Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron TennysonFRS (/ˈtɛnɪsən/; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He wasPoet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much ofQueen Victoria's reign. In 1829 he was awarded theChancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo collection of poems,Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his poems ultimately proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, includingSamuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on thePre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
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."), "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure", "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer inThe Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.[3]
An illustration byWilliam Edward Frank Britten showing Somersby Rectory, where Tennyson was raised and began writing
His father, George Clayton Tennyson, was anAnglican clergyman who served asrector of Somersby (1807–1831), also rector ofBenniworth (1802–1831) andBag Enderby, andvicar ofGrimsby (1815). 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. He was comfortably well off for a country clergyman, and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers atMablethorpe andSkegness on the eastern coast of England". George Clayton Tennyson was the elder son of the attorney andmember of Parliament George Tennyson,JP,DL, ofBayons Manor andUsselby Hall, who had also inherited the estates of his mother's family, the Claytons, and married Mary, daughter and heiress of John Turner, ofCaistor, Lincolnshire. George Clayton Tennyson was however pushed into a career in the church and passed over as heir in favour of his younger brotherCharles.[6][7][8][9][5] Their mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Stephen Fytche,[citation needed] vicar ofSt James' Church, Louth (1764), and rector ofWithcall (1780), a small village betweenHorncastle andLouth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to the education and training of his children".
Tennyson, recalling the poetic influences of his youth, said, "as a boy I was an enormous admirer ofByron."[10] 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 17. One of those brothers,Charles Tennyson Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred'sfuture wife; the other wasFrederick Tennyson. Another of Tennyson's brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private asylum.
A kind of waking trance I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has often come upon me through repeating my own name. All at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this was not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the sure, utterly beyond words…[11]
At Cambridge, he metArthur Hallam andWilliam Henry Brookfield, who became his closest friends. His first publication was a collection of "his boyish rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles" entitledPoems by Two Brothers, published in 1827.[12]
In 1829, Tennyson was awarded theChancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu".[15][16] Reportedly, "it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal".[12] He published his first solo collection of poems,Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 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 overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, includingSamuel Taylor Coleridge.
Return to Lincolnshire, second publication, Epping Forest
In the spring of 1831, Tennyson's father died, requiring him to leaveCambridge 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 the family.Arthur Hallam came to stay with his family during the summer and became engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Tennyson.
YOU must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year, – Of all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
As I came up the valley, whom think ye should I see But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree? He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday, – But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
They say he's dying all for love, – but that can never be; They say his heart is breaking, mother, – what is that to me? There's many a bolder lad 'll woo me any sum- mer day; And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
If I can, I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; Though you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face; Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say, And be often, often with you when you think I'm far away.
So now I think my time is near; I trust it is. I know The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go. And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day; But Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away.
And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret; There's many worthier than I, would make him happy yet. If I had lived – I cannot tell – I might have been his wife; But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.
Forever and forever, all in a blessed home, And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come, – To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast, – And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
In 1833, Tennyson published his second book of poetry, which notably included the first version of "The Lady of Shalott". The volume met heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson that he did not publish again for ten years, although he did continue to write. That same year, Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly after suffering acerebral haemorrhage while on a holiday inVienna. 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.", a long poem detailing the "Way of the Soul".[18]
Tennyson and his family were allowed to stay in the rectory for some time, but later moved to Beech Hill Park,High Beach, deep withinEpping Forest,Essex, about 1837. Tennyson's son recalled: "there was a pond in the park on which in winter my father might be seen skating, sailing about on the ice in his long blue cloak. He liked the nearness of London, whither he resorted to see his friends, but he could not stay in town even for a night, his mother being in such a nervous state that he did not like to leave her...".[18] Tennyson befriended a Dr Allen, who ran a nearby asylum whose patients then included the poetJohn Clare.[19] 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.[18] According to Tennyson's grandsonSir Charles Tennyson, Tennyson metThomas Carlyle in 1839, if not earlier.[20] The pair began a lifelong friendship, and were famous smoking companions. Some of Tennyson's work even bears the influence of Carlyle and his ideas.[21] Tennyson moved to London in 1840 and lived for a time atChapel House, Twickenham.
On 14 May 1842, while living modestly in London, Tennyson published the two-volumePoems, of which the first included works already published and the second was made up almost entirely of new poems. 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. "The Princess: A Medley", a satire on women's education that came out in 1847, was also popular for its lyrics.W. S. Gilbert later adapted and parodied the piece twice: inThe Princess (1870) and inPrincess Ida (1884).
It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the pinnacle of his career, finally publishing his masterpiece,In Memoriam A.H.H., dedicated to Hallam. Later the same year, he was appointedPoet Laureate of the United Kingdom, succeedingWilliam Wordsworth. In the same year (on 13 June), Tennyson marriedEmily Sellwood, whom he had known since childhood, in the village ofShiplake. They had two sons,Hallam Tennyson (b. 11 August 1852)—named after his friend—and Lionel (b. 16 March 1854).
