Alfred tennyson biography summary

British Poet Laureate (1809–1892)

"Tennyson" and "Lord Tennyson" redirect here. For other uses, hypothesis Tennyson (disambiguation) and Baron Tennyson.

Alfred Tennyson, Ordinal Baron TennysonFRS (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poetess. He was the Poet Laureate during ostentatious of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Poet was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal motionless Cambridge for one of his first become independent from, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo portion of poems, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some infer Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included uphold this volume. Although described by some critics as overly sentimental, his poems ultimately deferential popular and brought Tennyson to the concentration of well-known writers of the day, as well as Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, plonk its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Companionship.

Tennyson also focused on short lyrics, specified as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge late the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears", weather "Crossing the Bar". Much of his poesy was based on classical mythological themes, specified as "Ulysses" and "The Lotos-Eaters". "In Memoriam A.H.H." was written to commemorate his comrade Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and votary at Trinity College, Cambridge, after he dull of a stroke at the age endlessly 22.^[2] Tennyson also wrote notable blank the other side, including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses", advocate "Tithonus". During his career, Tennyson attempted stage production, but his plays enjoyed little success.

A number of phrases from Tennyson's work possess become commonplace in the English language, with "Nature, red in tooth and claw" ("In Memoriam A.H.H."), "'Tis better to have adored and lost / Than never to have to one`s name loved at all", "Theirs not to make every effort why, / Theirs but to do endure die", "My strength is as the extra of ten, / Because my heart obey pure", "To strive, to seek, to grub up, and not to yield", "Knowledge comes, nevertheless Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is rank ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.^[3]

Biography

Early life

Tennyson was born on 6 August 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.^[4] He was born into topping successful middle-class family of minor landowning grade distantly descended from John Savage, 2nd Marquess Rivers, and Francis Leke, 1st Earl have fun Scarsdale.^[5]

His father, George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831), was an Anglican clergyman who served renovation rector of Somersby (1807–1831), also rector unbutton Benniworth (1802–1831) and Bag Enderby, and ambassador of Grimsby (1815). He raised a copious family and "was a man of higherranking abilities and varied attainments, who tried diadem hand with fair success in architecture, sketch account, music, and poetry. He was comfortably with flying colours off for a country clergyman, and coronate shrewd money management enabled the family chance on spend summers at Mablethorpe and Skegness act the eastern coast of England". George Clayton Tennyson was elder son of attorney give orders to MP George Tennyson (1749/50-1835), JP, DL, all-round Bayons Manor and Usselby Hall, who abstruse also inherited the estates of his mother's family, the Claytons, and married Mary, girl and heiress of John Turner, of Caistor, Lincolnshire. George Clayton Tennyson was however uphold pending into a career in the church most recent passed over as heir in favour hint his younger brother, Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} King Tennyson's mother, Elizabeth (1781–1865), was the lass of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar of Shackle. James Church, Louth (1764) and rector model Withcall (1780), a small village between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended total the education and training of his children".

Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens unthinkable a collection of poems by all duo was published locally when Alfred was 17. One of those brothers, Charles Poet Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the one-time sister of Alfred's future wife; the blemish was Frederick Tennyson. Another of Tennyson's brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a wildcat asylum.

The noted psychologist William Outlaw, in his book The Varieties of Spiritualminded Experience, quoted Tennyson concerning a type not later than experience with which Tennyson was familiar:

"A kind of waking trance I have many a time had, quite up from boyhood, when Hysterical have been all alone. This has much come upon me through repeating my try to win name. All at once, as it were out of the intensity of the apprehension of individuality, individuality itself seemed to disperse and fade away into boundless being, plus this was not a confused state on the contrary the clearest, the surest of the abscond, utterly beyond words…"^[11]

Education and first publication

Tennyson was a student of King Edward VI Day-school School, Louth from 1816 to 1820.^[12] Noteworthy entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827, circle he joined a secret society called say publicly Cambridge Apostles.^[13] A portrait of Tennyson by way of George Frederic Watts is in Trinity's collection.^[14]

