Break, Break, Break by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Upon Cold Gray Stones

Jan 25, 2009 Jing Heng Fong

Short and intense, Break, break, break expresses poetically Tennyson's desperation on the loss of his dear friend Arthur Hallam.

Break, break, break was prompted by the death of Tennyson’s close friend Arthur Hallam. In his letters, Hallam mentioned that “the loss of valuable time, and the constant breaking of the mental energies, like waves, on an immoveable obstacle, cannot but tend to oppress the moral spirit.” This is useful as a starting point to the poem.

Sea and Emotions

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

The poem begins with a strong intensity and desperation in the speaker’s sadness. This is done through the triple spondee (consecutive stressed syllables) and repetition of “break” firstly, as well as the assonance of “o” in the second line, as the sound vocalizes the feelings of loss, even though the speaker is really at a loss for words to describe his thoughts.

The sea crashing upon the rocks reflects the turmoil of emotions when faced with some great loss. Through the image of expressionless “cold gray stones” that withstand the vain crashing of the sea, the elements are not portrayed as judgmental but only a mirror to the mental condition.

Youth and Time

Tennyson foils children with an adult speaker, to show the contrast between happiness in youth, and sadness upon maturity. A sense of joy and completeness is reinforced by the poem’s sounds, firstly in alliteration where one “shouts with his sister” and the other plays with “his boat on the bay”, sibilance and stress in the verbs “shouts” and “sings”, and the rhyme of “play!” and “bay!”, which connects the two ideas together.

The two children, one a “fisherman’s boy” and the other a “sailor lad” are associated with the sea. This ties in to the idea that the sea is a metaphor for Tennyson’s “mental energies”, and although there is a similarity in the way the sea behaves as it crashes upon the rocks to his mind, youth with its associated happiness is a part of him too. However, it is now locked away from him; he can only experience it vicariously through the activities of two children which are a reminder of his former self.

Immoveable Death

The two children and the “stately ships” are similar as they share kinship and connection with another, be it with “sister”, “boat”, or a “haven under the hill”. This contrasts with a speaker, who is irrevocably severed from his friend by death.

This can be seen as the speaker is denied both in touch and voice, as he yearns “for the touch of a vanish’d hand,/And the sound of a voice that is still!” This builds to an acute sense of desperation in the next stanza.

In the last stanza, the poem reverts to the “Break, break, break” of the first couplet, hearkening back to the emotions conveyed initially. This points to the lack of progression and inability to rise from the circumstances, even as the poem draws to a close. There is also an interesting change in depiction of stones as “the foot of thy crags”. This emphasizes an aspect of the rocks as rough, sharp and grating, and there is a sense that the sea hurts itself as it crashes against them, confirming the damaging nature this state of mind brings.

The poem ends in enervation and futility:

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

Anapaestic and iambic rhythms (where the stresses are at the end of the metrical foot) reinforce a sense of calmness, reinforcing the softness conveyed in the words “tender grace”. Yet the calmness is not borne of peace, but resignation and mournfulness that what is lost “will never come back to me.” The speaker’s moral spirit is ultimately broken upon the rocks of life and death.

Comparison to Other Poetry

Break, break, break has been identified by Christopher Ricks as worthy of comparison with In Memoriam, perhaps not surprising given it is the same loss of Hallam which inspired and provoked Tennyson for both poems.

Poems such as Tears, Idle Tears or the longer Locksley Hall are also ideal to compare, for how they express sadness and loss.

Bibliography

Alfred Lord Tennyson: Selected Poems Edited by Christopher Ricks

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Cliffs

Tennyson