Tennyson’s Wrinkled Feet: Ageing and the Poetics of Decay

This article argues that Tennyson’s ‘Tithonus’ (1860) draws together ageing and decay through the poem’s formal wrinkling: moments where metrical disruption, folding, slackness, or concealment correspond to insights derived from perspective of great age — chiming poet’s keynotes disappointment, mourning, loss. I turn ‘Ulysses’ (1842) ‘The Lotos-Eaters’ (1832) poems with a similar, though differently stressed, investment in demonstrate political stakes this thesis. While for Ulysses old presents triumphant opportunity live ‘Life lees’, arises sense masculine anxiety about imminent decay. positions against imperative work as means decentring monolithic temporality capitalist utility. These theorize poetics rot senescent challenge assumptions inherent value mastery, productivity, vigour.