Divining Desire: Tennyson and the Poetics of TranscendenceAshgate, 2000 - 209 pages This study examines Tennyson's portrayals of the erotic and creative impulses, reading the poet's ubiquitous lover-artists as tropes that figure the desire for transcending the state of being human, a condition of personal fragmentation and limited knowledge. Ostensibly seeking to fulfill erotic wishes, construct utopias, or create grand artistic works, Tennyson's characters engage in a fundamentally spiritual quest, yearning to divine desire: to eternalize the fulfilment of their deepest wishes. Freud revealed how Victorians sublimated sexual desire into religious impulse. This book demonstrates, however, the remarkable way in which Tennyson's poems transact the opposing projection, transfiguring spiritual desire into erotic art. Brilliantly negotiating a middle ground between scientific skepticism and reactionary religiosity, his vastly popular poems suggest that fulfilment of "the wish too strong for words to name" lies in a sacramentality: only as means do art and eros allow transport beyond fragmentation. At a deep level, the poems conclude that language itself brokers transcendence through its very brokenness. |
Contents
early poems | 29 |
quest and counterquest | 69 |
In Memoriam | 101 |
Copyright | |
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Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson Arthur Henry Hallam artistic creation attempt become Camelot characters Christian Claribel continually Coventry Patmore create creative critical culture death depicts describes discussion divined desire echoes Elaine's Eleänore epic eros erotic desire erotic devotion eroticism expresses female feminine figure gender Guinevere heart Holy Grail human human sexuality Ida's ideal Idylls imagery imaginative interpretation Isabel Julian King knights knowledge Lady of Shalott lady poems Lancelot and Elaine language Lilia limitations living longing Lover's Tale lovers lyric Mariana masculine Maud speaker Maud's means Memoir metaphor mirror mysterious narrative passion poem's poet poetic portrait poems possibilities Prince Princess Princess Ida provides quest readers religious reminds representation Review Ricks sense sexual song soul spiritual suggests symbol Tennyson's poem Tennyson's poetry transcendent truth ultimate understand University Press Victorian Poetry vision Vivien voice William Holman Hunt wish woman women words