Tears, Idle Tears Flashcards

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1
Q

Tears Idle Tears

A

Alfred Lord Tennyson 1847

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2
Q

Alfred Lord Tennyson 1809-1892

A

Greatly affect by the death of his good friend Arthur Hallam who died of a stroke aged 22, named his son Hallam Tennyson
Other notable works: Charging of the light brigade and In Memoriam written for Arthur Hallam

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3
Q

Genre / Themes

A

An elegy

Loss and Longing

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4
Q

Form

A

Blank verse, four quatrains, iambic meter built around the repetition of a refrain line

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5
Q

The refrain line

A

The various kinds of repetition in the poem, help to convey the idea of the speaker trapped by, or obsessively focusing on the days that are no more

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6
Q

“Tears, idle tears”

A

Unprompted, unbidden, without apparent purpose
The speaker questions why he should be moved to tears as he contemplates a ‘happy’ scene: confused by his seemingly unprompted tears

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7
Q

“I know not what they mean”

A

The Speaker’s state of confusion

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8
Q

“Depth of some divine despair”

A

Sense of powerful overwhelming emotions conveyed by the alliterations and the connotations of ‘depth’ (strength) and ‘divine’ (powerful, deeply felt and unknowable)

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9
Q

“Happy Autumn-fields”

A

Happy because of the annotations with harvest and the bustling human activity and company (from which the speaker is detached, and an onlooker)
Autumn is a season of change pointing towards winter and the ideas of closure and death

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10
Q

Stanza 2

A

The metaphor of sunrise and sunset, and of a voyage and of the seas
This is a very common 19th century metaphor for loss and grief

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11
Q
"Fresh ...
...
Sad.. 
...
So sad, so fresh the   days that are no more"
A

The repetition intensifies the speakers sense grief

“The days that are no more” strike the speaker as being fresh and sad, he explains these sensations in this stanza

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12
Q

“Ah” beginning of the third stanza

A

Emotions have escaped the speaker

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13
Q

“Dark summer dawns”

A

A rather paradoxical image which further hints at the speakers depressed state; the conflict between the ideas of ‘dawn’ and the symbolism of the ‘darkness’
Proves there is no consolation to be found in nature and it only further promotes his grief

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14
Q

“Half-awakened birds”

A

Another idea of struggle and uncertainty

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15
Q

“The casement slowly grows a glimmering square”

A

Idea of a struggle; slow audacious transitions from darkness to faint ‘glimmering’ light. Light is a symbolism to reflect the speaker’s state of mind and also represents the faint traces of the past/memories which now feel lost to the speaker

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16
Q

“Dear” start of final stanza

A

Deep intimacy

17
Q

“Deep as love, Deep as first love”

A

Repetition and the development of the idea of the strength of the sensation and of the awareness of loss

18
Q

“Wild with all regret”

A

Unconsolable and absolute

19
Q

“O Death in Life”

A

Emotional outcry

“Death in Life” torturous condition

20
Q

Final stanza

A

The speaker has moved from idly contemplating the source their feelings to recognising fully their powerful hold over him