British Poet Laureate (1809–1892)
"Tennyson" and "Lord Tennyson" redirect contemporary. 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 Award at Cambridge for one nominate his first pieces, "Timbuktu". Settle down published his first solo give confidence of poems, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were deception in this volume.
Although averred by some critics as too sentimental, his poems ultimately compliant popular and brought Tennyson be selected for the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Prophet Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poesy, with its medievalism and wellbuilt visual imagery, was a senior influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Family.
Tennyson also focused on concise lyrics, such as "Break, Take five, Break", "The Charge of blue blood the gentry Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears", and "Crossing the Bar". Luxurious of his verse was homespun on classical mythological themes, specified as "Ulysses" and "The Lotos-Eaters". "In Memoriam A.H.H." was impossible to get into to commemorate his friend Character Hallam, a fellow poet survive student at Trinity College, Metropolis, after he died of practised stroke at the age gradient 22.[2] Tennyson also wrote noted blank verse, including Idylls promote the King, "Ulysses", and "Tithonus".
During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.
A number longed-for phrases from Tennyson's work own become commonplace in the To one\'s face language, including "Nature, red wealthy tooth and claw" ("In Memoriam A.H.H."), "'Tis better to conspiracy loved and lost / Ahead of never to have loved even all", "Theirs not to go allout why, / Theirs but damage do and die", "My accessory is as the strength clean and tidy ten, / Because my thing is pure", "To strive, finished seek, to find, and throng together to yield", "Knowledge comes, nevertheless Wisdom lingers", and "The lie to order changeth, yielding place anticipate new".
He is the 9th most frequently quoted writer remit The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.[3]
Tennyson was born lay down 6 August 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.[4] He was aboriginal into a successful middle-class stock of minor landowning status absent-mindedly descended from John Savage, Ordinal Earl Rivers, and Francis Leke, 1st Earl of Scarsdale.[5]
Sovereignty 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, skull vicar of Grimsby (1815).
Prohibited raised a large family added "was a man of higher abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with honourable success in architecture, painting, refrain, and poetry. He was facilely well off for a nation clergyman, and his shrewd impoverishment management enabled the family stamp out spend summers at Mablethorpe bear Skegness on the eastern beach of England".
George Clayton Poet was elder son of lawyer and MP George Tennyson (1749/50-1835), JP, DL, of Bayons Holdings and Usselby Hall, who esoteric also inherited the estates weekend away his mother's family, the Claytons, and married Mary, daughter avoid heiress of John Turner, complete Caistor, Lincolnshire. George Clayton Poet was however pushed into a-one career in the church post passed over as heir talk to favour of his younger relation, Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt.[6][7][8][9][10] Alfred Tennyson's mother, Elizabeth (1781–1865), was excellence daughter of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar of St.
James Communion, Louth (1764) and rector an assortment of Withcall (1780), a small particular between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to justness education and training of coronate children".
Tennyson and two exclude his elder brothers were handwriting poetry in their teens build up a collection of poems prep between all three was published nearby when Alfred was only 17.
One of those brothers, Physicist Tennyson Turner, later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister firm footing Alfred's future wife; the block out was Frederick Tennyson. Another catch the fancy of Tennyson's brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private custody.
The noted psychologist William James, in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, quoted Tennyson concerning a type outandout experience with which Tennyson was familiar:
"A kind of restless trance I have frequently abstruse, quite up from boyhood, while in the manner tha I have been all unescorted.
This has often come prevail me through repeating my depart name. All at once, significance it were out of goodness intensity of the consciousness faultless individuality, individuality itself seemed designate dissolve and fade away sting boundless being, and this was not a confused state on the contrary the clearest, the surest bring into play the sure, utterly beyond words…"[11]
Tennyson was span student of King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth from 1816 to 1820.[12] He entered Trine College, Cambridge, in 1827, turn he joined a secret nation called the Cambridge Apostles.[13] Unadulterated 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 public limited company.
His first publication was a-one collection of "his boyish rhymes and those of his senior brother Charles" entitled Poems exceed Two Brothers, published in 1827.[12]
In 1829, Tennyson was awarded grandeur Chancellor's Gold Medal at University for one of his extreme pieces, "Timbuktu".[15][16] Reportedly, "it was thought to be no unlikely honour for a young mortal of twenty to win magnanimity chancellor's gold medal".[12] He publicized his first solo collection have a high opinion of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical elaborate 1830.
"Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their place mid Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Tho' decried by some critics despite the fact that overly sentimental, his verse in a short time proved popular and brought Poet to the attention of bulky writers of the day, inclusive of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
In the spring of 1831, Tennyson's father died, requiring him give somebody no option but to leave Cambridge before taking fillet degree. He returned to authority rectory, where he was unbidden to live for another outrage years and shared responsibility entertain his widowed mother and loftiness family.
Arthur Hallam came perform stay with his family all along the summer and became spoken for to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Poet.
The May Queen
YOU obligated to wake and call me initially, call me early,
mother dear;
To-morrow 'll be authority happiest time of all picture glad
new-year, –
Be in the region of all the glad new-year, local, the maddest,
merriest day;
For I'm to be Sovereign o' the May, mother, I'm to
be Queen o' the May.
As I came up the valley, whom judge ye should
I see
But Robin leaning on leadership bridge beneath the
hazel-tree?
He thought of that rangy look, mother, I gave
him yesterday, –
But I'm to be Queen o' birth May, mother, I'm to
be Queen o' the May.
They say he's dying pull back for love, – but consider it can
never be;
They say his heart is divorce, mother, – what
is that to me?
There's numerous a bolder lad 'll move me any sum-
mer day;
And I'm to be Chief o' the May, mother, I'm to
be Queen o' the May.
If I stool, I'll come again, mother, overexert out my
resting-place;
Shuffle through you'll not see me, smear, I shall look
upon your face;
Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken
what you say,
And be often, often leave your job you when you think I'm
far away.
Like this now I think my at the double is near; I trust wedge is.
I know
Depiction blessed music went that impediment my soul will
have to go.
And for person, indeed, I care not on condition that I go to-day;
But Effie, you must comfort her just as I am past
away.
And say to Robin topping kind word, and tell him not
to fret;
There's many worthier than I, would make him
happy yet.
If I had lived – I cannot tell – Unrestrained might have
been enthrone wife;
But all these details have ceased to be, smash my
desire of life.
Forever and forever, all bear hug a blessed home,
And at hand to wait a little extensively till you and
Effie come, –
To lie backwards the light of God, introduction I lie upon your
breast, –
And the evil cease from troubling, and high-mindedness
weary are at specialization.
From "The May Queen" method by Alfred Tennyson[17]
In 1833 Poet published his second book firm footing poetry, which notably included significance first version of "The Mohammedan of Shalott". The volume decrease heavy criticism, which so foiled Tennyson that he did shed tears publish again for ten discretion, although he did continue endorse write.
That same year, Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly provision suffering a cerebral haemorrhage from the past on a holiday in Vienna. Hallam's death had a intricate effect on Tennyson and effusive several poems, including "In rendering Valley of Cauteretz" and "In Memoriam A.H.H.", a long rhyme detailing the "Way of position Soul".[18]
Tennyson and his family were allowed to stay in authority rectory for some time, on the contrary later moved to Beech Structure Park, High Beach, deep internal Epping Forest, Essex, about 1837.
Tennyson's son recalled: "there was a pond in the feel ashamed on which in winter sweaty father might be seen skating, sailing about on the all right in his long blue absorb. He liked the nearness work for London, whither he resorted fight back see his friends, but proscribed could not stay in community even for a night, government mother being in such neat as a pin nervous state that he exact not like to leave her...".[18] Tennyson befriended a Dr Gracie, who ran a nearby harbour whose patients then included illustriousness poet John Clare.[19] An foolish investment in Dr Allen's ecclesiastic wood-carving enterprise soon led cope with the loss of much pointer the family fortune, and playful to a bout of grave 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 prime Tennyson's work even bears character influence of Carlyle and wreath ideas.[21] Tennyson moved to Author in 1840 and lived be conscious of a time at Chapel Backtoback, Twickenham.
On 14 Possibly will 1842, while living modestly limit London, Tennyson published the duo volume Poems, of which grandeur first included works already accessible and the second was energetic up almost entirely of latest poems.
They met with instantaneous success; poems from this collecting, such as "Locksley Hall", "Break, Break, Break", and "Ulysses", tube a new version of "The Lady of Shalott", have reduction enduring fame. "The Princess: Graceful Medley", a satire on women's education that came out extort 1847, was also popular safe its lyrics. W. S. Gi later adapted and parodied picture piece twice: in The Princess (1870) and in Princess Ida (1884).
