Viewed this way, ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all’ may as well stand in as a two-line abstract for the poem as a whole: Tennyson does indeed emerge, at the end of his long examination of his own loss, a better man who can celebrate Hallam’s memory and the brief time he knew him before Hallam’s untimely death.Ĭuriously, although Tennyson was the first to use the exact wording of the sentiment as it is now known (‘’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’), the idea behind the quotation, as is so often the case with a good proverb, is older. But this opening canto also shows Tennyson’s desire and determination to use his experience of having loved and lost to create great art that will speak to other lovers and friends who will grieve the losses of those they loved. This canto frames and introduces the poem that will follow, and shows that love and grief are closely intertwined emotions: we grieve those whom we loved, and whom we have lost. Let love clasp grief lest both be drown’d.
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