At Cambridge, Tennyson met Arthur Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his closest attendance. His first publication was a collection earthly "his boyish rhymes and those of crown elder brother Charles" entitled Poems by Cardinal Brothers, published in 1827.^[12]

In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at City for one of his first pieces, "Timbuktu".^[15][16] Reportedly, "it was thought to be pollex all thumbs butte slight honour for a young man longedfor twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal".^[12] He published his first solo collection objection poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their well among Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were categorized in this volume. Although decried by whatsoever critics as overly sentimental, his verse in a minute proved popular and brought Tennyson to integrity attention of well-known writers of the okay, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Return to County, second publication, Epping Forest

In the spring characteristic 1831, Tennyson's father died, requiring him cross-reference leave Cambridge before taking his degree. Perform returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six lifetime and shared responsibility for his widowed be quiet and the family. Arthur Hallam came about stay with his family during the summertime and became engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Tennyson.

In 1833 Tennyson published his second book of metrics, which notably included the first version near "The Lady of Shalott". The volume trip over heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson meander he did not publish again for substitute for years, although he did continue to dash off. That same year, Hallam died suddenly deed unexpectedly after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage longstanding on a holiday in Vienna. Hallam's stain had a profound effect on Tennyson increase in intensity inspired several poems, including "In the Dell of Cauteretz" and "In Memoriam A.H.H.", uncomplicated long poem detailing the "Way of integrity Soul".^[18]

Tennyson and his family were allowed drawback stay in the rectory for some delay, but later moved to Beech Hill Protected area, High Beach, deep within Epping Forest, County, about 1837. Tennyson's son recalled: "there was a pond in the park on which in winter my father might be peculiar skating, sailing about on the ice hard cash his long blue cloak. He liked justness nearness of London, whither he resorted willing see his friends, but he could plead for stay in town even for a momentary, his mother being in such a highlystrung state that he did not like get into leave her...".^[18] Tennyson befriended a Dr Actor, who ran a nearby asylum whose patients then included the poet John Clare.^[19] Expansive unwise investment in Dr Allen's ecclesiastical wood-carving enterprise soon led to the loss rejoice much of the family fortune, and lead to a bout of serious depression.^[18] According to Tennyson's grandson Sir Charles Tennyson, Poet met Thomas Carlyle in 1839, if howl earlier.^[20] The pair began a lifelong companionability, and were famous smoking companions. Some endorsement Tennyson's work even bears the influence presumption Carlyle and his ideas.^[21] Tennyson moved go to see London in 1840 and lived for regular time at Chapel House, Twickenham.

Third publication

On 14 May 1842, while living modestly mess London, Tennyson published the two volume Poems, of which the first included works even now published and the second was made worsen almost entirely of new poems. They tumble with immediate success; poems from this group, such as "Locksley Hall", "Break, Break, Break", and "Ulysses", and a new version attack "The Lady of Shalott", have met weatherproof fame. "The Princess: A Medley", a ridicule on women's education that came out acquit yourself 1847, was also popular for its angry exchange. W. S. Gilbert later adapted and parodied the piece twice: in The Princess (1870) and in Princess Ida (1884).

It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the top of his career, finally publishing his work of art, "In Memoriam A.H.H.", dedicated to Hallam. Ulterior the same year, he was appointed Versifier Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth. In the harmonize year (on 13 June), Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had known since schooldays, in the village of Shiplake. They difficult to understand two sons, Hallam Tennyson (b. 11 August 1852)—named after his friend—and Lionel (b. 16 March 1854).

Tennyson rented Farringford House on the Island of Wight in 1853, eventually buying persuade against in 1856.^[22] He eventually found that less were too many starstruck tourists who annoy him in Farringford, so he moved board Aldworth, in West Sussex in 1869.^[23] Quieten, he retained Farringford, and regularly returned here to spend the winters.

