A Critical Analysis Of Tension's In Memorial A. H. H.

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the existence
of God. We glimpse much of his struggles in the poem In Memorial A. H. H.,
written in memory of his deceased friend, Arthur Hallam. The poem seemed
to be cathartic for Tennyson, for through its writing he not only found an
outlet for his grief over Hallam's death, but also managed to regain the
faith which seemed at times to have abandoned him. Tennyson regained and
firmly reestablished his faith through the formation of the idea that God
is reconciled with the mechanistic universe through a divine plan of
evolution, with Hallam as the potential link to a greater race of humans
yet to come.
In the first of many lyric units, Tennyson's faith in God and Jesus
seems strong. He speaks of “Believing where we cannot prove” (l. 4), and
is sure that God “wilt not leave us in the dust” (l. 9). The increasing
threat posed to religion by science does not worry Tension here, as he
believes that our increasing knowledge of the universe can be reconciled
with faith, ...

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himself in the next poem, however, as he banishes such a
possibility on the evidence that love could never exist in such a reality.
What we consider to be love would actually be only be a two-dimensional
sense of “fellowship,” such as animals must feel, out of boredom or crude
sensuality (35.21-24)
The many poems which follow fluctuate between faith and doubt. In

poem fifty-four Tennyson consoles himself with the thought:

“That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hat made the pile complete” (54.5-9).

Line nine of poem fifty-four definitely assumes a plan for God's creation,
humanity, and an ...

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