What image of the sea is presented in the different stanzas of Tennyson’s poem, ‘Break, Break, Break’?
Answers
Answer:
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Explanation:
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
'Break, break, break' is a short poem with an overridingly sad and nostalgic tone. The poem presents a sea-side image, complete with a wild sea, playing children, fishermen and sailing boats, but Tennyson manipulates these elements to reveal a poem about death and loss. How does Tennyson create this feeling? If we look at the language used in the piece, we immediately detect the negative feeling which persists in the poem. Line two of the opening stanza uses the following adjectives to describe the rocks onto which the sea breaks: 'cold' and 'gray'. The use of these words defines the tone of the piece - imagine how different it would sound had Tennyson described the rocks as 'warm' and 'white'! Indeed, the words used seem unwelcoming to the reader, lending the opening 'Break, break, break' a persistent and crashing air. The sea, it seems, will 'break' upon the rocks relentlessly, as we are reminded by the repetition of the phrase at the opening of the fourth stanza.