6 Ariel Thomas – Death and Remembrance
Ariel Thomas (she/her) is a Senior from Goshen, Indiana and she is earning her degree in English, with a concentration in Technical & Professional Writing. She has been a Research Assistant at IU East transcribing 19th Century children’s diaries. Although she enjoys writing fiction and poetry, you can also find her drawing, sewing, crocheting, or taking nature walks. This literary analysis was prepared for Alisa Clapp-Itnyre’s ENG L335, who states, “Ariel wrote an excellent paper on death and remembrance in three Victorian works. I was most impressed with the amount of revision she put into this new, final draft: finding additional scholarly articles, including my own, helped give more details about Victorian morning conditions, but also gave scholarly input on the poems.”
Death and Remembrance
Each winter season is earth’s reminder every living thing must rest someday. Trees paint the landscape in bright warm hues to celebrate the remainder of their life before their leaves shrivel and fall, turning back into dirt from where it belongs. Death is life’s winter, where people’s minds are forced into an eternal slumber. Mother earth mourns for lost summer days and wears nothing but shades of gray, yet modern society expects people to just move on when someone dies. People are no longer allowed the time to grieve their loved ones and are expected to go back into the working world, as if nothing had happened at all. However, this was not always the case. The Victorians did not forget their dead and they took time to grieve and honor them. There were many mourning conventions in the Victorian era which included elegies such as “My Sister’s Sleep” (1848), Whym Chow: Flame of Love (1914), and In Memoriam A.H.H (1850) which captures the author’s grieving process through lyrical and epic poetry.
In Victorian society, grieving was taken seriously and they had many conventions of mourning their loved ones. Most of these conventions are no longer used in the modern world because they are seen as too “morbid.” However, the Victorians thought these conventions were a beautiful way to honor their dead. In Victorian society, there was a two-year mourning period which was heavily imposed on widowed wives. During the first eighteen months, the widows and immediate family members (such as children, for example) were expected to wear all black and the wives to wear a veil. Very little jewelry was allowed to be worn, and the black attire was not allowed to be “flashy” in any way. The last six months were called “half mourning” which is when gray and lavender outfits were acceptable (“Mourning-Victorian Era”). The Victorians also kept mementos of their loved ones which included a lock of hair from the deceased and a photograph of them. These items were then turned into jewelry pieces such as lockets, rings, and brooches (“Mourning-Victorian Era”).
Many children died during the Victorian age as well, due to disease and horrid conditions in the factories and mines where they worked. It was once considered peculiar for parents to grieve the loss of their child because “parents of earlier centuries were so used to early death they became immune or resigned” (Clapp-Itnyre 231). However, child deaths were beginning to wane as society changed to better living conditions, but mourning parents and their conventions were escalating. This was due to the romanticism in child death beds and society’s fascination with them (231). Literature and culture painted youthfulness as a virtue and “that the youth must die to preserve that virtue” (232). One method of preserving their virtue was through postmortem photography. This practice began in America and came over to England where it was soon popular with the Victorians. One sad irony is that because cameras during the time had such slow exposure times, the clearest image parents had of their children was when they were “completely immobile in death” (233). However, postmortem photography, like most ideas, came from the written works of others.
Literature was a large influence on Victorian society and one of the main reasons why death, especially child death, was heavily romanticized. One literary exploration of death was called “holy dying” which was led by James Janeway with fictionalized stories of real child death who embraced the Savior before their death. The goal of these stories was to convert nonbelievers into Christianity by these emotional testimonials (Clapp-Itnyre 232). Literary writers were also captured by “the cult of the deathbed” where numerous characters, especially children, died to maintain their “child-like purity” (235). Another literary work that reflected mourning were hymns where writers revealed their humanity by reflecting on the losses as “heaven calls” and assured children “of a heaven, which by the late century, seemed most guaranteed to them” (238). These hymns were means to serve as a comfort to the very children who were singing them and who saw death all around them. Fictional stories and hymns were not the only ways the Victorians talked about death in their literature.
