Tennyson's Poem, The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls

The presence of the bugle, in fact, the central role of that instrument in the poem, suggests that, indeed, the poem is to be heard as a lyrical work, a song, without, of course, accompanying music in the literal sense. A "song," says J.A. Cuddon, is the designation used to denote such a poem and "distinguish it from narrative or dramatic verse of any kind" (Cuddon 372). In other words, Tennyson's poem can be called a song in that it does not tell a story or present dramatic events. Instead, it creates images and a mood which flows those images through the use of words, rhyme and music in the poetic sense. The poem merely presents a portrait of a natural setting which is punctuated by the sounds of a bugle (representing the presence of humanity, its longings and its losses) which are in turn reflected back from nature in echoes which reve

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Tennyson wanted the poem to give to the reader an irrational, or at least non-rational, intuitive sense of life and death, rather than a rational philosophical or religious system of thought. The poem certainly has its religious elements, or at least words which suggest transcendence--"splendor," "glory," "soul to soul." The poem, then, is not pessimistic, although its three stanzas each end with the words "dying, dying, dying." The speaker accepts death as the end of human life in the natural world, but confidently suggests that after death the essence of life and love remain and pass from soul to soul. The comparison between "castle walls" and "snowy summits old in story" suggests a connection between the world of humanity and the world on nature, both recipients of the "splendor" of falling light which might symbolize the beneficence of God. The "castle walls" also might represent human enterprise, especially in terms of human effort to stave off threats to its existence, especially death. "Elfland" suggests again a human-nature connection and a realm where creatures exist which are both human-like and yet fully a part of the natural world. However, whatever human beings do--build castles, blow bugles, love--in the end all is
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Approximate Word count = 1320
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)