Examining Section Two of In Memoriam
Looking at the Second Part of Tennyson’s Elegy for Arthur Hallam
Aug 4, 2009
The second section of In Memoriam moves into a description of the yew tree immediately, and although the yew is known for being long-lived, it also seems deathlike in that it does not change with the seasons as most other trees do. The speaker focuses on an imagined tree in a graveyard that grows over the grave of his lost friend Arthur Hallam, until they become one.
“Old Yew”
Death encompasses section 2, as Tennyson describes the tree that “graspest at the stones / That name the underlying dead, / Thy fibres net the dreamless head, / Thy roots are wrapt about the bones” (1-4). The image is gruesome and contradictory at once, for the living tree incorporates itself into the dead body. A tree could be seen as a symbol for life, yet the yew represents death in this context.
In lines 5-8, the speaker reflects on the seasons, describing the continuity and cycles of life; particularly spring, the traditional season that represents birth and renewal. The yew tree, according to the poet, stands silent as all of these cycles take place, and watches as men live and die as an inevitable part of any earthly cycle.
“O Not for Thee the Glow, the Bloom”
In lines 9-12, the speaker remarks upon the yew tree’s lack of change, unlike other plant life, which changes with the seasons. It represents the poet’s feelings about Arthur Hallam’s death. They are unchanged emotions of grief and devastation. Neither the tree nor the poet feels the glow or heat of the “summer suns” (11). They are both immersed in total, eternal gloom. The speaker begins to feel at one with the yew.
This is reinforced in lines 13-16 when the speaker reflects upon the tree, gazing up at it and marvelling how it is “Sick for thy stubborn hardihood” (14). It is ill yet strong and healthy at once in its sickness, contradictory and obvious. The poet sympathizes and understands its situation.
He declares, “I seem to fail from out my blood / And grow incorporate into thee” (15-16). The speaker becomes one with the tree by the end of the poem, symbolizing death and life at once as he dies (his blood “fails”) and yet becomes part of the tree, which symbolizes life.
“Gazing on Thee, Sullen Tree”
Section 2 of In Memoriam is a mixture of life and death, with the death-like tree that is yet still alive and cradles the head of the dead, then embraces the life of the speaker of the poem. Spring is contrasted with a never-changing image of nature, the yew tree that does not change with the seasons. Nor does the devastated poet change in his grief.
Source:
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, ed. Robert H. Ross, In Memoriam (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1973).
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