In the literary world, elegies were a vital way for poets to express either fictional or real grief. This practice began in ancient Greece and was meant as an immediate response to death (“Elegy”). However, elegies should not be mistaken for eulogies. Eulogies serve the purpose of reminiscing on the happy memories of the loved one and their focus is on the deceased. Elegies focus on the author or the grieving character’s grief over their loved ones and are meant to be emotional (“Elegy”). One scholar, Peter Hinchcliffe, describes elegies is a way for writers to “acknowledge an absence caused by the death of a beloved person” (243). Elegies also tend to have three stages that either mimic or combine the five psychological stages of grief as proposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. These five stages of grief in the Kubler-Ross model include: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (“Five stages of grief”). Elegies also follow stages of grief which includes the lament stage, admiration and idealization, and solace (“Elegy”). The lament stage is where the writer expresses their anger, depression, and sometimes bargaining of their loved one. Usually, these stages covered their deepest sorrow for their loved one’s death. Admiration and idealization are somewhat the denial stage of grief in elegies. This is where the poet will write a romanticized version of their loved one as well as imagine the life they should have had together. Denial is about “clinging to a false, preferred reality” which is what the writers are doing by romanticizing of what life should have been in their perspective with their loved one (“Five stages of grief”). The final stage of elegies is when the author finds solace or acceptance in the death of their loved one. This can look like the authors reconnecting to their faith or knowing that everything will be okay again (“Elegies”). Victorian poets wrote elegies to remember their loved ones, however, they all express themselves differently. Some poets focus on only a few stages of grief, while others write fictionalized versions of their real grieving process. Each poem highlights the individual journey someone coping with grief walks through and how everyone expresses and heals from grief differently.
Lyrical poems offer the poet the ability to write short expressions of their grief. “My Sister’s Sleep” (1848) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is a lyrical elegy written as a response to his sister’s death. However, this poem is not an autobiographical account of his grief, but a fictionalized version of it. The focus of the poem is not even on the sibling’s grief over the sibling, but watching a parent realize the loss of their child. The narrator makes it clear they have accepted their sister, Margaret’s death by announcing “she fell asleep on Christmas Eve” which means the sister had died (1). However, the mother who had spent all day at her bedside “then she raised herself for the first time” (5-8). This begins narrator’s observation of their mother’s denial stage in the grieving process. The mother removes herself from reality and goes to the first floor to work on her sewing to have “some distance from the bed” (12). There is an unsettling tension created in the poem as the narrator observes their mother try to deny her daughter’s death. However, this denial does not last forever; the mother is confronted with her daughter’s death as the clock strikes midnight, and she praises for Christmas day. Both she and the narrator hear the movement of chairs from Margaret’s bedroom (37-40). The mother fears the noise had broken her daughter’s “long watched-for rest!” (44). Yet, they had not. It was almost as if the sounds of the chairs moving in Margaret’s bedroom was her spirit moving them out of the way as she departed from this world. It is after these events unfurl the mother comes to terms with her daughter’s death and enters the depression or lament stage of grief.
The narrator watches as their mother is forced to confront with the truth of her daughter’s death and “all her features seemed in pain / With woe, and her eyes glazed and yearned” (47-48). The mother no longer has the option to deny the horrid truth. The narrator held their mother in their arms and let her weep and confessed “God knows I knew that she was dead” (53-55). This confession reinforces Rossetti’s focus on grief through the eyes of the mother with her denial and depression stages. There is a moment of irony and solace in the poem where both parent and child cried out “Christ’s blessing on the newly born!” (60). Even though they both just lost a loved family member, they still remember Christ’s birthday whose sacrifice gave humanity hope. Rossetti places much of the emotional focus in this poem on the lament portion of the elegy grief stages and the denial stage as proposed by Kubler-Ross. There is only a moment of ironic solace at the end of the poem with the acknowledgement of Christ’s birthday and his blessing on newly baptized or born Christians (60). However, the poem is missing the admiration and idealization of Margaret nor are there moments of bargaining and anger. Rossetti chose to focus on the few moments after death and how people react in his poem.
