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The Lotos-Eaters By Tennyson Essay

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I. Introduction
For many years, Tennyson has attracted readers by what Edmond Gosse called
"the beauty of the atmosphere which Tennyson contrives to cast around his work, molding it in the blue mystery of twilight, in the opaline haze of sunset." He is one of the greatest representative figures of the Victorian Age. His writing incorporates many poetic styles and includes some of the finest idyllic poetry in the language. He is one of the few poets to have produced acknowledged masterpieces in so many different poetic genres; he implemented perhaps the most distinguished and versatile of all the written works in the
English language.
The first time I read “The Lotus-Eaters”1, I have to admit that I had a hearty dislike …show more content…

They ponder about what has changed. At the end, he[Odysseus] concluded “We will not wander more”, meaning that they will just stay put.
B. Style
The first five stanzas are narrative. They are in the Spenserian stanza form, which is associated with tales of adventure and action.
The opening word of Odysseus to his men is courage, an ironic command because the rest of the poem shows their courage ebbing away. Arriving on the shore of this beautiful and dreamy land, the mariners disembark amidst a crowd of the inhabitants, who offer them the fruits of the lotos tree. As soon as they taste the fruit the men feel weary. No longer eager to return home to Ithaca, they are content to rest where they are.
The rest of the poem, from line 46, is the song (choric song) sung by the mariners. In it they express the beauty of lotus-land and their own heavy and melancholy sense of fatigue.
In the fourth stanza of the song, the repeated phrase "Let us alone" captures their feelings. The lines of the song are irregular in length but repetitious in phrasing, giving a lazy and stupor feeling, as if they are in a state of torpor. The stanzas gradually become longer toward the end of the poem, hinting their confusion and ominous feelings.
The last stanza has twenty-eight lines. In it the mariners suggest that they will lie about like the gods on Olympus, who apathetically and carelessly disrupt the

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