 = Mariana ( poem ) = 
 
 " Mariana " is a poem by Alfred , Lord Tennyson , published in 1830 . The poem follows a common theme in much of Tennyson 's work — that of despondent isolation . The subject of Mariana is a woman who continuously laments her lack of connection with society . The isolation defines her existence , and her longing for a connection leaves her wishing for death at the end of every stanza . The premise of Mariana originates in William Shakespeare 's Measure for Measure , but the poem ends before Mariana 's lover returns . Tennyson 's version was adapted by others , including John Everett Millais and Elizabeth Gaskell , for use in their own works . The poem was well received by critics , and it is described by critics as an example of Tennyson 's skill at poetry . 
 
 = = Background = = 
 
 Tennyson wrote Mariana in 1830 and printed it within his early collection Poems , Chiefly Lyrical . Previously , he contributed poems to the work Poems by Two Brothers ( 1827 ) , where his early poems dealing with isolation and memory can be found . The theme was continued in the later collection , with poems like Mariana , Ode to Memory , and others representing the earlier poems . 
 During a visit to the Pyrenees during the summer of 1830 , Tennyson sought to give aid to Spanish rebels . During that time , he was affected by his experience and the influence appears in Mariana in the South , which was published in 1832 ; it is a later version that follows the idea of The Lady of Shalott . 
 
 = = Structure = = 
 
 Many of Tennyson 's poems are in the form of a dramatic monologue . However , Mariana , like The Lady of Shallott , is more accurately a lyrical narrative . It contains elements of dramatic monologies in that it contains a refrain that carries through the poem as found in Oriana and other poems . Oriana is completely a dramatic monologue and Mariana is not because Tennyson represents how the title figure is unable to linguistically control her own poem , which reinforces the themes of the poem . This technique is used again in Tennyson 's later poem , The Two Voices . The rhyme scheme of the poem , abab cddc efef , is different than the standard ballad rhyme that serves to contain the poem then allow a free expression . The middle quatrain of the stanzas returns in theme to the beginning in a cyclical pattern while the last quatrain 's lines contain the same words . 
 
 = = Poem = = 
 
 Within the poem , Tennyson does not teach the audience what melancholy means . Instead , he describes its various aspects as he begins : 
 With blackest moss the flower @-@ plots 
 Were thickly crusted , one and all : 
 The rusted nails fell from the knots 
 That held the pear to the gable @-@ wall . 
 The broken sheds looked sad and strange : 
 Unlifted was the clinking latch ; 
 Weeded and worn the ancient thatch 
 Upon the lonely moated grange . 
 She only said , " My life is dreary , 
 He cometh not , " she said ; 
 She said , " I am aweary , aweary ; 
 I would that I were dead ! " ( lines 1 – 12 ) 
 The narrator of the poem is disconnected from Mariana , and he is able to see what she cannot . In particular , he is able to describe the " sweet heaven " whereas Mariana refuses to take in the scene as well as she is unable to understand the movement of time : 
 Her tears fell with the dews at even ; 
 Her tears fell ere the dews were dried ; 
 She could not look on the sweet heaven , 
 Either at morn or eventide . ( lines 13 – 16 ) 
 She is surrounded by stillness and there is little movement within the poem . The water is calm and there is only the growth of moss : 
 About a stone @-@ cast from the wall 
 A sluice with blackened waters slept , 
 And o 'er it many , round and small , 
 The clustered marish @-@ mosses crept . ( lines 37 – 40 ) 
 Mariana is trapped by her surroundings , and the last stanza begins with her becoming sensitive to sound as she starts to mentally lose her place in reality : 
 The sparrow 's chirrup on the roof , 
 The slow clock ticking , and the sound 
 Which to the wooing wind aloof 
 The poplar made , did all confound 
 Her sense ; ( lines 73 – 77 ) 
 The poem ends with a description that even the sunlight is unable to do anything more than reveal dust in her home : 
 but most she loathed the hour 
 When the thick @-@ moted sunbeam lay 
 Athwart the chambers , and the day 
 Was sloping toward his western bower . ( lines 77 – 80 ) 
 The poem ends with an altered version of the refrain , which serves to show that although she wishes her death she is still alive and , in the final moment , allows her to end the poem instead of allowing the poem to end her : 
 Then , said she , " I am very dreary , 
 He will not come , " she said ; 
 She wept , " I am aweary , aweary , 
 O God , that I were dead ! " ( lines 81 – 84 ) 
 
