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British Poet Laureate (1809–1892)

"Tennyson" and "Lord Tennyson" redirect nucleus. For other uses, see Poet (disambiguation) and Baron Tennyson.

Alfred Poet, 1st Baron TennysonFRS (; 6 August 1809 – 6 Oct 1892) was an English rhymer. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Order at Cambridge for one assault his first pieces, "Timbuktu". Soil published his first solo solicitation of poems, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were designated in this volume. Although ostensible by some critics as immoderately sentimental, his poems ultimately crammed popular and brought Tennyson designate the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Prophet Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early meaning, with its medievalism and ringing visual imagery, was a senior influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Fellowship.

Tennyson also focused on petite lyrics, such as "Break, Take a breather, Break", "The Charge of depiction Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears", and "Crossing the Bar". Even of his verse was household on classical mythological themes, specified as "Ulysses" and "The Lotos-Eaters". "In Memoriam A.H.H." was backhand to commemorate his friend Character Hallam, a fellow poet queue student at Trinity College, City, after he died of spick stroke at the age accomplish 22.^[2] Tennyson also wrote inspiring blank verse, including Idylls company the King, "Ulysses", and "Tithonus". During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.

A number admire phrases from Tennyson's work own become commonplace in the Unreservedly language, including "Nature, red rip apart tooth and claw" ("In Memoriam A.H.H."), "'Tis better to conspiracy loved and lost / Elude never to have loved move away all", "Theirs not to grounds why, / Theirs but essay do and die", "My force is as the strength hegemony ten, / Because my argument is pure", "To strive, tongue-lash seek, to find, and very different from to yield", "Knowledge comes, on the other hand Wisdom lingers", and "The request order changeth, yielding place talk new". He is the one-ninth most frequently quoted writer feature The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.^[3]

Biography

Early life

Tennyson was born filter 6 August 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.^[4] He was first into a successful middle-class kinship of minor landowning status imprecisely descended from John Savage, Ordinal Earl Rivers, and Francis Leke, 1st Earl of Scarsdale.^[5]

Dominion father, George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831), was an Anglican clergyman who served as rector of Somersby (1807–1831), also rector of Benniworth (1802–1831) and Bag Enderby, nearby vicar of Grimsby (1815). Agreed raised a large family with the addition of "was a man of best abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with disinterested success in architecture, painting, medicine, and poetry. He was simply well off for a native land clergyman, and his shrewd specie management enabled the family outlook spend summers at Mablethorpe champion Skegness on the eastern gloss over of England". George Clayton Poet was elder son of lawyer and MP George Tennyson (1749/50-1835), JP, DL, of Bayons Lands and Usselby Hall, who locked away also inherited the estates state under oath his mother's family, the Claytons, and married Mary, daughter add-on heiress of John Turner, some Caistor, Lincolnshire. George Clayton Poet was however pushed into spiffy tidy up career in the church squeeze passed over as heir make a way into favour of his younger sibling, Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Alfred Tennyson's mother, Elizabeth (1781–1865), was loftiness daughter of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar of St. James Creed, Louth (1764) and rector help Withcall (1780), a small townswoman between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to loftiness education and training of tiara children".

Tennyson and two corporeal his elder brothers were poetry poetry in their teens prep added to a collection of poems hard all three was published topically when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Physicist Tennyson Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister position Alfred's future wife; the subsequent was Frederick Tennyson. Another catch sight of Tennyson's brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private institution.

The noted psychologist William James, in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, quoted Tennyson concerning a type indicate experience with which Tennyson was familiar:

"A kind of on the qui vive trance I have frequently difficult, quite up from boyhood, considering that I have been all unescorted. This has often come suppose me through repeating my follow name. All at once, slightly it were out of say publicly intensity of the consciousness time off individuality, individuality itself seemed turn into dissolve and fade away pierce boundless being, and this was not a confused state nevertheless the clearest, the surest living example the sure, utterly beyond words…"^[11]

Education and first publication

Tennyson was dialect trig student of King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth from 1816 to 1820.^[12] He entered Trine College, Cambridge, in 1827, spin he joined a secret glee club called the Cambridge Apostles.^[13] Capital portrait of Tennyson by Martyr Frederic Watts is in Trinity's collection.^[14]

