Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
ALFRED TENNYSON TENNYSON
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: TAV-THE
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:ALFRED See also:TENNYSON TENNYSON
, 1st See also:BARON (1809-1892), See also:English poet, was See also:born at Somersby, See also:Lincolnshire, on the 6th of See also:August 1809
.
He was the See also:fourth of the twelve See also:children of the Rev
.
See also:George See also:Clayton See also:Tennyson (1778-1831) and his wife See also:
Tennyson was already See also:writing copiously—" an epic of 6000 lines " at twelve, a See also:drama in See also:blank verse at fourteen, and so on: these exercises have, very properly, not been printed, but the poet said of them at the See also:close of his See also:life, " It seems to me, I wrote them all in perfect See also:metre." The family was in the See also:habit of
I spending the summer holidays at the See also:coast of the See also:county, commonly at Mablethorpe, and here Tennyson gained his impressions of the vastness of the See also:sea
.
See also:FitzGerald very justly attributed the landscape See also:character of Tennyson's See also:genius to the impress See also:left on his imagination by " old Lincolnshire, where there were not only such See also:good seas, but also such See also:fine See also: See also:Hallam (1811-1833) . Charles Tennyson (1808-1879) afterwards took the additional name of See also:Turner . He published four volumes 1900 . E . H . See also:Miles . 1901 . E . H . Miles . 1902 . E . H . Miles . 1903 . E . H . Miles . 1904 . V . See also:Pennell . 1905 . E . H . Miles . 1906 . E . H . Miles . 1907 . See also:Jay See also:Gould . 1908 . Jay Gould . 1909 . E . H . Miles . 1910 . E . H . Miles . of sonnets which have been highly praised . In See also:June 1829 Alfred Tennyson won the See also:Chancellor's See also:prize See also:medal for his poem called " Timbuctoo." With great imperfections, this study in Miltonic blank verse displays the genius of a poet, in spite of a curious obscurity both of thought and See also:style . Here are already both richness and See also:power, although their expression is not yet clarified by See also:taste . But by this See also:time Tennyson was writing lyrics of still higher promise, and, as See also:Arthur Hallam early perceived, with an extraordinary earnestness in the See also:worship of beauty . The results of this See also:enthusiasm and this labour of the artist appeared in the See also:volume of Poems, chiefly Lyrical, published in 1830 . This See also:book would have been astonishing as the See also:production of a youth of twenty-one, even if, since the death of Byron six years before, there had not been a singular dearth of good poetry in See also:England . Here at least, in the slender volume of 1830, was a new writer revealed, and in " See also:Mariana," " The Poet," " Love and Death," and " Oriana," a See also:singer of wonderful though still unchastened See also:melody . Through these, and through less perfect examples, was exhibited an amazing magnificence of See also:fancy, at See also:present insufficiently under See also:control, and a voluptuous pomp of imagery, tending to an over-sweetness . The See also:veteran S . T . See also:Coleridge, praising the genius in the book, blamed the metrical imperfection of it . For this See also:criticism he has himself constantly been reproved, and Tennyson (whose impatience of anything like censure was phenomenal) continued to resent it to the end of his life . Yet Coleridge was perfectly just in his remark; and the metrical anarchy of the " Madelines " and " Adelines " of the 1830 volume showed that Tennyson, with all his delicacy of modulation, had not yet mastered the arts of verse . In the summer of 1830 Tennyson and Hallam volunteered in the See also:army of the See also:Spanish insurgent Torrijos, and marched about a little in the See also:Pyrenees, without See also:meeting with an enemy . He came back to find his father ailing, and in February 1831 he left Cambridge for Somersby, where a few days later Dr George Tennyson died . The new See also:incumbent was willing that the Tennysons should continue to live in the rectory, which they did not leave until six years later . Arthur Hallam was now betrothed to Emily Tennyson (afterwards Mrs See also:Jesse, 1811-1889), and stayed frequently at Somersby . This was a very happy time, and one of great See also:physical development on Alfred's part . He took his See also:share in all kinds of athletic exercises, and it was now that Brookfield said, " It is not See also:fair that you should be See also:Hercules as well as See also:Apollo." This high physical zest in life seems to have declined after 1831, when his eyes began to trouble him, and he became liable to depression .
The poetical See also:work of these three years, mainly spent at Somersby, was given to the world in the volume of Poems which (dated 1833) appeared at the end of 1832
.
