The Letter

4 Pages 1018 Words

“The Letter” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, speaks to the reader with emotion; passionately capturing one’s deep and in fatuous love for another. The poem written by a man about a woman, begins by describing her most beautiful features, and transcends to the question of whether or not she will marry him, if he were to ask her via letter. Although the poem is in simple matters, the idea of the poem, purely driven by the forces of affection creates abstraction to content, thus the poem becomes simplistically rich. Tennyson achieves this richness through the use of assonance- every other line creating a rhyme scheme, as the language remains intense and concentrated, and vivid are the pictures reflected from the wording.
From four stanzas’ a pattern is created (A/B form) where every other line, the last word rhymes. The first stanza sings:
“Where is another sweet as my sweet,
Fine of the fine, and shy of the shy?
Fine little hands, fine little feet-
Dewy blue eye.”
This use of assonance pleases the reader, because it carries a consistent beat much like the beat of a human heart. In turn, a natural or biological rhythm is produced, paced at the rate of a heart that is experiencing the “rush” of love expressed throughout the poem. As the poem strides on, a break occurs just after the eleventh line where the one-syllable- word “fly” replaces A/B form. This may give the impression that the heart has skipped a beat. He who writes the poem of this girl has felt something as he takes the reader along beats of experience. Not only does the use of assonance liven the poem, clearly, it also captures the mood in which the writer swings his thoughts.
Indeed Tennyson concentrates and intensifies the poem through his use of language. Beginning in the first stanza, a detailed description, of the girl who captures the heart of a man, is written so tightly and concentrated, that the words, again, carry a simple and ...