EXISTENTIAL THEOLOGY in Tennysons In Memoriam ABSTRACT Tennysons In Memoriam poem series comprises 79 pages.

It can be approached from the viewpoint of many themes, including suffering, the meaning of life, psychological introspection, social issues, faith and doubt, and spiritual pilgrimage. Our approach investigates a variety of aspects, with some remarks focusing on existentialist categories. The essay follows the order of the poem, dividing the themes into nine sections (as proposed by Culler, see footnote 7). Sufficient is said about the person and thought-life of the author to make the poem more understandable. For some readers this article may function as an invitation to immerse oneself in the delightful and challenging exercise of one day reading the whole poem series. For those who do not have such an opportunity, this essay will still give them the worthwhile experience of listening to a great poet struggling with great issues. Introduction This essay ties into the theme of being at home and also lost in the world. We shall refer to existential categories, begun especially by Seren Kierkegaard (1813-55), such as the development of the self as subjectivity', anxiety in regard to freedom of choice, absurdity, and faith as a leap. We shall also include similar categories found in Paul Tillich (1886-1965), as for example faith as our ultimate concern, and the movement from essence to existence to a new essence or new being. Existentially, this is about our pilgrimage in regard to creation and salvation. In Tennysons words, we climb lifes altar stairs (LV)1. By existential we mean lived through experience by the subject (person and not mere objective view from a distance (including the distance of abstract reasoning). Tennysons In Memoriam struggles with the relationship between faith and knowledge. It asks questions about the possibility of human progress, about suffering and hope, and it deals in the widest scope with the meaning of life and death. The poet enters into the problem of our identity as human beings in the world of nature and culture - and this in turn is accompanied by investigations into many tangent ideas which illustrate the question, now from one side, now from another. The reader on this pilgrimage will understand that I am not giving a full exegetical discussion of the poem, since it is comprised in total by 711 four-line stanzas and these in turn are divided into 131 numbered sections. When it is printed with nine stanzas on a page, as in the edition I am using, it is 79 pages long, which is unusual for a poem. But as we said, it is a series and its stepping along the path of several themes partly forms a unity and partly seems at times haphazardly joined. That is its charm as well as its difficulty for the reader seeking to understand the nuances. We usually think that a poem gets to the heart of the message in shorter form than prose does. But Tennyson needed many pages to bring his thoughts and feelings into relief (whereby we may think of the double meaning of that word as making more vivid as well as removing distress). What we shall do with his well-crafted and also at times cumbersome thoughts, is highlight some major themes in this long lyric by dividing it into 9 movements or sections. The theme holding this essay together is the question of the meaning and the dynamics of creation theology, as expressed throughout In Memoriam. At the start it is important to take notice that Tennyson, as poet and thinker, would not want us to hear only his answers but also to listen to his questions. The poem has many voices and so we may rightly expect this to point to a continuing diversity of dialogue. The voices are Tennysons at times, but at times the voices are those of others. Or better: all the voices are his as poet, but not to be pinned upon him as a person. They help us think about many possible questions, answers and half-suggestions, in relation to the great themes of life. Even when the voices may be Tennysons more personally, which he need not hide, we are dealing with many layers of meaning. The poem refers to the person Tennyson and a variety of events in his life, to his own reflections and hints at accepting or rejecting interpretations in regard to many themes but he allows for other personae or voices in the poem, to argue with him. Indeed, there are a myriad of literary references which scholars find in various lines and as it were, between the lines.2 Tennyson himself said that it was the voice of the whole human race that can be found in this series of poems. He addressed some of the great social, political, scientific, philosophical and religious problems of his time and does so existentially, as is often the case in poetry, novels and drama. The poet reminds us that abstractions cannot satisfy the human spirit.3
1 2 3

The Roman Numerals refer to the numbered sections of the poem which run from 1 to 131. Paul Turner, Tennyson (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976), 118ff. Robert Bernard Martin, Tennyson The Unquiet Heart (Oxford University Press, 1980).

