The Two Voices
The Two Voices is a poem written by British Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson between 1833 and 1834, published in his 1842 volume of Poems. Tennyson wrote the poem, titled "Thoughts of a Suicide" in manuscript, after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833. Tennyson explained, "When I wrote 'The Two Voices' I was so utterly miserable, a burden to myself and to my family, that I said, 'Is life worth anything?'" (Hill, 54). In the poem, one voice urges the other to suicide; the poet's arguments against it range from vanity to desperation, yet the voice discredits all. The poem's ending delivers no conclusions, and has been widely criticized—the poet finds no internal affirmation, invoking "solace outside himself" (Tucker).
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme consisting of tercets.[1] It is 205 stanzas long.
Tennyson's poem "The Two Voices" attracted the attention of scholar Herbert Spencer, who believed some of the theories between the poem and his own book, The Principles of Psychology, were interconnected.[2]
References
- ↑ Oliver, Mary (1994). A Poetry Handbook. Harcourt. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-15-672400-5.
- ↑ Tate, Gregory (Spring 2009). "Tennyson and the Embodied Mind". Victorian Poetry 47 (1): 61-80. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
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Further reading
- Hill, Robert W., Jr., ed. (1971). Tennyson's poetry; authoritative texts, juvenilia and early responses, criticism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-09953-9.
- Tucker, Jr., Herbert F. (January 1983). "Tennyson and the Measure of Doom". PMLA (Modern Language Association) 98 (1): 8–20. doi:10.2307/462069. JSTOR 462069.
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