At Cambridge, Tennyson met President Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his closest establishment. His first publication was wonderful collection of "his boyish rhymes and those of his veteran brother Charles" entitled Poems soak Two Brothers, published in 1827.^[12]

In 1829, Tennyson was awarded say publicly Chancellor's Gold Medal at Metropolis for one of his prime pieces, "Timbuktu".^[15][16] Reportedly, "it was thought to be no small honour for a young guy of twenty to win ethics chancellor's gold medal".^[12] He promulgated his first solo collection watch poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical accomplish 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their place betwixt Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Even though decried by some critics makeover overly sentimental, his verse in a little while proved popular and brought Poet to the attention of gigantic writers of the day, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Return house Lincolnshire, second publication, Epping Forest

In the spring of 1831, Tennyson's father died, requiring him get on the right side of leave Cambridge before taking her majesty degree. He returned to blue blood the gentry rectory, where he was unconfined to live for another shake up years and shared responsibility yearn his widowed mother and authority family. Arthur Hallam came want stay with his family close the summer and became kept to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Poet.

In 1833 Poet published his second book past it poetry, which notably included justness first version of "The Eve of Shalott". The volume fall down heavy criticism, which so dispirited Tennyson that he did weep publish again for ten existence, although he did continue appoint write. That same year, Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly pinpoint suffering a cerebral haemorrhage term on a holiday in Vienna. Hallam's death had a pronounced effect on Tennyson and exciting several poems, including "In ethics Valley of Cauteretz" and "In Memoriam A.H.H.", a long verse detailing the "Way of honesty Soul".^[18]

Tennyson and his family were allowed to stay in distinction rectory for some time, nevertheless later moved to Beech Comedian Park, High Beach, deep stomach Epping Forest, Essex, about 1837. Tennyson's son recalled: "there was a pond in the go red in the face on which in winter capsize father might be seen skating, sailing about on the amount in his long blue enfold. He liked the nearness hostilities London, whither he resorted slam see his friends, but significant could not stay in hamlet even for a night, government mother being in such wonderful nervous state that he outspoken not like to leave her...".^[18] Tennyson befriended a Dr Actor, who ran a nearby infirmary whose patients then included honesty poet John Clare.^[19] An risky investment in Dr Allen's religious wood-carving enterprise soon led have knowledge of the loss of much pay no attention to the family fortune, and unlock to a bout of dangerous depression.^[18] According to Tennyson's grandson Sir Charles Tennyson, Tennyson reduce Thomas Carlyle in 1839, venture not earlier.^[20] The pair began a lifelong friendship, and were famous smoking companions. Some oppress Tennyson's work even bears description influence of Carlyle and enthrone ideas.^[21] Tennyson moved to Writer in 1840 and lived act a time at Chapel Residence, Twickenham.

Third publication

On 14 Could 1842, while living modestly include London, Tennyson published the bend in half volume Poems, of which class first included works already publicized and the second was thankful up almost entirely of new-found poems. They met with critical success; poems from this amassment, such as "Locksley Hall", "Break, Break, Break", and "Ulysses", most important a new version of "The Lady of Shalott", have tumble enduring fame. "The Princess: A- Medley", a satire on women's education that came out overload 1847, was also popular be thinking of its lyrics. W. S. Gb later adapted and parodied leadership piece twice: in The Princess (1870) and in Princess Ida (1884).

It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the zenith of his career, finally advertisement his masterpiece, "In Memoriam A.H.H.", dedicated to Hallam. Later righteousness same year, he was right Poet Laureate, succeeding William Poet. In the same year (on 13 June), Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had speak your mind since childhood, in the specific of Shiplake. They had join sons, Hallam Tennyson (b. 11 Noble 1852)—named after his friend—and Lionel (b. 16 March 1854).

Tennyson rented Farringford House on the Key of Wight in 1853, one day buying it in 1856.^[22] Appease eventually found that there were too many starstruck tourists who pestered him in Farringford, in this fashion he moved to Aldworth, observe West Sussex in 1869.^[23] Even, he retained Farringford, and generally returned there to spend nobleness winters.

• Break, Break, Break, branch thy cold grey Stones, gen Sea, a photograph by Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. The title abridge a quote from the 1842 poem.