There were also poets who grieved for their pets and wrote elegies for their pets as well. Micheal Fields, or the lesbian poets Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, wrote an epic elegy book for their beloved dog Whym Chow titled: Whym Chow: Flame of Love (1914). The Victorian age did not just see a shift in how children were perceived, but animals were also seen in a different, more beloved, perspective as well. Animals used to be only seen as a tool to help get the job done may it be on the farm, hunting, or other forms of work. During the Victorian age, they were now seen as members of the family (Snyder) However, it was still seen as a little strange for people to feel grief over the loss of their pet. Writing an entire book about the loss of a pet like Fields had been a very “extreme” reaction (Snyder). Whym Chow: Flame of Love begins with Fields’ grief for their pet, before expressing how their dog was the glue that held Cooper and Bradley together before finishing with moments of solace.
The book begins, as do all elegies, with the lament of Fields’ grief for their loved one. In “Requiescat,” the first line begins with describing their depression as if they are trapped in halls of “deep suffering” (1). This is a metaphor for the grief that has taken over their mind for their pet. It is only within these darkened in their mind and possibly within their home they can hear the echoes of “the patter of thy feet, my little Chow” (5-6). The poets cry to Hades if he hears their cries of grief, and realize their beloved Chow is gone forever (9-12). In the last stanza the Fields realizes no more will they see Whym Chow’s motion, or hear him, “and nowhere by a cry shall he be found” (20-24). It is in the moment there is a weight in these final words, for Whym Chow is truly gone and his owner’s desperation to hear and see him will yield to nothing in the end.
However, most of the book spends its time idealizing Whym Chow’s love and Fields’ admiration for their pet and what he meant to them. The scholarly article by Jill R Ehnenn discusses how Whym Chow is used in their poetry to create a trinity between him, Cooper, and Bradley, almost as a defensive gesture toward Cooper and Bradley’s lesbian relationship (Ehnenn). Ehnenn also discusses how this strange dynamic was Fields way of creating their own “female Christianity” or “dog Catholicism” that embodies themes of “in which intense homoeroticism, religiosity and dog-love could all be subsumed into art” for Fields’ joint theology (Ehnenn). This trinity that Ehnenn discusses is introduced in the poem “Trinity” where Fields describes that “we loved in trinity” comparing their love with their pet that of the holy trinity (4). They write on to say Whym Chow is “Love’s flame” which means he is what keeps the couple together (10). Fields also compare Whym Chow to that of God’s doves a symbol of love throughout the poem and writes that Whym Chow is their symbol of Cooper and Bradley’s perfect union (16-17). In poem “VI” they continue the romanticism of their pet when they equate Whym Chow being the embodiment of love itself (14-15). The poem “Liberal Love” compares Whym Chow’s love to that of Kings who give out their grace (2). The poem discusses how love sustains the universe and that Whym Chw has “what humans’ hearts will scarcely give” which is true love and admiration (10-12,20). Poem “XXIX” speaks of how Whym Chows love with never die even though nothing can relief Fields’ grief (19-20).
The final stages of grief explored was Fields’ solace and acceptance of their pet’s death. In the poem “My Cup” it tells how Chow “Drunk the bitter cup” meaning his death (1). Yet, Fields writes how death “makes love free and lifts it up” (3). They also write that death is reserved for God’s most beloved and that Chow is their most beloved and they gave him death too (5-6). The poem ends with their acceptance of his death as a moment of hope when Fields writes that with their love “we made thee free / Eternally” (13-14). This is one of a few poems that has a focus on finding solace to their pet’s death instead of romanticizing their dog as a divine figure. Unlike Rossetti, who focused on a fictionalized death, Fields chooses to write their combine grief over the reality of losing a pet. They also used this book to express how impactful their dog’s love was on their relationship and how Whym Chow held their trinity of love together.
