Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters” was published in 1832. The inspiration for the poem was Tennyson’s visit to Spain (1829) along with Arthur Hallam where they visited the Pyrenees Mountains.

About the Poem

The prescribed poem deals with a group of mariners who after consuming the lotos, went into a state of trance or temporal amnesia. The poem functions as a marked contrast to Tennyson’s “Ulysses” that had as its motto, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” This particular poem is diametrically opposite in theme as it stands for Victorian complacency. The background of the poem is scroll IX of Homer’s Odyssey.

As they proceed from Troy, the mariners get thwarted by a storm from their intended destination. Instead of Ithaca, they arrive at a land where people eat ‘lotos’(Greek for ‘Lotus)’. No description of the country is given. Some of the mariners consume the lotos and sink into lassitude, a sluggish condition devoid of activity and aspiration. The condition is probably emblematic of the pseudo-modern way of life where advanced technology has made life devoid of activity and creativity. In such a condition, George Bernard Shaw envisages that the human body will be reduced to a pulp of brain, as that would be the only organ functioning in the body.…