The poet Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) was the son of a church minister and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, starting in 1827. His friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam dates from those years and Hallam was engaged to Alfreds sister, Emily. It was a profound shock to Tennyson when Arthur Hallam, who was on vacation in Vienna, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 22. As the years went by, and after difficulty in getting good reviews by the critics, Tennyson became established as a poet with the works he published in 1842. When he finally published his masterpiece, In Memoriam, in 1850, he was appointed Poet Laureate (succeeding Wordsworth) and he held this laureate longer than any other English poet. He was to be known as the most popular Victorian poet and has never lost his charm for many readers. Queen Victoria insisted that he accept the title of Lord Tennyson (after the poet had declined the offer many years earlier). Since he was very shortsighted and found it difficult to write, he composed various parts of his poems in his head and then wrote them down. Some of his lines have entered into common sayings, such as, Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all; and: There lives more faith in honest doubt,/Believe me, than in half the creeds. Tennyson is remembered for longer works, as well as powerful short lyrics, such as Break, Break, Break, Tears, Idle Tears, and Crossing the Bar. Thomas Edison made wax cylinder recordings of the poet reading some of his verse. Tennyson is buried at Westminster Abbey.4 Structural sections and themes When In Memoriam A.H.H. appeared in print for the public in 1850, Tennyson became known as the most important poet living in England. Sixty thousand copies were sold the first year. The work was composed by bits and pieces during seventeen years (1833 to 1850) in memory of his friend Hallam with whom Tennyson discussed literary, religious, and philosophical ideas. Hallam had also been the young Tennysons early literary manager who helped him get his youthful poems into print. In Memoriam, written during a period of many years after the loss of Hallam, was a struggle of thoughts, written out of respect for his friend but also as therapy for Tennyson himself against his grief and loneliness. T.S.Eliot called the poem a confessional diary; this is very much the case. On another level it is also a philosophical inquiry into the meaning of human existence and the relationship of knowledge, faith and hope all stretched into a cosmological inquiry. We do not need to, nor can we, separate the subjective feelings here from the objective side of the answers looked for. Indeed, as Paul Tillich says: Feeling is no nearer to the mystery of revelation and its ecstatic reception than are the cognitive and the ethical functions.5 Said in another way: the Gospel tells us that only the pure in heart shall see God. Tennyson wants to say the pure in heart and sound in head.6 So even though the poem is mediated through many feelings, it is also very much a poem for the mind. Hallam had written a book called Theodicaea Novissima in which he explored a discussion concerning the rational support for theology, whereby scientific information and logical arguments are used to uphold religious beliefs. Tennysons In Memoriam also makes use of a similar analysis which argues that subjective experiences and feelings must have an objective basis to warrant some of our conclusions about God and world as well as about the purpose of human life. Hallam said that there is a correspondence between the way we are as human beings and the way the world is structured. This is similar to Augustine saying that our heart only finds rest in God. Some call this the psychological argument for belief in God: namely, because we feel a need for God, we suppose God exists. It is true that this psychological argument is not a full proof. On the other hand, it is not therefore to be totally ignored, for it is not merely a psychological argument, but refers to the wider argument of ontological structures and to their meanings. Philosophers have tried to show the correspondence of subject and object: experience by the perceiving subject is by means of the objective structures and data with which we interact. We cannot talk about what is purely subjective or objective, but only about the intertwining of these. All our speaking about God is also analogous. Tennyson realizes this and makes full use of such a correspondence between God and world in his reflections on a theology of creation and salvation. As we follow the poem, we shall see that Tennyson is not only writing poetical expressions; he is doing serious theology, even if expressed in the poetic mode. The theological aspect is not an adornment, but rather at the essence of his inquiry. Three theological aspects appear to dominate: i) revelation, or how we may know God; ii) creation, or the manifestation of the divine presence in the world; and, iii) hope, because of Christ, the Strong Son of God who came among us.
4 For more on the life of Tennyson, see, Robert Bernard Martin, op.cit. Also, Andrew Wheatcroft, The Tennyson Album A biography in original photographs (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980); Norman Page, Tennyson An Illustrated Life (New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1992). 5 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Nisbet & Co Ltd, 1968), 127. 6 A.Dwight Culler, The Poetry of Tennyson (Yale University Press, 1977), 181.

The poem is perceived to have 9 movements (although these sections are not labelled).7 However, comments by the author point in this direction. These sections can be listed as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Stepping stones of grief (I-VIII). The burial ship (IX-XX). The path forward (XXI-XXVII). Eternal life - is it possible? (XXVIII-XLIX). Steps of doubt and trust (L-LVIII). Wandering in dreams of despair and hope (LIX-LXXI). Inner peace and progress (LXXII-XCVIII). Pilgrimage to a new day (XCIX-CIII). Hope toward which the whole creation moves (CIV-CXXXI)

We shall provide introductory remarks concerning each of these sections, tracing especially the existential questioning and theology Tennyson offers us. 1. Stepping stones of grief The first stanza of section one sets the wide theme in an impressionable way:8 I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things. Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drownd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss: Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground, Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love and boast, Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn. The nine theme sections of the poem divided into 131 numbered parts, form 711 stepping-stone stanzas (each comprised of four lines), which prove to be difficult and slippery. Yet they lead to a higher conclusion about lifes meaning. Throughout the poem Tennyson explores thoughts about ways of rising beyond our failures and futility. Perhaps even beyond finiteness, beyond death. Along the way he mentions forms of biological and social evolution, future hope based on higher stages of morality, formal and experimental aspects of religious faith, as well as transcendent intuitions in dreams whether in the night or in the daytime. With these grand questions we are in the middle of philosophical views concerning permanence and change, as well as questions of entropy and progress. This brings us back to pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus and Parmenides, who tried to investigate what is permanent and what is changing. This in turn relates to the nature of the world and the question of form and substance, or essence and attributes. Plato and others discussed what is really real. While some philosophers wanted to pin reality down to one element such as earth, air, fire or water, others spoke of the great logos, which meant the divine mind (with a world plan). For the Platonic line of thought it turned out that the really real is not seen, but can be logically deduced. Socrates, the great master of dialogue, drank the hemlock while saying that he had faith in the future life of the soul. Much later the question of progress would be dealt with in many ways, as for example Hegels views on thesis, antithesis, and a new synthesis. He spoke of the progress of the Spirit or Mind (Geist), and in comparison this makes our contemporary ideas about democratic, capitalist and technological progress look a little thin. For even
Culler, op.cit. provides an analysis of these nine sections, in ch.8, 149ff. Three dots between the stanzas means that I am passing some stanzas or lines by in order to quote those (in the same section of the poem) most relevant to the point in question.
8
7

