Lord Tennyson

Lord Tennyson (1809—1892), Alfred Tennyson, was one of the most important English poets of the 1800's. He succeeded William Wordsworth as poet laureate of Great Britain in 1850. Tennyson earned his position in literature bccausc of the remark­able range of his natural talents and his dedication throughout his long career to perfecting his art. Tennyson stands today both as a great national poet and as one of the supreme craftsmen in the English language.

His life. Alfred Tennyson was born on Aug. 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire. His father was rector (clergyman in charge) of the parish there.

Tennyson entered Cambridge University in 1828, but he never received a degree. At Cambridge, he joined «The Apostles», a so­ciety of undergraduates that included several men who later be­came intellectual leaders of the age. Tennyson's most intimate friend in this circle was Arthur Henry Hallam. Hallam's sudden death in 1833 was a crucial event in the poet's generally uneventful life. Tennyson wrote his great elegy (poem mourning a death) «In Me- moriam» (1850) in memory of Hallam.

Tennyson was the most popular British poet of the Victorian era, but he avoided public life. He married in 1850 and lived qui­etly in his country homes at Farringford on the Isle of Wight and Aldworth in Surrey. Tennyson's long list of works showed his con­sistent inspiration and creative vitality, beginning with «Poems», «Chiefly Lyrical» (1830) and extending to «The Death of Oenone and Other Poems», published after his death more than 60 years later. He was awarded the tide of Baron Tennyson in 1883 by Queen Victoria. His full title was Baron of Aldworth and Farringford. Tennyson died on Oct. 6, 1892, and was buried in the Poets' Cor­ner of Westminster Abbey.

His poems. Tennyson's influential place in the intellectual life of his age comes largely from his concern with the vital issues con­fronting Victorian England. He reveals his sense of political re­sponsibility in such patriotic verses as «Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington» and his famous «The Charge of the Light Brigade», which was inspired by an incident in the Crimean War. «Maud», a narrative in the form of separate lyrics, describes the withering effcct of the materialistic spirit of his day on a sensitive young lover.

Tennyson's accurate and concrete descriptions of nature reflect his informed interest in science. The stars, for example, suggest to the unhappy speaker in «Maud»:

A sad astrology, the boundless plan That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, Cold fires, yet with power to bum and brand His nothingness into man.

Tennyson's masterpiece, «In Memoriam», consists of 133 indi­vidual poems composed between his friend Arthur Hallam's death in 1833 and their publication in 1850. The work ranks with John Milton's «Lycidas» and Percy Bysshe Shelley's «Adonais» as one of the greatest examples of the elegy in English poetry. «In Memo­riam» is personal and specific in its focus on Tennyson's struggles as artist and thinker. The poem frequently offers general consola­tion to a troubled age:

I stretch lame hands of faith and grope, And gather dust and chaff and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.

Perhaps no English poet had a more acute car for fine shades of poetic expression or a greater range of verse style than Tennyson. His exquisite lyrics perfectly express emotions and experiences shared by all people. Among the most moving of these are many of the sections from «In Memoriam» as well as «Break, Break, Break» and «Tears, Idle Tears». Following the author's wishes, «Crossing the Bar», the noble address to death, always ends collections of his poems.

Tennyson's most characteristic form of poetry was the idyl, a poem about country life developed by the ancient Greeks. These poems often take the form of dramatic reveries (daydreams) spo­ken by mythical figures. They tell a story, but depend primarily on the creation of mood through the power of richly described set­tings, as in «The Lotos-Eaters». Many of these stories indirectly

urge Victorians to act heroically. The speakers commonly fall into two groups: the lovelorn maidens оГ «Mariana», «The Lady of Shalott», and «Оспопе»; and the aged heroes and prophets of «Ulysses», «Tithonus», «Tiresias», and «Merlin and the Gleam».

Tennyson's lifelong fascination with King Arthur and his knights led to his most ambitious work, «Idylls of the King». It is a series of 12 narrative poems that he published with constant revisions be­tween 1842 and 1885. The work has an allegorical (symbolic) side suggested by «lie many implied comparisons between Arthur and Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert who had died in 1861. The work also ends with an allegorical epilogue (closing) to the queen with its invitation to:

accept this old imperfcct tale New-old and shadowing Sense at war with Soul, Ideal manhood closcd in real man...

Nevertheless, the poem is most likely to move a modern audi­ence as the story of King Arthur's vision of the perfect state. This vision was tragically betrayed by the inability of the king's follow­ers to live up to his heroic ideals.