Tennyson rentedFarringford House on theIsle of Wight in 1853, eventually buying it in 1856.[22] He eventually found that there were too manystarstruck tourists who pestered him in Farringford, so he moved toAldworth, inWest Sussex in 1869.[23] However, he retained Farringford and regularly returned there to spend the winters.
Break, Break, Break, on thy cold grey Stones, o Sea, a photograph byRudolf Eickemeyer Jr. The title is a quote from the 1842poem.
Tennyson with his wifeEmily (1813–1896) and his sonsHallam (1852–1928) and Lionel (1854–1886)
Farringford, Tennyson's residence on the Isle of Wight
Captioned "The Poet Laureate", caricature of Tennyson inVanity Fair, 22 July 1871
In 1850, after Wordsworth's death andSamuel Rogers' refusal, Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate;Elizabeth Barrett Browning andLeigh Hunt had also been considered.[24] He held the position until his death in 1892, the longest tenure of any laureate. Tennyson fulfilled the requirements of this position, such as by authoring a poem of greeting toPrincess Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the future KingEdward 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 inan ill-advised charge on 25 October 1854, during theCrimean War. Other 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".
Tennyson also wrote a substantial quantity of unofficial political verse, from the bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", on the French crisis of 1859 and theCreation of the Volunteer Force, to "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone'sHome Rule Bill. Tennyson's family wereWhigs by tradition and Tennyson's own politics fitted the Whig mould, although he would also vote for theLiberal Party after the Whigs dissolved.[26][27] Tennyson believed that society should progress through gradual and steady reform, not revolution, and this attitude was reflected in his attitude toward universal suffrage, which he did not outright reject, but recommended only after the masses had been properly educated and adjusted to self-government.[26] Upon passage of theReform Act 1832, Tennyson broke into a local church to ring the bells in celebration.[26]
Virginia Woolf wrote a play calledFreshwater, showing Tennyson as host to his friendsJulia Margaret Cameron andG. F. Watts.[28]ColonelGeorge Edward Gouraud,Thomas Edison's European agent, made sound recordings of Tennyson reading his own poetry, late in his life. They include recordings of "The Charge of the Light Brigade", and excerpts from "The splendour falls" (from The Princess), "Come into the garden" (fromMaud), "Ask me no more", "Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington" and "Lancelot and Elaine". The sound quality is poor, as wax cylinder recordings usually are.[citation needed]
Towards the end of his life Tennyson revealed that his "religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism andpandeism":[29][30] In a characteristically Victorian manner, Tennyson combines a deep interest in contemporary science with an unorthodox, even idiosyncratic, Christian belief.[31] He wrote inIn Memoriam: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." InMaud, 1855, he wrote: "The churches have killed their Christ". In "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After", Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of heathen hate." In his playBecket, 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". Tennyson recorded in hisDiary (p. 127): "I believe inPantheism of a sort". His son's biography confirms that Tennyson was an unorthodox Christian, noting that Tennyson praisedGiordano Bruno andBaruch Spinoza on his deathbed, saying of Bruno, "His view of God is in some ways mine", in 1892.[32]
Tennyson continued writing into his eighties. He died on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth, aged 83. He was buried atWestminster Abbey.[33] A memorial was erected inAll Saints' Church, Freshwater. His last words were, "Oh that press will have me now!".[34] He left an estate of £57,206.[35]Tennyson Down and theTennyson Trail on the Isle of Wight are named after him, and a monument to him stands on top of Tennyson Down.Lake Tennyson in New Zealand's high country, named byFrederick Weld, is assumed to be named after Tennyson.[36]
He was succeeded as 2nd Baron Tennyson by his sonHallam, who produced an authorised biography of his father in 1897, and was later the secondGovernor-General of Australia.
