Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom after William Wordsworth. As a poet of the Victorian age Tennyson wrote in the shadow of Wordsworth his whole life. Like the rest of the Victorians in the age immediately succeeding the Romanticism of Wordsworth, [[[Samuel Taylor Coleridge|Coleridge]], Byron, Keats, and Blake, Tennyson's poetry was written as a reflection on the failure of Romantic attitudes. Some Victorians, such as Swinburne and Rossetti, reacted to the eclipse of Romanticism by become ever wilder and more eccentric than their forebears; but Tennyson, like the majority of Victorians for whom he would serve as a role-model, instead adopted a dour, moralizing tone. In the wake of the explosive energy of the Romantics, Tennyson, as one of the leaders of what would become a distinctly Victorian voice in poetry, adoped a style far more attenutated, focused, and sober than that of those of the poets who had preceded him in the previous half of the 19th century. In both his style and his attitudes, Tennyson strikingly resembles the late Wordsworth, and the comparison is still often invoked either as a point of praise or a point of derision, depending upon ones opinion of the long, laborious poetry of Wordsworth's late career.
Like the late Wordsworth, Tennyson was generally reserved in his political opinions, and this conservatism plays out in his choice of subject matter: tending away from the fantastical poetry of the previous generation, Tennyson's poetry is largely grounded in the classics, and his greatest works (Idylls of the King and Ulysses respectively) are concerned with two very old, very much respected legends drawn from the literary tradition: the stories of King Arthur, and Homer's epic of the Odyssey. Rather than faring too far on themes that might offend, Tennyson chose subjects that would be amenable to all crowds, and, in most of his poetry, treated his subjects in a very traditional way. Most of Tennyson's poetry is didactic, which is to say, his poems tend to carry a moral or a point, much like the fables of Aesop. Though perhaps not as exciting as the poets who came before him, Tennyson was, like Wordsworth, an eminently readable poet, and his style is highly admirable for its clarity of image and consistency of tone. Moreover, like Wordsworth, Tennyson provides one of the most refined examples of what might be called traditional poetry—poetry, that is, before the revolutions and upheavals that would attend the turn of the 20th century—and as such he is invaluable not only to poets wishing to reestablish a connection with the tradition but also to students of all fields wishing to immerse themselves in the verse of rhyme and meter which made up the literature of an earlier age.
Life
Early life
Alfred Tennyson was born in Lincolnshire, a rector's son and one of 12 children. His father, George Clayton Tennyson, was the elder of two sons, but was disinherited at an early age by his own father, the landowner George Tennyson, in favour of his younger brother Charles, who later took the name Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt. George Clayton Tennyson raised a large family but was perpetually short of money; he drank heavily and became mentally unstable. Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens, and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner later married Louisa Sellwood, younger sister of Alfred's future wife; the other poet brother was Frederick Tennyson.
Education and first publication
Tennyson attended King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1828, where he joined the secret society called the Cambridge Apostles, a society which would later include a number of noted scientists and philosophers (such as James Clerk Maxwell and Alfred North Whitehead) and which, originally, was founded as a society for the reading of Coleridge. At Cambridge Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his best friend.
He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical (1830+). Claribel and Mariana, which later took their place among Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by some critics as oversentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day including Coleridge himself.
Return to Lincolnshire and second publication
In the spring of 1831, Tennyson's father died, forcing him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree. He returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years, and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and her large brood. His friend Hallam came to stay with him during the summer and became engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Tennyson.
In 1833, Tennyson published his second book of poetry, which included one of his better known earlier poems, "The Lady of Shalott", a story of a princess who cannot look at the world except through a reflection in a mirror. As Sir Lancelot rides by the tower where she must stay, she looks at him, and the curse comes to term; she dies after she places herself in a small boat and floats down the river to Camelot, her name written on the boat's stern. The volume met heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson that he did not publish again for 10 more years, although he continued to write. As a sample of Tennyson's early, flowy verse, a brief quotation of "The Lady of Shalott" will do:
- On either side the river lie
- Long fields of barley and of rye,
- That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
- And through the field the road run by
- To many-tower'd Camelot;
- And up and down the people go,
- Gazing where the lilies blow
- Round an island there below,
- The island of Shalott.
- Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
- Little breezes dusk and shiver
- Through the wave that runs for ever
- By the island in the river
- Flowing down to Camelot.
- Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
- Overlook a space of flowers,
- And the silent isle imbowers
- The Lady of Shalott.
- By the margin, willow veil'd,
- Slide the heavy barges trail'd
- By slow horses; and unhail'd
- The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
- Skimming down to Camelot:
- But who hath seen her wave her hand?
- Or at the casement seen her stand?
- Or is she known in all the land,
- The Lady of Shalott?
In 1833 Tennyson's close friend Arthur Hallam had a cerebral hemorrhage while on holiday in Vienna and died. It devastated Alfred, but inspired him to produce a myriad of poetry that has become some of the world's finest verse.
Third publication and recognition
In 1842, while living modestly in London, Tennyson published two volumes of Poems, the first of which included works already published and the second of which was made up almost entirely of new poems. They met with immediate success. The Princess, which came out in 1847, was also popular.
The Golden Year
It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the pinnacle of his career, being appointed Poet Laureate in succession to William Wordsworth and in the same year producing his masterpiece, In Memoriam A.H.H., dedicated to Arthur Hallam. In the same year, Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had known since childhood, in the village of Shiplake. They had two sons, Hallam — named after his friend — and Lionel.
The Poet Laureate
He held the position of Poet Laureate from 1850 until his death, turning out appropriate but mediocre verse, such as a poem of greeting to Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the future King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of his best known works, The Charge of the Light Brigade, a dramatic tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised charge on 25 October, 1854, during the Crimean War. Other works written as Laureate include Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition.
Queen Victoria was an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, and in 1884 created him Baron Tennyson, of Blackdown in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. He was the first English writer raised to the Peerage. A passionate man with some peculiarities of nature, he was never particularly comfortable as a peer, and it is widely held that he took the peerage in order to secure a future for his son Hallam.
Recordings exist of Lord Tennyson declaiming his own poetry, which were made by Thomas Edison, but they are of relatively poor quality.
Tennyson continued writing into his eighties, and died on 6 October, 1892, aged 83. He was buried at Westminster Abbey]. He was succeeded as 2nd Baron Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an authorised biography of his father in 1897, and was later the second Governor-General of Australia.
Notable works
- The Kraken (1830)
- Harold (1876) - began a revival of interest in King Harold
- The Charge of the Light Brigade
- The Lady of Shalott
- In Memoriam A.H.H.
- Ulysses
- Locksley Hall
- Locksley Hall Sixty Years After
- Crossing the Bar
- Tithonus
- Enoch Arden
- The Lotos-Eaters
- Idylls of the King
- Maud
- The Epic
- Mariana
External links
- Tennyson's Grave, Westminster Abbey
- Biography & Works (public domain)
- Online copy of 'Locksley Hall'
- Selected Poems of A.Tennyson
- The Twickenham Museum - Alfred Lord Tennyson in Twickenham
- Tennyson in Twickenham
- Works by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson. Project Gutenberg
- Complete Biography & Works
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