A Deviation from Romantic Self: The Body, the World and the Social in Tennyson's In Memoriam and Maud.

The paper examines how Tennyson seeks to establish his own poetics both under the influence of Romantic poetry and against it, with special focus on Tennyson's conception of the transcendental in In Memoriam and Maud. His ambivalent attitude towards Romantic poetry, which is noticeable in his earlier works, is heightened in In Memoriam where he questions the transcendental in connection with the death of Hallam. He tries to reconcile the transcendental with the social by revealing his strong attachment to the body. In the poem, the body is represented as the medium through which the transcendental is merged with the social. He further develops this idea in such a way that gives rise to a collectivism, by which Tennyson can reconcile the absolute with the earthly or commonplace. This reconciliation is reinforced in Maud, which depicts a Romantic protagonist accepting the collective and expresses Tennyson's attitude to Romantic aspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]