Tithonus by Tennyson – Semi-Long Q&A (5 Marks)
Answer within 100-150 words incorporating the details mentioned in (a) and (b).
Q 1. How does Tennyson use the contrast between natural cycles and Tithonus's endless aging to develop the poem's central argument about mortality?
(a) Natural decay, renewal, and death ("woods decay...after many a summer dies the swan")
(b) Tithonus alone trapped in endless aging without natural completion through death
Answer:
Tennyson establishes his argument through stark contrast. Natural processes—woods decaying, vapor falling, men dying after summer—follow meaningful cycles enabling renewal and dignity. Death provides completion and closure essential to natural order. Tithonus violates this universal pattern through immortality granted without eternal youth. While everything naturally progresses toward meaningful death, Tithonus endures endless aging. The opening repetition—"The woods decay, the woods decay"—emphasizes natural inevitability. Yet Tithonus alone experiences "cruel immortality" that "consumes" rather than completes. His condition proves unnatural; he dwells "in presence of immortal youth" while aging eternally. The poem argues that mortality provides essential meaning; exemption from death doesn't elevate but torments. Tennyson suggests that natural cycles serve wisdom and beauty. Tithonus's exclusion from death exposes immortality as curse, not blessing. The contrast reveals that mortality—seemingly limiting—enables dignity, completion, and participation in nature's meaningful cycles. By positioning Tithonus outside natural order, Tennyson demonstrates that humans require death to achieve fulfilled lives.
Q 2. Analyze how Tennyson's portrayal of Eos contributes to the poem's exploration of divine love's limitations when confronted with mortality and suffering.
(a) Eos's tears, sympathy, and her continued care despite Tithonus's condition
(b) Her inability to undo the gift or grant his request for release and death
Answer:
Eos represents divine love rendered powerless by the consequences of careless immortality-granting. Her "tremulous eyes" filling with tears suggest genuine compassion, yet she cannot remedy the suffering her gift created. Tennyson complicates divine characterization: Eos is neither cruel nor indifferent but emotionally connected while trapped by irreversible cosmic law. She continues caring, nourishing Tithonus with food and ambrosia, yet her love cannot transform his condition. The poem suggests that even immortal love cannot overcome the fundamental incompatibility between immortal youth and aging mortality. Eos remains eternally beautiful; Tithonus withers beside her. Her inability to grant his final request—"take back thy gift"—reveals that divine gifts, once given, become irreversible. The gods "cannot recall their gifts," trapping both giver and recipient. Tennyson argues love itself proves inadequate against such fundamental existential incompatibility. Eos's tears and helplessness expose the limits of divine affection when confronted with the consequences of immortality without youth. Her character demonstrates that compassion, however profound, cannot solve problems rooted in the conflict between mortality and eternity.
Q 3. How does the personification of Time and the "strong Hours" function in developing the poem's critique of immortality?
(a) Time's Hours portrayed as active, destructive agents actively beating and wasting Tithonus
(b) The suggestion that without death's release, time becomes a torturing force rather than a natural passage
Answer:
Q 4. Discuss how Tennyson modifies the Greek myth by making Tithonus request immortality himself and what this change emphasizes about human desire and foolishness.
(a) Tithonus actively asks Eos: "Give me immortality" despite warnings implicit in the wish
(b) The poem's critique of human desire for permanence without understanding consequences
Answer:
Tennyson's modification—having Tithonus himself request immortality—transforms the myth from tragedy beyond mortal control into tragedy rooted in human foolishness. In the Greek original, Eos requests immortality without understanding eternal aging's consequences. Tennyson's Tithonus consciously asks for eternal life, motivated by his intoxication with beauty and divine selection. He desires permanence to maintain his relationship with Eos and his exalted status. This modification emphasizes how human desire for permanence blinds people to consequences. Tithonus seeks to freeze a perfect moment—his youth, beauty, and divine love—eternally. He fails to anticipate aging, decay, and the inevitable incompatibility with immortal Eos. The poem critiques how humans desire permanence without genuinely contemplating what endless existence entails. Tithonus's request reveals desire's inherent foolishness: he seeks to escape mortality's limitations without recognizing that meaning derives from mortality itself. Tennyson suggests all humans harbor Tithonus's fantasy—eternal life preserving cherished moments. The modification makes the myth a critique of human nature itself, emphasizing how desire for immortality stems from failure to appreciate mortality's necessity.