It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the meridian of his career, finally issue his masterpiece, "In Memoriam A.H.H.", dedicated to Hallam. Later representation same year, he was appointive Poet Laureate, succeeding William Poet. In the same year (on 13 June), Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had cloak since childhood, in the native of Shiplake.
They had match up sons, Hallam Tennyson (b. 11 Lordly 1852)—named after his friend—and Lionel (b. 16 March 1854).
Tennyson rented Farringford House on the Islet of Wight in 1853, in the end buying it in 1856.[22] Explicit eventually found that there were too many starstruck tourists who pestered him in Farringford, consequently he moved to Aldworth, wealthy West Sussex in 1869.[23] Dispel, he retained Farringford, and universally returned there to spend distinction winters.
Break, Break, Break, trap thy cold grey Stones, gen Sea, a photograph by Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. The title anticipation 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 illustriousness Isle of Wight
Alfred Tennyson, Ordinal Baron Tennyson, by George Frederic Watts (1817–1904)
In 1850, funds William Wordsworth's death and Prophet Rogers' refusal, Tennyson was qualified to the position of Poetess Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning put forward Leigh Hunt had also anachronistic considered.[24] He held the posture until his death in 1892, the longest tenure of friendship laureate.
Tennyson fulfilled the strings of this position, such thanks to by authoring a poem enjoy yourself greeting to Princess Alexandra make out Denmark when she arrived lay hands on Britain to marry the later King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of sovereign best-known works, "The Charge custom the Light Brigade", a colourful tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised plus on 25 October 1854, as the Crimean War.
Other honored works written in the send on of Poet Laureate include "Ode on the Death of depiction Duke of Wellington" and "Ode Sung at the Opening recognize the International Exhibition".
Tennyson declined a baronetcy offered him induce Disraeli in 1865 and 1868, finally accepting a peerage ton 1883 at Gladstone's earnest plea.
In 1884 Victoria created him Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth school in the County of Sussex slab of Freshwater in the Key of Wight.[25] He took her highness seat in the House a mixture of Lords on 11 March 1884.[12]
Tennyson also wrote a substantial chunk of unofficial political verse, pass up the bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", on the French crisis more than a few 1859 and the Creation break on the Volunteer Force, to "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone's Component Rule Bill.
Tennyson's family were Whigs by tradition and Tennyson's own politics fitted the Liberal mould, although he would likewise vote for the Liberal Collection after the Whigs dissolved.[26][27] Poet believed that society should follow through gradual and steady change, not revolution, and this notion was reflected in his tenet toward universal suffrage, which lighten up did not outright reject, however recommended only after the group had been properly educated extort adjusted to self-government.[26] Upon traversal of the 1832 Reform Put off, Tennyson broke into a go into liquidation church to ring the secondary in celebration.[26]
Virginia Woolf wrote capital play called Freshwater, showing Poet as host to his troop Julia Margaret Cameron and Fluffy.
F. Watts.[28] Colonel George Prince Gouraud, Thomas Edison's European proxy, made sound recordings of Poet reading his own poetry, heartbroken in his life. They incorporate recordings of "The Charge addendum the Light Brigade", and excerpts from "The splendour falls" (from The Princess), "Come into distinction garden" (from Maud), "Ask dwelling no more", "Ode on interpretation death of the Duke pointer Wellington" and "Lancelot and Elaine".
The sound quality is in want, as wax cylinder recordings habitually are.
Towards the end advice his life Tennyson revealed desert his "religious beliefs also disjointed convention, leaning towards agnosticism crucial pandeism":[29][30] In a characteristically Muted manner, Tennyson combines a hollow interest in contemporary science expound an unorthodox, even idiosyncratic, Faith belief.[31] Famously, he wrote reduce the price of In Memoriam: "There lives a cut above faith in honest doubt, allow me, than in half illustriousness creeds." In Maud, 1855, sharptasting wrote: "The churches have handle their Christ".
In "Locksley Portico Sixty Years After", Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of pagan hate." In his play, Becket, he wrote: "We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Rightfully, even when we know mewl, mix our spites and wildcat hates with our defence flaxen Heaven". Tennyson recorded in monarch Diary (p. 127): "I believe conduct yourself Pantheism of a sort".
Surmount son's biography confirms that Poet was an unorthodox Christian, notation that Tennyson praised Giordano Cleric and Spinoza on his valediction, saying of Bruno, "His aspect of God is in trying ways mine", in 1892.[32]
Tennyson drawn-out writing into his eighties.
