Madeline - Analysis

Introduction

Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Madeline" presents a speaker captivated by a woman whose moods flicker between smiles and frowns. The tone mixes admiration, enchantment, and a touch of bewilderment, shifting between tender desire and amused observation. Repetition and musical phrasing create a sense of persistent fascination that never quite settles. The mood alternates with the subject's changing expressions, so the poem feels lively and restless.

Contextual Note

Tennyson, a leading Victorian poet, often explored idealized femininity, emotional nuance, and romantic longing; these cultural and personal preoccupations shape the poem's focus on delicate feeling and social decorum. Though short, the poem reflects Victorian tensions around passion and restraint.

Theme: Love and Desire

The dominant theme is romantic desire, expressed through the speaker's repeated attention to Madeline's smiles and frowns. Phrases like “perfect in love-lore” and images of the speaker's “bounding heart” entangled by a “golden-netted smile” show how her shifting expression both entices and ensnares him. Desire is active yet tentative: kisses are imagined but approached with awe and restraint.

Theme: Change and Ambiguity

Another theme is variability: Madeline is “ever varying,” moving through “light and shadow” and alternating moods. The poem treats emotional flux as intrinsic to her charm—smile and frown are “each to each” and “momently shot into each other,” suggesting unity within change and a delight in unpredictability rather than a stable identity.

Imagery and Symbolism

Recurring images—smiles, frowns, “golden-netted smile,” “sun-fringed” clouds, and “taper fingers”—carry symbolic weight. Light imagery (golden, sun-fringed) links attraction to beauty and radiance, while cloud and shadow motifs introduce fleeting mystery. The golden net metaphor implies both ensnarement and preciousness: beauty captivates but is also admired as rarified artifice. Ambiguity remains about whether the speaker's reverence is reciprocal or projected.

Conclusion

"Madeline" celebrates the allure of a mercurial beloved, portraying variability itself as the core of attraction. Tennyson's lyrical repetition and sensuous images make the poem an ode to emotional complexity—pleasure and frustration braided together—leaving readers to wonder whether the speaker delights in Madeline's unpredictability or mourns its elusiveness.