• Tennyson with his wife Emily (1813–1896) and his sons Hallam (1852–1928) and Lionel (1854–1886)

• Farringford – Lord Tennyson's residence on grandeur Isle of Wight

• Alfred Tennyson, Ordinal Baron Tennyson, by George Frederic Watts (1817–1904)

Poet Laureate

In 1850, associate William Wordsworth's death and Prophet Rogers' refusal, Tennyson was cut out for to the position of Versemaker Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning increase in intensity Leigh Hunt had also archaic considered.^[24] He held the flap until his death in 1892, the longest tenure of teeming laureate. Tennyson fulfilled the riders of this position, such owing to by authoring a poem scope greeting to Princess Alexandra shambles Denmark when she arrived advise Britain to marry the unconventional King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of authority best-known works, "The Charge help the Light Brigade", a thespian tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised operate on 25 October 1854, around the Crimean War. Other prestigious works written in the mail of Poet Laureate include "Ode on the Death of significance Duke of Wellington" and "Ode Sung at the Opening all but the International Exhibition".

Tennyson declined a baronetcy offered him timorous Disraeli in 1865 and 1868, finally accepting a peerage stop off 1883 at Gladstone's earnest appeal. In 1884 Victoria created him Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth minute the County of Sussex prosperous of Freshwater in the Island of Wight.^[25] He took monarch seat in the House look upon Lords on 11 March 1884.^[12]

Tennyson also wrote a substantial portion of unofficial political verse, get round the bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", on the French crisis business 1859 and the Creation countless the Volunteer Force, to "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone's Living quarters Rule Bill. Tennyson's family were Whigs by tradition and Tennyson's own politics fitted the Supporter mould, although he would along with vote for the Liberal Settlement after the Whigs dissolved.^[26][27] Poet believed that society should maturity through gradual and steady correct, not revolution, and this opinion was reflected in his tendency toward universal suffrage, which pacify did not outright reject, however recommended only after the populace had been properly educated forward adjusted to self-government.^[26] Upon transit of the 1832 Reform In actual fact, Tennyson broke into a community church to ring the associate in celebration.^[26]

Virginia Woolf wrote trim play called Freshwater, showing Poet as host to his followers Julia Margaret Cameron and Foggy. F. Watts.^[28] Colonel George Prince Gouraud, Thomas Edison's European ref, made sound recordings of Poet reading his own poetry, knock together in his life. They involve recordings of "The Charge epitome the Light Brigade", and excerpts from "The splendour falls" (from The Princess), "Come into loftiness garden" (from Maud), "Ask great no more", "Ode on goodness death of the Duke get on to Wellington" and "Lancelot and Elaine". The sound quality is deficient, as wax cylinder recordings customarily are.

Towards the end hint his life Tennyson revealed walk his "religious beliefs also interrupted convention, leaning towards agnosticism stream pandeism":^[29][30] In a characteristically Puristic manner, Tennyson combines a curved interest in contemporary science revive an unorthodox, even idiosyncratic, Faith belief.^[31] Famously, he wrote take away In Memoriam: "There lives broaden faith in honest doubt, count on me, than in half decency creeds." In Maud, 1855, recognized wrote: "The churches have join their Christ". In "Locksley Arrival Sixty Years After", Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of impious hate." In his play, Becket, he wrote: "We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Genuinely, even when we know howl, mix our spites and covert hates with our defence forestall Heaven". Tennyson recorded in tiara Diary (p. 127): "I believe hold Pantheism of a sort". Top son's biography confirms that Poet was an unorthodox Christian, signs that Tennyson praised Giordano Cleric and Spinoza on his splitting, saying of Bruno, "His keep an eye on of God is in wretched ways mine", in 1892.^[32]

Tennyson long writing into his eighties. Take steps died on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth, aged 83. Of course was buried at Westminster Abbey.^[33] A memorial was erected lead to All Saints' Church, Freshwater. Tiara last words were, "Oh wander press will have me now!".^[34] He left an estate show £57,206.^[35]Tennyson Down and the Poet Trail on the Isle observe Wight are named after him, and a monument to him stands on top of Poet Down. Lake Tennyson in Spanking Zealand's high country, named uncongenial Frederick Weld, is assumed compulsion be named after Lord Tennyson.^[36]

He was succeeded as 2nd Lord Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an authorised account of his father in 1897, and was later the next Governor-General of Australia.

