Examine the poem "The Splendor Falls" written by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Ans."The Splendor Falls" is a deceptively simple lyric. At first glance, the poem appears highly structured. It consists of three stanzas, each containing a quatrain rhyming abab, followed by a rhyming couplet. Each line of the quatrain appears to have four beats and generally follows the pattern of an iambic tetrameter. The couplet contains one five-beat line followed by a six-beat line. The poem is an essay in landscape painting. The scene is that of sunset transforming a castle and its surroundings. The speaker notices not only the fall of sunlight but also of a fall of splendor, of a glorious hue, on the walls of the castle. This initial perception is in itself a cause of ecstasy. But this is not all. Each moment that succeeds brings in bright vistas of everything around. The bright light makes the snowy towers of the castle shine gloriously and then travels to the lakes and the cataracts in course of which its dynamism is revealed. It shakes the waters of the lakes and makes the cataract leap in joy. So happy is the speaker in the enjoyment of this scene that he wants the bugle to be sounded, allowing a synchronisation of light and sound to follow. The important thing in this poery is the impact of this scene on the speaker. We see not only the light adding beauty and glory to the castle also creating absolute cheerfulness. It is this cheerfulness that sharpens observation and stirs the speaker for further activity. The second stanza hints at the presence of someone else who is asked to hear by the speaker the faintly blowing horns of the Elfland. The sounds are at first thin and clear, then thinner and clearer whose echoes can be heard in the fields lying across. Thcre is apparently nothing to suggest time-interval. But the thin sound and the elfland point to the onset of twilight-the light is there stiil, but like sounds it is also dying, taking leave of the world. The identity of the listener is finally revealed in the third stanza- the speaker is a 'dressing his beloved. He asks her now to enjoy the fainting sound of the echoes. But he also asks her to observe how the echoes move not only from hill to field or to river, but from soul to soul where they grow eternally. This is a unique experience 'of something transient acquiring eternity by sheer beauty. Thus, throughout the poem, Tennyson portrays the majestic backdrop and utilises it in order to convey his feeling and thoughts. Appreciation The world of nature maintains a course of life which is quite independent of an individual's way of life and experiences.
And yet at times, there may be an identity between the two. Tennyson captures such moments in his lyrics beautifully. A number of his lyrics are good examples of pathetic fallacy, of the world of Nature reflecting the moods of the poet or the persona.
0 Comments