though these factors often dictate the condition of our contemporary western-style lives, they cannot tell us how to make qualitative, ethical choices, nor do they provide an adequate understanding of our humanity. Tennyson lived in another age, which was already in many ways modern (the Enlightenment had stirred many minds) - but his time was not yet late modern and far from postmodern. He stands at a great divide between past certainties and the present challenges to these. Tennyson expresses the situation of thinkers since Kant who must now say that reason cannot answer the ultimate questions (of God, freedom and immortality), and yet these metaphysical questions remain of existential interest to us.9 Although abandoned by the anti-metaphysical mood, these life and death matters were taken up in a new existentialism. Tennyson introduces the question of spiritual progress for the developing self and world, because we need to know if we are headed primarily toward death or new life. Is it possible to go beyond the views of a Stoic? The Stoic, it is said, has courage in spite of fate and death, for the Stoic knows about renunciation. However, the Stoic does not know about salvation in the biblical sense of the restoration of the creation.10 Tennyson felt the attraction of the Stoical views, but his great stepping stones are those toward salvation. This also means that he is not a modern exclusivist humanist.11 As Tillich commented upon such choices: Modern humanism is still humanism, rejecting the idea of salvation.12 Said in another way: Tennyson is philosophical but also theological. When we begin with section one of Tennysons poem we find that there is a great sorrow which dominates and this of course is the reason Tennyson is writing. He raises existential doubt about whether time (hours), grief and death shall be victorious over love and lifes meaning. He does not say that we can avoid loss and death; but he yet speaks of stepping-stonesto higher things. In Tillichs categories: we live through the ambivalence and ambiguity of finite existence toward our new being. Tennyson, too, goes beyond the ambiguity of loved and lost later in the poem. Some of the images in Tennysons next section refer to city life: for example, a bald street , a dark house, doors waiting for the absent friend, and even the chimney glows/In expectation of a guest. But the images from nature are just as strong (II): Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men. The yew tree is a symbol of death. Some see it referred when Elijahs sat under the broom bush and wished to die (I Kings 19). It appears in Grays Elegy in a Country Churchyard and in T.S.Eliots Ash-Wednesday with the theme of the juniper-tree. The point of these lines is to establish the fact early on in the poem that our lives are lived in the shadow of the yew tree, the shadow of death. The seasons come and go, nature flowers forth, but we also live by the clock and the time allotted to us before the yew tree wraps its roots around our bones. The fact of death is established, but what value may we give to it? That is Tennysons question throughout the poem: is there a creation theology which goes beyond the brute visible facts of nature? How do life and death, time and a spiritual vision of eternity, relate? How may people rise on stepping-stones/Of their dead selves to higher things? In order to reach abundant life, we need to reflect on the meaning of death. This sounds very much like Kierkegaard. Death in Tennysons view seems cosmic. Section III speaks of stars [that] blindly run: The stars, she [Sorrow] whispers, blindly run; A web is wovn across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun

Cf. Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind (London: Harcourt, 1978), Introduction, 14f. Cf. Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952; second ed. 1980), 17. 11 For a major study of exclusive humanism, see Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2007). 12 Courage, 19.
10

2. The burial ship In section two, the poet imagines the body of his dead friend being transported home on a fair ship across a placid ocean. Tennyson is symbolizing his need to view the death and burial of his friend in a way enshrined by peace. The ship symbol is well known from Egyptian funeral ships which sail into eternity with the souls of the dead. But Tennyson also relates this to Noahs ark and to the dove as a symbol for the spirit: Lo, as a dove when up she springs Like her I go; I cannot stay; I leave this mortal ark behind, This second section begins with a prayer request (addressed to the fair ship), a prayer for protection and peace upon the remains of the beloved friend, that he may come home gently to those who mourn him. This is poetic selftherapy for his grief, but he also admits in XI: Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair: Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep. Tennyson cleverly gives objective breath to the corpse by means of the waves (heaving deep). But the corpse is not breathing and its dead calm is the calm of death. Likewise his own calm is a calm despair. We arrive here at the existential categories of subjective experiences of grief, anxiety, and the ambiguity of the lifes meaning when faced with meaninglessness (absurdity) and doubt as to whether there is really any hope. There is a willed calm which may have existed in nature that morning (Calm is the morn without a sound), but there is no calm in his heart. He reflects this in nature (XV): To-night the wins begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day: The last red leaf is whirld away, The rooks are blown about the skies; He comments on his own ambiguous feelings (XVI): What words are these have falln from me? Can calm despair and wild unrest Be tenants of a single breast, Or sorrow such a changeling be? Then he goes on to say (XVI) concerning the shock of Hallams life gone, Or has the shock, so harshly given, Confused me like the unhappy bark That strikes by night a craggy shelf, And staggers blindly ere she sink? 5

