Lady Clara Vere de Vere

rdf:langString Lady Clara Vere de Vere

rdf:langString "Lady Clara Vere de Vere" is an English poem written by Alfred Tennyson, part of his collected Poems published in 1842. The poem is about a lady in a family of aristocrats, and includes numerous references to nobility, such as to earls or coats of arms. One such line from the poem goes, "Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood." This line gave the title to the film Kind Hearts and Coronets. Lewis Carroll's poem "Echoes" is based on "Lady Clare Vere de Vere". Tennyson spent some time as a guest at Curragh Chase and wrote the poem to show his close friendship with the de Vere family. Despite this, the poem is a scathing rebuke. The speaker tells that Lady Clara has rebuffed a young, but low-born man who loved her, and he committed suicide after her rejection. The references to coronets and earls are deployed ironically—the poem's speaker is not, in fact, impressed with the Vere de Vere ancestry, and all of her noble claims can't balance out Lady Clara's coldness, pride, and idleness (as proven by the fact that she apparently has no better claim on her time than breaking hearts). The poem's speaker then professes a more democratic viewpoint, where good character is earned by virtue, not by high birth.