Poets often revise and rework their work, as it can be difficult to fully express the emotions they want to arouse in the reader. Just changing one word can change the entire meaning of a line, and the usual brevity of the poem requires that every single word be the perfect choice. Tennyson wrote two versions of his "Mariana", the second being very different. Both are about a woman named Mariana who has been abandoned by her lover and left forever alone in their country home, one can clearly see why he made the decision to change the things he did. The first version, "Mariana in the South", has a more hopeful tone: there is a shift from deeper depression to moments of hope. The second, simply titled "Mariana", has no sense of hope at all, in fact, that it becomes apparent that he was not satisfied with the expression of the his first attempt, and he wanted to try again to evoke that sense of complete desperation. Tennyson changed the actual form of the poem, its diction, and, most importantly, its imagery, to create a much stronger sense of desperation in the second version. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The form of the poem, which would seem like a tiny and insignificant detail, shapes the meaning of the poem in a very significant way. In the first version of the poem, some lines of each stanza are indented in such a way as to create a shape resembling a wave. It alternates between indented and non-indented lines, swelling at the chorus into what might seem like the crest of a wave. In the second version of the poem, each stanza also alternates between indented and non-indented lines, but the seventh and eighth lines of each stanza reverse the pattern. This breaking of the pattern helps create a much less fluid feel visually and appears to be broken in a way. This rupture becomes significant because Mariana herself, in her grief over the loss of her lover, is in a certain sense destroyed. The diction of the poem is better thought out in the second version, to help create that sense of complete desperation that Mariana is experiencing. A couple of examples of awkward or ineffective diction occur in "Mariana in the South." One such example refers to Mariana's singing as a "carol" (13). The word "carol" seems to be chosen simply because its two syllables make the iambic tetrameter of the line work correctly, but it is completely detrimental to the emotion Tennyson intends to evoke. The connotations of the word actually imply joy and mostly refer to a song about Christmas, a time of love and peace. Naturally Mariana feels neither joy, nor love, nor peace. The diction of the second edition of the poem seems to be thought out much more clearly. Many words actually have two meanings, both of which are significant for work. When evening comes, Tennyson writes, “the thickest darkness overwhelms the sky” (18). The footnote tells us that the word “trance” means cross, as in “the thickest darkness [crossed] the sky,” but trance can also mean to bewitch, something that would have sinister connotations for the reader. Likewise, he also writes that Mariana "looked askance at the gloomy expanses" (20). “Di traverso” means transverse in this line, but it can also mean perverse or wrong, just as Mariana's world seems somehow wrong without the presence of her lover. This word is also used in line 77. In the last stanza of the poem, Tennyson writes that the sun is "slanting towards his western bower" (78). Of course, most people know that the sunsets in the west. Tennyson's purpose is not to remind the reader of the location of the setting of the sun, but to suggest the finality that comes from the setting of the sun. As the setting of the sun represents the end of the day, so the west comes to symbolize an end or finality. Therefore the use of the word "Western" serves to imply the definitiveness of the happiness that derives from the loss of Mariana's lover. Perhaps most important in the category of diction changes is the poet's change to the poem's refrain, as it is repeated several times and central to the meaning. In the first version, the refrain ends with "Living forgotten and loving desperate". In the second version it ends with "I wish I were dead". While both are truly pitiful, the former at least focuses on life. Although she is not enthusiastic about the prospect, Mariana thinks somewhat about her future life. The second version, however, focuses only on death. The desperation of the situation is so great in this version that Mariana wants to die. Imagery is so prevalent in these poems, and so significant, that it is the most important element. So many image templates are used (and almost all of them have changed) that the images have to be the central topic of discussion in the changes made between the previous and next versions of "Mariana". Religious images are perhaps the most drastic example. “Marian in the South” is simply full of Christian religious imagery. The chorus consists of complaints addressed to the Virgin Mary, Mariana sometimes prays to Mary to help her fight her depression and in the last verse there is a reference to Heaven. In “Mariana,” however, all that religiosity is gone, except for a little “Oh God, if I were dead!” (82) in the last stanza. This change contributes immensely to Mariana's lack of hope. The religion gives many