One of the most passionate epic elegies in existence is Lord Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H., which was written for his best friend Aurthur Hallam who died in his twenties from an aneurism. The poems were written over a seventeen-year span but are not in continuous order (Hinchcliffe 224). This masterpiece documents the inner turmoil grief causes in a person as the reader can see Lord Tennyson go through each stage of grief within the three stages of elegy grief. Lord Tennyson also uses Christmas as a marker for when the next stage of elegy grief his book enters and marks a moment for his personal growth as well. Although the last two poems discussed each one choose one stage of grief to focus on, Lord Tennyson explores all of them and the journey one goes through when grieving a loved one.
The lament stage of grief takes place up to canto thirty when Lord Tennyson has his first Christmas without his best friend. Hinchcliffe explains that when the poem spends time on Hallam’s death, it is not just his personal absence Lord Tennyson must grapple with. Hallam also represents “the significance of present and future time. The present time is blank, and a real future is unimaginable” it is only the past that has any kind of meaning (247). Canto “4” is where Lord Tennyson truly begins to express his depression when he says, “to sleep I give my powers away/My will is bondsman to the dark” (1-2). He feels like he is a slave to grief and the only moment of peace he has is when he is asleep. In the same canto he asks his heart “what is it that makes me beat so low?” (8). The answer to his mournful question was:
Something it is which thou have lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break though deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost (9-12).
The stanza shows the reader the sheer volume of emotional agony Lord Tennyson feels as death has frozen his tears. It is as if everything has stopped as he sinks further into despair which is why his heart beats so low. Canto seven is about how Lord Tennyson is standing outside of Hallam’s home one night because he couldn’t sleep and was “waiting for a hand, /A hand that can be clasped no more” (4-5). There is a sense of denial Lord Tennyson feels as he stands outside of his friend’s dark house on a now unloving street, waiting for him to take his hand again (1-2). Lord Tennyson then proceeded to stand outside Hallam’s front door until he realized again that “he is not here; but far away” (7-9). In this moment, the spell was broken and “the noise of life begins again” as he is forced to live on another day without his best friend (10). The canto shows how denial can manifest itself before reality settles in and Lord Tennyson’s depression begins again.
His depression truly spirals during cantos 28-30, when Lord Tennyson must celebrate his first Christmas without Hallam. During this Christmas season, Lord Tennyson documents that
This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wished no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again (13-16).
It is clear to the reader Lord Tennyson is struggling with his depression as he no longer wants to live life without his friend. Even worse, he does not want to experience the holidays eternally separated from his best friend. At the end of the canto, he reminisced how, as a young boy, the bells ruled him but now, they bring him “sorrow touched with joy” because the bells are a reminder of life without Hallam (17-19). Canto “29” shows Lord Tennyson’s anger as he asks, “how dare we keep out Christmas Eve” (4). The canto describes how all around him everyone is celebrating Christmas but to him it feels wrong without Hallam. Canto “30” is about Christmas Eve night, where there are remnants of hope restored to Lord Tennyson which marks the dawn of a new stage of grief. The canto describes the Christmas before with Hallam in it, and how this one is quieter and lonely. At the end of the canto, when the sun rises again marking it Christmas day, Lord Tennyson changes the tone with “the light that shone when Hope was born” (32). This means that Lord Tennyson is beginning to come to terms with his friend’s death and can begin the process of coming out of his depression.
