In Memoriam Group

Question:


ohnoashleyyy
Student
High School - 12th Grade

Summarize Tennyson's In Memoriam A. H. H. 54

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final end of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
I shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

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Posted by ohnoashleyyy on Tuesday October 20, 2009 at 6:22 PM and tagged with in memoriam a. h. h. 54, literature, tennyson.

Answers:

  1. ban-chan
    ban-chan Student
    High School - 12th Grade

    Best answer as selected by question asker.

    The poem deals with Tennyson's familiar themes of uncertainty and indecision. It is about Tennyson's efforts to overcome his grief and find comfort in God and the knowledge of Heaven. Tennyson was a beliving Christian, and his faith in the afterlife was firm. Yet, at the same time, he doubted.

    You can see the uncertainty in the first two lines "Oh, yet we trust that somehow good/ Will be the final end of ill" Note that this is a statement of fact- Tennyson is saying that he hopes good will come out of ill, not that he knows it will do so. He goes back and forth. He doesnt belives it, then he does, He has a resolution, then he questions it.

    You only put up to line 20 but in the end of 55, he returns to  a kind of desperate faith, able to say only that he plans to "faintly trust the larger hope."

    Source: My British Literature textbook

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    Posted by ban-chan on Tuesday October 27, 2009 at 6:12 PM