followers a sense of hope through prayer and the assurance of happiness in the afterlife. By removing religious thought, Tennyson removes a source of hope for Mariana. Another missing image model in the second version is the images that consistently portray Mariana as beautiful. In "Mariana nel Sud" she is defined as simply breathtaking. He writes: She, as her song grew sadder, from forehead and breast slowly descended through rosy tapering fingers, drew her flowing locks of the deepest brown left and right, and made appear, still illuminated in a secret splendor , his divine melancholic eyes (13-19) He then refers to the “clear perfection of his face” (32). These descriptions at best serve no purpose to the meaning of the poem and at worst are harmful. Tennyson must have realized their uselessness, and therefore did not include any reference to Mariana's beauty in the second version of the play. An important addition to the poem's imagery comes in the form of images of destruction. The first version makes no reference to the state of the house and surrounding areas as being in any way dilapidated. In the second version, however, the house and the surrounding area are described as completely decrepit. The first stanza reads: With the blackest moss the flowerbeds were thickly encrusted, all; rusty nails fell from the knots that held the pear to the gable wall. worn the ancient thatchUpon the solitary moated grange. (1-12) The area surrounding the house is "gloomy" (20), the trees have "gnarled" bark (42), and the wood paneling is "moldering" (64). Everything about the house and grounds seems to be falling apart or rotting in some way. These image patterns help develop the idea that Mariana, like her surroundings, is falling apart. These pictures also helpto develop the Gothic images that are added in abundance to the second poem. The destruction of the house, the dark and rainy atmosphere, "the flight of bats" (17), the reference to midnight (25), the creaking doors and the references to ghosts all contribute to the prototypical Gothicism of the poem. Such images are also associated with death, which Mariana desires, and general darkness, which she is deeply experiencing. The images of water and humidity in "Mariana" contrast directly with the images of heat and drought used in the previous version. In the first version the riverbed is empty and "dust white" (54). The only source of water is "dry on a distant shore" (7), and Mariana herself is unable to cry until the end. Tennyson writes, “the day passed from heat to heat, / Over stony drought and smoking salt” (39-40). Although the dryness of the imagery is a brilliant way to symbolize Mariana's inability to cry reflected in her surroundings, Tennyson must have decided that he wanted something different for his poem. In the second version, images of dryness are transformed into images of humidity. Mariana cries almost constantly in this poem, which reads, "Her tears fell with the dew; / Her tears fell before the dews dried" (13-14). This draws an obvious comparison between her tears and the dew, which shows the reader that Tennyson intended the wet images to reflect Mariana's tears in her surrounding environment. He writes of the "blackened waters" of a nearby lock (38). It also describes rust, mold, and moss in the house and its grounds, all things that cannot exist without water. Maybe he wanted Mariana to be able to cry, to appear more emotional and desperate. Maybe he needed the humidity to describe things as rotting and moldy. No doubt he had both of these purposes in mind when he made the change. Water also has another purpose in the second poem. While the bodies of water existing in the first version are rapidly moving bodies (a river and the ocean), in the second version the water is in the form of a moat or a "sluice with blackened waters" (38). The slow-motion aspect of the second poem's water imagery helps to emphasize the slowness of Mariana's life, with its "slow ticking of the clock" (73). Without her lover, she is condemned to live her "sad" life alone. The passage of time would happen incredibly slowly for someone who is completely alone forever, so Tennyson uses these images to develop the symbolism of his surroundings as representative of his life. Another important image pattern that Tennyson adds to the second version is the use of pathetic errors. . Mariana sees her house as a "lonely moated barn" (8), the morning with gray eyes (31), and the lock as sleep (38). Of course, these inanimate objects have no eyes and cannot sleep or feel alone, but the fact that Mariana projects her emotions onto them suggests mental illness. Her extreme depression made her see sadness as enveloping her entire world. A final image pattern, and one of the most interesting, consists of images that portray men as fearful or repulsive. The sun, which means just another day of sorrow for Mariana, is described as "sloping toward [her] western bower" (78). It is significant that Mariana regards the sun, which is certainly something feared for her, as male. The most interesting example of man's fearful images comes in the form of a tree. The shadow of the poplar falls "On his bed, across his forehead" (56). If the tree is seen as a phallic symbol and therefore representative of men, the fact that it falls onto its bed represents.