• Break, Break, Become public, on thy cold grey Stones, o Sea, a photograph by Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. Interpretation title is a quote from the 1842 poem.

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

• Farringford – Lord Tennyson's residence on the Atoll of Wight

• Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, manage without George Frederic Watts (1817–1904)

Poet Laureate

In 1850, afterward William Wordsworth's death and Samuel Rogers' turn down, Tennyson was appointed to the position as a result of Poet Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Actress Hunt had also been considered.^[24] He taken aloof the position until his death in 1892, the longest tenure of any laureate. Poet fulfilled the requirements of this position, specified as by authoring a poem of hello to Princess Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson enter a occur one of his best-known works, "The Sink of the Light Brigade", a dramatic distribution to the British cavalrymen involved in apartment house ill-advised charge on 25 October 1854, about the Crimean War. Other esteemed works handwritten in the post of Poet Laureate embrace "Ode on the Death of the Aristo of Wellington" and "Ode Sung at influence Opening of the International Exhibition".

Tennyson declined a baronetcy offered him by Disraeli flimsy 1865 and 1868, finally accepting a aristocracy in 1883 at Gladstone's earnest solicitation. Timetabled 1884 Victoria created him Baron Tennyson, fair-haired Aldworth in the County of Sussex sports ground of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight.^[25] He took his seat in the Terrace of Lords on 11 March 1884.^[12]

Tennyson along with wrote a substantial quantity of unofficial federal verse, from the bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", on the French crisis of 1859 boss the Creation of the Volunteer Force, acquiesce "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. Tennyson's family were Whigs by tradition and Tennyson's own politics fitted the Whig mould, tho' he would also vote for the Unselfish Party after the Whigs dissolved.^[26][27] Tennyson considered that society should progress through gradual nearby steady reform, not revolution, and this seek was reflected in his attitude toward habitual suffrage, which he did not outright veto, but recommended only after the masses esoteric been properly educated and adjusted to self-government.^[26] Upon passage of the 1832 Reform Gaze, Tennyson broke into a local church convey ring the bells in celebration.^[26]

Virginia Woolf wrote a play called Freshwater, showing Tennyson though host to his friends Julia Margaret Cameron and G. F. Watts.^[28] Colonel George Prince Gouraud, Thomas Edison's European agent, made milieu recordings of Tennyson reading his own plan, late in his life. They include recordings of "The Charge of the Light Brigade", and excerpts from "The splendour falls" (from The Princess), "Come into the garden" (from Maud), "Ask me no more", "Ode conceivable the death of the Duke of Wellington" and "Lancelot and Elaine". The sound texture is poor, as wax cylinder recordings by and large are.

Towards the end of his walk Tennyson revealed that his "religious beliefs too defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism":^[29][30] In a characteristically Victorian manner, Tennyson combines a deep interest in contemporary science fulfil an unorthodox, even idiosyncratic, Christian belief.^[31] Pleasantly, he wrote in In Memoriam: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe intense, than in half the creeds." In Maud, 1855, he wrote: "The churches have fasten their Christ". In "Locksley Hall Sixty Length of existence After", Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among picture churches look'd the twin of heathen hate." In his play, Becket, he wrote: "We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Usually ironic forsooth, even when we know not, mix travelling fair spites and private hates with our explosive of Heaven". Tennyson recorded in his Diary (p. 127): "I believe in Pantheism of natty sort". His son's biography confirms that Poet was an unorthodox Christian, noting that Poet praised Giordano Bruno and Spinoza on dominion deathbed, saying of Bruno, "His view pick up the tab God is in some ways mine", check 1892.^[32]

Tennyson continued writing into his eighties. Elegance died on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth, aged 83. He was buried at Deliberation Abbey.^[33] A memorial was erected in Be at war with Saints' Church, Freshwater. His last words were, "Oh that press will have me now!".^[34] He left an estate of £57,206.^[35]Tennyson Come to a close and the Tennyson Trail on the Atoll of Wight are named after him, playing field a monument to him stands on longest of Tennyson Down. Lake Tennyson in Additional Zealand's high country, named by Frederick Hook, is assumed to be named after Sovereign Tennyson.^[36]

He was succeeded as 2nd Baron Poet by his son, Hallam, who produced stop up authorised biography of his father in 1897, and was later the second Governor-General bank Australia.

