Tithonus

Quiz: "Tithonus" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1. Recall – Form: What is the metrical form of "Tithonus," and what effect does this unrhymed structure create in relation to the poem's subject matter?

1. Recall – Mythological Background: Who is Tithonus in Greek mythology, and what crucial error led to his suffering? Briefly explain the myth as it underpins the poem.

1. Recall – Speaker's Self-Image: In the second movement of the poem, how does Tithonus describe himself, and what does this self-description reveal about his sense of identity?

1. Recall – Key Symbol: What do "the grassy barrows of the dead" symbolize for Tithonus? How does his attitude toward them differ from a typical human attitude toward death?

1. Comprehension – Aurora's Role: How does the poem present Aurora (the goddess of dawn) as both the source of Tithonus's love and the cause of his suffering? What does her weeping suggest about the limits of divine power?

1. Comprehension – The Hours: According to the analysis, what role do "the Hours" play in the poem? In what sense are they paradoxical figures — powerful yet ultimately limited?

1. Comprehension – Tone: Describe the overall tone of "Tithonus." How does the mood shift across the poem, moving from its opening reflections on natural decay to its final stanza?

1. Analysis – Natural Decay vs. Immortality: The poem opens with images of natural cycles — decay and renewal in the world around Tithonus. What central thematic contrast does Tennyson establish by setting these images against Tithonus's condition?

1. Analysis – Cold Light vs. Warmth: Trace the symbolic shift from warmth to cold across the poem. What does this transition from glowing, vibrant memories to the cold light of the final stanza suggest about Tithonus's relationship with Aurora and with life itself?

1. Analysis – Biographical & Historical Context: Tennyson drafted "Tithonus" shortly after the death of his close friend Arthur Hallam, during a Victorian era marked by anxieties about science, faith, and human limits. How might the poem be read as a broader argument about the value of mortality, and why might this argument have resonated with Victorian readers?

Answer Key

1. "Tithonus" is written in blank verse — unrhymed iambic pentameter. The absence of rhyme gives the poem a natural, speech-like quality that mirrors Tithonus's weary, unresolved condition: there is no neat closure, just as there is no end to his suffering.

1. Tithonus was a Trojan prince loved by Eos (Aurora), goddess of dawn. She asked Zeus to grant him immortality but forgot to request eternal youth, leaving him to age endlessly without the release of death. The poem dramatizes his plea for that release.

1. Tithonus describes himself as something like a "gray shadow," viewing himself almost as an outsider to his own existence. This reveals a profound crisis of identity — he can barely recognize the beautiful young man Aurora once chose, and he feels alienated from both his former self and the mortal world.

1. The burial mounds symbolize peace, rest, and belonging for Tithonus. Unlike the typical human fear of death, Tithonus envies the dead — he considers them "the happier dead" because they have been granted the natural conclusion that is denied to him.

1. Aurora embodies eternal beauty and the cycle of renewal; her love elevated Tithonus but also severed him from the human cycle he was born into. Her tears show that even a goddess's love cannot undo its own consequences — she is powerless to reverse the gift, making her compassion a source of further anguish rather than comfort.

1. The Hours are personified as aggressive, destructive forces of time that have beaten, marred, and wasted Tithonus. They are paradoxical because, while they stripped away everything meaningful in his life — youth, beauty, vitality — they could not kill him, leaving him diminished but endless.

1. The tone is mournful, weary, and dignified — Tithonus pleads calmly rather than raging. The mood begins in melancholy reflection on natural decay, brightens briefly through vivid memories of Aurora's beauty, then closes in something close to cold resignation — a longing for death so deep it feels almost peaceful.

1. Tennyson contrasts the natural world's cycle of decay and renewal (woods, vapours, men) with Tithonus's unnatural stasis. Nature decays purposefully, making room for new life; Tithonus decays without end and without purpose. This establishes the poem's central argument: mortality is not a curse but a necessary, even merciful, part of being human.

1. Early memories of Aurora are associated with heat — glowing skin, crimson light, warm kisses — suggesting vitality, love, and connection. By the final stanza, everything has turned cold: cold shadows, cold light. This shift suggests that Tithonus's bond with Aurora has become estranged and joyless, and that immortality itself has drained life of all warmth and meaning.

1. Drafted after Hallam's death, the poem channels Tennyson's personal grief into a mythological meditation on why mortality matters. In a Victorian context — where scientific progress and eroding religious certainties raised questions about human limits — the poem argues that striving beyond those limits is not triumphant but tragic. Tithonus's fate warns that removing the boundary of death does not elevate humanity; it destroys what makes human life meaningful.