Oenone (poem)

The poem describes the Greek mythological character Oenone and her witnessing incidents in the life of her lover, Paris, as he is involved in the events of the Trojan War.

While there, Tennyson was able to experience the Pyrenees mountains, which influenced a few of his poems, including "Oenone", "The Lotos-Eaters" and "Mariana in the South".

Later in 1861, a return to the Spanish mountains and travelling the earlier path would inspire the poem "In the Valley of Cauteretz".

Each of the monologues incorporates an ironic use of rhetoric by the manner in which an individual point of view is incrementally revealed within the poems.

[8] The refrain, "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die", reveals Oenone's imprisonment to both the situation she finds herself in and to her emotions.

Changes between the 1832 and 1842 edition of the poems reflect changes in Tennyson's role as the poet creating a song and, thus, his similarity to Oenone as a character.

[11] Tennyson's 1832 collection of poems was savaged by John Wilson Croker in a Quarterly Review article of April 1833.