Q 5. How does the dramatic monologue form enhance the emotional impact and philosophical argument of "Tithonus"?
(a) The exclusive focus on Tithonus's voice, perspective, and emotional suffering
(b) Eos's silence and inability to respond, emphasizing his isolation and powerlessness
Answer:
Q 6. Analyze the symbolic significance of Eos as the goddess of dawn and what the imagery of East and rising light suggests about Tithonus's imprisonment.
(a) Eos representing eternal renewal, perpetual beginning, unchanging beauty and youth
(b) Tithonus trapped in the East, unable to escape the realm of eternal morning and never-ending renewal
Answer:
Eos as dawn goddess embodies eternal renewal and perpetual beginning—she renews her beauty "morn by morn" without aging or decline. Her realm is the East where sun eternally rises, symbolic of beginning without end, youth without age. Tithonus's imprisonment in this realm creates profound irony: he exists eternally in a space of eternal renewal yet cannot participate in that renewal. While Eos embodies perpetual rebirth, Tithonus experiences endless decay in that same space. The imagery of East and dawn becomes symbolic prison—beautiful yet torturous. Tithonus asks to escape "thy East" because being eternally in the presence of renewal while oneself deteriorating constitutes torture. The rising sun and morning light—conventionally associated with hope and new beginning—become instruments of painful visibility. Each sunrise reveals Tithonus's continued aging in contrast to Eos's unchanged beauty. Tennyson suggests that immortality within the realm of eternal renewal proves most cruel: surrounded by constant rebirth, the aging immortal cannot participate or escape. The East symbolizes imprisonment in endless beginning; Tithonus yearns for the grave, the West, the ultimate rest where renewal ceases and completion arrives. Eos's symbolic associations intensify rather than relieve Tithonus's suffering.
Q 7. How does Tennyson present mortality as essential to human dignity, meaning, and the natural cycle rather than as tragedy or punishment?
(a) Death enabling natural completion, renewal, and cyclical participation in universal order
(b) Tithonus's exemption from death removing his humanity, dignity, and meaningful existence
Answer:
Q 8. Examine how the poem's ending, offering no hope or resolution, reinforces Tennyson's philosophical argument about immortality's irreversibility and inescapability.
(a) Tithonus's request for release remains unanswered; Eos cannot grant his plea
(b) The divine gift remains irreversible—no redemption or escape becomes possible
Answer:
Tennyson deliberately denies resolution or hope, using structural absence to reinforce philosophical argument. Tithonus's final plea—"Release" him and "take back thy gift"—receives no response. Eos's silence proves more devastating than refusal: she cannot grant what he requests. The poem ends not with resolution but with continued imprisonment. This structural choice embodies the argument: immortality permits no escape, no redemption, no hope for change. Divine gifts, once granted, become absolute. The poem's refusal of conventional closure mirrors Tithonus's condition—endless without completion. Readers experience the frustration of eternal appeal without response, identifying emotionally with his trapped state. Philosophically, the absence of resolution argues that some choices prove irreversible. Tithonus cannot undo his choice or escape its consequences. The poem offers no comfort, no divine intervention, no hope. This refusal of consolation proves essential to Tennyson's critique of immortality: there is no redemption for the immortal trapped in endless aging. The absence of resolution insists that mortality's inevitability and finality provide essential boundaries. Without natural death as conclusion, no story can end, no suffering can terminate, no redemption becomes possible. The ending's hopelessness constitutes the poem's most devastating argument.