Lord Tennyson speaks of great admiration and has envisioned a beautiful ideal life that he and Hallam should have had together. Canto “84” is one of the best examples of his idealization of the life he thinks they should have had together. Lord Tennyson dreams of the day when he would have been an uncle to Hallam’s future children (12-14). He dreams of Hallam’s wedding to his sister, and he sees himself as “an honor guest/Thy partner in the flowery walk (21-22). The poem goes on about how he sees them going gray together before dying together and they be taken “as a single soul” (44). There are also many cantos where Lord Tennyson speaks of his admiration of Hallam and romanticizes him such as in canto “64”. Lord Tennyson describes Hallam “as some divinely gifted man” and “the pillar of people’s hopes/The center of the world’s desires” (2,14-15). Hinchcliffe explains that Hallam serves as “a pillar of refuge in revolutionary times and an exemplar of moral perfection the whole world can aspire to” (254). It is clear the love and admiration Lord Tennyson has for his friend, as if he has become a divine figure in Lord Tennyson’s mind. It is like how Micheal Fields wrote Whym Chow as the embodiment of love itself and a divine figure to keep their love alive.
In Memoriam A.H.H. is a masterpiece, which also has its fair share of criticisms such as with the critic Darius Sepehri. Sepehri writes his reading experience with Lord Tennyson’s elegy was “a “soulful and provocative artwork not a ‘relevant’ one or one merely to be mined for therapeutic consolation” (Sepehri). Sepehri is not wrong; this elegy was not just a therapeutic tool used by Lord Tennyson but a piece of art that is filled with the emotions from his heart. It can be felt with each canto as he begins in utter despair and moves towards solace. Sepehri criticized that there was a lack of solace in this elegy and explained only the prologue and epilogue speaks of unshakable faith. The rest of the elegy is “an agonizing journey into suffering, doubt, helplessness, and the possibility of unredeemed pain that has no meaning or purpose” (Sepehri). However, this is not the case and there is a story arc towards the final third of the poem where Lord Tennyson finally finds moments of solace.
There are hints woven throughout is book of finding inner peace with Hallam’s death. An example of this can be found in canto “86” where Lord Tennyson is cleaning his sprit within nature and at the end he can hear “a hundred spirits whisper ‘Peace.’” (16). However, the real turning point in the book is in the third Christmas section he writes about after Hallam’s death. The first two Christmas poems focused on his loss and grief, however, in the third Christmas he shifts in his desire to overcome grief. In canto “105” he declares “no more shall wayward grief abuse/the genial hour with mask and mine” which means grief no longer has his permission to ruin the Christmas season (9-10). In canto “106” is speaks of wanting to begin again with the use of ringing Christmas bells. Lord Tennyson writes “Ring out the old, ring in the new/Ring, happy bells, across the snow” which indicates that he wants to begin life again and stop wallowing in the past (5-6). He directly targets grief by writing “Ring out the grief that saps the mind/For those that here we see no more” (9-10). It is in this poem he wants to begin to overcome his depression and fight against his grief towards acceptance. This does not paint a hopeless picture Sepehri claims, but instead an inspiring one as a new arc begins with Lord Tennyson’s healing.
Faith is a key aspect of Lord Tennyson finding acceptance and solace and is prominent in the last few cantos. For example, canto “126” speaks of his comfort in God. He repeats the line “Love is and was my king and lord” (1). He expresses in God’s presence (which is what love is referring to) he can hear the tidings of his friend which gives him comfort (2-3). Love is also what brings him comfort “that all is well” (12) In the next canto “127”, it speaks of how “all is well, through faith and form” and how truth and justice will prevail, even when he is afraid of the dark (1-2, 5). In his final canto “131,” he speaks of how the living will endure suffering and asks God to help make people pure once more (1-4). In the end, Lord Tennyson has found that even though truths can never be proved, he knows through faith everyone will see their loved ones again (9-12). Lord Tennyson’s faith and determination is what helped him out of the darkness. Sepehri may criticize Lord Tennyson’s use of faith in the prologue and epilogue, but they serve as a reminder that between the pages of grief, there is hope. Sepehri is right, the poem is filled with agony, depression, fear, and hopelessness (Sepehri). However, In Memoriam A.H.H. serves as a reminder of human strength and resilience. In the beginning of the book, Lord Tennyson wanted to succumb to his grief, however, in the end he fought and found purpose and solace once again.
