-
Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel
Taylor Coleridge. -
)[56] • “Rosalinde” (1833; suppressed until 1884)[57] • Poems (1842; with numerous subsequent editions including the 4th edition (1846) and 8th edition (1853));[58] the collection
included many of the poems published in the 1833 anthology (some in revised form), and the following: • The Princess: A Medley (1847),[59] which includes the following poems: o “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal” – later appeared as a song in the
film Vanity Fair (2004), with musical arrangement by Mychael Danna o “Tears, Idle Tears” • In Memoriam (1850),[60] which includes the following poem: o “Ring Out, Wild Bells” (1850) • “The Eagle” (1851) • “The Sister’s Shame”[61] • Maud, and
Other Poems (1855), in which the following poems were published: o “Maud” o “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) – an early recording exists of Tennyson reading this • Idylls of the King (1859–1885; composed 1833–1874) • Enoch Arden and
Other Poems (1862/1864), in which the following poems were published: o “Enoch Arden” o “Tithonus” • The Holy Grail and Other Poems (1870), in which the following poem was published: o “Flower in the Crannied Wall” (1869) • The Window; or,
The Songs of the Wrens (written 1867–1870; published 1871) – a song cycle with music composed by Arthur Sullivan • Queen Mary: A Drama (1875)[62] – a play about Mary I of England • Harold: A Drama (1877)[63] – a play about Harold II of England
• Montenegro (1877) • The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet (1878) – about the ship Revenge • Ballads and Other Poems (1880)[64] • Becket (1884)[65] • Crossing the Bar (1889) • The Foresters (1891) – a play about Robin Hood with incidental music
by Arthur Sullivan • Kapiolani (published after his death by Hallam Tennyson)[66] -
Third publication[edit] On 14 May 1842, while living modestly in London, Tennyson published the two volume Poems, of which the first included works already published and the
second was made up almost entirely of new poems. -
Although decried by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel
Taylor Coleridge. -
[27] Colonel George Edward Gouraud, Thomas Edison’s European agent, made sound recordings of Tennyson reading his own poetry, late in his life.
-
[43] Well-known among his longer works are Maud and Idylls of the King, the latter arguably the most famous Victorian adaptation of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights
of the Round Table. -
Tennyson and the Queen Although Albert, Prince Consort, was largely responsible for Tennyson’s appointment as Laureate,[23] Queen Victoria became an ardent admirer of Tennyson’s
work, writing in her diary that she was “much soothed & pleased” by reading “In Memoriam A.H.H.” -
His first publication was a collection of “his boyish rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles” entitled Poems by Two Brothers, published in 1827.
-
John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott, 1888 (Tate Britain, London) The May Queen From “The May Queen” poem by Alfred Tennyson[16] In 1833 Tennyson published his second
book of poetry, which notably included the first version of “The Lady of Shalott”. -
Works A list of works by Tennyson follows:[50][51] • Poems by Two Brothers (published 1826; dated 1827 on title page; written with Charles Tennyson) • “Timbuctoo” (for which
he won chancellor’s gold medal and was printed in Prolusiones Academicæ) • Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830), in which the following poems were published: • “No More”, ‘”Anacreontics” and “A Fragment” contributed to The Gem: A Literary Annual
(1831) • “Sonnet” (Check every outflash, every ruder sally) in The Englishman’s Magazine (August, 1831) and later reprinted in Friendship’s Offering (1833) • Poems (published 1832, but dated 1833 on title page),[54] in which the following
poems were published: • The Lover’s Tale (Two parts published in 1833;[55] Tennyson suppressed it immediately after publication as he felt it was imperfect. -
“[36] Tennyson met her a second time just over two decades later, on 7 August 1883, and the Queen told him what a comfort “In Memoriam A.H.H.”
-
In 1848, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt made a list of “Immortals”, artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from literature, notably including Keats
and Tennyson, whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings. -
“Claribel” and “Mariana”, which later took their place among Tennyson’s most celebrated poems, were included in this volume.
