Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tennyson was, amongst all the Victorians, the writer whom I liked the most. His poetry was ambivalent concerning the changing times and the issues facing his society. Split between science and religion, evolution and creationism, and, in his poem: In Memoriam, life and death. The poem of his that I liked the most was definitely In Memoriam. I cannot rationalize why I like this poem above the others Tennyson wrote, I simply felt that I most associated with the ideas Tennyson was expressing. Perhaps its because I at one point doubted the existence of God in favor of more intellectually accepted rationalizations about the universe. Perhaps its also because I have had someone very close to me die and was left without the means to express how I felt when it happened and this "In Memoriam" seems to remind me of how I felt during that very difficult time in my life. My favorite quote in this poem is without a doubt "A warmth within the breast would melt the freezing reason's colder part, and like a man in wrath the heart stood up and answer'd "I have felt" (Tennyson 613). What I like most about this particular quote is, in addition to what I have said about my emotional connection with it, is the idea that seems to be expressed in it. I do not simply mean the idea of God against reason, what I mean is the defiance of this statement. In spite of the oppressiveness reason has upon the heart, the heart fights back. The heart may not have a great argument for defending its actions, but at the very least it knows what it wants.