And stunned me from my power to think And all my knowledge of myself; And made me that delirious man Whose fancy fuses old and new, And flashes into false and true, And mingles all without a plan This is powerful imagery: a ship sinking, a man gone delirious. By talking about false and true Tennyson refers to the question of meaning, the question of the world, humankind, God, purpose and hope. What, if any of these, is trustworthy? He discovers a calm within, but it is a calm despair. He is calm because he is still stunned. He is disoriented. This raises questions dealt with in existentialist philosophy: it is not only our daily routine which counts - we must also come face to face with ourselves. That is, with our values, our worldview, our faith and doubts, our hopes and despairs. Suddenly knowledge of our self (Socrates) becomes extremely important. When we face the great important events of the self, such as birth, baptism, marriage, career, family, ethical challenges and the horizon of death, our choices turn into stepping stones for social and psychological development along with moral and spiritual development. This in existential terms since Kierkegaard has been called the creating of a self; essence does not dictate the identity of our existence. Our choices define who we become. Tillich talks of new being, in order to hold the objective (ontological) side and the subjective (personal identity) side together. The poet is considering his path in life. This path goes through times of disorientation, so that the death of a friend stunnd me from my power to think/And all my knowledge of myself. He comes close to giving up, but knows he must continue on ahead and seek more light upon the stepping stones. The imagery from nature which he uses in this context is leaves that redden to the fall. This is an expression which refers to the autumn as the time of the falling of fruit and leaves, the falling away of life as winter comes. He adds that this is the time of the chestnut pattering to the ground, which he claims is almost a calm sound echoing in the background of his silent grief. So, in the first two sections of the poem he points out that death is intertwined within the seasons of nature and there is a calm which comes from the falling leaves, yet this is not a comfort to him. He uses the word calm six times within eight lines (and eleven times in the twenty lines of section XI), but admits that what he is experiencing is calm despair. The short but intense analysis of calm in this way is an spiritual exercise similar to Kierkegaards analysis of anxiety and Tillichs analysis of lifes ambiguity. 3. The path forward In section three the poet thinks back on the walks and talks he had with Hallam (XXII): The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracks that pleased us well, Thro four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow But where the path we walkd began To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended following Hope, There sat the Shadow feard of man; This analogy of the path is as metaphysical as physical. The time spent together included walks and hikes, but also the path of discussion about knowledge and faith. What is lost with the death of his friend is communion and a meaningful life path to be walked. The path is a prominent religious and philosophical way of speaking. We are homo viator, pilgrims seeking meaning, seeking goodness, and seeking God. The image of a path is dominant in religion. Buddhism speaks of an eightfold path to finding the harmony of an ethical and spiritual life. We also find this emphasis of the path in Taoism, for Tao means the way or the path of walking wisely. In Islam the surah which comes at the beginning of the Koran is repeated in the Muslims daily prayers and emphasizes the path:13 In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate: Praise be to Allah, Creator of the worlds,
13

Translation in Huston Smith, The Worlds Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 242.

The Merciful, the Compassionate, Ruler of the day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and Thee do we ask for aid. Guide us in the straight path, The path of those on whom Thou hast poured forth Thy grace. Not the path of those who have incurred Thy wrath and gone astray. In the Old Testament the Torah, or Gods law, is also called the way. Thus we read: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105).The first Christians were called people of the Way (Acts of the Apostles 9:2 & 24:14). The path in the numerous stages of In Memoriam is fully religious and fully philosophical. Another way this is seen in the poem is that when discussing the greatness of knowledge, the poet also puts this in the context of the pillars of wisdom, drawing on Proverbs 9:1. For Tennyson, wisdom includes the knowledge of God. Indeed, the path is one of climbing higher. Tennyson was aware of Platos steps (epanabathmoi) from earthly to divine beauty, truth and goodness. Similarly, he knew of Augustines statement about turning our vices into a stairway (scala) or ladder by treading them under our feet, and climbing higher.14 The poet himself spoke of this poem as the way of the soul. Meanwhile, Tennyson wants to tell us, the path is not easy and not always clear. In the final analysis not everything rests with us. Later in the poem he writes, in LVIII: We pass; the path that each man trod Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: What fame is left for human deeds In endless age? It rest with God. But meanwhile we need to walk our path through life and Tennyson realizes that fulfillment in life cannot be achieved by avoiding the problems and questions, but as Kierkegaard indicated, by facing them, even if we need to experience and analyze our own anxieties: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born with the cage, That never knew the summer woods Meanwhile Tennyson ends this third section with the often quoted lines (XXVII): I hold it true, whateer befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. The creation theology in the poem has turned from the surrounding scenes of nature spoken of earlier, and then begins to concentrate on the warmth of human relationships as a pointer toward some end to our pilgrimage which cannot be erased. This is a way forward, for I hold it true, whater befall. The exterior happenings do not totally diminish the inner light of hope. Hope, for example, that a loved one lost does not mean everything lost. Somehow creation and salvation belong together. In the next section the poet looks directly at the question of death and everlasting life. 4. Eternal life - is it possible? Is there progress, perhaps even eternal progress? This is the question of section four of the poem. Is there personal immortality or is there annihilation? These questions are fully philosophical and fully theological. We may recall Socrates witness to the immortality of the soul as he faced death. On the other hand, ever since Democritus there have been atomists who argue that reality is basically material, rather than primarily mind or spirit. Epicurus based his ethics on the materialism of Democritus. Today the view of scientific materialism as the key to basic reality is often an influential mode of thought. Some, like Immanuel Kant, have suggested that belief in immortality
14

Turner, op.cit., 121.

