Close Reading: Section 5

5

I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words the grief I feel;

For words, like Nature, half reveal

And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,

A use in measured language lies;

The sad mechanic exercise,

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,

Like coarsest clothes against the cold:

But that large grief which these enfold

Is given in outline and no more. (Black 199-200)

            This quote, given close to the beginning of the poem, addresses the process of writing itself and sets up the main themes of the poem. In the first line he touches on the crisis of faith that he develops throughout the rest of the poem by calling his grief “half a sin.” By calling it “half a sin” rather than just a sin, he sets up this struggle between his human emotions and what he has been taught to feel by religion. He knows that he should accept that his friend is happier in heaven, but he naturally feels grief, and feels guilty for feeling grief. Tennyson goes on to deal with two other prevalent themes: the inability to fully express feelings through language and Nature as an expression of feeling. He joins the two together by comparing words to Nature and explaining that both “half reveal / And half conceal the Soul within.” This comparison joins with the first two lines of the stanza in expressing Tennyson’s frustration over his inability to fully express his feelings, whether it be because of the limitations of language and imagery or religious expectations.

            The next two stanzas go on to explore the way Tennyson deals with these limitations in his poem. He describes “A use in measured language” as able to calm his grief by giving him a way to direct his pain. The emphasis on language as “measured” also suggests that at this stage of Tennyson’s grief, he has turned to logic rather than religion to deal with his friend’s death and found it more numbing than comforting. Finally, he contents himself with the limitations of his writing by portraying his grief “in outline and no more.” These last couple lines act as a challenge to the reader to recognize that the words of the poem are only a hint of the poet’s true feeling, and to look beyond the words to fully understand the emotions that he describes.