1998-Upper Level
First Place
Breaking Heaven Into Dust: How Science Weakens Faith In Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A. H. H."
By Daphne Bazemore
The Victorian Age, named for the queen who reigned nearly the entire century, was characterized by incredible scientific progress. Charles Darwin, for example, came forth with his treatise The Origin of Species, which advanced his radical theories of evolution and survival and rocked the pillars of traditional Christian faith in humankind's superiority to the beasts of the earth. Darwin's theories of natural selection and survival of the fittest conflicted with the story of the Creation related in the Bible. Moreover, scientists now had proof that the Earth was much older than had ever been imagined before, making the history of humanity seem like a blink of the universe's eye. The Victorian population could no longer blindly accept that the world had been created in six days after geologists had proven that the world evolved into its current form over millions of years. In addition, a theory called "Higher Criticism" developed which read the Bible not as the infallible word of God, but as a historical text. In the face of these incredible and disturbing discoveries and theories, the faith of many Victorian Christians was profoundly shaken. The Victorian masses no longer had a bedrock of tradition and Biblical scripture to stand upon; it had been dashed to pieces by fossilized rocks and the skulls of apelike men. The poet laureate of the age, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the voice of the Victorian people, expresses his horror and bewilderment at the implications of these scientific discoveries in "In Memoriam A. H. H." In sections 54, 55, and 56 of this lengthy poem, Tennyson finds his belief in God weakened and his faith foundering in the face of scientific fact.
In the face of evolution, geology, and natural selection, Tennyson stands not amazed at the wonders of Nature, but heartsick at her ruthless workings. In section 55 of the poem, he questions, "Are God and Nature then at strife,/That Nature lends such evil dreams?"(lines 5-6).
Tennyson is asking whether the common view of a loving God and his former beliefs about man's divine purpose on earth and unique state of being are in conflict with what science now states is the nature of Nature. Disbelievingly, the poet wonders if Darwin's theory of natural selection can ever be reconciled with the faith in a benevolent God. It seems that Nature is no longer God's handiwork in motion, but a separate and opposite force and being. Nature is no longer a source of peace and a path of inspiration leading to Divine thoughts, but a frightening entity who causes the poet's thoughts to take a darker turn into "evil dreams"(line 6) of a world without God. Thinking further upon Nature's personality, Tennyson writes, "So careful of the type she seems,/So careless of the single life"(lines 7-8). The theory of natural selection advanced by Charles Darwin stated that the sick or weak members of a species would either die off or be killed so that they would not reproduce, thereby strengthening the bloodline. This is Nature's way of ensuring that the breed will flourish, even if that means that some individual creatures die. This scientific theory is directly in conflict with the Biblical Christian God who said to his people that even the hairs on their heads were numbered, that He saw the fall of a single sparrow. According to Christian theology, Jesus died in order to bring personal redemption. Victorians, including Tennyson, who had believed they were unique creations loved individually in the eyes of the Lord, now wondered if they were just breeders used to strengthen the species, if their only purpose on Earth was to eat, sleep, and procreate. Tennyson is horrified that Nature, once thought so beautiful, is in fact merciless in her workings. If Nature is indeed God's creation and she is merciless, then that must mean that God is also a terrible force. To Christians taught to believe that God is Love, the thought that He is, instead, cruel and uncaring is a world-shattering revelation.
As the poem moves into section 56, Tennyson realizes that what he has just stated about Nature's workings is not entirely true. He writes that Nature is, "'So careful of the type?' but no..../She cries,'A thousand types are gone;/I care for nothing, all shall go'"(lines 1,3,4). Tennyson has just thought of the dinosaurs that have been discovered to have existed millions of years ago. They were supreme hunters, prime examples of Nature's survivalist handiwork, and they are extinct. It seems that although Nature works in the moment to improve the species, eventually all species will be brought to a similar end. The poet, like his fellow Englishpeople, is in great despair that Nature is so careless of all life that "She"(line 3) will not only allow this extinction, but will actually cause it. Regardless of what the creature is, the author understands that Nature's attitude is one of, "'I bring to life, I bring to death'"(line 6). Tennyson realizes that Nature, replacing God, who has a purpose for each of his creatures, as the supreme force in the universe, indiscriminately gives both life and death. The Victorian mind was aghast at the thought that Nature valued no creature above any other; all become equal dust.