has a rational basis, for this is the logical conclusion of practical reason. That is, the moral law demands an endless progression, and when we think of endless progression we come to the idea of the immortality of the human personality. William James, in his Gifford Lectures (1902) on The Varieties of Religious Experience, said that personal immortality, or eternal life, was the basic meaning of religion for most people on the popular level. The moral nature of humanity then is said to point to existence after death, whether this is interpreted as a reward for moral conduct, or as the conclusion of continual progress toward the Good. This was of course the basic Platonic view. Christianity broke with the idea of an eternal return of cosmic cycles (which Nietzsche revived) and gave us a historical and progressive view of the coming of the Kingdom of God. This progress is not our accomplishment, but must be seen as the gift of God for the redemption of his world. In other words, the redemption of the creation does not come from within created reality, but along with every good gift, is given from above (James 1:17) by the Creator. That is what a theology of creation contributes to the discussion of progress. Tennyson, as many today, was struggling with the issue of how much truth and certainty come from the great human possibilities of science and technology and the limits of these.15 He saw that science and technology do not answer the questions of the heart. That is why he continued to think philosophically and theologically. Tennyson wanted to maintain the basic views of theology because he was aware of the contemporary materialist challenges - as when he says in XXXIV: My own dim life should teach me this, That life shall live for evermore, Else earth is darkness at the core, And dust and ashes all that is; Then he continues saying that if all is without conscience or an aim, Twere best at once to sink to peace, Like birds the charming serpent draws, To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness and to cease. This very much sounds like Kierkegaard when he talks about the dizziness of freedom, which includes the possibility of a jump into the abyss. We are lured into accepting the darkness without hope. The poet speculates on such matters as death and sleep being similar (XLIII). He further has an extended section of the idea of the soul descending into material reality as the basic law of nature (XLV): The baby new to earth and sky What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast Has never thought that this is I: But as he grows he gathers much, And learns the use of I, and me, And finds I am not what I see, And other than the things I touch. So rounds he to a separate mind From whence clear memory may begin, As thro the frame that binds him in His isolation grows defined. This isolation includes the estrangement Kierkegaard talks about, but is also a prerequisite for becoming an individual, or self-chosen identity. Tennyson recognizes this, and projects this into eternity, by saying that after death a remerging in the general Soul (XLVII) is not enough:
15 Among numerous sources on this today, I mention Wendell Berry, who speaks of an over-extended faith in science and technology as a modern superstition. Cf. Berry, What Needs to be Subtracted, an interview with David Cayley, ed., Ideas on the Nature of Science (Fredericton, New Brunswick: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Goose Lane Editions, 2009), 149ff.

That each, who seems a separate whole, Should move his rounds, and fusing all The skirts of self again, should fall Remerging in the general Soul, Is faith as vague as all unsweet: Eternal form shall still divide The eternal soul from all beside; And I shall know him when we meet Tennyson offers some further speculation about eternity, but knows we have no clear answer. The light and the shadows intertwine, like light reflecting on shadowy pools of water (XLIX), providing what Tillich has called the ambiguity of lifes meaning: From art, from nature, from the schools, Let random influences glance, Like light in many a shiverd lance That breaks about the dappled pools: Beneath all fancied hopes and fears Ay me, the sorrow deepens down Tennysons creation theology does not jump to conclusions; it begins with the question: what is the basic nature of reality? How do our present life and eternity relate to each other? How should we view our life in the body? Classically stated: how do soul and body relate to each other in the long run? Which hopes are merely fanciful and which based on the grand design of everything? How can we rise above the great sorrows of finite life? All of these are also Tennysons questions. He experiments with views on eternity and wants to say that there is hope, even though we cannot put a description of eternity into satisfactory words. Heschel emphasizes that our sense of awe at the unfathomable goes beyond our logical and analytical abilities, yet the feeling of wonder and reverence that arises in us at the contemplation of the sublime, the majestic and the eternal, is an objective given. We experience this awe subjectively, but it is based on objective realities that we did not create, whether the snowy mountains or the vast cosmos, or the logic and harmony in mathematics or the sublime indications in art. Earlier, Kant also emphasizes this experience. Tennyson seems to agree with what Heschel later wrote: 16 What we encounter in our perception of the sublime, in our radical amazement, is a spiritual suggestiveness of reality, an allusiveness to transcendent meaning. The world in its grandeur is full of spiritual radiance, for which we have neither name nor concept. ...Scientific research is an entry into the endless, not a blind alley; solving one problem, a greater one enters our sight. One answer breeds a multitude of questions; explanations are merely indications of greater puzzles. Everything hints at something that transcends it; the detail indicates the whole, the whole, its idea, the idea, its mysterious root. What appears to be a centre is but a point on the periphery of another centre. The totality of a thing is actual infinity. Tennyson now turns directly to the problem of trust and doubt. 5. Steps of doubt and trust Section five (L-LVIII) on doubt and trust gives us the heart of the question in a powerful way. It is both a high point of faith and a low point of doubt and uncertainty. We hear both a complaint and a prayer (L). Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick,
16

Cf. Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man is Not Alone a philosophy of religion (New York: Farrer, Straus & Young, 1951), 22, 3031.

