Reviews for In memoriam Arthur H. Hallam

The average rating for In memoriam Arthur H. Hallam based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-11-17 00:00:00 Michael McLauchlin I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately, and I’m starting to get a real taste for it. This poem is an emotional and heartfelt lament to someone who was very dear to the poet. Indeed, Tennyson has lost someone very close to him and spent seventeen years making this poem in his memory. Well, that’s devotion for you. His poetry is a real pleasure to read because of this, and structurally speaking it’s wonderful. The rhymes and metre are superb. Each verse in itself is a feat of poetic form. However, I think Tennyson’s lament could have been said in perhaps ten verses of the poem. Instead there are one hundred and fifty or so of them. Individually they’re all great to read, but when taken together it was simply too much. Here’s one of my favourites though: “I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.” This is the first stanza of the fifth set of verses, so it comes very early on. I think it perfectly sums up the main motif of the entire work. Tennyson feels his loss deeply, but he questions this grief. His friend’s death is the will of God, so to question the necessity of the death is to question God. Therefore, his grief reveals his doubting soul to the world. He insecure about faith; he begins to look towards science for the answers. But, instead of condemning either science or religion, he suggests that they can coexist. Knowledge gained through science is God’s will. Scientific understanding can add to religious faith and an understanding of the world, so together they can work. Through this combination of ideas he grieves further for his friend. This was all good, but I really don’t recommend reading the whole thing because it begins to grow incredibly repetitive. He considers his loss from so many angles that it’s practically mind boggling. I wouldn’t say he goes too far, but in terms of actual emotional effect it’s awfully drawn out. Each verse centres on the same thing, and whilst not directly saying the same thing, it felt repetitive. I would have stopped reading if I didn’t have to study this for university. I just think that everything that needed to be said was said very early on. Anything that came later was surplus and unnecessary. I much preferred The Lady of Shalott

Review # 2 was written on 2019-05-12 00:00:00 Bethany Schihl Grief often becomes immovable. No matter how hard one tries, it gets difficult to not let it diffuse with time. Tennyson's In Memoriam is something similar. With Arthur Hallam's death, Tennyson is neck-deep in loss and his sadness and melancholy made him question all sort of changes. Although I want to say that this poem is too lengthy with the same thought repeating itself time and again, I won't. Who am I to question someone's words if the grief is as personal as Tennyson's? It is extremely difficult to criticize a work if one knows how personal it is.