The structural rigidity also expresses Tennyson’s effort to express an intense emotion with mere words. This concern is voiced outright in section 5, where he writes, “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.” So Tennyson must grapple not only with his themes but also with language itself, which he has begun to doubt following Hallam’s death. This distrust in his own words is a symptom of his insecurities.
Tennyson’s crisis of faith cannot be solely attributed to Hallam’s death: Victorian society was entering a period where Darwinism challenged conventional beliefs, and the death of his friend was, in one sense, simply verification for Tennyson that his beliefs were not necessarily watertight. In section 54 Tennyson says cynically, “Oh yet we trust that somehow good/ Will be the final goal of ill.” This sense of desperation, shown in the onomatopoeic exclamation that opens the stanza, slowly fades by section 55 when the underlying doubt emerges and Tennyson seems to accept that death is inevitable. Yet despite this acceptance of death, he still hopes for a higher being of some sort. He writes, “I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,/ Ands gather dust and chaff, and call/ To what I feel is Lord of all,/ And faintly trust the larger hope.” The use of the word “grope” suggests that Tennyson feels unable to see God’s pattern, but acknowledges its presence – that is, he convinces himself that good does indeed come out of ill, and the poem’s focus changes. Tennyson, instead of faltering where he “firmly trod,” and questioning God’s existence, tries to understand the manner in which this “larger hope” operates. Is the hope nature? Is it an omnipotent God? The juxtaposition of two stanzas – one discussing God, the other Nature – reveals Tennyson’s despair: the only way in which he can understand the force that took away his friend is to personify it, and in the process, bring it down to his level. “Are God and Nature then at strife[?]” he asks in section 55, and this desire to attribute death to a force seems to represent a desire for order and structure in his life: Tennyson cannot bear the thought that in this world people die for no reason, alone, left as “desert dust.”
Section 64 is composed of a single question, and this tone simply reflects his continuing uncertainty, but the most interesting aspect of this section is his portrayal of Hallam as a successful man who throwing off social barriers (he “grapples with his evil star” – the astrological image suggesting a rejection of divine providence), becomes the “pillar of a people’s hope.” This characterization is revealing because, like section 55, it again shows Tennyson’s underlying desire for a higher power: his description of Hallam’s ascent to success seems to reveal his desperate hope for Heaven, and his conditional optimism. Taking Victorian social mobility as an image, Tennyson uses this section as a reassurance to himself, although the contradictory nature of images shows the confusion within his mind – at points, Tennyson seems to seek solace in the hope that man controls himself, and is no slave to destiny. At other times, however, he is frightened by this loneliness, and tries to comfort himself by weaving images that suggest man’s ultimate insignificance. This ambiguity is clearest in section 64, where these ideas mingle to form a passage, which like Tennyson’s world, is disjointed and inconsistent.
