The Princess Part VI - Analysis

Introduction and overall impression

The Princess - Part VI presents a tense, elegiac scene after battle in which grief, reconciliation, and contested female authority mingle. The tone shifts from dreamlike detachment to triumphant exultation, then to confrontation, pity, and finally weary resignation. Tennyson balances lofty rhetoric with intimate gestures, producing both public spectacle and private emotion.

Relevant context

Written in Victorian England, Tennyson’s poem engages debates about gender roles, female education and authority, and social reform. The poem’s militant women and wounded men reflect contemporary anxieties about changing spheres of influence and the possible consequences of women’s public power.

Main theme: Conflict between idealism and consequence

The poem repeatedly stages the aftermath of a crusade for female rule: Ida’s victory-song—“Our enemies have fallen”—celebrates the growth of a mighty, almost monstrous tree that symbolizes the feminist cause. Yet victory yields moral complexity as wounded men, familial grief, and mistrust intrude, showing how lofty ideals produce painful real-world consequences.

Main theme: Mercy, motherhood, and feminine compassion

Motherhood functions as a moral counterweight to martial pride. Scenes where Ida, Psyche, and others tend the wounded—Ida taking the babe, Psyche’s hunger to clasp it—emphasize nurture as reparative power. The repeated appeals “Give her the child!” and Ida’s eventual yielding link maternal tenderness to reconciliation and social healing.

Main theme: Pride, isolation, and the possibility of reconciliation

Ida’s initial hardness—“stiff as Lot’s wife”—embodies an ascetic pride and isolation that the poem interrogates. Critics and comrades urge her to soften; her final concession, embracing forgiveness and inviting wounded men into the sanctuary, marks a dramatic moral thaw that reunites feminine authority with communal care.

Symbols and vivid imagery

The towering tree in Ida’s song symbolizes the cause’s unexpected strength and danger—its “spanless girth” and “thousand arms” suggest both beneficence and domination. Armour, wounds, and the babe function as contrasting images: metal and blood denote martial cost, the babe represents innocence and the demand for humane responsibility. The hall’s shifting light—“shot / A flying splendour out of brass and steel”—accentuates the uneasy mingling of martial glory and domestic space.

Ambiguity and open question

Ida’s transformation remains ambiguous: is it sincere moral growth, strategic concession, or exhaustion? The poem invites readers to ask whether public triumph can be sustained without relinquishing some purity of purpose, and whether compassion inevitably alters political resolve.

Conclusion and final insight

Tennyson threads a complex moral tapestry in which feminist aspiration, masculine injury, and maternal care converge. By dramatizing both the triumph and the costs of a radical project, the poem suggests that true social progress requires tempering zeal with mercy—an achievement that is human, fraught, and ultimately reconciliatory.