Tennyson was inspired to write the poem in autumn at Tintern Abbey, and according to his friend, “it seemed to flow from his mind without difficulty.” Despite its ease in creation, it takes considerably more effort to achieve an understanding, especially with Tennyson’s deliberate ambiguity.
The Paradox of Idle Tears
The image, nature and significance of the tears are the first paradox that readers must grapple with. The adjective “idle” especially invites contemplation.
On one hand, tears indicate energy and emotion spent over something, which raises the question whether tears can ever be idle. The tears, described by Harold Bloom as “charged with abundance of unarticulated feelings”, contain tension against the silence of their provenance; the persona himself declares “I know not what they mean.”
On the other, Graham Hough argues that tears are in themselves futile and meaningless as solutions, and asks instead: “when are tears even other than idle”? He goes on to point out another paradox, that the tears arise from “some divine despair”, and argues that since despair itself is a sin, the poem cannot be divine in a Christian sense.
Sense of Divinity
Hough argues for the poem as being pagan, and the image of the beam “That brings our friends up from the underworld” is to him a “hint of something more daemonic”, and a sign of a lack of divinity in the poem.
For a poem concerned with loss and death, the significance of divinity must be considered. Leo Spitzer disagrees with Hough, suggesting that is really a deity within the poem that is “atmospherically present”. This might perhaps be seen in the scenery that is“sad and strange as in dark summer dawns”, the sibilance contributing to an acoustic effect that suggests mystery. Spitzer argues that the despair really belongs to this unamed god of "Death in Life".
Time: Days that are no More
Tennyson called attention to the poem’s “sense of abiding in the transient”, and the poetic expression of time is a feature which deserves critical attention, and this is especially highlighted in the repeated reminiscence of “days that are no more.” Each stanza presents images which are grounded in a sense of time:
1st Stanza: “happy Autumn-fields” reinforce a sense of sadness and wistfulness that is first created in the “idle tears”.
2nd Stanza: The freshness of the “first beam” is central to the sense of reunion with dead friends. However, the middle of their interactions is truncated and the movement to the last red beam “that sinks with all we love below the verge” is rapid, giving an ephemeral feeling.
3rd Stanza: The sense of beginnings in “the earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds” is juxtaposed with endings for “dying ears” and “dying eyes”.
4th Stanza: Love’s expression changes with time and age, and the perfect ending for a poem expressing universal themes such as sadness, time, and death. Tennyson flits past quick images, arriving at the especially evocative one of a love “Deep as first love, and wild with all regret” before ending the poem with idea of lost days as a paradoxical “Death in Life”
It is suitable to end with Bloom’s comment that Tears, Idle Tears is one poem where Tennyson uses time as a poetic tool to tell a story, and to confront and express what is “otherwise invisible and unfathomable.” The usage of time and the sense of loss is also the crux of another poem, The Valley of Cauteretz.
Bibliography
Alfred Lord Tennyson: Selected Poems Edited by Christopher Ricks
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Bloom’s Major Poets Edited by Harold Bloom
Jing Heng Fong - I'm starting university this year, and look forward to writing and gaining experience at Suite.
