Short Notes Locksley Hall

Locksley Hall 

In Tennyson's poem, Locksley Hall is a place where the speaker of the poem spent his boyhood and youth. The place was situated in the lap of nature where spring visits annually. We come to know from the speaker that after his father's death in a Maratha battle in India, he was brought back to Locksley Hall by his tyrannical uncle. Here he fell in love with his cousin, Amy. The speaker returns to the Locksley Hall many years later and narrates the story of his own past.

The use of astronomy in "Locksley Hall".

Perhaps the best known astronomical reference in Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" is in the following lines:

"Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid."

The reference to the constellation Orion represents a great mythological hunter or warrior. To watch Orion set in the west, at any hour a child might reasonably be still out, requires a spring evening. He was therefore out enjoying the newly warm weather.

The Pleiads refers to an open cluster of stars known as the seven sisters of the Pleiades, which is located in the constellation Taurus. In Greek mythology, Orion is a giant who relentlessly pursued the seven Pleiades, daughters of Atlas. The names of the Pleiades were Alcyone, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Merope, Sterope, and Taygete. Zeus, the king of the gods, changed the Pleiades into stars to put them out of Orion's reach. This cluster despite its name contains only six easily visible naked eye stars. Perhaps seven were easily visible in antiquity and one became fainter. A small telescope or pair of binoculars reveals that this cluster contains hundreds of stars glittering like a swarm of fire flies. One can watch the Pleiades rise at a reasonable evening hour during the autumn.

Short Note on Locksley Hall

The glass of Time

It is an ancient device used to measure the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time. It is also called an hourglass or sandglass or sand timer or sand clock. It needs two connected vertical glass bulbs allowing a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty and the other is full of sand. The sand from the sand filled bulb would trickle through a tiny hole in the empty bulb. Thereafter, the position of the joints bulbs would be reversed and the sand could start returning to the other bulb from which it had first started. And thus, time was measured. In "Locksley Hall", the poet pictures the image of love, with the glass of Time. The lover, the speaker of the poem, loved his cousin, Amy, passionately, truly and devotedly. In the spring of his life, he confessed to his cousin that he loved her. Amy also reciprocated his love by saying that she had loved him for a long time and that she had been hiding her feelings for him. These words made the world more beautiful and radiant for him because that time they were all in all to each other. It was a golden time of life with them. It was a time of rare happiness, when every moment was precious and rare like gold. Love held the glass of Time in his hands meaning that the time was passed in love-making, and every moment of their life seemed golden to them.

Tennyson's denouncement of the materialism in "Locksley Hall"

Tennyson denounces social snobbery in the poem, "Locksley Hall". The speaker of the poem loved his cousin, Amy, who also reciprocated his love. But her parents did not permit her to marry her lover. She surrendered to the threats of her father and to the rebukes of her mother and married a man of high social status but gross and unrefined fool chosen for her by her parents. She did not have enough strength to marry the person of her choice resisting the pressure of her parents. The speaker now pines for his lost love. He realizes that his lack of wealth and social status are the causes of his failure in love. So, he denounces the social custom that prevents from uniting two innocent hearts. He also condemns the social lies that take away the living truth. He denounces the mercenary marriages that violate the sacred law of nature that love is the only true and sound basis for marriage. Finally, he curses the lure of gold that gives an artificial superiority to fools of narrow intelligence.

Tennyson's satire on the Victorian age in "Locksley Hall"

In "Locksley Hall" Tennyson satirizes the prevailing conditions and trends of the Victorian age. He finds that he has fallen on a corrupt and degenerate age in which materialism, commercialism, mammon-worship, snobbery and social climbing are rampant. It is an age in which all profitable positions are in the hands of the rich and are open only to the rich. There is the jingling sound of guineas in the pocket of the rich men and so they exploit the poor men. Thus, power, prestige and authority go with money, and the poor are insulted and humiliated at every step. There are many seekers of job but the jobs are few. He also notices that the nations only blame each other and fight without caring at all to improve the conditions of life. There was a time when he had full faith in science and progress, and when he had dreamed of a glorious future. But now, observing the prevailing conditions his golden dream has been shattered.

Tennyson's optimistic belief in "Locksley Hall"

In "Locksley Hall" Tennyson describes his vision of the future through the mouth of the speaker of the poem. He used to see vision even in his boyhood days. He used to visualize all kinds of wonders that would appear in times to come. He imagined that in the future the nations of the world would be busy with trade and commerce. Many merchant vessels would rush from one corner of the earth to another. However, such human progress would also be devastated by bloody war in which each side would use fighter planes. Again, finally mankind would understand that peace is far more valuable than war. This realization would lead people to carve out the roadmap to peace. They would establish international bodies to minimize war and maximize peace. Aeroplane, aerial warfare, the League of Nations or the United Nations nothing of these things had been made during Tennyson's time. Yet the poet speaks of them with a prophetic insight.

Tennyson's opinions about knowledge and wisdom in "Locksley Hall"

According to Tennyson, a person can acquire knowledge more rapidly than wisdom. In fact, there is a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge means acquiring more facts and more information about the world, but wisdom means the capacity to make a proper use of those facts and information. For this reason, mankind acquires knowledge more rapidly than wisdom. So, according to the poet, mankind has to wait to gain wisdom regarding the use of knowledge. In "Locksley Hall", the speaker is a jilted lover. Once he had a love affair with his cousin Amy but later Amy abandoned him to marry a rich man. At present the speaker is recalling how he tried to cope with this emotional shock. The speaker wanted to forget the girl by floating in the speedy current of progress which his society was making. But here again problem existed. Science and industrialism divided people into two classes the rich and the poor. The life of the poor was miserable. Although mankind has acquired considerable advance in scientific matters, he cannot channel the success évenly among all people. Thus, while knowledge is the collection of facts, wisdom implies proper use of these facts.