1. Language starter
• Look at the quotations selected below.
– Write a sentence about how they strike you,
paying particular attention to language and
imagery.
– Me only cruel immortality/ Consumes:
– after many a summer dies the swan
– Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath
– Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine/
Ere yet they blind the stars

2. Tennyson
Tithonus

4. Context for ‘Ulysses’, ‘Tithonus’
• ‘Ulysses’ was written within three weeks of his
friend Arthur Hallam’s early death in 1833.
• According to Tennyson the poem was written
under ‘a sense of loss and all that had gone by’;
this is balanced by his thought that ‘still life must
be fought out to the end.’
• ‘Tithonus’ was also written in the period following
Hallam’s death, probably in 1833.
• It was first published in 1860

5. The Myth of Tithonus
• The goddess of the Dawn, Eos, like her sister Selene , the Moon-
Goddess, was at times inspired with the love of mortals.
• Her greatest favourite was Tithonus son of Laomedon, king of Troy.
• She stole him away, and prevailed on Jupiter (Zeus) to grant him
immortality.
• She forgot to ask for him to be granted eternal youth.
• He grew old. She left him.
• He still had the range of her palace, lived on ambrosial food, and
was clad in celestial raiment.
• At length he lost the power of using his limbs, and then she shut him
up in his chamber, whence his feeble voice might at times be heard.
• Finally she turned him into a grasshopper.

6. Form, structure, language?
• What kind of poem is this?
– dramatic monologue
• Why is blank verse used?
– to capture the flexibility and character of a speaking voice
• What is the impact of the versification?
– ?
• What happens in the poem (and how is it structured,
therefore?)
– Is it imagined as being spoken at dawn with the gradual spread
of light? (How is this done?)
– What is the effect of the poet addressing Aurora?

7. Language:
• What is the effect of the inversion in line 5, with
regard to rhythm and intention?
• Why does Tithonius refer to himself as ‘he’ (lines
11-14)?
• What use is made of colour throughout?
• What use is made of formal, elevated diction?
• What use of repetition/ anaphora?
• What patterns of figurative language are there?
• What use of sound is there?

8. Language: contrasts
• What contrast is made between the persona
of Tithonus and the natural world at the
beginning of the poem?
• Find words and phrases to show the contrast
between the aged Tithonius and Aurora.
Analyse their impact.
• Identify the joys of youth, as presented in the
poem. With what words are they presented?
• It has been said that the poem is a realisation of
a long and meaningless future, after Hallam’s
death. Your thoughts?