What does the poplar tree in the poem Mariana in the South by Alfred Lord Tennyson symbolize?

Answer 1

It symbolizes marianas lover.One of the most important symbols in the poem is the poplar tree described in the fourth and fifth stanzas. On one level, the poplar can be interpreted as a sort of phallic symbol: it provides the only break in an otherwise flat and even landscape ("For leagues no other tree did mark / the level waste" [lines 43-44]); and the shadow of the poplar falls on Mariana's bed when she is lovesick at night, suggesting her sexual hunger for the absent lover. On another level, however, the poplar is an important image from classical mythology: in his Metamorphoses, Ovid describes how Oenone, deserted by Paris, addresses the poplar on which Paris has carved his promise not to desert her. Thus the poplar has come to stand as a classic symbol of the renegade lover and his broken promise