These grim musings on the final end of all life awaken in Tennyson a horrible thought concerning the fate of Nature's final evolution. The poet asks, "And he, shall he,/Man...../Be blown about the desert dust,/Or sealed within the iron hills?"(lines 8,9,10,11). Will humanity, thought to be the supreme creation of God, become, like the dinosaurs, merely dust trapped within rocks? It was extremely frightening to Victorian people to think that even humankind, the only creation of God believed to have souls, would eventually cease to exist. To Tennyson this seems like a betrayal. He asks if "Man,..../Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,"(lines 9, 11), who sang praises to God even in freezing winters, will be forgotten by God. Man is the only creation "Who trusted God was love indeed/And love Creation's final law-"(lines 13-14), the only creature who worshipped God and believed that He was a loving deity who would bring a final reward of eternal love. For Tennyson, it seems that God has abandoned His children, has left them to Nature's cruel embrace. Indeed, "Nature, red in tooth and claw/With ravine, shrieked against his creed-"(lines 15-16); Nature works entirely opposite to the law of love given by God through Jesus Christ. Jesus bled for humanity; Nature draws the blood of the helpless prey with no mercy. Tennyson begins to feel that "Dragons of the prime,/That tare each other in their slime,/Were mellow music matched with him"(lines 22,23,24), that the physical dinosaurs were tame compared to the monsters of doubt and horror raging within his mind. His faith in God, along with that of his fellow Victorians, is suffering in the face of scientific facts that contradict former basic religious beliefs.
When Tennyson first begins to contemplate the condition of his faith in section 54 of the poem, he finds that he is desperately attempting to retain his traditional beliefs in spite of science, which asserts contradictory facts. Like many traditionalist Victorians, Tennyson tries to force himself to "trust that somehow good/Will be the final goal of ill"(lines 1-2). He cannot stand to think everything done by humanity is for naught; he must still believe that God will make everything right in the end. Tennyson must believe that God rewards the pain of life on Earth with eternal happiness in Heaven. Like a child chanting, "I am not afraid of the dark", the poet closes his eyes and writes that he must believe "That nothing walks with aimless feet;/That not one life shall be destroyed,/Or cast as rubbish to the void"(lines 5-7). In spite of scientific evidence that asserts the contrary, the author feels he has to hold on to his belief that all life is sacred and unique in God's eyes. Tennyson is trying to keep believing that he has a purpose in the world apart from procreation. The poet vainly strives to retain a belief "That not a moth with vain desire/...but subserves another's gain"(lines 10,12), that all existence is not just an eating game of kill or be killed. It is horrifying to the Victorians to think that Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest means that each creature merely exists to feed another. Realizing that he has no choice if he wishes to keep a faith in a Christian God, Tennyson states, "Behold, we know not anything;/I can but trust that good shall fall/...at last, to all"(lines 13-15). As the section ends, the author declares that he is "An infant crying in the night;/An infant crying for the light,/And with no language but a cry"(lines 18-19). Like a child who can do nothing about its physical state, Tennyson feels he can do nothing about his spiritual state of being. He has no language to defend his faith with. He is also like a child in the sense that he wants to believe what he has been taught to believe without having to rationalize the truth of it. He wants to be led by the hand to God. The poet has gone from believing in God in spite of scientific knowledge to a resignation that he cannot know the truth and only has faith because he has no other choice.
