Everything about Alfred Lord Tennyson totally explained
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (
6 August 1809 –
6 October 1892) was
Poet Laureate of the
United Kingdom and is one of the most popular
English poets.
Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, although
In Memoriam was written to commemorate his best friend
Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and classmate at
Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a
cerebral hæmorrhage before they were married. One of Tennyson's most famous works is
Idylls of the King (1885), a series of narrative poems based entirely on
King Arthur and the Arthurian tales, as thematically suggested by Sir
Thomas Malory's earlier tales on the legendary king. The work was dedicated to
Prince Albert, the husband of
Queen Victoria. During his career, Lord Tennyson attempted
drama, but his plays enjoyed little success even in his lifetime.
Tennyson wrote a number of phrases that have become commonplaces of the English language, including: "nature, red in tooth and claw", "better to have loved and lost", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", and "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure". He is the second most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after
Shakespeare.
Early life
Alfred Tennyson was born in
Somersby,
Lincolnshire, a
rector's son and fourth of 12 well-spoken children. He was one of the descendants of
King Edward III of
England. Reportedly, "the pedigree of his grandfather, George Tennyson, is traced back to the middle-class line of the Tennysons, and through Elizabeth Clayton ten generations back to
Edmund,
Duke of Somerset, and farther back to Edward III."
His father, George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831), was a rector for Somersby (1807–1831), also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby (1815). The reverend was the elder of two sons, but was disinherited at an early age by his own father, the landowner George Tennyson (1750–1835) (who belonged to the Lincolnshire gentry as the owner of Bayons Manor and Usselby Hall), Reportedly, "it was thought to be no slight honor for a young man of twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal."
Famously, he wrote in
In Memoriam: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." In
Maud, 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 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." Tennyson recorded in his
Diary (p. 127): "I believe in
Pantheism of a sort." His son's biography confirms that Tennyson wasn't
Christian, noting that Tennyson praised
Giordano Bruno and
Spinoza on his deathbed, saying of Bruno: "His view of God is in some ways mine." D. 1892.
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.
Throughout his career some anthologists have noted subtle anti-American undertones in his work. Tennyson never denied the underlying themes when questioned about them.
Relationship with Arthur Hallam
Tennyson's
poetry describing his tormented soul established him as the greatest poet of his day. The focus of his suffering was the grief he couldn't assuage over the death of his beloved friend
Arthur Hallam, whom he met while an undergraduate. The men formed a relationship of such intensity that the word 'love' is barely adequate to describe it. When Hallam died suddenly in
1833, Tennyson was more than bereft; he entered a state of mourning and melancholia which was to last for 20 years, resolved finally by the completion of his masterpiece
In Memoriam A.H.H., a long poem detailing the 'voyage of his soul', as the poet himself described it, from despair to resignation and acceptance.
Tennyson's love for Hallam has remained until recent decades critically sacrosanct, the ideal friendship, a relationship of platonic perfection. This was partly the result of the prudery of academic scholars, but also because all the letters between Hallam and Tennyson were burned by Hallam's father immediately after his son's death and because Tennyson's eldest son, his literary executor and first biographer, Hallam Tennyson, destroyed many more letters after his father's death.
In Memoriam was viewed as a
metaphysical poem laden with symbolic and allegorical meaning. Only since the reprinting of his early poems, have critics begun to re-examine the nature of Tennyson's love for Hallam. Now it seems clear that their relationship was both passionate and romantic, though it's doubtful that it was ever consummated.
Tennyson's love for Hallam, likely homoerotic, was also unselfconscious, free from remorse or guilt or a sense of the illicit. The idea of
homosexuality denoting a psychological identity didn't yet exist, and since the men were most likely chaste, they'd nothing to reproach themselves for, regarding the sin of sodomy. To the end of his days, and literally on his deathbed, Tennyson would proclaim that the greatest love of his life, the love that 'surpassed the love of women', was Hallam.
The art of Tennyson's poetry
Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. The influence of
John Keats and other
Romantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing. He also handled
rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat of
Break, Break, Break emphasizes the sadness and relentlessness of the subject matter. Tennyson's use of the musical qualities of words to emphasize 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 of
onomatopoeia,
alliteration and
assonance:
» The moan of doves in immemorial elms
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively. Few poets have used such a variety of styles with such an exact understanding of
metre. He reflects the
Victorian period of his maturity in his feeling for order and his tendency towards moralizing and self-indulgent melancholy. He also reflects a concern common among
Victorian writers in being troubled by the apparent conflict between religious faith and scientific progress. Like many writers who write a great deal over a long time, he can be pompous or banal, and his personality rings throughout all his works—work that reflects a grand and special variability in its quality. Tennyson possessed the strongest poetic power; he put great length into many works, most famous of which are
Maud and
Idylls of the King, the latter one of literature's greatest treatments of the legend of
King Arthur and The
Knights of the Round Table.
Partial list of works
Further Information
Get more info on 'Alfred Lord Tennyson'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://alfred_tennyson__1st_baron_tennyson.totallyexplained.com">Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
