The Kraken

Quiz: "The Kraken" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1. Recall – Form: "The Kraken" is loosely based on a traditional sonnet, but Tennyson modifies the form. How many lines does the poem contain, and what is one key way it departs from a conventional sonnet structure?

1. Recall – Context: The Kraken originates in the folklore of which cultural tradition, and which 18th-century writer helped renew popular interest in the creature before Tennyson's time?

1. Recall – Key Image: Three adjectives are used in close succession at the beginning of the poem to describe the Kraken's sleep. According to the analysis, what does this accumulation of adjectives suggest about the nature of the creature's rest?

1. Recall – Key Image: What are the "polypi" in the poem, and what action do they perform in the waters surrounding the Kraken?

1. Comprehension – Setting: The analysis describes the light in the poem's underwater world as "sickly." What does this distorted, feeble light symbolise about human knowledge and perception in this environment?

1. Comprehension – The Kraken's existence: How does the Kraken sustain itself during its millennia of unconscious sleep, and what does this behaviour reveal about its relationship with time and awareness?

1. Comprehension – The ending: What event finally causes the Kraken to rise from the deep, and who witnesses its emergence? What is the significance of the fact that its moment of waking is also the moment of its death?

1. Analysis – Symbolism: The analysis argues that the Kraken represents more than a mythological sea monster. Identify TWO of the larger symbolic meanings the creature carries, and briefly explain how the poem's depiction of its sleep supports those interpretations.

1. Analysis – Tone: The analysis describes the poem's tone as slow, heavy, and filled with awe rather than outright fear. How does Tennyson's use of language — specifically the choice of long vowels and weighty adjectives — contribute to creating this tone?

1. Analysis – Themes: The poem engages with the themes of time, mortality, and the sublime. Using evidence from the analysis, explain how the Kraken's eventual death connects all three of these themes in the poem's conclusion.

Answer Key

1. The poem contains fifteen lines — one more than a standard sonnet. It also avoids the conventional turn (volta), so there is no pivotal shift in argument or perspective; instead, the Kraken's stillness dominates the entire poem from beginning to end.

1. The Kraken originates in Scandinavian folklore. Erik Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, revived widespread interest in the creature through his 1752 work Natural History of Norway.

1. The three adjectives — ancient, dreamless, and uninvaded — suggest the Kraken's sleep is a complete void: devoid of consciousness, undisturbed by any visitor or sensation, and existing in total darkness. It is closer to non-existence than to rest.

1. The polypi resemble octopuses or squid-like creatures. They use their giant arms to winnow (sift) through the murky water, performing a grain-sifting motion in the ocean depths around the Kraken.

1. The "sickly light" symbolises that human values, clarity, and understanding do not apply at these depths. Because the light flees rather than illuminates, it suggests that knowledge and perception are powerless in the abyss — the deep is fundamentally beyond human comprehension.

1. The Kraken feeds on sea worms while in a state of complete unconsciousness, driven purely by instinct. This shows that time is irrelevant to the creature — it has always existed in this feeding, sleeping state, with no distinction between past and present.

1. The apocalyptic fire at the end of the world ("the latter fire," drawn from Christian eschatology) finally stirs the Kraken. Both humans and angels witness its rising. The significance is that the Kraken's entire existence has been one of sleep and waiting, making its single moment of wakefulness — and death — a powerful statement about the nature of mortality and the finality of time.

1. Two symbolic meanings: (1) The Kraken symbolises the unconscious mind — vast, hidden, and inaccessible until something catastrophic brings it to the surface. (2) It symbolises the ancient and unknowable forces of nature that shape existence beyond human sight. Its sleep supports both readings: the dreamless, uninvaded rest mirrors the way the unconscious operates beyond awareness, and the millions of years of stillness evoke forces so ancient they predate human experience entirely.

1. Tennyson's long vowel sounds slow the pace of reading, mimicking the heaviness of deep water, while piled-up weighty adjectives create a sense of immense, oppressive scale. Together they produce a feeling of drifting through something vast and incomprehensible — awe rather than panic, because the language is too deliberate and measured for sudden shock.

1. The Kraken's death at the poem's end ties together all three themes: in terms of time, the creature has existed for millions of years, making its death a marker of time's absolute end (the apocalypse); in terms of mortality, even the most ancient, powerful being cannot escape death, universalising the creature's fate; and in terms of the sublime, the moment of rising and perishing — witnessed by both humans and angels — captures the Romantic idea that nature's greatest forces are beyond comprehension, inspiring awe precisely because they dwarf and ultimately outlast human existence before vanishing themselves.