Maud and the Dismembered Body

Abstract

This paper argues that Tennyson’s poem Maud, despite its title, presents the heroine not as a realistic character but as a fragmented, silenced figure subjected to violence through the speaker’s language. Johnson’s observation highlights Maud’s significant silence throughout most of the poem and the paradox of her only gaining direct speech after death, conflating life and death as a form of “falsehood” linked to violence. The essay expands on this, asserting that Maud endures a deeper violence beyond mere silence. She is deprived of meaningful speech and simultaneously fragmented, both metaphorically and physically, into disparate body parts by the male speaker. This dissection is enacted through the very language the speaker uses to construct the poem itself. Furthermore, the analysis contends that this violence inherent in speech is not solely directed at Maud; it also impacts the speaker. Ultimately, the argument posits that speech within the poem transcends being a simple act of individual agency. Instead, it functions as a potent, tentative form of violence that actively dismantles and erases any possibility of certainty, affecting both the depicted characters and the poem’s meaning. The speaker’s words become the instrument of fragmentation and erasure.