Alicia Rogers
Wexler
English 495
11 February 2013
Partial Draft
Comfort and Adventure in Death:
A Look at Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar”
It is often said that the only inescapable constants of
life are death and taxes. As mortal men
and women, we will always be tied to some form of government to control the
masses, and thus, subject to the payment of taxes. Furthermore, as mortal men and women, we will
always be tied to the grave. Mortality
is something that we all share; it is our great equalizer and unifier. However, none of this makes death any easier
to encounter. This is where art comes
in. Whether graphic or literary, art
seeks to negotiate the boundary between life and death and lend some comfort or
insight into an experience that we all must face. Alfred, Lord Tennyson navigates through his
own feelings about death in his poem, “Crossing the Bar.” Through his natural images, his structure and
rhyme, and his established conceit, Tennyson finds a place of comfort and
acceptance within the deep distress of morbid thought.
When
Tennyson discusses natural images within his poems, he connects back to
stability. The images serve as reminders
that humanity, in general, and the reader, specifically, are connected to the
world. In “Crossing the Bar,” Tennyson
relies on images of the environment to “gravitate [the poem] towards some
inevitable ground” (Tucker 9). The poem
opens with the “sunset and the evening star” which are simple twilight images
that people encounter daily, yet their significance intensifies throughout the
poem (Tennyson 63). Just as humanity
cannot stop the sun from setting nor the stars from heralding the night, we
cannot stop death from coming for us. It
is the way that things were meant to be.
Furthermore, these images are not drawn in fearful colors. Instead, they are displayed in their
simplicity, as facts. In the next
stanza, readers witness the quiet peace of the tide in the sea. This ocean is “too full for sound or foam”
which reflects an air of calmness; there is no tumult here. The image of the tide also brings
implications of being swept away in its midst.
However, the boat that is the narrator uses the tide in order to
journey. This sets the narrator up as “is
the tide master, not its victim” (Shaw 10). Yet, Tennyson also uses this inevitability
that the natural world invokes to unite with the power of God. As the “flood may bear [him] far” to see his
Pilot, the narrator recognizes that he is held up by forces beyond
himself. Just as readers cannot escape
the world around them, neither can they escape the power of God and death.
The
structure and the rhyme scheme of the poem further emphasize Tennyson’s journey
to a peaceful resolution with death.
Just as Tennyson uses the natural world to reflect the inescapability of
death, he finds “a semblance of command…reflected in the command of poetic
form” (Tucker 14). Tennyson takes an uncontrollable
situation and exerts control over it by fitting the wildness of death into four
finely structured and relatable stanzas.
Tennyson uses a simple abab rhyme scheme to further resonate the
straightforward goal of the poem and, ultimately, the plainness of the subject
matter. The word choice also echoes this
need for simplicity. Instead of dressing
the lines up with cluttered adjectives, Tennyson lets the smallest word
count. The poem is not overly ornate; in
fact, it is “poetry of the austere and minimal” (Shaw 9). This reflects Tennyson’s understanding that
death is not an exceptional experience.
It is one that all beings who live must face. Yet, even within the “deliberately
impoverished” style, readers—like Tennyson—learn that it is not desirable to
avoid death at all cost. Tennyson’s “short
syntactic units create a sense of urgency” that leads readers to believe that Tennyson
looks forward to the journey of death (Shaw 10). Tennyson even uses the cleanest method of
signaling closure with repetition and revision. In his “twice repeated
optative—‘may there be no moaning,’ ‘may there be no sadness’—and the final
‘hope’” Tennyson draws his poem to its natural conclusion and its death (Shaw
11). This continual mirroring of his
subject matter leads readers towards Tennyson’s own conclusion that death is
not big enough to fear, instead it is another normal step in the process of
life.
Finally, Tennyson treats readers to an extended
metaphor that eases both their feelings about death and his own feelings about
death. The narrator of the poem is a
boat heading to sea. This motif of the
sea and the boat “permits plenty of action, but action in which the actors are
subordinated to some authority outside of themselves” (Tucker 11). Just as the boat cannot journey without the
sea, humanity cannot journey without additional authority. The “sustained evocation of emotional atmosphere”
holds readers to Tennyson’s analysis and urges them to further contemplate the
nature of death (Tucker 12). Additionally,
Tennyson creates another metaphor that complements the first. He uses a natural sandbar to signify the edge
of life and the beginning of death. This
bar is the obstacle that must be faced in order to see his “Pilot face to face”
(Tennyson 64). Ultimately, Tennyson
finds hope in the journey that his boat must make. He puts his trust in his
faith where “God is the guide as well as the goal, for without His Incarnation
as the ‘Pilot’ at the outset of the voyage there would be no immortality on the
farther shore” (Shaw 10). Tennyson does
not undercut the overarching message that death is unavoidable; instead, he call
attention to his confidence that “though he knows he will not make the journey
through his own navigating skills” he has hope that he has run the course back
to his mooring where he can “trust in his Pilot’s presence” (Shaw 10). Readers who have followed the poem closely can
see that the narrator does not end in turmoil—he may be unsure of the journey,
but he knows that it is a natural course; furthermore, he remains ever
hopeful.
In my own life, I have often pondered the
relationship between life and death. I
became acquainted with the topic at a very young age. One of my younger sisters died in her infancy
when I was five years old. More
recently, my younger brother died in a snowstorm. As such, I’ve had years to contemplate and
reexamine the subject. I, like Tennyson,
cannot bring myself to fear death.
Instead, I view it as part of the deal we all make when we are
born. It may be a little morbid to think
about, but we are all marching at different speeds toward the same end. All that humans can do is seek for something
that makes that march worthwhile—be it God, or Love, or Learning.
Works Cited
Shaw, W. David. “Tennyson’s Late Elegies.” Victorian Poetry 12.1 (1974): 1-12. JSTOR. Web.
8 Feb. 2013.
Tennyson, Alfred. “Crossing the Bar.” 100
Best-Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. NY: Dover
Publications, 1995. 63-64. Print.
Tucker, Herbert F., Jr. “Tennyson and the Measure of Doom.” PMLA 98.1 (Jan. 1983): 8-20.
JSTOR. Web.
8 Feb. 2013.
