English 322s
Prof. Elizabeth Meadows
EXCERPTS FROM “THE PRINCESS, A MEDLEY,” BY ALFRED TENNYSON
THE POEMS OF TENNYSON, ED. CHRISTOPHER RICKS. LONDON: LONGMANS, 1969.
Text encoded by Shaoping Moss
English 322, Spring 2012
English Department, Mount Holyoke College
Lyric 1:
As through the land at eve we went,
And plucked the ripened ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,
And kissed again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O there above the little grave,
We kissed again with tears (Reconciliation: man and wife make up over the grave of their
dead child).
From the Prologue (ll. 118-138):
But while they talked, above their heads I saw
The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought
My book to mind: and opening this I read
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang
With tilt and tourney (Conflict: between men); then the tale of her
That drove her foes with slaughter (Conflict: between men and women) from her walls,
And much I praised her nobleness, and ‘Where,’
Asked Walter, patting Lilia’s head (she lay
Beside him) ‘lives there such a woman now?’
Quick answered Lilia ‘There are thousands now
Such women, but convention beats them down:
It is but bringing up; no more than that:
You men have done it: how I hate you all!
Ah, were I something great! I wish I were
Some mighty poetess, would I shame you then,
That love to keep us children! Oh I wish
That I were some great princess, I would build
Far off from men a college like a man’s,
And I would teach them all that men are taught;
We are twice as quick!’ And here she shook aside
The hand that played the patron with her curls.
From Book I (ll. 125-142):
‘I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart,
With my full heart: but there were widows here,
Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche;
They fed her theories, in and out of place
Maintaining that with equal husbandry
The woman were an equal to the man.
They harped on this; with this our banquets rang;
Our dances broke and buzzed in knots of talk;
Nothing but this; my very ears were hot
To hear them: knowledge, so my daughter held,
Was all in all: they had but been, she thought,
As children; they must lose the child, assume
The woman: (Women’s status: inferior to men. To escape this oppressive relation, women must
give up being or having children) then, Sir, awful odes she wrote,
Too awful, sure, for what they treated of,
But all she is and does is awful; odes
About this losing of the child; and rhymes
And dismal lyrics, prophesying change…’
From Book III (ll. 272-280):
She bowed as if to veil a noble tear;
And up we came to where the river sloped
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks
A breadth of thunder. O’er it shook the woods,
And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roared
Before man was. (Distant past: Here Princess Ida imagines a prehistory without gender conflict.
) She gazed awhile and said,
‘As these rude bones to us, are we to her
That will be.’ (Reconciliation: the distant future implied here replaces the image of the child as a
symbol of reconciliation.)
From Book VI (ll. 172-189):
At first her eye with slow dilation rolled
Dry flame, she listening; after sank and sank
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt
Full on the child; she took it: ‘Pretty bud!
Lily of the vale! half opened bell of the woods!
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world
Of traitorous friend and broken system made
No purple in the distance, mystery,
Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell;
These men are hard upon us as of old,
We two must part: and yet how fain was I
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think
I might be something to thee, when I felt
Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast
In the dead prime: but may thy mother prove
As true to thee as false, false, false to me!
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it
Gentle as freedom’…
From the Conclusion (ll. 72-79):
‘Have patience,' I replied, 'ourselves are full
Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams
Are but the needful preludes of the truth:
For me, the genial day, the happy crowd,
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith.
This fine old world of ours is but a child
Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time
To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides.’
====================
I need you to help me with the description for the feudal warrior and Sir Ralph that indicate
distant past.
I’ve used red color for women’s status since it’s harder to distinguish the black from dark brown.
In the first excerpt the last few lines are about “Reconciliation:
man and wife make up over the grave of their dead child.”
I found it violating the TEI rule if I used the tag <seg></seg> to make up several lines of the text,
which are encoded with <l></l>. So I used <seg></seg> to mark up single word and phrases, no
paragaphs.
I also need you to write a note for the reconciliation (orange color)
I also discover that I could not use <q></q> to mark up quotations for the same reason that they
include several lines. So I decided that the students will not encode the quotations.
Was all in all: they had but been, she thought,
As children; they must lose the child, assume
The woman: (Women’s status: inferior to men. To escape this oppressive relation, women must
give up being or having children) then, Sir, awful odes she wrote,
quotation cannot be added because they are cross many lines.
<lg>
<l> Quick answered Lilia ‘There are thousands now</l>
<l> Such women, but convention beats them down:</l>
<l> It is but bringing up; no more than that:</l>
<l>You men have done it: how I hate you all!</l>
<l>Ah, were I something great! I wish I were</l>
<l>Some mighty poetess, would I shame you then,</l>
<l> That love to keep us <seg ana="women_status">children!<note>Women’s status:
inferior
to men</note></seg> Oh I wish</l>
<l> That I were some great princess, I would build</l>
<l>Far off from men a college like a man’s,</l>
<l>And I would teach them all that men are taught;</l>
<l>We are twice as quick!’ And here she shook aside</l>
<l>The hand that played the patron with her curls.</l>
</lg>