As the poem moves into section 55, Tennyson's faith has gone from trust to something much weaker. No longer able to trust implicitly and blindly in God, Tennyson now must "wish...that of the living whole/No life may fail beyond the grave"(lines 1-2). Faced with mounting evidence telling him his faith is baseless, the poet now wishes that there is life beyond death, that there is a Heaven. It is h ines 14-16). The path to God has become dark; Tennyson cannot see Him or the way to get to Him. God, who is represented as a deity of light, has become enveloped in darkness. God is no longer a beacon of hope to the Victorians, but an unknowable void. Now Tennyson feels that the only action he can perform in the darkness is to "stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,/And gather dust and chaff"(lines 17-18). His faith is lame, unhealthy, and he blindly gropes without the light of God to show him what he reaches for. All that he gathers is "dust and chaff"(line 18), the worthless remains of dead creatures, that can not help him in his journey into the darkness. Tennyson can only gather to himself the very substance he is afraid humanity will become. All that is left for him to study in the darkness is evidence that frightens him. The poet, and the people, "call/To what [they] feel is Lord of all,/And faintly trust the larger hope"(lines 18-20). In the darkness, the Victorians cry out to God, not because they know He exists, but because they hope and feel He exists. Their belief, Tennyson's belief, is not based on fact or even faith anymore, but only a feeling. This feeling, this trust he has in a Heaven, a reward for earthly suffering, is faint, barely felt. His faith has no strength, no vitality, and it is not growing. Tennyson's trust is very close to dead because he can no longer see God working in the world and can barely manage to hope that he will see Him after death.
By the end of the third section, 56, Tennyson's hope in God or an afterlife has completely fallen apart. When he cries, "O life as futile, then, as frail!"(line 25), it has become apparent to him that life on Earth is useless; there is nothing to hope for after death. The only point to his living is to prolong a miserable species, and even the chance to do that is not assured since the law of Nature is eat or be eaten. In desperation, Tennyson cries out to his deceased friend Arthur Hallam "to soothe and bless"(line 26) his distraught mind. The poet has completely abandoned his trust in God to answer his prayers and is seeking hope in another source. Hallam had been a mentor to the author in life, a man of great intelligence and profound thoughts. Once again, Tennyson turns to him for an answer. Tennyson wants to know that there is indeed a God waiting to receive him, that his faithful life has not been in vain. Alas, there is no "hope of answer, or redress"(line 27) for Hallam is "behind the veil"(line 28) of death. In the temple of God there was a veil from behind which God would speak to the priests. At the moment of Jesus's death, that veil was ripped in half and God's voice came from behind it no more. If the soul and voice of Hallam exist at all anymore, Tennyson cannot know. Hallam is behind that veil and from there he cannot speak to the living. The lines of communication that Tennyson and his fellow Victorians felt they once had to the other side are broken down. Hallam can no more easily give Tennyson an answer than God can, now that the poet has no faith.
The Victorian Age, as reported by Tennyson in "In Memoriam", was a turbulent time during which many old institutions were damaged irrevocably; a number of religious beliefs were challenged and discarded as baseless. Some Victorian citizens, including Tennyson, were able to reconcile what they had learned of the physical world with what they believed of the spiritual realm. In later sections of the poem, the poet comes to a sense of peace within his heart and mind. However, in sections 54, 55, and 56, the author is in the grip of a soul-deep dilemma. His faith steadily degrades from a blind, forced belief to utter hopelessness after careful consideration of evidence he cannot deny. He is wounded by God's apparent betrayal of humanity and desperate for an answer, but there is none forthcoming. It took years for the wounds inflicted by science on the faithful to heal. Some Victorians chose agnosticism as their new philosophy of God; if someone could prove to them His Existence, then they would believe. Others chose to become atheists. Atheism stated that there was no God, no afterlife, and no divine creator. While neither of these theologies was very popular during the Victorian period, they have continued to exist. The citizens like Tennyson who attempted to reconcile their old faith with their new knowledge had to find ways to blend the two together, to show that it was possible for God to work through Nature to achieve His ends. They had to gather together the dust of Earth, and with it shape a Heaven.
(Daphne Bazemore was born in 1977 in Oklahoma and moved to Georgia with her family shortly thereafter. She was raised in Georgia and graduated from Richmond Hill High School in 1995. She entered college at Armstrong Atlantic State University as an English major in the Fall of 1995. Daphne plans to graduate in the Spring of 1999 and enter the publishing field.)