Locksley Hall
Encyclopedia
"Locksley Hall" is a poem written by Alfred Tennyson in 1835 and published in his 1842 volume of Poems. Though one of his masterworks, it is less well-known than his other literature. While narrating the emotions of a weary soldier come to his childhood home, the fictional Locksley Hall, it also furnished interesting predictions about a future world government.
According to Tennyson, the poem represents "young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings". Tennyson's son Hallam recalled that his father said the poem was inspired by Sir William Jones
's prose translation of the Arabic Mu'allaqat
.
written as a set of 97 rhyming couplets. Each line follows a modified version of trochaic octameter
in which the last unstressed syllable has been eliminated; moreover, there is generally a caesura
, whether explicit or implicit, after the first four trochee
s in the line. Each couplet is separated as its own stanza
. The University of Toronto
library identifies this form as "the old 'fifteener' line," quoting Tennyson, who claimed it was written in trochaics because the father of his friend Arthur Hallam
suggested that the English liked the meter.
traveling with a small military unit. He asks his company to continue ahead as he pauses for sentimental reasons. He then quickly reveals that the place he has stopped at is called Locksley Hall, and he spent his childhood there. The rest of the poem, though written as rhymed metered verse, follows the stream of consciousness of its protagonist
as an interior monologue. The protagonist struggles to reach some sort of catharsis
on his childhood feelings.
In his monologue, the protagonist begins with fond memories of his childhood and love, but those memories quickly lead to a burst of anger because his lover abandoned him due to her parents' disapproval. He proceeds to offer a biting criticism of his lover's new husband, interspersed with personal reflection. This criticism is only really interrupted when he reflects that his lover will eventually have a child, and will be more concerned with her child than about the protagonist. The protagonist promptly continues his angry tirade, this time directed at the mother-child relationship.
The protagonist reveals frustration with his present career, which he identifies as an escape from a depression and sense of hopelessness, saying:
In order to be free of his depression, the protagonist continues into a grand description of the world to come—which he views as somewhat utopian
, predicting a sort of new world order. He relapses into anger briefly again when he hears a bugle call from his comrades telling him to hurry up.
Much of the remainder of the poem is built up of an odd contrast between the beauty of civilization
and the beauty of the noble savage
. He recalls the land where he was born (which he only says is somewhere in the Orient
), and lovingly notes its lack of civilization, describing it as "Summer isles of Eden" and "knots of Paradise."
In the end, he rejects the ideal of the noble savage, preferring the progress that civilization has made. He also immediately thereafter rejects Locksley Hall, and marches forth to meet his comrades.
nor an anti-hero
. The first half of the poem portrays him as a victim, but the second reveals that the protagonist holds views that are now recognized as remarkably racist and sexist; for example:
The narrator is also remarkably emotionally volatile through the poem. A good example occurs when he reminisces about his love
for his cousin Amy; while recalling the wonderful experiences of love, he immediately becomes infuriated with her, even going so far as to throw insults:
His anger at losing his love penetrates the poem, and reaches tremendous proportions.
In the narrator, Tennyson captures and displays many strong emotions—placid insightfulness, wonder, love, jealousy, despair, and eventually a sort of catharsis. Tennyson uses him to convey a prophetic vision of what the world might become: he presents a vision of human advance and conflict, of aerial commerce and combat, resolving in a world of federation, peace, and universal law. Tennyson's work now seems to hold an element of prophecy, unique for its time.
considered it "the most wonderful of modern prophecies" and Harry S. Truman
carried the words in his wallet.
Lord Tennyson wrote a sequel to Locksley Hall in 1886, "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After". In the sequel Tennyson describes how the industrialised nature of Britain has failed to fulfil the expectations of the poem of 1842.
A line in "Locksley Hall" would inspire the title of the historian Paul Kennedy
's 2006 book on the United Nations
, The Parliament of Man
: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations.
Locksley Hall was parodied, not without beauty, to the foxhunter at least, by the Victorian English foxhunting MP William Bromley Davenport (1821–1884) in his poem "Lowesby Hall", named after a famous hunting seat in Leicestershire, the pre-eminent fox-hunting county. It describes the revived emotion in a jaded and spend-thrift city MP as he recalls the excitement of his youth foxhunting in Leicestershire, and foresees the end of his Victorian aristocratic society:
later:
In a scene from the American film Marathon Man
, graduate student Thomas "Babe" Levy (portrayed by actor Dustin Hoffman
) attends an exclusive seminar at Columbia University
. During the seminar, his irritable professor, played by Fritz Weaver
, quotes the line "Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone" from "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" and then asks if anyone recognizes it. Hoffman's character is the only one who does (he writes down the title in his notes) but does not reveal this to the class. The professor calls him out on this after dismissing the other students.
