Tennyson's Lotos Eaters

 This poem was first published in 1832. A revised edition was brought out in 1842. This poem is based upon a familiar story in the Odyssey of Homer. The first five stanzas describe how Ulysses along with his mariners arrives on the strange land of Lotos - eaters while he is sailing home to Ithaca from the Trojan war. In Homer's Odyssey,a description of Ulysses's arrival, is given in his wandering, at the land of the Lotos -Eaters (Lotophagoi):"On the tenth day we set off on the land of the Lotos - Eaters who feed on food of flowers, and there we set foot on shore and drew us water . When we had tasted our food and drink,l sent forward shipmates to go and ask what manner of men they might be who lived in the land. And they went their way forthwith and mixed with the Lotos-eaters ;so the Lotos -eaters plotted not harm to our shipmates , but there they wished to abide , feeding on the Lotos with the Lotos-eaters , and all forgetful of home"

This poem is a piece which can hardly be paralleled except in Spenser or in Thompson's 'Castle of Indolence'. It is a delicious poem even as it stands originally. It is the poem of sensuous indulgence and enjoyment. "Work is hateful" "dreamful ease" is the only object of desire. Nay, so deep, a drowsiness broods over the land that desire it self is a word too suggestive of action and effort to be appropriate.

In this poem Lotos-Eaters ,Tennyson gives dramatic expression to that mood of weary disgust in which doubts will force themselves on the mind whether life has any prize worth the toil and trouble of winning

The Lotos is an African plant known as the Cyrenean lotus .it is a low throrny shrub .Herodotus places the Lotos Eaters on the Lybian coast,seemingly in Tripoli.

In the introductory narrative Tennyson uses the stanzas which differ from one another in the number and Spenserian stanza.In the Choric Song ,completely irregular rhyming order and nature of the lines composing them have been used. In the first seven stanzas of the song iambic prevail, here and there varied by a trochaic line; in stanza 8the metre changes to trochaic rhythm, and the lines are prolonged to 13 or 14 syllables.

Many critics have agreed that Tennyson's best work depends mainly on the musical beauty re - created from a sensitive and dexterous management of words. At its best , this verbal music of this poem has an unquestionably individual accent. This chief excellence of this poem is that the rhymes are of a piece with the total onomatopoeic excellent of the passage. Tennyson has never had ambitious aims; it was only to evoke mainly by the sound of words , the simple feelings of the atteactiveness of sensuously idyllic life without effort and action;but within its limits the poetry is admirable . The rhyming words are used to great advantage in the evocation of dead dull atmosphere and any suggestion of vigorous movement would disturb the imagined peace .All the words are languorous, slow and soft, long vowel sounds and the consonants m, n I and s predominate with a high percentage double rhymes with a falling cadence. We shall probably agree that Coleridge would have enjoyed ' The Lotos Eaters' in the light of his dictum:the sense of musical delight with power of producing it,is a gift of the imagination