Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Being a Victorian poet, it was fun to see how Tennyson's poem, "Mariana," portrayed similarities and differences to Romantic poetry, specifically concerning nature. While this poem does describe many aspects of nature, as Romantic poems often do, this poem was very different because nature proved to have more of a negative affect on the woman in the poem, than the positive affect one would expect from a Romantic poem.

From the beginning of "Mariana," Tennyson uses strong images of the natural world to create a melancholy tone for the poem: "With blackest moss the flower plots...The rusted nails fell from the knots...The broken sheds look'd sad and strange...Unlifted was the clinking latch;/ Weeded and worn the ancient thatch" (1,3,4-6). The images created in the first few lines of the poem leave the reader feeling disconnected and saddened. These images of nature are dark and menacing and convey a depressing tone in the poem. Using words like "blackest," "rusted," and "broken" lead the reader to expect a negative outcome in the poem. He continues as he describes the way the woman, Mariana, is feeling because her husband deserts her and leaves her isolated and alone: "She only said, 'My life is dreary,/ He cometh not,' she said;/ She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,/ I would that I were dead!'" (9-12). Clearly, Mariana is feeling very dejected and miserable. She can think of nothing positive and only focuses on the fact that she has been deserted. She cannot rely on the beauty of nature to heighten her mood because the things in her vicinity lack inspiration.

The poem continues with other negative images of nature and the way that the affect the woman as images of the house emerge: "...The doors upon their hinges creak'd...the mouse/ Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd...Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors...Old voices called her from without" (62,63-64,66,68). Mariana is surrounded my feelings of sadness and hopelessness as every sound within her house affects her negatively. She finds no comfort within her home because she sees everything as part of a dejected world. As humans, we connect ourselves with the things around us and because she is so miserable, everything that she sees and hears around her must be in the same state of being. As she continues to express her feelings in the last stanza of the poem, the woman has given up all hope for the return of her lover: I am very dreary,/ He will not come...Oh God, that I were dead!" (82, 84). The poem does not end on a happy or light note, but rather ends in the same sullen way it began. Throughout the poem, Tennyson creates a mood that depresses the reader and fully conveys the depression that this woman feels.

This poem is very different in ways from Romantic poetry because it seems to generally focus on the beauty of nature and the inspiration that it causes the speaker to feel. Authors like Blake, William Wordsworth, and Dorothy Wordsworth, oftentimes describe the positive aspects that exists in the natural world and the influence that nature's beauty has on man. Tennyson on the other hand describes dark images in nature that surround the woman in the poem. She feels that everything around her is depressing, including nature, and thus Tennyson further displays the woman's feelings of hopelessness.