Emotion Conveyed by Sound in the Poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The use of sound was studied in several of Tennyson's shorter and better-known poems (e.g., Break, Break, Break and Ulysses) and in In Memoriam A. H. H. Poems were broken down into their component phonemes which were then classified in terms of their emotional character. The emotional character of sounds preferentially employed in each of the shorter poems matched the emotional theme of the poem (e.g., sounds employed in Airy Fairy Lilian and Lady of Shallot were most pleasant, those in Crossing the Bar were least pleasant). The emotional character of sounds preferentially employed in the final segments of In Memoriam revealed an underlying sadness to the poem's close belied by Tennyson's own interpretation of it. Analyses of In Memoriam also highlighted the elegy's frequent transitions from grief to hope and back again. It is concluded that Tennyson used sound (both consciously and unconsciously) to amplify the effects of his poetry.