And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is rackd with pangs that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame. Be near me when my faith is dry. But then the poet confesses (LIV): Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyd, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete; That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivelld in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves anothers gain. Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last far off at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry. Tennyson knew about naturalistic materialism and evolutionary ideas. He had read Lucretius De Rerum Natura, Lyells Principles of Geology, and Chambers Vestiges of Creation, all of which brought forward the debate about evolution. The poet seems to like the idea of Chambers, that whatever evolution may exist, it involves a great progress organized by God. So he speaks of a grand vision of One God, one law, one element,/And one far-off divine event/To which the whole creation moves. Tennyson says that we trust that the creation is not only continually under the weight of death, but somehow in some far off solution, it may be that every winter change to spring. The phrase every winter change to spring is at heart a great statement of creation theology. It is an analogy, based on the seasons. But it is not an easy analogy. The poet mixes the image of a wheel (all the wheels of Being slow) with the possibility of taking steps forward. He knew about Dantes magne rote (great wheels or circles of regress and progress). Paley had likened the cosmos to a great clock in which every tooth of the wheel is linked in the rotation of time.17 In Memoriam itself deals often with the circularity of life and death, but as part of Gods wise plan for some good future. The poet speaks not so much about an eternal return, as rather eternal progress. This theme is always showing up time and again, not only in the Stoics, the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, and of course Nietzsche, but also in discussions at the cutting edge of cosmological speculations today. Tennyson made his choice within a framework of creation theology, in the sense that Gods purpose is that far-off divine event/ To which the whole creation moves. But this choice is made while he faces the opposite view as always present (LV & LVI): Are God and Nature then at strife,
17

Paul Turner, op.cit., ch.7, In Memoriam A.H.H., 114ff.

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That Nature lends such evil dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life; So careful of the type? but no. From carped cliff and quarried stone She cries, A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. And the famous lines (LVI): shall he, Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creations final law Tho Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriekd against his creed -The stanza continues asking: shall those who honour love, truth, and justice, yet themselves come to nothing in eternity? Tennyson knew that the argument about the design of creation is off-set by the argument of suffering. He was aware that the strange wonders of creation draw some people to God and repel others.18 As the poem continues, Tennyson comes back in the next stanzas (LV) to the stepping-stones of the very first verse of the poem, which now become altar-stairs to God: I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great worlds altar-stairs That slope thro darkness up to God. I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. Yet both the hope and the doubt, the moments of revelation and those of darkness, are maintained side by side and indeed, mixed through each other (LVI): O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil. So we have a mixture of approaches. He mentions the great altar-stairs, the human search for meaning and for God, as well as the given situation of dead-end roads and the fact that much is left unknown and unrevealed, behind the veil. This unknown is not merely unknown information, but also the unknown reasons for suffering, for experiences of meaningless, and for gnawing doubt. This is existential anxiety. It may be that there is hope and salvation, but these seem to be hidden just when we need them most. We are often left with no language but a cry. The powerful images of a maniac scattering dust and a Fury slinging flame point to the question of meaning and absurdity raised by our existential experience. This is a central theme in literature, whether in Job, Ecclesiastes, Shakespeare, Tolstoy or Camus - and the list is without end because the human condition all around the world leads to the great questions of life and death, which also troubled Tennyson. The poet tries to frame his questions within a life-and-world-view. He experiments with a creation theology. He hopes that nothing lives in vain, and that the good shall at last come to all. Yet not knowing this in any fully definable way, he still concludes that trust is the only way forward. He is dealing with the question of theodicy, or the relationship between a good God and the evil and suffering in our world. The typical questions related to this are found in Tennysons poem. Do we suffer because of defects in the creation? Because of our own
18

Quoted in Culler, 177.

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evil? Is suffering a testing of our commitments? Is it a training toward spiritual progress? The poet points in several places to all of these aspects. But he also returns time and again to the conclusion that the full answer is behind the veil. We may try to trust, but we cannot see things fully. At the same time, Tennyson stubbornly insists that there must be some stepping stones, a path, a way forward. This is a creation theology which does not abandon hope when the sun of meaning sets for awhile. 6. Wandering in dreams In section six (LIX-LXXI) the poet tries to give meaning to the remembrance of his friend by imagining how the relationship would have continued had Hallam lived longer. This includes some more cheerful thoughts. Tennyson is warmed by his admiration for Hallam, but he imagines that he himself is a more lowly figure, hardly worthy of the friendship from one who was destined to a greater role and a greater rank in life. Then the poet writes five sections which are dreams. In the first, he dreams of Hallams gravestone, the letters of his name shining in the moonlight and giving hope in the darkness. In the second section, Tennyson says that the problem is that he cannot dream of Hallam as dead. Yet if he dreams of Hallam as alive this does not resolve the doubt. In the next section he dreams of an angel in the night, who speaks comfort to him: The voice was not the voice of grief. He also records the mystic experience of seeing in his minds eye the light of the moon shining on Hallams gravestone (LXVII): When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest By that broad water of the west, There comes a glory on the walls: They marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And oer the number of thy years. The mystic glory swims away And then I know the mist is drawn A lucid veil from coast to coast, And in the dark church like a ghost Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. The above uses existential categories, in which there is half-light, darkness, mist and a veil, yet also mystic glory. In the fifth dream he is walking again with his friend. The setting includes the joys of nature: While now we talk as once we talkd Of men and minds, the dust of change, The days that grow to something strange, In walking as of old we walkd Beside the rivers wooded reach, The fortress, and the mountain ridge, The cataract flashing from the bridge, The breaker breaking on the beach. In these dreams Tennyson meets Hallam and there is a time of peace and friendship again. These are dreams of hope and fulfilment. The vision of the past and present realities point to a future reality. This is a way of doing eschatology by analogy. And analogies seem to come in abundance to poets. We all know that psychology asks critical questions about religion as wish-fulfilment. It is often supposed that such wish fulfilment has no ground in reality, whether past, present or future. However, others say that the correspondence between the need and the answer, or between intuition and salvation, is a real correspondence.19 Stated in short form: if the heart does not
19

William James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005).

