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Overview
“The Lotos-Eaters” is a poem by the British Victorian poet known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson
. First published in an 1832 collection simply titled Poems, Tennyson later reworked the poem for an 1842 collection of the same name. The poem famously expands an episode from Homer’s Odyssey. In the ninth book of that work, Odysseus and his compatriots nearly give up on their homeward journey after some of their company eat a mysterious fruit that induces lethargy and forgetfulness. From this basic premise, Tennyson develops a formally, inventive exploration of the bitterness of toil and the sweetness of rest. The lush musicality of the poem’s language has inspired numerous composers over the past two centuries. Perhaps most famous is Edward Elgar’s setting of a selection of text for double choir, in which male and female choirs sing in different keys, referencing the original poem’s unique, two-part structure.
