BY AN EVOLUTIONIST

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

First Stanza

By An Evolutionist• The Lord Let the house of a

brute to the soul of man• And the man said ‘Am I your

debtor?’• And the Lord-’Not yet; but

make it as clean as you can, And then I will let you a better’

Meaning of First Stanza• House of a brute is certainly

a class of creature, a beast.• And yet, this first stanza

relate to the spoken words between the Creator and the soul of a man, in pursuant to the perspective of an evolutionist.

• But what is evolutionist actually?

By An Evolutionist

• Definitely, such the house of a brute refers to the ape, and even if the evolutionist happens to believe in God, he believes that man evolve from an evolution directly from his descendant, the ape.

• This is because during his lifetime, his time was a time of conflicting views between Christianity and theory of evolution propounded by Charles Darwin and his compatriots.

Second Stanza

By An Evolutionist• If my body come from brutes,

my soul uncertain or fable,• Why not bask amid the

senses while the sun of morning shines

• I, the finer brute rejoicing in my hounds, and in my stable,

• Youth and health, and birth and wealth, and choice of women and of wines?

Meaning • This somehow an argument

throw by Alfred Lord Tennyson that, should man came from ape, does not an ape would merely fumble on choosing anything, or in fact decision over his life?

Third Stanza

By An Evolutionist• What hast thou done for

me, grim Old Age, save breaking my bones on the rack?

• Would I had past in the morning that looks so bright from afar!

Meaning• Surely grim Old Age for an

evolutionist refer to his descendant, that has been experimented and put on the shelf of a lab

• This second line refers to the author’s hope and such hope did criticize the faith of an evolutionist.

Old age : By An Evolutionist

By an Evolutionist• Done for thee, starved the

wild beast that was linkt with thee eighty years back

• Less weight now for the ladder-of-heaven that hangs on a star

Meaning• 1st line and 2nd line depict

the faith of Christianity whereas Man did not evolve from any other animals.

Fifth Stanza

By An Evolutionist• If my body come from brutes,

tho’ somewhat finer than their own,

• I am heir, and this is my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be mute?

• No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne,

• Hold the sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy province of the brute.

Meaning• The first line give assurance that

man is in fact in class of its own.• 2nd line shows the author

reiterate such finer brutes of him is the king of kings

• So, if an evolutionist views try to degrade the status of his mankind, all we have to do is to protect ourselves from such degradation, and take action against these views of evolutionists.

Sixth stanza

By an Evolutionist• I have climb’d to the snows of

Age, and I gaze at a field in the Past.

• Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a low desire,

• But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last,

• As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher.

Meaning• This last stanza with four lines

here actually tell us that Man in his long history, argues by the author that they always stand tall nowhere near animals. Thus, for this author, for an evolutionist to say that Man evolve from brutes, is not true. That is why the author assures, the Man himself is the king of kings, and that is why, they can never be equated with any beasts, except himself as brute.