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desire salvation, the head wont find it. When the dream section ends with images of creation (woods, river, sea waves), this is a way of saying that Hallam is not lost forever, nor is the whole creation lost forever. 7. Inner peace and progress Section seven refers to the first anniversary of Hallams death (1833) and ends just before the year 1834 is over. For the second time the poet writes of Christmas. During the first Christmas after the death of his friend, he says that the bells ring out peace and goodwill, but he would almost wish to die before he hears them anymore, for they bring the confusion of sorrow touched with joy (XXVIII). Now he writes (LXXVIII): Again at Christmas did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; The silent snow possesd the earth, And calmly fell our Christmas-eve We see the poet has made progress in accepting the death of Hallam; his spirit is calmer than a year before. In this long section of the poem he develops the feeling of continued communion and communication with his lost friend. Tennyson remembers places where they had spent time together and now imagines an on-going dialogue between them. His great sorrow is now mixed with a kind of thankfulness, in words quoted by others ever since (LXXXV): This truth came borne with bier and pall, I felt it, when I sorrowd most, Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all --Bier is the rack (placed on a cart) for transporting a body to the grave, and pall is the black cloth used to cover the body. In deepest sorrow somehow love triumphs. Also in this section we find a resolution to the question of doubt: doubt can take away our trust and faith, but it can also make us stronger if we face the difficult questions. In fact, it is by means of the memory of his friends honest intellect and deep faith, that Tennyson now makes progress on the stepping-stones of life and the altar-stair to God. He is no longer only a pilgrim with his head bent in the weight of sorrow, for he can now speak of the glories of the pilgrimage (LXXXII): Eternal process moving on, From state to state the spirit walks; And these are but the shatterd stalks, Or ruind chrysalis of one. These lines turn to the brighter side: the pilgrim does progress. Each step we make fades behind us like an unneeded ruined chrysalis (the outer cocoon of the caterpillar) and the implied result is that we shall now be revealed as a beautiful butterfly. Bright as this is, the poet must turn back to daily reality and the struggle to find faith (XCVI): Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out, There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. He fought his doubts and gatherd strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them: thus he came at length To find a stronger faith his own: And Power was with him in the night, Which makes the darkness and the light, And dwells not in the light alone, But in the darkness and the cloud, As over Sinais peaks of old, 13

While Israel made their gods of gold, Altho the trumpet blew so loud. Doubt is not always the opposite of faith, but can be part of the struggle for faith. As Tennyson says, by fighting doubts one gathers strength. The reason that faith also lives in honest doubt, is that we are obliged to clarify what we believe and why. The poet puts a punch into his views by comparing honest doubt to the creeds. But he is careful: he says half the creeds. The point is that one cannot rest in ones doubt, nor in unexamined creeds. Tennyson challenges us to confess that God dwells not only in the light, but also in the darkness. We experience Gods absence in the darkness of life; yet God is present. This is a full theology of creation: if we enter the light or the darkness, God is there, and we cannot step outside of Gods presence (Psalm 139). 8. Break with the past and a pilgrimage to a new day This short section was written in 1837 at the time the Tennyson family moved from Somersby to High Beech at Epping Forest. The move becomes symbolic in the poem for the starting of a new day. This part and the rest of the poem turn outward toward the world, dealing with themes of social change, natural and cultural evolution, as well as progress in faith. The theme in the last section of the poem speculates about great hope for humanity including scientific, ethical, and spiritual progress. Let us now look at the last theme. 9. Hope toward which the whole creation moves The last section is longer and wraps together all what the poet wants to say. It opens with a third Christmas, this time strange, because the poet now lives in another place, and he realizes on Christmas-eve that these are not the bells I know. But the poet is far more cheerful and optimistic than in the previous times. He says that they should celebrate not Hallams death, but his birth. New Year is now added to Christmas. In often quoted lines, he writes (VVI): Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of part strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; 14

