 I am Chanika Roy from Krishnakanda Handik State Open University and I am here with the third video lecture on the topic, Tears, Ideal Tears, written by Lord Alfred Tennyson. So in the previous two videos, we have reflected on the life and works of the poet and then in the second video, we have dealt with the poem in a detailed manner by highlighting on the major things that has been reflected in the poem. So in this video, we shall mainly emphasize on the language and style used by Tennyson. So let us first learn about the poetic technique used in the poem. The poetic technique used in the poem takes into account some formal devices such as plan 1 and an extensive use of images to convey the sense of sadness and sweetness as the two opposite qualities of the human recollection of the past. So don't you sometimes feel, when you think about the past, don't you think or don't you feel a certain kind of sadness because the past or the joy that you have achieved in the past, it cannot be revived in our memories. We can just think about it, we cannot feel it. So the human recollection of the past is a mixture of sweetness and sadness. Apart from this, the meditative and conversational atmosphere must be noted. So while going through the poem, you must have noted that it is written in a very simple and conversational tone. Each stanza is connected to the previous one by a closing phrase. As I have mentioned in my earlier video, the phrase that is the days that are no more. So this is the line that continuously occurs at the end of all the four stanzas. And this phrase is repeated to remind the reader of the passing or the passage of time. The use of imagery is also similarly directed towards conveying a sense of contrast between joy and sorrow with regard to our recollection of the past. Human memory is not selective. Therefore, the image of happy autumn fills is followed by the image of a dying man. Another tactic used by the poet is personification. In the phrase, happy autumn fills, he has used a figure of speech called transfer epithet. So it is not the autumn fills which are happy, but the person looking at them. So this is an example of transferred epithet. That means he transfers his feelings through the autumn fills. The autumn fills are mentioned as happy, but actually the poet fills the happiness and he reflects his happiness through the autumn fills. So by the use of transferred epithet, a poetic effect is created from person to the field. Thus, it may be said that tears, ideal tears is a poem in which Tennyson had achieved a great poetic effect by using the suitable, though conventional techniques such as use of blank verse, figures of speech and imagery for his grave subject matter, which is the recollection of the past and how the recollections are apt to make us feel both happy and sad. So purely this is a very philosophical poem and it is a reflection of his own thinking on the memories of the past or memories of the dead. As far as the language of the poem is concerned, the use of imagery, that is images, simple and also simple words are to be noted. If the imagery particularly focuses on or it particularly focuses our attention towards the melancholic calm and sense of irony which we experience with our own contemplation of the passing of life. So you can see in each stanza there is a simple example to illustrate our sense of loss. For example, in the first stanza, the poet describes a person looking at the happy autumn fields. So autumn also indicates the coming of winter. One can reflect the change of seasons and this reflection brings tears into our eyes. Likewise, in the second stanza, you may have noted that this sense of loss is compared to the feeling of a person who is visited by his friends. The friends finally leave him and this is a very difficult image. So we ourselves can feel the or we can feel the pangs of loneliness when our friends leave us, particularly when our friends leave us forever. So the person feels the joy of seeing the sunlight on the sail, glittering on a sail as the ship bringing his friend is seen from a distance, but the same friends would depart in the ship, leaving the person filled with sadness. The words Tennyson uses to describe the arrival and departure of the friends like up from the underworld and to mention the departure like below the verge have to be noted. This actually is the image of a voyage of a journey. So it has symbolic meaning that is passing from birth to death, the journey of human beings from birth to death. Once the idea of death is indicated in the image of the ship, bringing friends from the underworld, its logical connection with the next stanza can be seen in the mention of the dying man hearing the bird's nose at dawn. The speaker means that his ideal tears are like the tears of the dying man who wakes up in the summer dawn and hears the bird's tear. Here is a strong melancholic that is filled with sadness, which is apt to bring tears to eyes. So in the final stanza the tears are compared with those in the eyes of the lover who remembers with joy and regrets his love affair that has ended without any hope for renewal. Such a person experiences the condition of death in life because he is alive but his happy days are gone forever. From the above discussion it is clear that the complex subject of the poem is rendered comprehensible by the use of a simple language and imagery. We can also point out the words whose sounds echo the poet's feeling of sadness that causes tears to come to his eyes. The use of the words tears in the title is particularly striking with its repetition. You must have noted that the title contains two tears, tears, ideal and tears. So there the emphasis on the word tears has to be noted. So and it also depicts the sense of sadness felt by the poet. Tennyson was acutely sensitive to sounds and had the gift of appealing to our ears even more. So he is considered to be one of the finest Victorian poets largely because of his range and volume of poetic output. He could experiment with different kinds of poetic forms including the lyric, dramatic monologue and so on. So here it must be mentioned that the dramatic monologue is a poetic form which consists of a speech by a single character who reveals his innermost thoughts and feelings to a listener. And if we see the works by Tennyson we can certainly say that Tennyson was a master in composing dramatic monologues. So in this video we have learnt that Tennyson was one of the greatest Victorian poets and who had a poetic genius and who covered different kinds of forms in his poetry and he experimented widely. So you must be clear by now what the poem tears, ideal tears is all about. I hope you have gained a bit from this video that will help you to read more on Tennyson and his works. Thank you for watching this video. Wish you all the best.