Analysis
“Tears, Idle Tears” is one of Tennyson’s most famous works, and it has garnered a large amount of critical analysis. It is a “song” within the larger poem The Princess, published in 1847. In context, it is a song that the poem's Princess commands one of her maids to sing to pass the time while she and her women take a break from their difficult studies. The speaker is caught up in his or her mind and memories. (Some critics, such as Cleanth Brooks, suggest that the poem, though sung by a woman, is from a male speaker’s point of view.) The larger poem is generally seen to be a commentary on the relation of the sexes in contemporary culture and a call for greater women’s rights, particularly in higher education.
“Tears, Idle Tears” was composed on a visit by Tennyson to Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire, a locale also taken as subject for a poem by another famous English poet, William Wordsworth. Tennyson said the poem was about “the passion of the past, abiding in the transient,” which also may provide insight into the final line about “Death in Life.” The poem is renowned for its lyric richness and the many statements rife with paradox and ambiguity