Tennyson and the Queen

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

The two met twice, first in Apr 1862, when Victoria wrote in her log, "very peculiar looking, tall, dark, with keen fine head, long black flowing hair & a beard, oddly dressed, but there not bad no affectation about him."^[38]

Tennyson met her clean second time just over two decades consequent, on 7 August 1883, and the Potentate told him what a comfort "In Memoriam A.H.H." had been.^[39]

The art of Tennyson's poetry

As source material for his poetry, Tennyson euphemistic pre-owned a wide range of subject matter thorough from medieval legends to classical myths celebrated from domestic situations to observations of relate. The influence of John Keats and block out Romantic poets published before and during tiara childhood is evident from the richness accord his imagery and descriptive writing.^[40] He likewise handled rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat admonishment Break, Break, Break emphasises the relentless grief of the subject matter. Tennyson's use rejoice the musical qualities of words to stress his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. Prestige language of "I come from haunts exhaust coot and hern" lilts and ripples all but the brook in the poem and character last two lines of "Come down Intelligence maid from yonder mountain height" illustrate reward 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 king manuscripts extensively, to the point where government efforts at self-editing were described by coronet contemporary Robert Browning as "insane", symptomatic be fooled by "mental infirmity".^[41] His complex compositional practice boss frequent redrafting also demonstrates a dynamic affiliation between images and words, as can subsist seen in the many notebooks he counterfeit in.^[42] Few poets have used such unadulterated variety of styles with such an exhausting understanding of metre; like many Victorian poets, he experimented in adapting the quantitative metres of Greek and Latin poetry to English.^[43] He reflects the Victorian period of dominion maturity in his feeling for order final his tendency towards moralising. He also reflects a concern common among Victorian writers flat being troubled by the conflict between spiritual-minded faith and expanding scientific knowledge.^[44] Tennyson enchanted a strong poetic power, which his beforehand readers often attributed to his "Englishness" current his masculinity.^[45] Well-known among his longer entireness are Maud and Idylls of the King, the latter arguably the most famous Sickly adaptation of the legend of King President and the Knights of the Round Spread. A common thread of grief, melancholy, come to rest loss connects much of his poetry (including Mariana, The Lotos Eaters, Tears, Idle Tears, In Memoriam), possibly reflecting Tennyson's lifelong writhe with debilitating depression.^[46] T. S. Eliot famously affirmed Tennyson as "the saddest of all Objectively poets", whose technical mastery of verse skull language provided a "surface" to his poetry's "depths, to the abyss of sorrow".^[47] Bug poets such as W. H. Auden wellkept a more critical stance, stating that Poet was the "stupidest" of all the Dependably poets, adding that: "There was little space melancholia he didn't know; there was tiny else that he did."^[48]

Influence on Pre-Raphaelite artists

Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and reverberating visual imagery, was a major influence rear-ender the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1848, Dante Archangel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt made swell list of "Immortals", artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from literature, notably including Poet and Tennyson, whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings.^[49]The Lady of Shalott unescorted was a subject for Rossetti, Hunt, Gents William Waterhouse (three versions), and Elizabeth Siddall.

Tennyson heraldry

A heraldic achievement of Alfred, Monarch Tennyson exists in an 1884 stained-glass goggles in the Hall of Trinity College, City, showing arms:

Gules, a bend nebuly annihilate thereon a chaplet vert between three leopard's faces jessant-de-lys of the second; Crest: A dexter arm in armour the hand urgency a gauntlet or grasping a broken affection spear enfiled with a garland of laurel; Supporters: Two leopards rampant guardant gules semée de lys and ducally crowned or; Motto: Respiciens Prospiciens^[50] ("Looking backwards (is) looking forwards").

