“Enoch Arden” and “Aylmer’s Field” 1864

Abstract

In September 1864, Matthew Arnold—who was no undiscriminating admirer of Tennyson*—wrote to a friend: “I agree with you in thinking ‘Enoch Arden’ itself very good indeed—perhaps the best thing Tennyson has done.” Yet “Enoch Arden” is appar ently a narrative poem, and T. S. Eliot with some authority has said that “for narrative Tennyson had no gift at all.” What is still alive in “Enoch Arden” (a poem which has its cumbrous upholstery ) is a consequence of its equivocal relationship to narrative as such. For providence on the one hand, and not acting on the other hand, between them absorb almost all the narrative. The poem’s tale is essentially of a tale told only after the event; held back by Enoch, to be released only after he is dead. The poem broods upon some such sentiment as “None the wiser.”