The subject of "Mariana" is a woman who continuously laments her lack of connection with society. The isolation defines her existence, and her longing for a connection leaves her wishing for death at the end of every stanza.
The premise of "Mariana" originates in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, but the poem ends before Mariana's lover returns. Tennyson's version was adapted by others, including John Everett Millais and Elizabeth Gaskell, for use in their own works. The wind is also a symbol of life and fecundity and is therefore a threat.
It moves things even while her situation does not change. Indeed, what Mariana wishes throughout the ordeal is death, an end to her conscious worry over the absence of her lover.
This is her refrain: she is so weary, her life and surroundings so dreary, that she would rather be dead. Yet, the paradox is that she does not die or take her life. She is weary enough to prefer death, yet she continues to wait for the lover to return.
Will she continue to wait? A reader might wonder whether the poem speaks more broadly—whether Mariana and her sad wait might reflect a larger reality.
Or perhaps she is in the position of those who have waited a long time for the return of the Christ and have a pessimistic view of the world in the meantime. Describe Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' as an elegy.
The poem partly belongs to the genre of elegy, which is a poem occasioned by the death of a person. The standard elegy includes ceremonial mourning for the deceased, extolling his virtues, and seeking consolation for his death.
Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray.
And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow.
Tennyson concludes each stanza with a similar refrain, in which Mariana is allowed to speak for herself, repeating how dreary and miserable her life is, and how she longs for death as a release from her dejected state. Such brilliant use of surprising or unexpected local detail continues later in the poem:.
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