FratFiles

• Save Paper

In Memoriam is an elegy to Tennyson's friend Arthur Hallam, but bears the hallmark of its mid

nineteenth century context – "the locus classicus of the science-and-religion debate."

Upon reflection, Hallam's tragic death has proved to be an event that provoked Tennyson's

embarkation upon a much more ambitious poetic project than conventional Miltonian elegy,

involving meditation upon the profoundest questions faced by mankind. Scientific

advancements, most notably in the fields of geology and biology, challenged the beliefs that

form the foundation of Christianity: the belief in a beneficent God responsible for creation and

ensuing superintendence and the belief in man's immortal soul. By the mid nineteenth century

apologist arguments such as those of William Paley could no longer convincingly reconcile

science and faith. In Memoriam stands as a work that truly represents the anxieties within the

Victorian mind. Queen Victoria once remarked......

View the rest of this paper...

Approximate Word Count: 2678
Approximate Pages: 11 (250 words per double-spaced page)

Similar Essays

1. In Memoriam: Reinvention Of Faith For The Scientific Age?
   

   In Memoriam: reinvention of faith for the scientific age? In Memoriam is an elegy to Tennyson's friend Arthur Hallam, but bears the hallmark of its mid nineteenth century context

2. 
   

3. 
   

4. 
   

5.