Tis better to have loved and lost...
Feb. 15th, 2009 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkstowolvesIt may have been more apropos to have posted this yesterday, but the day got away from me as I powered through David Duff's Romance and Revolution: Shelley and the Politics of a Genre and then sought to have a low-key Valentine's Day celebration with my honey.*
Anyway, I recently read Tennyson's In Memoriam for the first time for my class in Victorian Poetry. Composed over a period of some 13 years, this poem immortalizes the love Tennyson held for his best friend and the grief he felt over his premature death.
Given the following (bolded) phrase's currency in our contemporary culture, the well-worn (and generally romantic) aphorism of many a diverse film or novel, imagine my surprise to locate it in the 27th part of In Memoriam:
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Not only am I surprised that this was composed by Tennyson and I never realized it before, but I'm amused that a phrase usually invoked in the cause and justification of romantic love was written out of grief for the death of a best friend.
I figured some of you might also not have known that, so consider it my gift of trivia to you. Happy belated Valentine's Day!
* My husband thinks one way to spell LOVE in our household is BANANA BREAD (the kind that is made from scratch, of course, and complete with homemade banana frosting as well).
Anyway, I recently read Tennyson's In Memoriam for the first time for my class in Victorian Poetry. Composed over a period of some 13 years, this poem immortalizes the love Tennyson held for his best friend and the grief he felt over his premature death.
Given the following (bolded) phrase's currency in our contemporary culture, the well-worn (and generally romantic) aphorism of many a diverse film or novel, imagine my surprise to locate it in the 27th part of In Memoriam:
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Not only am I surprised that this was composed by Tennyson and I never realized it before, but I'm amused that a phrase usually invoked in the cause and justification of romantic love was written out of grief for the death of a best friend.
I figured some of you might also not have known that, so consider it my gift of trivia to you. Happy belated Valentine's Day!
* My husband thinks one way to spell LOVE in our household is BANANA BREAD (the kind that is made from scratch, of course, and complete with homemade banana frosting as well).