In the television programme Star Trek: Voyager
, the dedication plaque of the U.S.S. Voyager
quotes from the poem:
"For I dipt in to the future, far as human eye could see; Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be."
"Locksley Hall" is also the source of the title of Colum McCann
's 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spin.
James Thurber
illustrated this poem for Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated
.
According to Tennyson, the poem represents "young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings". Tennyson's son Hallam recalled that his father said the poem was inspired by Sir William Jones
William Jones (philologist)
Sir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...
's prose translation of the Arabic Mu'allaqat
Mu'allaqat
The Mu‘allaqāt is the title of a group of seven long Arabic poems or qasida that have come down from the time before Islam. Each is considered the best work of these pre-Islamic poets...
.
Poetic form
"Locksley Hall" is a dramatic monologueDramatic monologue
M. H. Abrams notes the following three features of the dramatic monologue as it applies to poetry:-Types of monologues:One of the most important influences on the development of the dramatic monologue is the Romantic poets...
written as a set of 97 rhyming couplets. Each line follows a modified version of trochaic octameter
Trochaic octameter
Trochaic octameter is a poetic meter that has eight trochaic metrical feet per line. Each foot has one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable...
in which the last unstressed syllable has been eliminated; moreover, there is generally a caesura
Caesura
thumb|100px|An example of a caesura in modern western music notation.In meter, a caesura is a complete pause in a line of poetry or in a musical composition. The plural form of caesura is caesuras or caesurae...
, whether explicit or implicit, after the first four trochee
Trochee
A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one...
s in the line. Each couplet is separated as its own stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
. The University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
library identifies this form as "the old 'fifteener' line," quoting Tennyson, who claimed it was written in trochaics because the father of his friend Arthur Hallam
Arthur Hallam
Arthur Henry Hallam was an English poet, best known as the subject of a major work, In Memoriam A.H.H., by his best friend and fellow poet, Alfred Tennyson...
suggested that the English liked the meter.
Plot summary
The unnamed protagonist is a soldierSoldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
traveling with a small military unit. He asks his company to continue ahead as he pauses for sentimental reasons. He then quickly reveals that the place he has stopped at is called Locksley Hall, and he spent his childhood there. The rest of the poem, though written as rhymed metered verse, follows the stream of consciousness of its protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
as an interior monologue. The protagonist struggles to reach some sort of catharsis
Catharsis
Catharsis or katharsis is a Greek word meaning "cleansing" or "purging". It is derived from the verb καθαίρειν, kathairein, "to purify, purge," and it is related to the adjective καθαρός, katharos, "pure or clean."-Dramatic uses:...
on his childhood feelings.
In his monologue, the protagonist begins with fond memories of his childhood and love, but those memories quickly lead to a burst of anger because his lover abandoned him due to her parents' disapproval. He proceeds to offer a biting criticism of his lover's new husband, interspersed with personal reflection. This criticism is only really interrupted when he reflects that his lover will eventually have a child, and will be more concerned with her child than about the protagonist. The protagonist promptly continues his angry tirade, this time directed at the mother-child relationship.
The protagonist reveals frustration with his present career, which he identifies as an escape from a depression and sense of hopelessness, saying:
- What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
- Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.
- Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
- I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?
- I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
- When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. (lines 99-104)
In order to be free of his depression, the protagonist continues into a grand description of the world to come—which he views as somewhat utopian
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
, predicting a sort of new world order. He relapses into anger briefly again when he hears a bugle call from his comrades telling him to hurry up.
Much of the remainder of the poem is built up of an odd contrast between the beauty of civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
and the beauty of the noble savage
Noble savage
The term noble savage , expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider , and refers to the literary stock character of the same...
. He recalls the land where he was born (which he only says is somewhere in the Orient
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
), and lovingly notes its lack of civilization, describing it as "Summer isles of Eden" and "knots of Paradise."
In the end, he rejects the ideal of the noble savage, preferring the progress that civilization has made. He also immediately thereafter rejects Locksley Hall, and marches forth to meet his comrades.
The main character
Tennyson neither identifies the protagonist as a heroHero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
nor an anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
. The first half of the poem portrays him as a victim, but the second reveals that the protagonist holds views that are now recognized as remarkably racist and sexist; for example:
- Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman’s pleasure, woman’s pain--
- Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:
- Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match’d with mine,
- Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine (lines 149-152)
The narrator is also remarkably emotionally volatile through the poem. A good example occurs when he reminisces about his love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
for his cousin Amy; while recalling the wonderful experiences of love, he immediately becomes infuriated with her, even going so far as to throw insults:
- Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
- And our spirits rush’d together at the touching of the lips.
