In Tennyson's Mariana what are the notions of appropriate female behaviour within it and why was the woman depicted this way. Also, what 3 other Tennyson poems are of middle class females, what notions of appropriate behaviour are within it, how are the female characters represented and why were the women depicted this way.
This is not another rhetorical question?
No, it is not. This is what i need to know.
To EmmaAmanda: ok, sorry for the wise crack. Let me drop a bit of tiresome wikopedia just to set the "stage". -- "Early life
Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, a rector's son and fourth of 12 children. He was one of the descendants of King Edward III of England. Reportedly, "the pedigree of his grandfather, George Tennyson, is traced back to the middle-class line of the Tennysons, and through Elizabeth Clayton ten generations back to Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and farther back to Edward III."
His father, George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831), was a rector for Somersby (1807–1831), also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby (1815). The reverend was the elder of two sons, but was disinherited at an early age by his own father, the landowner George Tennyson (1750–1835) (who belonged to the Lincolnshire gentry as the owner of Bayons Manor and Usselby Hall), in favour of his younger brother Charles, who later took the name Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a large family and "was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music, and poetry." Rev. Tennyson was "comfortably well off for a country clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe and Skegness, on the eastern coast of England." His mother, Elizabeth Fytche (1781–1865) was the daughter of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar of Louth (1764) and rector of Withcall (1780), a small village between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to the education and training of his children."
Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens, and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred's future wife; the other poet brother was Frederick Tennyson. One of Tennyson's other brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private mental asylum, where he later died."
You can gather all from this author's personal history; in his time period women could have some power but it was almost always by influence with family and husband. Decorum ruled the day, even more so for women. I don't think you need extrapolate much once you know the backround and obvious high moral type of the author. This gives you all your answers, if not specifically.
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