Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6th, 1809, at Somersby, Lincolnshire,

fourth of twelve children of George and Elizabeth Tennyson. Tennyson, said

to be the best poet of the Victorian era and his poetry will be discussed

in this essay.

Tennyson had a lifelong fear of mental illness, because

several men in his family had a mild form of epilepsy, which then was thought

of as a shameful disease. His father and brother Arthur made their epilepsy

worse by excessive drinking. His brother Edward had to be put in a mental

institution after 1833, and he spent a few weeks himself under doctor’s care

in 1843. In the late twenties his father’s physical and mental condition

got worse, and he became paranoid, abusive, and violent.

In 1827 Tennyson escaped his troubled home when he followed

his two older brothers to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his teacher was

William Whewell. Because each of them had won university prizes for poetry

the Tennyson brothers became well known at Cambridge. In 1829 The Apostles,

an undergraduate club, invited him to join. The members of this group would

remain Tennyson’s friends all his life.

Arthur Hallam was the most important of these friendships.

Hallam, a brilliant Victorian young man was recognized by his peers as having

unusual promise. He and Tennyson knew each other only four years, but their

intense friendship had a major influence on the poet. On a visit to Somersby,

Hallam met and later became engaged to Emily Tennyson, and the two friends

looked forward to a life-long companionship. Hallam died from illness in

1833 at the age of 22 and shocked Tennyson profoundly. His grief lead to

most of his best poetry, including “In Memoriam”, “The Passing of Arthur”,

“Ulysses”, and “Tithonus”.

Since Tennyson was always sensitive to criticism, The

bad reviews of his 1832 poems hurt him greatly. Critics in those days took

great joy in the harshness of their reviews. John Wilson Croker’s harsh

criticisms of some of the poems he wrote kept Tennyson from publishing again

for another nine years.

The success of his 1842 poems made Tennyson a popular

poet, and in 1845 he got a government pension of 200 pounds a year, which

helped him with his financial difficulties. The success of “The Princess”

and “In Memoriam” and his appointment as Poet Laureate in 1850 finally

established him as the most popular poet of the Victorian era.

By now Tennyson, only 41, had written some of his greatest

poetry, but he continued to write and to gain popularity. Prince Albert admired

his poetry so much that he would drop by unexpectedly to here some of Tennyson’s

poetry. This helped solidify his position as the national poet, and Tennyson

returned the favour by dedicating “The Idylls of the King” to his memory.

Tennyson suffered from extreme short-sightedness so without

a monocle he could not even see to eat. This made for difficult reading and

writing, and this is why he composed a lot of his poetry in his head. Sometimes

he would work on a single poem for many years.

Every aspect of the Victorian era were found in his poetry.

His poetry covered a large range of subjects such as moral and religious

problems in his time. His poems also discuss the events of his day – “The

Charge of the Light Brigade” and “The Death of the Duke of Wellington” are

two poems of this type that show the emotion of the nation.

Tennyson’s work is appreciated perhaps for the sheer beauty

of his writing, his descriptions of the natural world and of the landscape-most

often the Lincolnshire countryside which he grew up in:

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,

And on these dews that drench the furze,

And all the silvery gossamers

That twinkle into green and gold

(Culler, A. Dwight, pg. 39)

The ‘public’ side of Tennyson’s work is now valued

less than his more personal poetry. He writes about how reality destroys

the ideal world as in “The Lady of Shalott”. Frequently, Tennyson’s personal

worries were the same as those of the time. For example, the way he describes

Sir Bedivere’s reaction to the death of King Arthur in “Morte D’Arthur”.

Tennyson expresses Sir Bedivere’s problem, caught in a changing world and

with stable traditions disappearing fast. “For now I see the true old times

are dead…”(Culler, A. Dwight, pg. 47):

And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,

Among new men, strange faces, other minds.

(Culler, A. Dwight, pg. 48)

Probably his greatest poem is “In Memoriam”, published

in 1850, though written over the previous seventeen years. He started writing

it after the youthful death of his best friend, Arthur Hallam. His death

led Tennyson to question the purpose of life and the importance of death.

“In Memoriam” is almost like a poetic diary since all events are linked to

Hallam and to the question of death. They say it’s the uncertainty of the

poem that makes it so good. The twentieth century poet T. S. Eliot said of

it, “Its faith is a very poor thing, but its doubt is a very intense experience.”

The intensity, the doubt, the beauty: all are typical of Tennyson.

Long-lived like most of his family, no matter how unhealthy

they seemed to be, Alfred, Lord Tennyson died on October 6, 1892, at the

age of 83.Bibliography1. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Knowledge (1978)

2. Culler, A. Dwight, The Poetry of Tennyson (1977)

3. Nicolson, Harold, Tennyson: Aspects of His Life, Character, and Poetry

(1972)

4. Software Toolworks Multimedia Encyclopedia (1992)

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