Tennyson's Use of Landscape as an Indication of Mood

Tennyson’s poetry is renowned for reflecting a penetrating introspection and meditative expressiveness unsurpassed by other poets of his time. His explorations into a vast breadth of topics ranging from the political to the deeply personal reflect his multifarious enthusiasms, and his ability to reach out to his readers as well as probe the depths of psychological expression. ‘The Lady of Shalott’ and ‘Mariana’, two of his earliest poems, exemplify this ability to communicate internal states of mind through his use of scenery.

Although Tennyson’s use of landscape indeed creates a strong vivid impression, I feel that it also serves a higher purpose: namely, to express the psychological state and mood depicted in the protagonists of the poems.

As a child Tennyson was profoundly influenced by the poetry of Byron and Scott, Romantic poets celebrated for their presentations of emotional or psychological issues through natural imagery. This influence can be plainly seen in his poetry, none so much so as in ‘Mariana’ where he uses Keatsian descriptions of the surroundings to describe a woman’s state of mind.

The subject of this poem is drawn from a line in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure: ‘‘Mariana in the moated grange.’’ This describes a young woman waiting for her lover Angelo, who has abandoned her upon the loss of her dowry. From the outset Tennyson creates an impression of profound disrepair and decrepitude, the ‘sheds’ are left broken and abandoned, the thatch is ‘worn’ and covered in weeds. Everything is coated in rust, moss or dust, unmoving, inactive and still. This strong suggestion of stagnation recurs throughout, and is emphasized by the refrain of the poem:

‘She only said, ‘My life is dreary,

He cometh not,’ she said,

She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!’

This acts almost as a confirmation of what the reader already suspects, that Mariana has been abandoned and the ‘grange’ with her, and expresses continuity without hope of change. His use of adjectives such as ‘lonely’, ‘ancient’, ‘level’ and ‘old’ throughout the poem poignantly express disrepair and isolation. This sense of dormancy Tennyson depicts draws a direct correlation with the psychological state of mind expressed in Mariana. He uses her surroundings to echo the fact that she is left in a constant state of perpetual, isolated brooding and that through her dejection all she sees appears equally miserable and ‘dreary’.