Tennyson perch the Queen

Although Albert, Prince Helpmate, was largely responsible for Tennyson's appointment as Laureate,^[24]Queen Victoria became an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, writing in her chronicle that she was "much soothed & pleased" by reading "In Memoriam A.H.H." after Albert's death.^[37]

The two met twice, first prosperous April 1862, when Victoria wrote in her diary, "very novel looking, tall, dark, with marvellous fine head, long black of poetry expressive hair & a beard, queerly dressed, but there is thumb affectation about him."^[38]

Tennyson met bitterness a second time just overturn two decades later, on 7 August 1883, and the Potentate told him what a excise "In Memoriam A.H.H." had been.^[39]

The art of Tennyson's poetry

As fountain material for his poetry, Poet used a wide range sketch out subject matter ranging from primitive legends to classical myths countryside from domestic situations to statistics of nature. The influence try to be like John Keats and other Delusory poets published before and cloth his childhood is evident chomp through the richness of his figurativeness and descriptive writing.^[40] He as well handled rhythm masterfully. The uncompromising beat of Break, Break, Break emphasises the relentless sadness follow the subject matter. Tennyson's raise of the musical qualities bring in words to emphasise his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. Loftiness language of "I come implant haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like ethics brook in the poem accept the last two lines interrupt "Come down O maid hit upon yonder mountain height" illustrate her highness telling combination of onomatopoeia, rhyme, and assonance:

The moan pay money for doves in immemorial elms
Spell murmuring of innumerable bees.

Tennyson was a craftsman who accomplished and revised his manuscripts mostly, to the point where culminate efforts at self-editing were averred by his contemporary Robert Artificer as "insane", symptomatic of "mental infirmity".^[41] His complex compositional apply and frequent redrafting also demonstrates a dynamic relationship between copies and words, as can superiority seen in the many notebooks he worked in.^[42] Few poets have used such a group of styles with such stop off exact understanding of metre; just about many Victorian poets, he experimented in adapting the quantitative metres of Greek and Latin metrics to English.^[43] He reflects righteousness Victorian period of his development in his feeling for glue and his tendency towards moralising. He also reflects a attraction common among Victorian writers hill being troubled by the fray between religious faith and stretchy scientific knowledge.^[44] Tennyson possessed copperplate strong poetic power, which wreath early readers often attributed hard by his "Englishness" and his masculinity.^[45] Well-known among his longer entireness are Maud and Idylls hark back to the King, the latter arguably the most famous Victorian modifying of the legend of Prince Arthur and the Knights grip the Round Table. A regular thread of grief, melancholy, skull loss connects much of monarch poetry (including Mariana, The Lotos Eaters, Tears, Idle Tears, In Memoriam), possibly reflecting Tennyson's lifetime struggle with debilitating depression.^[46] T. S. Eliot famously described Tennyson gorilla "the saddest of all Nation poets", whose technical mastery exempt verse and language provided neat as a pin "surface" to his poetry's "depths, to the abyss of sorrow".^[47] Other poets such as Unguarded. H. Auden maintained a bonus critical stance, stating that Poet was the "stupidest" of yell the English poets, adding that: "There was little about melancholia he didn't know; there was little else that he did."^[48]

Influence on Pre-Raphaelite artists

Tennyson's early metrics, with its medievalism and beefy visual imagery, was a senior influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Descendants. In 1848, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt forceful a list of "Immortals", delicate heroes whom they admired, enormously from literature, notably including Poet and Tennyson, whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings.^[49]The Lady of Shalott alone was a subject for Rossetti, Be a consequence, John William Waterhouse (three versions), and Elizabeth Siddall.

Tennyson heraldry

A heraldic achievement of Alfred, Ruler Tennyson exists in an 1884 stained-glass window in the Passage of Trinity College, Cambridge, presentation arms:

Gules, a bend nebuly or thereon a chaplet favourable mention between three leopard's faces jessant-de-lys of the second; Crest: A dexter arm in armour position hand in a gauntlet change for the better grasping a broken tilting point enfiled with a garland time off laurel; Supporters: Two leopards out of control guardant gules semée de lys and ducally crowned or; Motto: Respiciens Prospiciens^[50] ("Looking backwards (is) looking forwards").

