The Evolution Of Tennyson’s Poetic Style

Tennyson’s poetry can be roughly divided into three periods: the early,middle and later period.His early aesthetic ideology is greatly influenced by Plato,Kant,Karl,and Keats,paying attention to the value of art itself and “art for the art’s sake”.In his poetic style,Tennyson pays attention to the sensual beauty and internal emotional experience,integrating poetry,emotion,painting and music into a whole.The aesthetic ideal of art is opposed to the boredom of the real life,which makes Tennyson’s lyric poetry mainly take the isolation of love as its theme,and embodies a kind of “weariness of the world " and " the beauty of death”.This is closely related to the "solipsism" in the Romantic Movement and the poet’s character.Tennyson’s poetry collection in 1842 is distinctive from the collection before 1833 in poetic style.He tried to create more objective poetry,and gradually changed from the early “weariness of the world “to "Meliorism".Tennyson’s poetry has strengthened the interaction with reality in the middle period.The characteristics of age in the poetry are obvious.The core value lies in the construction of the ethical order in Vitoria period,emphasizing "the ethical responsibility of marriage","individual freedom and political order",and "imperial nostalgia and patriotism" and so on.His thought tends to be traditional but not conservative,and lays emphasis on the maintenance of the mainstream values in Vitoria period,which helps to reconcile social contradictions and stabilize social emotions,and makes poetry exist because of its usefulness.At the same time,it has made innovations in the form and theme of poetry,creating many excellent epics,narrative poems and dramatic monologues.Such as the perfect combination of lyric and narrative in the Idylls of the King,and Enoch Arden,the realistic problems are put into the romanticism subject,and romantic elements of love are replaced by the Vitoria period’s marriage responsibility.In Ulysses,a dramatic adaptation of the classical themes is carried out to embody the value of times.Social dark reality in the late years makes the poet fall into pessimism,and the form of monologue poetry becomes its main feature,heavy on the discussion,and profoundly reveals the negative factors brought by the modern bourgeois spirit.This also prompted Tennyson to reflect on the value of life and the overall way out of human being in philosophy and religion,and eventually,because of the contradiction between the subjective world and the objective world,the process of thinking has brought the spiritual height to the poetry.Tennyson tried to draw inspiration from Lao Tzu’s "Tao" with the help of ancient oriental wisdom,thus detached from the material world and reached the other side of the spirit.If Tennyson’s early poetry seeks beauty,seeks good in the middle,and searches for truth in later period but ends up in vastness.The change of Tennyson’s poetic style is the result of its internal and external factors.It is closely related to the poet’s character and experiences,the social and historical context at that time,and the aesthetic taste of readers.As a poet laureate,Tennyson inherited and amended the romantic poetry tradition,and adopted a conservative and gentle attitude towards social reality,which coincides with the traditional British value.Throughout Tennyson’s writing career,his aesthetical ideology gradually weakened and his belief deepened gradually,which was in contrast to the era of lacking faith.The study of the evolution of Tennyson’s poetic style,combined with the characteristics of his different periods,helps to reveal the contradictions in Tennyson’s different works,such as aesthetic and moral value,suspicion and belief,and so on,and further explore the aesthetic and social value of his poems.