Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Break, Break Break”
I personally find this writer to be quite morbid, I feel as if he is trying to say that everyone is going to die so “O well”
How does one look at people and say
“O well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay” (p595 lines 5-8)
It is as if he is saying everyone dies, so why be broken up about it. I some sense I guess I could relate because I try not to get attached to people or things, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say “O well” at the thought of people perishing. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be bother with dealing with the emotions that are entailed with death and he just sees it as a part of life.
“Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me” (p595. lines 13-16)
Here it is as if he is resentful of the fact when something/someone is dead that they will no longer be and there is an eternal void. But then again I might just be wrong, is he talking about life on a whole or just about a dead day at sea?
Leanne Holt is discussing. 
KB's Blog 
Leanne Holt 4:26 pm on July 11, 2010 Permalink |
I really like Tennyson, and I think that most of his poems are about death. He lost his best friend when Hallam was only 22, and it really changed the way Tennyson saw the world. In this poem, I personally think he is writing about how the world goes on, not everyone stops for the death of one person. He also insets a comma between “O” and “well;” suggesting he is saying good for that person, having a good day, and such and such. It’s just my own observation, but it gives the poem a completely different direction.