Will - Analysis

Introduction

Will presents a compact moral contrast between two kinds of human character: one whose will is steadfast and one whose will decays. The tone begins admiring and resolute in the first stanza, then shifts to cautionary and bleak in the second. Tennyson uses vivid seascape and desert imagery to dramatize the consequences of inner strength or its erosion.

Authorial and historical note

Alfred Lord Tennyson, a leading Victorian poet, often explored duty, moral endurance, and the challenges of a changing age. The poem reflects Victorian concerns about character, progress, and the spiritual costs of moral failure, though its moral lesson is general rather than narrowly historical.

Main themes: Will, endurance, and moral consequence

The central theme is the power of a strong will to withstand external assault: the steadfast man "seems a promontory of rock" and is "Tempest-buffeted" yet unshaken. A complementary theme is moral deterioration: the weakened will is pictured as "toiling in immeasurable sand" and growing "ever weaker" through repeated faults, showing how small recurring failures compound into ruin.

Imagery and symbolism: rock versus desert

The poem sets up two dominant symbols. The rock/promontory symbolizes stability and moral integrity, resisting the "surging shock" and "loud world's random mock." The sand and blazing vault symbolize disorientation, exhaustion, and isolation—the man whose will decays becomes lost in a "weary sultry land" where the city is only "a grain of salt." These images deliver the moral contrast in tangible terms.

Tone and moral instruction

Tennyson's tone moves from admiration to warning; the first stanza's confident, almost heroic diction ("citadel-crown'd") gives way to the second stanza's weary, diminishing language ("halt," "sown in a wrinkle"). The poem functions as moral instruction: endurance yields dignity and protection, while repeated venial faults lead to diminishing power and alienation.

Concluding insight

By juxtaposing resistant rock and eroding sand, Tennyson compresses a psychological and ethical argument into a brief lyrical fable: sustained will is both shield and citadel, whereas the gradual corrosion of choice produces isolation and loss of perspective. The poem invites readers to consider how repeated small failures can cumulatively undermine character as surely as storms batter a shore.