Death is messy. It’s loud, then it’s quiet, and then it’s just a dull ache that won't go away. Most people think of Victorian poetry as stuffy, but honestly, In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred Lord Tennyson is the most raw, honest, and frankly chaotic journal of a breakdown ever written. It took him seventeen years. Imagine that. Seventeen years of grieving one guy, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna at just twenty-two.
Tennyson didn't sit down to write a masterpiece. He wrote fragments on scraps of paper because he couldn't stop thinking about his friend. The result is a massive, sprawling work of 131 sections that somehow manages to predict Darwinian evolution while crying about a handshake that will never happen again. It’s not just a poem; it’s a psychological survival manual.
The Tragedy Behind the Stanzas
Arthur Hallam was the "it" boy of Cambridge. He was brilliant, charismatic, and engaged to Tennyson’s sister, Emily. When he died in 1833, it didn't just break Tennyson’s heart—it broke his brain. He started seeing the world as a cold, mechanical place.
You’ve probably heard the line, "Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all." People put that on Hallmark cards now. But in the context of In Memoriam Alfred Lord Tennyson, that line isn't a sweet sentiment. It’s a desperate scream. He’s trying to convince himself not to give up on life entirely. He’s arguing with his own depression.
The poem follows a non-linear path. It moves through three distinct Christmases. The first is miserable. The second is tolerable. By the third, there’s a flicker of something like hope. It’s a realistic depiction of how grief actually works—it doesn't move in a straight line, it circles back and bites you when you least expect it.
Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw
One of the most shocking things about this poem is how it tackles science. Remember, this was published in 1850, nine years before Charles Darwin released On the Origin of Species. Yet, Tennyson was already wrestling with the terrifying idea that nature doesn't care about individuals.
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He coined the phrase "Nature, red in tooth and claw."
He looked at fossils—"scarped cliff and quarried stone"—and realized that entire species had gone extinct. This led to a terrifying spiritual crisis. If God is good, why is the world so violent? If species can vanish, what happens to the human soul? Tennyson was basically having an existential crisis in rhyme. He worried that humans were just "cunning casts in clay" and that our cries for meaning were nothing more than "bubbles" on a vast, uncaring ocean.
The Doubt and the Faith
Tennyson didn't have easy answers. He famously wrote that "There lives more faith in honest doubt, / Believe me, than in half the creeds." He was calling out the religious establishment of his time. He felt that blindly following dogma was less spiritual than actually struggling with the big, scary questions of existence.
This is why the poem resonated so deeply with Queen Victoria. When Prince Albert died, she told Tennyson that In Memoriam was her second favorite book after the Bible. It gave her permission to be sad. It gave her a vocabulary for the "vastness" of her loss.
Why the Structure is Actually Genius
The poem uses a specific rhyme scheme: ABBA. It’s called the In Memoriam Stanza.
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The way it works is interesting. The "A" rhymes wrap around the "B" rhymes like a physical embrace. It creates a sense of being trapped, or perhaps a sense of closure. You start at one point, go somewhere else, and then you’re pulled back to where you began. It mimics the repetitive thoughts of a grieving person. You try to move on, but your mind keeps returning to the person you lost.
- Section 54: The wish that "nothing walks with aimless feet."
- Section 56: The terror of a world that "thrives on blood."
- Section 130: The realization that Hallam is now part of the "rolling air" and the "starry light."
It’s a massive shift. He goes from wanting to hold Hallam’s hand to realizing that Hallam is everywhere. He’s in the trees, the wind, and the very fabric of the universe. It’s a pantheistic sort of comfort, but it’s what saved Tennyson from total despair.
Common Misconceptions About the Poem
A lot of people think this is a "gay" poem. Scholars have argued about this for decades. While the language is incredibly intense and intimate, we have to remember that 19th-century male friendships were often expressed with a level of emotion that would seem "romantic" by today's standards. Whether it was platonic or more, the core truth is the same: it was the most important relationship of Tennyson’s life.
Another mistake is thinking the poem is purely religious. It’s actually very skeptical. Tennyson spent years studying geology and astronomy. He knew the earth was millions of years old. He knew the stars were incredibly far away. His "faith" wasn't a Sunday-school faith; it was a hard-won, bruised, and battered belief that life must mean something because the alternative was too dark to bear.
How to Actually Read In Memoriam Today
Don't try to read it cover to cover in one sitting. You’ll get bored or depressed. Treat it like a collection of lyrics.
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If you’re feeling angry at the world, read the sections about nature. If you’re feeling nostalgic, read the "Ring Out, Wild Bells" section (Section 106). That specific part is famous for New Year’s Eve celebrations. "Ring out the old, ring in the new." It’s a call for society to be better—to get rid of the "feud of rich and poor" and the "false pride in place and blood."
Even after 175 years, the poem feels modern because grief hasn't changed. We still feel that weird silence in the house. We still look at the "dark house" where our friends used to live and feel a pang of emptiness. Tennyson just had the patience to document every single stage of that feeling.
Actionable Insights for Poetry Lovers and the Grieving
If you want to dive deeper into the world of In Memoriam Alfred Lord Tennyson, here is how to approach it effectively:
- Focus on the Imagery: Look for the recurring motif of the "hand." In the beginning, he is reaching for a hand that isn't there. By the end, he feels a spiritual hand guiding him. It’s a physical way to track his healing.
- Listen to the Sound: Read it aloud. The ABBA rhyme scheme has a specific "thud" to it that emphasizes the weight of his sorrow.
- Contextualize the Science: Read up on 1830s geology (like Charles Lyell). It makes Tennyson’s fear of the "red in tooth and claw" nature much more terrifying when you realize he was watching his childhood worldviews crumble in real-time.
- Use it as a Journal Prompt: If you are dealing with loss, find a stanza that resonates and write your own response to it. Tennyson used poetry as therapy; there's no reason you can't do the same.
The poem concludes with a "Proem" (actually written last) and an Epilogue (celebrating his sister Cecilia’s wedding). This is vital. He ends not with a funeral, but with a wedding. Life goes on. The "one far-off divine event / To which the whole creation moves" is his final hope that everything—even the pain—is leading toward something meaningful. It’s a hard-won peace.
To understand Tennyson is to understand the Victorian struggle between the heart and the head. He didn't choose one; he lived in the tension between them. That’s where the best art usually lives.