This was certainly one of the most astonishing revelations of finished genius ever produced by a young See also:man of less than four-and-twenty
.
Here were to be read " The See also:Lady of Shalott," " The See also:Dream of Fair See also:Women," " See also:Oenone," " The Lotos-Eaters," " The See also:Palace of See also:Art," and " The See also:Miller's Daughter," with a See also:score of other lyrics, delicious and divine
.
The advance in craftsmanship and command over the materiel of verse shown since the volume of 1830 is absolutely astounding
.
If Tennyson had died of the See also:savage See also:article which presently appeared in the Quarterly See also:Review, literature would have sustained terrible losses, but his name would have lived for ever among those of the great English poets
.
Indeed, it may be doubted whether, in several directions, he ever surpassed the glorious things to be found in this most exquisite and most See also:precious book
.
It was well that its publication was completed before the See also:blow See also:fell upon Tennyson which took for a while all the See also:light out of him
.
In August 1833 Arthur Hallam started with his father, the great historian, for See also:Tirol
.
They went no farther than See also:Vienna, where Mr Hallam, returning to the hotel on the 15th of See also:September 1833, found his son lying dead on a See also:sofa: a See also:blood-See also:vessel had broken in his See also:brain
.
His See also:body was brought back to England, and buried at See also:Clevedon on the 3rd of See also:January 1834
.
These events affected Tennyson extremely
.
He grew less than ever willing to come forward and See also:face theworld; his See also:health became " variable and his See also:spirits indifferent." The earliest effect of Hallam's death upon his friend's art was the See also:composition, in the summer of 1834, of The Two Voices; and to the same See also:period belong the beginnings of the Idylls of the See also:
In 1835 he visited the Lakes, and saw much of See also:Hartley Coleridge, but would not " obtrude on the great man at Rydal," although " See also:Wordsworth was hospitably disposed." Careless alike of fame and of See also:influence, Tennyson spent these years mainly at Somersby, in a See also:uniform devotion of his whole soul to the art of poetry
.
In 1837, to their great See also:distress, the Tennysons were turned out of the Lincolnshire rectory where they had lived so long
.
They moved to High See also:Beech, in See also:Epping See also:Forest, which was their See also:home until 184o
.
The poet was already engaged, or " quasi-betrothed," to Emily Sellwood, but ten years more had to pass before they could afford to marry
.
At See also:Torquay, in 1838, he wrote See also:Audley See also:Court on one of his rare excursions, for he had no See also:money for touring, nor did he wish for See also:change: he wrote at this time, " I require quiet, and myself to myself, more than any man when I write." In 184o the Tennysons moved to Tunbridge See also:Wells, and a See also:year later to Boxley, near See also:Maidstone, to be close to Edmund Lushington, who had now married See also:Cecilia Tennyson
.
Alfred was from this time more and more frequently a visitor in See also:London
.
In 1842 the two-volume edition of his Poems See also:broke the ten years' silence which he had enforced himself to keep
.
Here, with many pieces already known to all lovers of See also:modern verse, were found rich and copious additions to his work
.
These he had originally intended to publish alone, and an earlier privately printed Morte d'Arthur, Dora, and other Idylls, of 1842, is the despair of book-collectors
.
Most of those studies of home-life in England, which formed so highly popular a See also:section of Tennyson's work—such as " The Gardener's Daughter," " Walking to the See also:Mail," and " The Lord of Burleigh "—were now first issued, and, in what we have grown to consider a much higher See also:order, "Locksley See also:
Material difficulties now, however, for the first time intruded on his path
.
He became the victim of a certain " See also:earnest-frothy " speculator, who induced him to sell his little Lincolnshire See also:estate at Grasby, and to invest the proceeds, with all his other money, and part of that of his brothers and sisters, in a "Patent Decorative See also:Carving See also:Company ": in a few months the whole See also:scheme collapsed, and Tennyson was left penniless
.
He was attacked by so overwhelming a hypochondria that his life was despaired of, and he was placed for some time under the See also:charge of a hydropathic physician at See also:Cheltenham, where See also:absolute See also:rest and See also:isolation gradually brought him See also:round to health again
.
