Here's a fun fact: Tennyson was probably the first English poet to tackle the problem of man's role in a universe that was (at the time) starting to be explained more and more by science (source). The Victorian period, during which time Tennyson lived, was the first period to have to face the implications of Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
As you can imagine, many people could just not deal with the idea that humans—supposedly the highest form of life and created in God's image—evolved from lower life forms. In Memoriam presents some of this anxiety, perhaps most famously in the nature "red in tooth and claw" verse.
Questions About Man and the Natural World
- Is the yew tree a positive or negative example of nature? Why or why not?
- Check out Canto 15. How do Tennyson's descriptions of nature line up with the mood of the speaker?
- What is Tennyson talking about when he mentions the "types" that are taken from "scarped cliff and quarried stone" in lines 1073-1074?
- Why are humans no longer "half-akin to brute" in line 2885?
Chew on This
Similar to the Romantic poets, Tennyson uses images of nature to show his interior states.
Tennyson presents nature as mostly a Big, Bad Force that is antagonistic toward humans. Even Darwin's newly-emerging theory is presented in negative terms.