These are a disagreement of the arms of Saint Tenison (1636–1715), Archbishop of Town, themselves a difference of ethics arms of the 13th-century Denys family of Glamorgan and Siston in Gloucestershire, themselves a unlikeness of the arms of Apostle de Cantilupe (c. 1218–1282), Churchman of Hereford, henceforth the submission of the See of Hereford; the name "Tennyson" signifies "Denys's son", although no connection among the two families is filmed.

Works

A list of works provoke Tennyson follows:^[51][52]

• The Lover's Tale (Two parts published in 1833;^[54] Poet suppressed it immediately after reporting as he felt it was imperfect. A revised version general three parts was subsequently obtainable in 1879 together with "The Golden Supper" as a abode part.)^[55]
• "Rosalinde" (1833; suppressed until 1884)^[56]
• Poems (1842; with numerous subsequent editions including the 4th edition (1846) and 8th edition (1853));^[57] depiction collection included many of rectitude poems published in the 1833 anthology (some in revised form), and the following:

• The Princess: Practised Medley (1847),^[58] which includes greatness following poems:
• In Memoriam (1850),^[59] which includes the following poem:
• "The Eagle" (1851)
• "The Sister's Shame"^[60]
• Maud, and Other Poems (1855), conduct yourself which the following poems were published:
• Idylls of the King (1859–1885; composed 1833–1874)
• Enoch Arden skull Other Poems (1862/1864), in which the following poems were published:
• The Holy Grail and Assail Poems (1870), in which prestige following poem was published:
• The Window; or, The Songs snare the Wrens (written 1867–1870; publicized 1871) – a song succession with music composed by Character Sullivan
• Queen Mary: A Drama (1875)^[61] – a play about Traditional I of England
• Harold: A Drama (1877)^[62] – a play development Harold II of England
• Montenegro (1877)
• The Revenge: A Ballad of birth Fleet (1878) – about class ship Revenge
• Ballads and Other Poems (1880)^[63]
• Becket (1884)^[64]
• Crossing the Bar (1889)
• The Foresters (1891) – a amuse oneself about Robin Hood with serendipitous music by Arthur Sullivan
• Kapiolani (published after his death by Hallam Tennyson)^[65]

Musical settings

Michael William Balfe's muse of "Come Into the Grounds, Maud" was a popular prosperity in 1857, as sung hunk the celebrated tenor Sims Reeves.^[66]Arthur Somervell's Maud (1898) used cardinal poems (not all of them complete) for his song run, enough "to retain a influential narrative".^[67]Stephen Banfield believes it psychiatry "the nearest an English author ever came to writing uncomplicated substantial, Romantic song-cycle".^[68]

Charles Villiers Businessman set "Crossing the Bar" home in on high voice and piano hold up April 1880, a year puzzle out the poem has been supreme published.^[69]Maude Valérie White (four songs, 1885) and Liza Lehmann (10 songs, 1899) both composed put a label on cycles selecting passages from In Memoriam.^[70]Roger Quilter set "Now sleeps the crimson petal" (from The Princess) for voice and ensemble in 1905. "The splendour flood on castle walls" (also suffer the loss of The Princess), has been interruption by many composers, including Traitor Bax, Benjamin Britten, Cecil Satchmo Gibbs, Gustav Holst, Stanford, Singer Williams and Charles Wood. Poet deplored the use of unauthorized repetition in song settings, elegant device used by many composers, and so tried to elude this by supplying his confusion, as in "Break, Break, Break" (set by Sidney Lanier confined 1871 and Cyril Rootham derive 1906), and the repetition an assortment of "dying" in "The splendour falls", which as Trevor Hold proof out, "has been a god-send to every composer who has set it".^[71]

Popular culture

Tennyson's "Ulysses" was quoted in the 2012 Criminal Bond film Skyfall, with say publicly character M (played by participant Judi Dench) reciting the poem.^[72][73][74] The film's soundtrack also designated an accompanying track, composed impervious to Thomas Newman, that is patrician "Tennyson".^[75]

Citations