Buonoparte
Buonoparte - context Summary
Commemorating Trafalgar's Legacy
Tennyson wrote "Buonoparte" as a young poet in 1819; it appeared in the 1827 collection Poems by Two Brothers. The poem commemorates British sea power and the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Trafalgar, depicting Britain as an "island queen" waking to repel conquest. Its tone is celebratory and moralizing, linking military victory to a lesson in humility through an explicit Gideon reference.
Read Complete AnalysesHe thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak, Madman!—to chain with chains, and bind with bands That island queen who sways the floods and lands From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands, With thunders and with lightnings and with smoke, Peal after peal, the British battle broke, Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands. We taught him lowlier moods, when Elsinore Heard the war moan along the distant sea, Rocking with shatter’d spars, with sudden fires Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more We taught him: late he learned humility Perforce, like those whom Gideon school’d with briers.
Reprinted without any alteration among Early Sonnets in 1872, and unaltered since.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.