Darkness and Light, Blindness and Sight
It's not surprising that a poem concerned with coming to terms with death and dealing with grief might employ lots of imagery relating to darkness and light. It's all about finding that proverbial...
The Yew Tree
That yew tree really seems like something out of Poltergeist, arewerite? It's personified in lines 61-64. It "grasps" the gravestones, while its "fibres" snake down under the earth and wrap around...
Things That Clasp and Entwine (for $1,000, Alex)
Like darkness and light, things that clasp or entwine around each other also are dominant images throughout Tennyson's poem.We see this most often in terms of Tennyson and Arthur holding hands. Ten...
Vaults, Graves, Tombstones, Relics
Let's just mark this section with a big "DUH." What do you expect from a 2900-line poem that meditates on losing someone to an untimely death? Lots of images relating to graveyards, bones, vaults,...
The Ship (Bark)
If Arthur is a relic, then the ship that carries his remains back to England is a sort of reliquary. Tennyson has a reverent attitude toward this ship, naming it "sacred bark" (374) and giving it h...