-
They met with immediate success; poems from this collection, such as “Locksley Hall”, “Break, Break, Break”, and “Ulysses”, and a new version of “The Lady of Shalott”, have
met enduring fame. -
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. -
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.
-
Return to Lincolnshire, second publication, Epping Forest[edit] In the spring of 1831, Tennyson’s father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree.
-
Other esteemed works written in the post of Poet Laureate include “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” and “Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition”.
-
Published one year after Tennyson’s death, this sketch depicts him sitting in his favourite arbour at Farringford House, his home in the village of Freshwater, Isle of Wight.
-
Hallam’s death had a profound effect on Tennyson and inspired several poems, including “In the Valley of Cauteretz” and “In Memoriam A.H.H.
-
[17] Tennyson befriended a Dr Allen, who ran a nearby asylum whose patients then included the poet John Clare.
-
[34] 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.
-
In “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After”, Tennyson wrote: “Christian love among the churches looked the twin of heathen hate.”
-
George Clayton Tennyson was however pushed into a career in the church and passed over as heir in favour of his younger brother, Charles Tennyson d’Eyncourt.
-
Tennyson heraldry A heraldic achievement of Alfred, Lord Tennyson exists in an 1884 stained-glass window in the Hall of Trinity College, Cambridge, showing arms: These are
a difference of the arms of Thomas Tenison (1636–1715), Archbishop of Canterbury, themselves a difference of the arms of the 13th-century Denys family of Glamorgan and Siston in Gloucestershire, themselves a difference of the arms of Thomas
de Cantilupe (c. 1218–1282), Bishop of Hereford, henceforth the arms of the See of Hereford; the name “Tennyson” signifies “Denys’s son”, although no connection between the two families is recorded. -
He raised a large family and “was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music, and poetry.
-
Arthur Hallam came to stay with his family during the summer and became engaged to Tennyson’s sister, Emilia Tennyson.
-
The volume met heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson that he did not publish again for ten years, although he did continue to write.
-
They include recordings of “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, and excerpts from “The splendour falls” (from The Princess), “Come into the garden” (from Maud), “Ask me no more”,
“Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington” and “Lancelot and Elaine”. -
was written to commemorate his friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and student at Trinity College, Cambridge, after he died of a stroke at the age of 22.
-
Lake Tennyson in New Zealand’s high country, named by Frederick Weld, is assumed to be named after Lord Tennyson.
-
[3] Biography Early life[edit] Tennyson was born on 6 August 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.
-
[45] Other poets such as W. H. Auden maintained a more critical stance, stating that Tennyson was the “stupidest” of all the English poets, adding that: “There was little
about melancholia he didn’t know; there was little else that he did. -
“, a long poem detailing the “Way of the Soul”.
-
“The Princess: A Medley”, a satire on women’s education that came out in 1847, was also popular for its lyrics.
-
In his play, Becket, he wrote: “We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites and private hates with our defence of Heaven”.
-
In the same year (on 13 June), Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had known since childhood, in the village of Shiplake.
-
[25] Virginia Woolf wrote a play called Freshwater, showing Tennyson as host to his friends Julia Margaret Cameron and G. F.
-
Some of Tennyson’s work even bears the influence of Carlyle and his ideas.
-
A revised version comprising three parts was subsequently published in 1879 together with “The Golden Supper” as a fourth part.
-
He returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family.
-
A number of phrases from Tennyson’s work have become commonplace in the English language, including “Nature, red in tooth and claw” (“In Memoriam A.H.H.
-
[47] The Lady of Shalott alone was a subject for Rossetti, Hunt, John William Waterhouse (three versions), and Elizabeth Siddall.
-
[18] An unwise investment in Dr Allen’s ecclesiastical wood-carving enterprise soon led to the loss of much of the family fortune, and led to a bout of serious depression.
-
[11] Tennyson also wrote a substantial quantity of unofficial political verse, from the bellicose “Form, Riflemen, Form”, on the French crisis of 1859 and the Creation of
the Volunteer Force, to “Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering”, deploring Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill. -
During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.