 = = Themes = = 
 
 Tennyson 's poems traditionally rely on the use of visual imagery for effect . In Mariana , Tennyson instead emphasises auditory imagery that serves to emphasise her solitude . Her hearing is sensitive and she is able to hear every sound , which only reveals the silence of her surroundings . Her solitude and loneliness causes her to be unable to recognise the beauty of her surroundings , and the world to her is dreary . In contrast to Tennyson 's other poems , including The Lady of Shalott , there is no movement within Mariana . There is also a lack of a true ending within the poem , unlike the later version Mariana in the South , which reworks the poem so there is a stronger conclusion that can be found within death . 
 The character of Mariana is connected to Shakespeare 's Measure for Measure ; there is a direct quotation of Shakespeare 's play in regards to a character of the same name . In Shakespeare 's play , Mariana is rejected by the character Angelo and lives alone as she pines over her love . Tennyson 's version is set in Lincolnshire , not Vienna as in the Shakespeare play . This makes the characters completely English . Additionally , the scene within the poem does not have any of the original context but the two works are connected in imagery with the idea of a dull life and a dejected female named Mariana . However , Tennyson is not the only one that uses the image ; John Everett Millais 's painting Mariana is based on Tennyson 's version of Mariana and lines 9 through 12 of Tennyson 's poem were used for the catalogue description of the painting . Similarly , Millais 's version served as the inspiration for Elizabeth Gaskell 's novel , Mariana . Tennyson 's Mariana and Gaskell 's main character , Ruth , are sensitive to the sounds around them and are constantly looking out of their window in image that represents their imprisonment within their homes . The image of Mariana used by Tennyson and the later works are equally of a woman who is weary . 
 The depictions of Mariana by Tennyson and in later works are not the same . The difference with Millais 's depiction is not in the image of a forlorn woman or of a woman who is unwilling to live an independent life ; instead , it is her sexualised depiction that is greater than found in Tennyson . His version also removes the dreariness of Tennyson 's and replaces it with a scene filled with vibrant colours . Gaskell 's depiction is of Ruth is similar to Tennyson in her weariness and wanting to die . However , she is a sexually independent figure when she rejects her lover who has returned . Tennyson 's character , on the other hand , would likely have happily accepted her lover . While Tennyson 's character cannot recognise beauty within nature , Gaskell 's character is able to turn to nature to gain spiritually in a manner similar to the Romantic poems , including Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth or This Lime @-@ Tree Bower My Prison by Samuel Taylor Coleridge . There is also a connection with Mariana 's condition and the condition within Coleridge 's Dejection : An Ode . However , the narrator at the end of Dejection is able to be roused into movement whereas Mariana never reaches that point . Furthermore , Mariana is unlike the Romantic poems because the character is not one with nature or able to achieve transcendence through imagination . Furthermore , there is little outside of Mariana that exists within the poem as Mariana 's mood does not respond to changes in nature . 
 In terms of Tennyson 's other poems , there is a strong connection between the character Mariana and Tennyson 's other female characters . Both Mariana and Oriana have characters that experience a mental imprisonment , which are revealed in the poetic refrains . However , Oriana is able to have control over her own story when she serves as narrator of it while Mariana is denied control by Tennyson 's use of a third @-@ person narrative structure . The difference is further compounded by Oriana 's imprisonment coming from her own memories while Mariana 's is the external results of her lover having not returned . The character Fatima of Fatima is connected to Mariana simply because she is a reversal of Mariana 's character : Fatima , like Mariana , waits for her lover but suffers from an intense passion that causes her to lose control over her mind while also being able to experience the world around her . The character Oenone of Oenone is a combination of aspects from both Mariana 's and Fatima 's characters . In the revised version Mariana in the South , the second Mariana is similar to the Lady of Shalott in that they both live in a world between fantasy and reality . 
 
 = = Critical response = = 
 
 Jonathon Wearworth wrote in his early career , " The poem [ Mariana ] is an outstanding insight into the primitive ideal that is Tennyson 's take on life in all its worthlessness . " 
 In an early review in the 1831 Westminster Review , J. Fox praises the depiction of women within the whole of Poems , Chiefly Lyrics and says that Tennyson 's " portraits are delicate , his likenesses [ ... ] perfect , and they have life , character , and individuality . They are nicely assorted also to all the different gradations of emotion and passion which are expressed in common with the descriptions of them . There is an appropriate object for every shade of feeling , from the light touch of passing admiration to the triumphant madness of soul and sense , or the deep and everlasting anguish of survivorship . " A review by a " Professor Lyall " in 1878 argues , " As descriptive poetry , and for that feature of realistic description so characteristic of Tennyson 's muse , ' Mariana ' has , perhaps , not been surpassed even by him . " 
 Harold Nicolson , in 1923 , view the dreariness of Mariana and Tennyson 's other early works as an aspect that makes the early works better his later works . In T. S. Eliot 's 1936 Essays Ancient and Modern , he praises Tennyson 's ability to represent the visual , tactile , auditory , and olfactory aspects of the scene . Later in 1972 , Christopher Ricks argues that the poem is " one of Tennyson 's masterpieces in the art of the penultimate . " 
 Elaine Jordan argues , in her 1988 analysis of Tennyson 's works , that the poem 's depiction of " self @-@ infolding [ ... ] is a negation which involves the drawing @-@ in of forces in order perhaps to assert the self differently . Mariana is the most powerful expression , very early , of such a moment , though its assertiveness exists only as strong gloom in image and rhythm , not as narrative possibility except in the desire for an end to it all preferred over patience . " In 2002 , Ruth Glancy writes , " In the last stanza , Mariana 's grip on the present is loosening , and Tennyson 's mastery of sound and images is evident ( even in this early poem ) in his description of the house that echoes her utter desolation " . Anna Barton , in her 2008 analysis , declares Mariana " the most famous heroine of the 1830 volume " and that both The Ballad of Oriana and Mariana are " poems of greater substance that develop the poetic that Tennyson begins to establish in his briefer songs . " 
 
 