@article{article_1497063, title={Faith, Melancholy and Love in Tennyson’s In Memoriam}, journal={Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi}, pages={15–28}, year={2024}, DOI={10.35237/sufesosbil.1176848}, author={Albayrak, Gökhan}, keywords={Tennyson, In Memoriam, İnanç, Hüzün, Aşk}, abstract={Regarded as one of the greatest Victorian poems, In Memoriam (1850) portrays Tennyson as a man devastated by the demise of his bosom friend Arthur Hallam. Tennyson composed this long elegy to pay tribute to his departed friend. This paper points out that doubt/faith, melancholy and love are fundamental to In Memoriam. Doubt predominantly characterises this poem because Hallam’s untimely death made Tennyson harbour reservations about his faith. Besides doubt and faith, melancholy pervades this poem Like Shakespeare’s sonnets it refers to, this elegy is also marked by love. These three elements, doubt/faith, melancholy and love are centred around the main theme of grief. This study is based on the interconnected discussions of these three elements. As a poem of faith and doubt, In Memoriam shows that the poet believes, or longs to believe, in the supremacy of the soul and yearns for a spiritual union with his deceased friend. As a poem of melancholy, this elegy evinces that the poet chooses to be engulfed in sorrow and dejection as grieving reinvigorates his love for Hallam. As a poem of love and bonding, it demonstrates that the poet utilises poetic language to articulate his love, and the body resurfaces in his poetic descriptions of their love and intimacy. The body that desires a tactile intimacy with his friend’s body challenges the poet’s mind, urges him to question his faith and confronts the spirit that promises the poet a spiritual union, thereby causing the poet to oscillate between the body and the spirit, to vacillate between his love and his faith. Hence, this article asserts that melancholy emerges as a liminal space in the Victorian poet’s divided psyche between faith and love, between the spirit that celebrates a union after death and the body that desires to touch the friend’s warm body. The faithful lover seeks to believe in spiritual union after death; however, the amorous lover desires to have a bodily contact. Dangling in a limbo zone, the melancholic lover wavers between a disembodied union and an embodied intercourse, desiring to bridge the gap between the two.}, number={61}, publisher={Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi}