Close Reading: Section 96

96 (lines 9-24)

Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds,

At last he beat his music out.

There lives more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gathered strength,

He would not make his judgement blind,

He faced the spectres of the mind

And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own;

And Power was with him in the night,

Which makes the darkness and the light,

And dwells not in the light alone,

But in the darkness and the cloud,

As over Sinai’s peaks of old,

While Israel made their gods of gold,

Although the trumpet blew so loud. (Black 228)

            This passage is an example of how Tennyson uses breaks in meter and in punctuation to illustrate the crisis of faith that he is describing here. For the most part, he uses iambic tetrameter, however in a few lines he strays from it slightly. In line 18, for example, he breaks from the meter with “Power.” Not only is the word capitalized but it breaks the meter because both syllables are emphasized. By breaking the meter, Tennyson gives both a dramatic emphasis on the word and increases the connection of the word with God because it stands out so obviously from the words and the lines around it. The line itself is very pivotal because it claims the existence of God even in a symbolic night of doubt or trouble. The slight change in meter supports this imagery by emphasizing “Power” next to several other words that carry less emphasis, suggesting the darkness that the words describe.

            In the first two stanzas of this quote, the last lines are broken by punctuation in the middle of the line. In the first stanza, the punctuation is a comma right after “Believe me.” The break serves to create a feeling of instability that goes along with the accusation that “half the creeds” express less faith than “honest doubt.” In the next stanza, however, the mid-line punctuation serves the opposite purpose. The punctuation in this case is a colon after “And laid them,” providing a distinct pause in the line. The strength of the punctuation along with the meaning of the words suggests an end to doubt. It marks a shift in this section from dwelling on and fighting with doubt to a discussion of faith existing in spite of darkness. The breaks in punctuation and meter together serve to create a feeling of struggle and resolution within the form of the language as well as the language itself.