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10 essential quotes from Tennyson
2011-03-08 17:43:22
7 March 2011 Last updated at 18:06 Share this page Delicious Digg Facebook reddit StumbleUpon Twitter Email Print Tennyson: 10 essential quotes Tennyson was a man for the maxim Continue reading the main story In today's Magazine The cult of lawn The end of the Asbo era Living with a Nazi name Why are fountain pen sales rising?
The poetic words of Alfred Lord Tennyson will be engraved in the 2012 Olympic village. But what other notable expressions can be attributed to Tennyson?
The last line of Tennyson's monologue Ulysses, "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield", will serve as inspirational words for the world's athletes when they come to London for next year's games.
Tennyson is quoted everywhere from books to episodes of the Simpsons, and some of his phrases have become commonly used maxims.
Here are 10 other quotes by Tennyson that may ring a bell.
1. "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."
From The Charge of the Light Brigade, the poem tells of the famous and brutal military disaster in the Crimean war. Nowadays, the saying is often used in the workplace and encourages one to press on no matter what the task.
Though the narrative as a whole tells the story of soldiers, pieces of the text can be applied to modern situations. "Readers can detach lines from their context and enjoy rolling them around in their mouths and heads," says Oxford University literature professor Dr Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.
2. "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
Perhaps the most well-known of Tennyson's quotes comes from "In Memoriam", a tribute to one of his late friends.
The saying, which is most commonly used to console someone after a break-up, tugs at the heartstrings and serves as a comfort for those with tumultuous love lives.
3. "If I had a flower for every time I thought of you... I could walk through my garden forever."
This romantic sentiment may sound like the message on a greeting card, but it now makes its way into wedding speeches and toasts.
4."Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
From the dramatic monologue Locksley Hall, this poem tells the story of a soldier who stays behind to reflect on childhood struggles.
This simple phrase insinuates that knowledge is pieces of information that aren't always retained, but wisdom is a deeper understanding based on life experiences.
5. "A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies."
"His poems are full of concentrated lines and phrases that linger in the mind because of their shape, their sound, their mouthability. They ask to be read and then re-read," explains Douglas-Fairhurst.
6. "I am a part of all that I have met."
In Ulysses, a dramatic monologue detailing the Greek hero's escapades, Tennyson succinctly offers his view that humans are shaped by a combination of all life's experiences.
7. "Better not be at all than not be noble."
In The Princess, Tennyson tells the story of a heroine who refuses to marry, and instead ends up founding a women's university. After a long pursuit and a series of trials, the princess eventually falls in love with a prince.
Tennyson's musing on nobility suggests that there is nothing worse than poor character.
8. "No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself."
This is the kind of maxim that The Office's David Brent might consider framing.
"Often he composed individual lines before working out where to fit them into a poem, and just as he sometimes treated these lines like pieces of lego he could build up into bigger blocks of writing," according to Douglas-Fairhurst.
9. "Who are wise in love, love most, say least."
In Merlin and Viviene, Tennyson tells the passionate love story of a woman seducing a man.
In this particular line of the poem, Tennyson suggests that someone who is in love should show love, not just vocalise their admiration.
10. "Nor is it wiser to weep a true occasion lost, but trim our sails, and let old bygones be."
"Many of Tennyson's poems are concerned with memory - what we should hold onto from the past, and what we should abandon," says Douglas-Fairhurst. "His best poems don't just describe the workings of memory - they also enable it by making themselves so memorable."
Here is a selection of your comments.
I've always liked this from The Idyls of the King: 'The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways. Which I've taken to mean that change is inevitable, and it can be positive.
The Eagle - Doesn't this mirror the life of a bird of prey? The first five lines capture the wait including the lovely, "ringed with the azure world". "The sea crawls", again little motion - and then that final line. He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Tennyson is just the right poet for inspirational maxims. "Man dies; nor is there hope in dust", for example.
My best quotes from Alfred Lord Tennyson is the one reported of him taking a walk along a narrow bridge where he saw a guy on the other side and the guy said,' I don't give way to fools' to which Alfred Lord Tennyson famously quipped, 'But I do', in response as he stepped aside. I have used this in my discourse on semantics on many occasions. I think it is simply brilliant!
I am 72 years old and reading Tennyson's poems again brings back sweet memories of my student days. I will end with this:"In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" in Locksley Hall by Tennyson.
Beautiful memories, these. Ah, and I thought it wasn't true when first I learned the lines, "I cannot rest from travel ..." Thanks for the memories. I first tried to list my 10 favorite quotations from Tennyson before checking yours... We agreed on the first 3 and I had four more of yours. I know the source of all but one. Perhaps you should have included the ultimate message of hope ... from "In Memoriam," I think: "..Oh,yet we trust that good will somehow we be the final end of ill ..." Thanks for the memories, as another English-born icon, Bob Hope, used to say. Ah, memories!.
What about "kind hearts are more than coronets"? It's become famous and well-loved in its own right, as well as being influential - inspiring the name of a certain Ealing comedy, for one thing..
As President Truman attempted to create a lasting peace in the aftermath of World War II he reportedly carried around in his wallet two lines from 'Locksley Hall' by Tennyson: Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. Attempting to rise to Tennyson's challenge?
I first read Tennyson's Ulysses at about fourteen. I had memorized the whole poem. It was my first experience of a poem in blank verse. I found it so beautiful. It is so full of quotable and inspiring lines: How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use. I am seventy five. Oh, how I am glad I read that poem!
And ever wondered from whom Agatha Christie got the title of at least one of her books? She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott. The Lady of Shalott! I was 'forced' to read it many decades ago when poetry actually featured in English lessons - but it has stayed with me. It has the same appeal as 'Stairway to Heaven', but was written about 130 years earlier than Led Zeppelins 'magnum opus'!
I am a little sad and disappointed they did not include the more memorable, "I hope to see my Pilot face to face hen I have crost the bar" I suppose with Tennyson though, narrowing down to the most profound and memorable quotes was no small task.