The See also:state of utter indigence to which Tennyson was reduced, greatly exercised his friends, and in September 1845, at the See also:suggestion of See also: 
Now a worse thing befell him, for in February 185o, having collected into one " long See also:ledger-like book " all the elegies on Arthur Hallam which he had been composing at intervals since 1833, he left this only MS. in the See also:cupboard of some lodgings in Mornington Place, See also:Hampstead Road . By extraordinary good See also:chance it had been overlooked by the landlady, and Coventry Patmore was able to recover it . In this way In Memoriam was dragged back from the very See also:verge of destruction, and could be published, in its See also:original anonymous form, in May 1850 . The public was at first greatly mystified by the nature and See also:object of this poem, which was not Merely a See also:chronicle of Tennyson's emotions under bereavement, nor even a statement of his philosophical and religious beliefs, but, as he long after-wards explained, a sort of Divina Commedia, ending with happiness in the See also:marriage of his youngest See also:sister, Cecilia Lushington . In fact, the great blemishes of In Memoriam, its redundancy and the dislocation of its parts, were largely due to the desultory manner of its composition . The poet wrote the sections as they occurred to him, and did not think of See also:weaving them together into a single poem until it was too See also:late to give them real coherency . The metre, which by a curious naivete Tennyson long believed that he had invented, served by its happy peculiarity to bind the sections together, and even to give an illusion of connected See also:movement to the thought . The See also:sale of Tennyson's poems now made it safe for him to See also:settle, and on the 13th of June 185o he was married at Shiplake to Emily Sarah Sellwood (1813-1896) . Of this See also:union no more need be said than was recorded long afterwards by the poet himself, " The See also:peace of See also:God came into my life before the See also:altar when I wedded her." Every See also:species of good See also:fortune was now to descend on the path of the man who had struggled against See also:ill See also:luck so long . Wordsworth died, and on the 19th of See also:November 185o See also:Queen See also:Victoria appointed Tennyson poet See also:laureate . The See also:salary connected with the See also:post was very small, but it had a secondary value in greatly stimulating the sale of his books, which was his See also:main source of income . The young couple took a See also:house at Warninglid, in See also:Sussex, which did not suit them, and then one in See also:Montpelier See also:Row, See also:Twickenham, which did better .
In April 1851 their first See also:child was born dead
.
At this time Tennyson was brooding much upon the See also:ancient world, and See also:reading little but See also:Milton, See also:Homer and See also:Virgil
.
This See also:condition was elegantly defined by Carlyle as " sitting on a dungheap among innumerable dead See also:dogs." In the summer of 1851 was made the tour in See also:Italy, of which The See also:Daisy is the immortal See also:record
.
Of 1852 the See also:principal events were the See also:birth of his eldest son Hallam, the second Lord Tennyson, in August, and in November the publication of the See also:Ode on the Death of the See also:Duke of lVellinglon
.
In the See also:winter of 1853 Tennyson entered into See also:possession of a little house and See also:farm called Farringford, near See also:Freshwater, in the Isle of See also:Wight, which he leased at first, and afterwards bought: this beautiful place, ringed round with ilexes and cedars, entered into his life and coloured it with its delicate enchantment
.
In 1854 he published The Charge of the Light See also:Brigade, and was busy composing Maud and its accompanying lyrics; and this volume was published in See also:July 185, just after he was made D.C.L. at See also:Oxford: he was received onthis occasion, which may be considered his first public See also:appearance, with a " tremendous See also:ovation." The reception of Maud from the critics, however, was the worst trial to his equanimity which Tennyson had ever had to endure, nor had the future anything like it in See also:store for him
.
He had risen in Maud far above his See also:ordinary serenity of style, to ecstasies of See also:passion and audacities of expression which were scarcely intelligible to his readers, and certainly not welcome
.
It is See also:odd that this irregular poem, with its copious and varied See also:music, its splendid sweep of emotion, its unfailing richness of texture—this poem in which Tennyson rises to heights of human sympathy and See also:intuition which he reached nowhere else, should have been received with See also:bitter hostility, have been styled " the dead level of prose run mad," and have been reproved more absurdly still for its " rampant and rabid bloodthirstiness of soul." There came a reaction of taste and sense, but the delicate spirit of Tennyson had been wounded
.
For some years the world heard nothing from him; he was at Farringford, busying himself with the Arthurian traditions
.
He had now become an object of boundless See also:personal curiosity, being already difficult to find, and the centre of amusing legends
.
It was in 1857 that See also:Bayard See also: |