Abstract

Solipsism and solitude are almost the core of the Romantic poetry and experience. Many romantic poets encourage people to abandon society and have a moment of interaction between nature and the self to transcend the materialistic, industrial, and capitalist society. For example, in “Frost at Midnight.” Coleridge experiences the harsh side of nature as he spends the night in a freezing place. Also, Wordsworth’s speaker wanders lonely as a cloud as he solitarily interacts with nature. This article aims at tracing the solipsistic experience in Alfred Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters.” This, of course, suggests that the Romantics influenced Tennyson to encourage such an experience. However, the major concern of this article is to show that Tennyson, in his poem, extends and complicates the solipsistic experience; that is, the individual’s solipsism in the Romantic poetry becomes a collective solipsism in Tennyson’s poetry.