In Memoriam Alfred Lord Tennyson
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In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson is a poem about the journey through the grieving process. Tennyson wrote the poem over a span of seventeen years, and it consists of 131 short poems and was finally published in 1850 as one long poem with no intention of being weaved together. Tennyson lost his best friend Arthur Hallam to the fever. Not only was Hallam his beloved friend but also his sister's fianc. At the end of the seventeen years Tennyson had learned that Man is not created to only die but to also go on and be with God. Also, he learned that all the things that a man can do to grieve would not comfort him; it is only the love of God that will ultimately bring true joy.
In Memoriam was written with isometric stanzas, which are set in iambic tetrameter quatrains. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, which is not original to Tennyson but he used it because it does not flow well. Each stanza is complete which forces the reader to continue reading or to "move on" in order to give the reader a glimpse into what he had to go through to "move on" past the death of his friend.
Tennyson wrote that although we cannot prove to anyone that there is a God, we believe anyway in Him because of general revelation, "Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are there orbs of light and shade; (In Memoriam, ll...