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Named source · 1832

Oenone Quotes by Alfred Tennyson: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to Oenone by or associated with Alfred Tennyson, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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Alfred Tennyson’s classical dramatic poem, first published in 1832 and substantially revised later

Topics and ideas

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, power, judgment, desire and the moral choice placed before Paris in the poem’s mythic frame.

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Ideas connected with the quotations represented here

Be Yourself 1Identity 1Independence 1Integrity 1Love 1Responsibility 1Self Love 1Self Reliance 1Self Trust 1Self-Control 1Self-Respect 1Self-Worth 1Short 1Wisdom 1
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“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power.”
Alfred Tennyson · Oenone · 1832
Voice: Poetic speaker · Pallas

Tennyson joins respect for oneself with knowledge and restraint: durable personal power is presented as the result of living by an inward law rather than seeking power merely for its own sake.

Source note: Oenone, in The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Project Gutenberg #8601. Pallas speaks the lines while arguing that self-reverence, self-knowledge and self-control lead to a life governed by right rather than by reward; this is poetic character speech, not a prose maxim detached from the poem.