-
[20] Tennyson moved to London in 1840 and lived for a time at Chapel House, Twickenham.
Works Cited
[‘”British Listed Buildings Aldworth House, Lurgashall”. British Listed Buildings Online. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
o ^ Stern, Keith (2007). Queers in History. Quistory Publishers.
o ^ The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (5th ed.). Oxford University
Press. 1999.
o ^ Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Brief Biography, Glenn Everett, Associate Professor of English, the University of Tennessee at Martin
o ^ Savage-Armstrong, George Francis (1888). The Ancient and Noble Family of the Savages of the Ards,
with Sketches of English and American Branches of the House of Savage: Comp. From Historical Documents and Family Papers. pp. 50–52.
o ^ “TENNYSON, George (1750-1835), of Bayon’s Manor, Lincs. | History of Parliament Online”.
o ^ “George Tennyson”.
o ^
“Tennyson”. 11 January 2016.
o ^ “The Tennysons in Market Rasen :: Market Rasen, All Our Stories”.
o ^ Savage-Armstrong, George Francis (1888). The Ancient and Noble Family of the Savages of the Ards, with Sketches of English and American Branches
of the House of Savage: Comp. From Historical Documents and Family Papers. pp. 50–52.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c d Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Eugene Parsons (Introduction). New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1900.
o ^ “Tennyson, Alfred (TNY827A)”.
A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
o ^ “Trinity College, University of Cambridge”. BBC Your Paintings. Archived from the original on 11 May 2014. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
o ^ Friedlander, Ed. “Enjoying “Timbuktu” by Alfred
Tennyson”
o ^ “Lincolnshire People – Famous Yellowbellies – Alfred, Lord Tennyson”. BBC. 31 August 2005. Archived from the original on 31 August 2005. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
o ^ A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from The
Best Poets. With An Introduction by William Cullen Bryant, New York, J.B. Ford and Company, 1871, pp. 239-242.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c H. Tennyson (1897). Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, New York: MacMillan.
o ^ “History of Holy Innocents
Church” Archived 20 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Highbeachchurch.org. Retrieved 27 April 2012
o ^ Sanders, Charles Richard (1961). “Carlyle and Tennyson”. PMLA. 76 (1): 82–97. doi:10.2307/460317. ISSN 0030-8129. JSTOR 460317. S2CID 164191497.
o ^
Starnes, D. T. (1921). “The Influence of Carlyle Upon Tennyson”. Texas Review. 6 (4): 316–336. ISSN 2380-5382. JSTOR 43466076.
o ^ The Home of Tennyson Archived 24 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine Rebecca FitzGerald, Farringford: The Home of
Tennyson Archived 4 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine official website
o ^ Good Stuff. “Aldworth House – Lurgashall – West Sussex – England – British Listed Buildings”. britishlistedbuildings.co.uk.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Batchelor, John. Tennyson:
To Strive, To Seek, To Find. London: Chatto and Windus, 2012.
o ^ “No. 25308”. The London Gazette. 15 January 1884. p. 243.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c Pearsall, Cornelia D.J. (2008). Tennyson’s Rapture: Transformation in the Victorian Dramatic Monologue.
Oxford University Press. pp. 38–44. ISBN 978-0-19-515054-4.
o ^ Ormond, Leonee (1993). Alfred Tennyson: A Literary Life. Springer. p. 146.
o ^ “primaveraproductions.com”. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015.
o ^ “Cambridge Book and
Print Gallery”. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2006.
o ^ “Tennyson, Science and Religion”. victorianweb.org.
o ^ Freethought of the Day, 6 August 2006, Alfred Tennyson Archived 3 December 2012 at archive.today
o ^
Stanley, A.P., Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (London; John Murray; 1882), p. 240.
o ^ Andrew Motion, BBC Radio 4, “Great Lives: Alfred, Lord Tennyson”, broadcast on 4 August 2009
o ^ Christopher Ricks (1972). Tennyson. Macmillan, p.
