So I've recently gotten into Tennyson. I loved The Lotos-Eaters, In Memoriam, and everything else.
But I got to The Kraken and I absolutely do not fucking understand it. I tried looking up what it meant on a whim, but there where no clear answers. Does the Kraken represent industry? Science? Religion? Nature? Because I have no fucking clue what this poem's supposed to mean.
If it is supposed to represent one of those things, then why all the ancient imagery, and why the fuck does it die as soon as it surfaces?
Am I just being stupid? Is the answer obvious?
bump
Anyone? I read some more stuff about it but now I'm just more confused. There are so many different interpretations, and none of them explain the death at the end.
he's sleeping until the earth gets fucked up by the wrath of god. i don't understand why he'd rise just to die either, though. anyway, cool poem, thanks OP if i have any miraculous insight i'll check back in
>>7837878
maybe God forgot about him down there at the bottom of the ocean, and accidentally boiled him out of his very long nap. so he comes racing pissed off to the surface, forgetting he can't just de-pressurize like that, and so he dies.
i think Tennyson's just giving us cool imagery, really. if i had to extract a conceit from it, it'd be "we are small and much is hidden from us until the last day"
>>7837696
The Kraken is a myth.
The legend of the Kraken would lose all of its mystique and meaning if it were to rise to the surface to be seen by everyone. All of the different legends about it would be obliterated.
Therefore the kraken would 'die'
It's like if Jesus came down from heaven
>>7837953
Yeah but if that's the case, why so much religious and scientific imagery?
>>7837963
It reminds me a lot of what Baudrillard said about ethnology and the tasaday tribe
Once science gets its hands on something, that thing dies and becomes a simulation
>>7837995
So basically it's about science killing a myth by proving it doesn't exist?
>>7837953
i think if unicorns were real people would still be fond of them
>>7838016
Only by proving it's real they're just creating their own version of the real which is a simulation of it
An unreal representation of the real
Once a species of animal is studied by science, the mystique behind that animal vanishes.
Like if a bunch sasquatch were somehow captured by scientists and a ton of information was released about this sasquatch animal I'm sure it wouldn't be viewed the same way
>>7838026
Initially, yes, but eventually we would be fond of them like we are fond of rhinoceroses
If lions were seen as a myth but then discovered one day I'm sure the hype over that would be enormous too
Now no one really cares about them
It dies at the end bc in revelations (the end is referencing the second coming) the leviathan surfaces and is killed by jesus.
