype; he becomes something more, something reborn. He is the idol in “idyll.”
At Tennyson’s request, at least five illustrated editions of Enoch Arden, Etc. were published after the 1861 debut. According to Collins, this expressed the poet’s “liking for tableau-situations,” and what a Time Magazine reviewer called “literary still life.” To be sure, the level of detail in Tennyson’s imagery reflects a fixation he had with his environmental settings. His poetry displays imaginative stretches of land and sea that contrast with the civilized lifestyle he lived in Somersby, Surrey, and Farringford. Shaw notes that “He still celebrated the
60 spread of English values, even when these were repressive” (160). These values were often causes of concern for Tennyson, because he feared that civility would disrupt the natural, pre- existing order of the world. As such, he tried to show his readers better ways of living in harmony with nature through his writing. He once wrote to Reverend F.D. Maurice, his son
Hallam’s godfather, an invitation in the following words: “One lay hearth would give you welcome, take it and come to the Isle of Wight, where far from noise and smoke of town, I watch the twilight falling brown, all round a careless ordered garden, close to the ridge of a noble down.” “Enoch Arden,” therefore, is more than just a heartwarming story or a pretty picture. It is a teaching tool that compels the reader to explore the innermost corners of their consciousness, where nihilism and disbelief reside. In this way Tennyson succeeded in creating a “landscape of consciousness,” where pictorial environments could rouse the thoughts and minds of his fellow
Victorians.
The American writer Augustus Strong once asserted that “great poets give united and harmonious testimony to the fundamental concepts of natural religion, if not to those of the specifically Christian theme.”45 Likewise, where I have exposed Tennyson’s entrapment schemes for his readers, I have also laid bare my own religious growth. I have declaimed my views on the importance of natural theology, particularly in an age of spiritual dilution. It is only when we no longer find majesty or mystery in our environment that we stop evolving as human beings. And if serenity must be found in the immediate tangible reality, one need but look to their surroundings. These are fundamental laws of Tennysonian literature, and Enoch Arden understands them well. He lives through introspective thoughtfulness, rather than blind progression. He is more than the sum of his human parts, which is why, as Collins explains, “an individual, not a society, is revivified” (53). Thus, the Idylls of the Hearth in their original name
45 Alfred Tennyson: the Critical Legacy. Camden House, 2004, p. 43.
61 represent a paradoxical dream, never to be realized by the average person. With this in mind,
Tennyson’s aim was to nourish his readers not with idyllic interior settings, but with wild, unpredictable worlds outside those settings—worlds created by inconceivable forces. As he himself suggests in “In Memoriam,” “Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”
Following Tennyson’s death in 1892, the title of poet laureate was not appointed for another four years, as a sign of respect to Britain’s most beloved writer.46 Queen Victoria, an ardent fan, had personally offered him a baronetcy on several occasions, but Tennyson had declined every time. This kind of humility resonated with his fellow countrymen, who were so enamored with him that tourism near his home at Farringford bordered on trespassing. But today, if one were to look at a photograph of Tennyson, or read an obscure work about his personal life, they might conclude that he was the desperate melancholic many scholars make him out to be.
The everlasting image of this man, however, was not marked by his passing, but rather by his living. Here was someone determined to unravel life’s mysteries; someone who took breaks from the busy commotion of life to find meaning in the world around him—a world that science was coming to better understand, but one that mankind was coming to forget. The warmth of the sun, a whisper in the wind, the rolling murmur of the sea, every cosmos, every star, every blade of grass, millions and billions and trillions of lives in quantity and age, all held significance for
Tennyson. These were beyond natural phenomena—they were gifts. Gifts bestowed by a power that remained frustratingly out of focus. It must have been his hope, then, that this focus would become more clear in death, but also his hope that, in the face of the unknown, he should cherish
46 Alfred Austin assumed the title of poet laureate of great britain in 1896. He was a detractor of Tennyson’s. Ironically, he shared many of the same sentiments about nature: “The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not only on the body, but the soul.”
62 all that life had to offer. Infinite possibility, even a glimpse of heaven itself, could be perceived by those willing to stop, look, listen, and take in a breath of their existential world. And perhaps this is most evident in what we know about the final moments of Tennyson’s life. On October
6th, 1892, while on his deathbed in Surrey, surrounded by his family, between the lucid moments of his coma he spoke of a journey to Farringford. He thought he had been walking in his garden there, admiring the trees and the brush. He asked for his copy of Shakespeare’s plays. And finally, looking toward the window of the room, he said “I want the blinds up—I want to see the sky and the light.”
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Chapter V
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