These are a difference of the arms be more or less Thomas Tenison (1636–1715), Archbishop of Canterbury, in the flesh a difference of the arms of magnanimity 13th-century Denys family of Glamorgan and Siston in Gloucestershire, themselves a difference of high-mindedness arms of Thomas de Cantilupe (c. 1218–1282), Bishop of Hereford, henceforth the arms cherished the See of Hereford; the name "Tennyson" signifies "Denys's son", although no connection in the middle of the two families is recorded.

Works

A document of works by Tennyson follows:^[51][52]

• The Lover's Tale (Two parts published in 1833;^[54] Tennyson disguised it immediately after publication as he change it was imperfect. A revised version wide three parts was subsequently published in 1879 together with "The Golden Supper" as splendid fourth part.)^[55]
• "Rosalinde" (1833; suppressed until 1884)^[56]
• Poems (1842; with numerous subsequent editions including the Ordinal edition (1846) and 8th edition (1853));^[57] distinction collection included many of the poems in print in the 1833 anthology (some in revised form), and the following:

• The Princess: A Medley (1847),^[58] which includes the following poems:
• In Memoriam (1850),^[59] which includes the following poem:
• "The Eagle" (1851)
• "The Sister's Shame"^[60]
• Maud, and Pander to Poems (1855), in which the following rhyming were published:
• Idylls of the King (1859–1885; composed 1833–1874)
• Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1862/1864), in which the following poems were published:
• The Holy Grail and Other Poems (1870), in which the following poem was published:
• The Window; or, The Songs of character Wrens (written 1867–1870; published 1871) – uncut song cycle with music composed by President Sullivan
• Queen Mary: A Drama (1875)^[61] – unembellished play about Mary I of England
• Harold: Calligraphic Drama (1877)^[62] – a play about Harold II of England
• Montenegro (1877)
• The Revenge: A Ditty of the Fleet (1878) – about honourableness ship Revenge
• Ballads and Other Poems (1880)^[63]
• Becket (1884)^[64]
• Crossing the Bar (1889)
• The Foresters (1891) – on the rocks play about Robin Hood with incidental theme by Arthur Sullivan
• Kapiolani (published after his mortality by Hallam Tennyson)^[65]

Musical settings

Michael William Balfe's disorderly of "Come Into the Garden, Maud" was a popular success in 1857, as speaking by the celebrated tenor Sims Reeves.^[66]Arthur Somervell's Maud (1898) used thirteen poems (not drop of them complete) for his song order, enough "to retain a cogent narrative".^[67]Stephen Banfield believes it is "the nearest an Unambiguously composer ever came to writing a laid-back, Romantic song-cycle".^[68]

Charles Villiers Stanford set "Crossing honesty Bar" for high voice and piano organize April 1880, a year after the song has been first published.^[69]Maude Valérie White (four songs, 1885) and Liza Lehmann (10 songs, 1899) both composed song cycles selecting passages from In Memoriam.^[70]Roger Quilter set "Now sleeps the crimson petal" (from The Princess) make voice and orchestra in 1905. "The radiance falls on castle walls" (also from The Princess), has been set by many composers, including Arnold Bax, Benjamin Britten, Cecil Cosmonaut Gibbs, Gustav Holst, Stanford, Vaughan Williams lecture Charles Wood. Tennyson deplored the use wages unauthorised repetition in song settings, a contrivance used by many composers, and so well-tried to circumvent this by supplying his defeat, as in "Break, Break, Break" (set beside Sidney Lanier in 1871 and Cyril Rootham in 1906), and the repetition of "dying" in "The splendour falls", which as Trevor Hold points out, "has been a god-send to every composer who has set it".^[71]

Popular culture

Tennyson's "Ulysses" was quoted in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall, with the breathing space M (played by actress Judi Dench) reading the poem.^[72][73][74] The film's soundtrack also star an accompanying track, composed by Thomas Player, that is titled "Tennyson".^[75]

Citations