The Victorians honored their dead through many conventions which included elegies such as “My Sister’s Sleep,” Whym Chow: Flame of Love, and In Memoriam A.H.H, which was the poet’s way of expressing their journey through grief. The modern world forces people to move on as soon as possible, but the Victorians took their time to grieve, and their convention included: clothing, mementos, postmortem photography, literary themes of death, death hymns, and elegies. Poets wrote epic and lyrical elegies to capture their raw heartache for their loved ones as they moved towards acceptance of their loved one’s death. “My Sister’s Sleep” by Dante Gabirel Rossetti, wrote from the bystander perspective as the child watched their mother move towards denial to acceptance of their daughter’s death. Whym Chow: Flame of Love by Micheal Fields is an emotional epic poem that captures the love and grief pet owners feel when their fur babies die. In Memoriam A.H.H. by Lord Alfred Tennyson is an epic elegy documenting years of agony before finding solace with his best friend’s passing. Grief is not an emotion that should be hidden away, but one that should be processed and shared. Perhaps the modern world should remember how death was treated such as in Victorian society, and remember it is okay to grieve slowly, that even though depression is dark and cold like night fall in the heart of winter, it is not an eternal feeling. Just as earth’s seasons change, so does the mind, and spring will come again.
Works Cited
Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa. British Hymn Books for Children, 1800-1900. Indiana University East. October 30th 2015. file:///C:/Users/rosie/Downloads/Chapter%206%20from%20British%20Hymn%20Books%20for%20Children%201800-1900.pdf Accessed April 17th 2024.
“Elegy”. Poets.org. https://poets.org/glossary/elegy Accessed April 17th 2024.
Ehnenn, Jill R. “Drag(ging) at memory’s fetter”: Michal Field’s personal elegies, Victorian mourning, and the problem of Whym Chow”. The Michaelian. June 2009. EBSCOhost, http://www.thelatchkey.org/Field/MF1/ehnennarticle.htm Accessed April 25th 2024.
“Five stages of grief”. Wikipedia. February 6th 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief Accessed April 25, 2024.
Field, Micheal. “Whym Chow Flame of Love”. Indiana University East. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Field_WhymChow.pdf Accessed April 17th 2024.
Hinchcliffe, Peter. “Elegy and Epithalamium in In Memoriam.” University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 3, Mar. 1983, pp. 41–62. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.proxyeast.uits.iu.edu/10.3138/utq.52.3.241. Accessed April 25, 2024
Lord Tennyson, Alfred. “In Memoriam A.H. H.”. The Norton Anthology English Literature: The Victorian Age. Edited by Catherine Robinson, tenth edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp 172-221.
“Mourning-The Victorian Era”. Australian Museum. November 21st 2018. https://australian.museum/about/history/exhibitions/death-the-last-taboo/mourning-victorian-era/#:~:text=It%20was%20considered%20unlucky%20to,of%20’half%2Dmourning‘. Accessed April 17th 2024.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. “My Sister’s Sleep”. The Norton Anthology English Literature: The Victorian Age. Edited by Catherine Robinson, tenth edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp 172-221.
Sepehri, Darius. “‘A doubtful gleam of solace’: reading Tennyson’s In Memoriam AHH in difficult times”. The Conversation. September 2nd 2020. https://theconversation.com/a-doubtful-gleam-of-solace-reading-tennysons-in-memoriam-ahh-in-difficult-times-143614 Accessed April 17th 2024.
Snyder, Kelly. “Whym Chow, Micheal Fields, and Grieving for Animals.” Cove. 2021. https://editions.covecollective.org/edition/Whym-chow-flame-love/Whym-chow-michael-field-and-grieving-animals Accessed April 17, 2024