236
o ^ Reed, A.W. (2010). Peter Dowling (ed.). Place Names of New Zealand. Rosedale, North Shore: Raupo. p. 411. ISBN 9780143204107.
o ^ “Queen Victoria’s Journals – Information Site”. queenvictoriasjournals.org. 5 January 1862.
o ^ “Queen
Victoria’s Journals – Information Site”. queenvictoriasjournals.org. 14 April 1862.
o ^ “Queen Victoria’s Journals – Information Site”. queenvictoriasjournals.org. 7 August 1883.
o ^ Grendon, Felix (July 1907). “The Influence of Keats upon the
Early Poetry of Tennyson”. The Sewanee Review. 15 (3): 285–296. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
o ^ Baker, John Haydn (2004). Browning and Wordsworth. Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 10. ISBN 0838640389. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
o ^
“Tennyson”. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
o ^ Pattison, Robert (1979). Tennyson and Tradition. Cambridge, MA / London: Harvard University Press. p. 106. ISBN 0674874153. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
o ^ Gossin, Pamela (2002).
Encyclopedia of Literature and Science. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 461. ISBN 0313305382. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
o ^ Sherwood, Marion (2013). Tennyson and the Fabrication of Englishness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 69–70.
ISBN 978-1137288899. Retrieved 6 December 2014.
o ^ Riede, David G. (2000). “Tennyson’s Poetics of Melancholy and the Imperial Imagination”. Studies in English Literature. 40 (4): 659–678. doi:10.1353/sel.2000.0040. S2CID 154831984.
o ^ T. S.
Eliot, Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. Ed. Frank Kermode. New York: Harcourt, 1975. P. 246.
o ^ Carol T. Christ, Catherine Robson, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume E: The Victorian Age. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt & M.H. Abrams. New
York: Norton, 2006. p. 1111
o ^ “The Pre-Raphaelites”. The British Library.
o ^ Montague-Smith, P.W. (ed.), Debrett’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage, Kelly’s Directories Ltd, Kingston-upon-Thames, 1968, p. 1091
o ^ Debrett’s
Peerage, 1968, p. 1091
o ^ Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (1898). The complete poetical works of Tennyson. David O. McKay Library Brigham Young University-Idaho. Boston, Houghton Mifflin.
o ^ “Alfred, Lord Tennyson | English poet”. Encyclopedia Britannica.
Retrieved 25 September 2021.
o ^ The Bitmill Inc. “All Things Will Die”. litscape.com.
o ^ The Bitmill Inc. “Nothing Will Die”. litscape.com.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson (1833). Poems. London: Edward Moxon. OCLC 3944791.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson (1833).
The Lover’s Tale. London: Edward Moxon. OCLC 228706138.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson (1879). The Lover’s Tale. London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co. OCLC 771863316.
o ^ Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson Baron (1898). The Poetic and Dramatic Works of Alfred, Lord
Tennyson. Houghton Mifflin. p. 21.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson (1842). Poems. London: Edward Moxon. OCLC 1008064829, volume I and volume II.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson (1847). The Princess: A Medley. London: Edward Moxon. OCLC 2024748.
o ^ [Alfred, Lord Tennyson]
(1850). In Memoriam. London: Edward Moxon. OCLC 3968433.
o ^ “Poetry Lovers’ Page: Alfred Lord Tennyson”. poetryloverspage.com.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson (1875). Queen Mary: A Drama. London: Henry S. King & Co. OCLC 926377946.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson
(1877). Harold: A Drama. London: Henry S. King & Co. OCLC 1246230498.
o ^ Alfred Tennyson (1880). Ballads and Other Poems. London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co. OCLC 1086925503.
o ^ “Becket and other plays by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson – Free
Ebook”. Retrieved 20 September 2014 – via Project Gutenberg.
o ^ Alfred Lord Tennyson (1899). Hallam Tennyson (ed.). The Life and Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Vol. 8. Macmillan. pp. 261–263.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/94941635@N07/8989067485/’]