The will in In Memoriam

James R. Kincaid, Aerol Arnold Professor of English, University of Southern California

Note 7 to Chapter 5 of the author's Tennyson's Major Poems, which Yale University Press published in 1975. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.

The importance of the will in the strategy of the entire elegy is discussed by William Brashear, who claims that the real victory is in "the triumph of the 'living will"', and by K W. Gransden, who says, "Much of In Memoriam is…a search for a formula of endurance" (p. 25).

Last modified: 28 March 2001