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. This vision wraps the social, economic and political together in a great longing of hope. Salvation in Christ is proclaimed as the basis for great transformations. Ring in the Christ that is to be, can be interpreted both as a longing for the return of Christ, as well as a symbolic way of speaking of the development of a higher mankind. There was a lot of scientific and industrial evolution, as well as political and social revolution (Marxism), in the air. Tennyson refers to this in Maud (lines 135-6): Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion creeping nigher, / Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. At the same time the modern age was bringing a new faith in technology. Global expansion was a reality.20 But Tennyson was too deep a thinker to believe that progress would be easy. Nor does his social gospel necessarily deny the eschatological need for the return of Christ. The vision of social and moral evolution is balanced by Tennysons deeply spiritual prayers in the poem, including the prayer to Christ added as an introduction to the whole poem. Throughout the poem there is a balance between the personal and the cosmic aspect; and this is similarly found in Tennysons Christology. He could know this from Paul. One wonders what Tennyson would have made of Teilhards writings. He incorporates views in that direction, as one voice among others. There are numerous Biblical phrases in the poem which some see as a systematic way of leading up to the Christological highpoint of ring in the Christ that is to be, and underscored by the introduction referring to the Strong Son of God.21 In section CXVIII, Tennyson refers to various kinds of development, to both natural and cultural evolution. But as the poem progresses he draws the conclusion that God cannot be found unambiguously in nature where violence and death rule, nor in society which is full of injustice, nor in reason which is prone to ideological error and abuse. God, the Power in darkness whom we guess, can only be found by means of the heart (CXXIV): I found Him not in world or sun, Or eagles wing, or insects eye; Nor thro the questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun: If eer when faith had falln asleep, I heard a voice believe no more And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep; A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reasons colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answerd I have felt. Tennyson is saying that the shadow side of reality is extremely strong and therefore we cannot find our way by reason alone. It is proper for reason to question things and beliefs; but the heart rebels against the doubts of reason when reason becomes cold and unbelieving. The heart knows things which reason cannot grasp. Even in his doubts and fears he is ...as a child that cries, / but crying, knows his father near.... Yet Tennyson was critical about religion, writing in his poem Maud, The churches have killed their Christ, and in his play, Becket, sometimes we mix our spites and private hates with our defence of Heaven. There are numerous existential themes that we meet many times throughout In Memoriam, and indeed the whole is existentially written. This simply means that it deals with certain questions as personal problems as well as cosmic. It is striking how Tennyson indicates what Kierkegaard, Tillich, and Heschel say (to mention the ones we
20
21

See, Glennis Byron, Alfred Tennyson: Selected Poems (London: York Press, 1988), Historical & Literary Background, 92-99. For a study of this, see Ward Hellstrom, On the Poems of Tennyson (Florida University Press, 1972).

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are quoting from in this essay, though we could add: Heidegger, Buber, etc.). There is agreement that spiritual freedom is a kind of ecstasy:22 as standing away from, or beyond ourselves in order to transcend the circle of our own ego and to be united with something more transcendent. This in turn relates to our ultimate concern. Heschel clearly links this to Gods concern for his world, which is a dominant question in In Memoriam, when he writes:23 ...inner freedom is spiritual ecstasy, the state of being beyond all interests and selfishness. Inner freedom is a miracle of the soul. How could such a miracle be achieved? It is the dedication of the heart and mind to the fact of our being present at a concern of God, the knowledge of being a part of an eternal movement that conjures power out of a weary conscience, that, striking the bottom out of conceit, tears selfishness to shreds. It is the sense of the ineffable that leads us beyond the horizon of personal interests, helping us to realize the absurdity of regarding the ego as an end. There is no other way to feel one with every man, with the leper or with the slave, except in feeling one with him in a higher unity: in the one concern of God for all men. Tennyson faces the sublime, the majestic, the mysterious, but also the terrible storms of life (CXXVII): And all is well, tho faith and form Be sunderd in the night of fear; Well roars the storm to those that hear A deeper voice across the storm... The poem comes to a heightened end with the thought that everything is cooperating toward some good purpose. Indeed, while the poem begins with a death, it ends with a wedding. As Tennyson himself wrote, It is rather the cry of the whole human race than mine. It begins with a funeral and ends with a marriage begins with death and ends in promise of a new life.24 All the experiences of sorrow and doubt have led the poet to a greater grasp of hope and love. In the last line of the poem (CXXXI) Tennyson is thankful for the noble memory of Hallam, his friend, who lives in God That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves. The poem ends with those words. However, Tennyson could not quite leave it and he added an introductory section of eleven stanzas which summarize his view. In these introductory stanzas (dated 1849, while the whole poem is dated as beginning from 1833), he underlines his faith in a personal God of love, and the importance of harmonizing faith and knowledge: Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of Thee, And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell;
22

Tillich, Systematic Theology, 124: Ecstasy (standing outside ones self) points to a state of mind which is extraordinary in the sense that the mind transcends its ordinary situation. Ecstasy occurs only if the mind is grasped by the mystery, namely, by the ground of being and meaning. 23 Heschel, op.cit., 142. 24 Andrew Wheatcroft, The Tennyson Album A Biography in Original Photographs (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), 60.

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That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster We live by faith, by analogies which speak of falling leaves, and winters which turn to spring. But Tennyson wants more than symbols - he founds everything on the Word become flesh. The additional opening stanzas quoted above are a prayer. And the conclusion after his long pilgrimage is that we are headed towards a far-off divine event/Toward which the whole creation moves. What we express inadequately now in words, images or music is not final. The poet says that one day the music shall be vaster! & & &

Frank Sawyer (Victoria, Canada, 1946 Thd., Phd. Hdr.) Sawyer taught 8 years in Latin America and for 18 years has been a department head at Srospatak Reformed Theological Seminary, Hungary. He published 7 books on philosophy/ethics in Hungarian, 2 in English, as well as a book of poetry. Frank & Aria Bijl have four children and four grandchildren. www.srta.tirek.hu/lap/sawyerf

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