- O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
- O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore! (lines 37-40)
His anger at losing his love penetrates the poem, and reaches tremendous proportions.
In the narrator, Tennyson captures and displays many strong emotions—placid insightfulness, wonder, love, jealousy, despair, and eventually a sort of catharsis. Tennyson uses him to convey a prophetic vision of what the world might become: he presents a vision of human advance and conflict, of aerial commerce and combat, resolving in a world of federation, peace, and universal law. Tennyson's work now seems to hold an element of prophecy, unique for its time.
Cultural influence
Though Alfred, Lord Tennyson is one of the most famous poets in English literature, "Locksley Hall" is one of his lesser-known works. This is not without exceptions, of course; the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., writing in the Wall Street Journal, quoted the poem to illustrate "a noble dream" that modern U.S. policy decisions may have been neglecting, and he also stated that Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
considered it "the most wonderful of modern prophecies" and Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
carried the words in his wallet.
Lord Tennyson wrote a sequel to Locksley Hall in 1886, "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After". In the sequel Tennyson describes how the industrialised nature of Britain has failed to fulfil the expectations of the poem of 1842.
A line in "Locksley Hall" would inspire the title of the historian Paul Kennedy
Paul Kennedy
Paul Michael Kennedy CBE, FBA , is a British historian at Yale University specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He has published prominent books on the history of British foreign policy and Great Power struggles...
's 2006 book on the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, The Parliament of Man
The Parliament of Man
The Parliament of Man:The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations is a book by Paul Kennedy that covers the history and evolution of the United Nations.The book's title is taken from Locksley Hall, a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson that talks about the future of warfare and the possibility of...
: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations.
Locksley Hall was parodied, not without beauty, to the foxhunter at least, by the Victorian English foxhunting MP William Bromley Davenport (1821–1884) in his poem "Lowesby Hall", named after a famous hunting seat in Leicestershire, the pre-eminent fox-hunting county. It describes the revived emotion in a jaded and spend-thrift city MP as he recalls the excitement of his youth foxhunting in Leicestershire, and foresees the end of his Victorian aristocratic society:
- Can I but regain my credit can I spend spent cash again
- Hide me from my deep emotion O thou wonderful champagne
- Make me feel the wild pulsation I have often felt before
- When my horse went on before me and my hack was at the door
later:
- Saw the landlords yield their acres after centuries of wrongs
- To the Cotton Lords to whom it's proved all property belongs
- Queen Religion State abandoned and all flags of party furled
- In the government of CobdenRichard CobdenRichard Cobden was a British manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman, associated with John Bright in the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League as well as with the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty...
and the dotage of the world.
In a scene from the American film Marathon Man
Marathon Man (film)
Marathon Man is a 1976 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The film was directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier. The original music score was composed by Michael Small....
, graduate student Thomas "Babe" Levy (portrayed by actor Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
) attends an exclusive seminar at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. During the seminar, his irritable professor, played by Fritz Weaver
Fritz Weaver
Fritz William Weaver is an American actor and voice actor.-Life and career:Weaver was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Elsa W. and John Carson Weaver. His mother was of Italian descent and his father was a social worker from Pittsburgh. Weaver attended Peabody High School...
, quotes the line "Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone" from "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" and then asks if anyone recognizes it. Hoffman's character is the only one who does (he writes down the title in his notes) but does not reveal this to the class. The professor calls him out on this after dismissing the other students.
In the television programme Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
, the dedication plaque of the U.S.S. Voyager
USS Voyager (Star Trek)
The fictional Intrepid-class starship USS Voyager is the primary setting of the science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. It is commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway....
quotes from the poem:
"For I dipt in to the future, far as human eye could see; Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be."
"Locksley Hall" is also the source of the title of Colum McCann
Colum McCann
Colum McCann is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He is a Professor of Contemporary Literature at European Graduate School and Professor of Fiction at CUNY Hunter College's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing with fellow novelists Peter Carey, twice winner of the Man Booker Prize,...
's 2009 novel, Let the Great World Spin.
James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurber was an American author, cartoonist and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories published in The New Yorker magazine.-Life:...
illustrated this poem for Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated
Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated
Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated is a 1940 book by James Thurber. Thurber updates some old fables and creates some new ones of his own too. Notably there is 'The Bear Who Could Take It Or Leave It Alone' about a bear who lapses in into alcoholism before sobering up and going too far...
.