AlthoughAlbert, Prince Consort, was largely responsible for Tennyson's appointment as Laureate,[24]Queen Victoria became an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, writing in her diary that she was "much soothed & pleased" by readingIn Memoriam A.H.H. after Albert's death.[37]
The two met twice, first in April 1862, when Victoria wrote in her diary, "very peculiar looking, tall, dark, with a fine head, long black flowing hair & a beard, oddly dressed, but there is no affectation about him."[38]
Tennyson met her a second time just over two decades later, on 7 August 1883, and the Queen told him what a comfortIn Memoriam A.H.H. had been.[39]
As source material for his poetry, Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature. The influence ofJohn Keats and otherRomantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing.[40] He also handled rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat of "Break, Break, Break" emphasises the relentless sadness of the subject matter. Tennyson's use of the musical qualities of words to emphasise his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. The language of "I come from haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like the brook in the poem and the last two lines of "Come down O maid from yonder mountain height" illustrate his telling combination ofonomatopoeia,alliteration, andassonance:
The moan of doves in immemorial elms And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively, to the point where his efforts at self-editing were described by his contemporaryRobert Browning as "insane", symptomatic of "mental infirmity".[41] His complex compositional practice and frequent redrafting also demonstrates a dynamic relationship between images and words, as can be seen in the many notebooks he worked in.[42] Few poets have used such a variety of styles with such an exact understanding ofmetre; like many Victorian poets, he experimented in adapting thequantitative metres of Greek and Latin poetry to English.[43] He reflects theVictorian period of his maturity in his feeling for order and his tendency towards moralising. He also reflects a concern common amongVictorian writers in being troubled by the conflict between religious faith and expanding scientific knowledge.[44] Tennyson possessed a strong poetic power, which his early readers often attributed to his "Englishness" and his masculinity.[45] Well-known among his longer works areMaud andIdylls of the King, the latter arguably the most famous Victorian adaptation of the legend ofKing Arthur and theKnights of the Round Table. A common thread of grief, melancholy, and loss connects much of his poetry (including "Mariana", "The Lotos Eaters", "Tears, Idle Tears", "In Memoriam"), possibly reflecting Tennyson's lifelong struggle with debilitating depression.[46]T. S. Eliot described Tennyson as "the saddest of all English poets", whose technical mastery of verse and language provided a "surface" to his poetry's "depths, to the abyss of sorrow".[47] Other poets such asW. 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."[48]
Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on thePre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1848Dante Gabriel Rossetti andWilliam Holman Hunt made a list of "Immortals", artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from literature, notably includingJohn Keats and Tennyson, whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings.[49]The Lady of Shalott alone was a subject for Rossetti, Hunt,John William Waterhouse (three versions), andElizabeth Siddal.
Gules, a bend nebuly or thereon achaplet vert between three leopard's facesjessant-de-lys of the second;Crest:Adexter arm in armour the hand in a gauntlet or grasping a broken tilting spear enfiled with a garland of laurel;Supporters:Twoleopards rampant guardant gules semée de lys and ducally crowned or; Motto:Respiciens Prospiciens[50] ("Looking backwards (is) looking forwards").
The Lover's Tale (Two parts published in 1833;[54] Tennyson suppressed it immediately after publication as he felt it was imperfect. A revised version comprising three parts was subsequently published in 1879 together with "The Golden Supper" as a fourth part.)[55]
Poems (1842; with numerous subsequent editions including the 4th edition (1846) and 8th edition (1853));[57] the collection included many of the poems published in the 1833 anthology (some in revised form), and the following:
Michael William Balfe's setting of "Come Into the Garden, Maud" was a popular success in 1857, as sung by the celebrated tenorSims Reeves.[66]Arthur Somervell'sMaud (1898) used thirteen poems (not all of them complete) for his song cycle, enough "to retain a cogent narrative".[67]Stephen Banfield believes it is "the nearest an English composer ever came to writing a substantial, Romantic song-cycle".[68]
Charles Villiers Stanford set "Crossing the Bar" for high voice and piano in April 1880, a year after the poem has been first published.[69]Maude Valérie White (four songs, 1885) andLiza Lehmann (10 songs, 1899) both composed song cycles selecting passages fromIn Memoriam.[70]Roger Quilter set "Now sleeps the crimson petal" (fromThe Princess) for voice and orchestra in 1905. "The splendour falls on castle walls" (also fromThe Princess), has been set by many composers, includingArnold Bax,Benjamin Britten,Cecil Armstrong Gibbs,Gustav Holst, Stanford,Vaughan Williams andCharles Wood. Tennyson deplored the use of unauthorised repetition in song settings, a device used by many composers, and so tried to circumvent this by supplying his own, as in "Break, Break, Break" (set bySidney Lanier in 1871 andCyril Rootham in 1906), and the repetition of "dying" in "The splendour falls", which asTrevor Hold points out, "has been a god-send to every composer who has set it".[71]
^Harold Bloom,Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: The Power of the Reader's Mind Over a Universe of Death,Yale University Press, October 2020, p. 373,ISBN0-300-24728-1: "When he died the laureate declared himself agnostic and pan-deist and at one with the great heretics Giordano Bruno (who was a Hermetist and burned alive by the Church) and Baruch Spinoza (who was excommunicated by the Jews)."
^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.S2CID154831984.
^T. S. Eliot,Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. Ed. Frank Kermode. New York: Harcourt, 1975. P. 246.
^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
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1989).Tennyson: A Selected Edition. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.ISBN0520065883 (hbk.) orISBN0520066669 (pbk.). Edited with a preface and notes byChristopher Ricks. Selections from the definitive editionThe Poems of Tennyson, with readings from the Trinity MSS; long works such asMaud andIn Memoriam A. H. H. are printed in full.
