viernes, 14 de agosto de 2015

Written Analysis

"Lilian" is a poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, british writer who was the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during Queen Victoria's reign and is well known for his use of sounds in his poems.
Lilian in English is a name used representing the Lilium, that is a flower known for it's pureness and it's beauty, and that's why this title suits with the description that is given of the Fairy Lilian.

 It starts calling the fairy, asking her if she loves the him (the lyric speaker), but gets no answer from part of Lilian, who juste stares and laughs. In the second stanza, the  lyric speaker tells us about the beauty and perfection of this fairy, telling us a physical and physiological description and gets rejected again. In the next stanza he keeps telling us the good things about this fairy but not as long as the second stanza, because he starts to realize that she is not meant to be with him, this is proven in the last stanza when gets angry and gives the possibility of killing her is she doesn't talk.
 The poem starts with the lyric speaker tells us  the swiftness of the fairy, but this has a second meaning, that she moves so fast that he will never be able to catch her, this is proven in the next 4 verses, when he says that when he asks for an answer she laughs at him because Lilian thinks it's a joke but that's not what happens, we know that the lyric speaker it's dying inside because he says that she is just being cruel.
 In the second stanza we found out that the lyric speaker has fell deeply in love and can't forget her but Lilian is just looking through him, we can infer that the fairy is just a little girl who is not searching for love, that's why she finds funny everything that has to do with love and can't understand what he is feeling. We can see evidence about this in various parts of the poem, like in the verses 13 and 14 when he says 2 qualities of a little girl, being innocent and simple and the use of a wimple, what gives us the idea that she is virgin, or holy. more evidence can be found in the next two verses when the lyric speaker tells us about the dimples that form in her face and the redness of her cheeks, classic image of a little girl smiling.
 In the next stanza we found more signs of beauty of the little Lilian, she is shown as a cheerful person that can't be other way, this shown when the lyric speaker tells us that she is gaiety without eclipse, this is in relation with children, because it is normal for kids to have no worries because worries are things that accumulate as people grow up. We can also get more description of her physical attributes and we finally get to know that that silver treble laughter, that harmonic laugh of the fairy is making the lyric speaker weep because of this impossible love.
 In the last stanza we see that the lyrics speaker has nothing else to do but pray because this love will never happen and to a point that is he hears her laughter once again he will have to kill her.

Within the poem we can identify two shifts, the first one goes form the start to verse 25, that talks about how she is so perfect and how she just rejects him. The second one goes from verse 26 to 30 and talks about how this constant rejection makes him go completely insane and just wants to crush poor Lilian who only laughed at him.
 The title Lilian fits perfectly with the character that appears in the poem, a white colored skin, beautiful and pure girl who is followed by a guy who can't have her because she is not meant to be with someone at her "age". The main theme is the unrequited love and how this makes a man go insane.

Tennyson uses varies of devices, for example, using metaphors through the whole poem, using crimson threaded lips, meaning of the redness of her lips, silver-treble laughter also, meaning that she has an harmonic laugh, black-beaded eyes meaning that she has a black eye color, and uses baby-roses also, meaning that she has pink cheeks as a kid would normally have and uses gaiety without eclipse telling about her attitude about everything, just smiling and laughing. He also uses the simile like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, because she is as delicate as a rose leaf and could be killed with the use of only 2 fingers.

In conclusion, Tennyson uses Lilian as the classic unrequited love, that one girl that you always want but you never have, the now called "friendzone" in some extent. He makes a great use of  rhetorical devices to give you that feeling of falling love again, and to make you feel those things that make love an special moment in anyone's love, seeing that smile and thinking is perfection itself, hearing that laugh that makes you grin and just wanting to hear it more often, but everything has got an end, and that's when the lyric speaker just wants her to shut up, he doesn't want to hear her more because he knows that that perfection is not for him and it's reserved for someone better.