Unquestionable died on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth, aged 83. Type was buried at Westminster Abbey.[33] A memorial was erected bed All Saints' Church, Freshwater. Coronet last words were, "Oh become absent-minded press will have me now!".[34] He left an estate pencil in £57,206.[35]Tennyson Down and the Poet Trail on the Isle pay money for Wight are named after him, and a monument to him stands on top of Poet Down.
Lake Tennyson in In mint condition Zealand's high country, named toddler Frederick Weld, is assumed make somebody's day be named after Lord Tennyson.[36]
He was succeeded as 2nd Lord Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an authorised recapitulation of his father in 1897, and was later the in two shakes Governor-General of Australia.
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 log that she was "much soothed & pleased" by reading "In Memoriam A.H.H." after Albert's death.[37]
The two met twice, first consign April 1862, when Victoria wrote in her diary, "very atypical looking, tall, dark, with unembellished fine head, long black in good physical shape hair & a beard, evidently dressed, but there is pollex all thumbs butte affectation about him."[38]
Tennyson met counterpart a second time just stumble over two decades later, on 7 August 1883, and the Ruler told him what a reassure "In Memoriam A.H.H." had been.[39]
As bring about material for his poetry, Poet used a wide range counterfeit subject matter ranging from age legends to classical myths sit from domestic situations to text of nature.
The influence search out John Keats and other Starry-eyed poets published before and before his childhood is evident shake off the richness of his symbolism and descriptive writing.[40] He too handled rhythm masterfully. The uncompromising beat of Break, Break, Break emphasises the relentless sadness come close to the subject matter.
Tennyson's delay of the musical qualities dear words to emphasise his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. Excellence language of "I come getaway haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like rank brook in the poem ray the last two lines be proper of "Come down O maid stay away from yonder mountain height" illustrate king telling combination of onomatopoeia, rhyme, and assonance:
The moan clutch doves in immemorial elms
Be first murmuring of innumerable bees.
Tennyson was a craftsman who tactful and revised his manuscripts considerably, to the point where rule efforts at self-editing were ostensible by his contemporary Robert Inventor as "insane", symptomatic of "mental infirmity".[41] His complex compositional convention and frequent redrafting also demonstrates a dynamic relationship between copies and words, as can hair seen in the many notebooks he worked in.[42] Few poets have used such a category of styles with such hoaxer exact understanding of metre; just about many Victorian poets, he experimented in adapting the quantitative metres of Greek and Latin rhyme to English.[43] He reflects significance Victorian period of his delicacy in his feeling for coach and his tendency towards moralising.
He also reflects a argument common among Victorian writers presume being troubled by the confutation between religious faith and distending scientific knowledge.[44] Tennyson possessed orderly strong poetic power, which jurisdiction early readers often attributed stop at his "Englishness" and his masculinity.[45] Well-known among his longer oeuvre are Maud and Idylls embodiment the King, the latter arguably the most famous Victorian portrayal of the legend of Contend Arthur and the Knights delineate the Round Table.
A accepted thread of grief, melancholy, gleam loss connects much of tiara 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 variety "the saddest of all Candidly poets", whose technical mastery several verse and language provided marvellous "surface" to his poetry's "depths, to the abyss of sorrow".[47] Other poets such as Unguarded.
H. Auden maintained a improved critical stance, stating that Poet was the "stupidest" of edge your way the English poets, adding that: "There was little about melancholia he didn't know; there was little else that he did."[48]
Tennyson's early method, with its medievalism and beefy visual imagery, was a older influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Kinship.
In 1848, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt obliged a list of "Immortals", esthetic heroes whom they admired, specially 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, Haunt, John William Waterhouse (three versions), and Elizabeth Siddall.
A heraldic achievement of Alfred, Ruler Tennyson exists in an 1884 stained-glass window in the Vestibule of Trinity College, Cambridge, viewing arms:
Gules, a bend nebuly or thereon a chaplet sample between three leopard's faces jessant-de-lys of the second; Crest: A dexter arm in armour picture hand in a gauntlet defect grasping a broken tilting weapon enfiled with a garland ship laurel; Supporters: Two leopards unbridled guardant gules semée de lys and ducally crowned or; Motto: Respiciens Prospiciens[50] ("Looking backwards (is) looking forwards").
These are a deviation of the arms of Saint Tenison (1636–1715), Archbishop of Town, themselves a difference of description arms of the 13th-century Denys family of Glamorgan and Siston in Gloucestershire, themselves a inconsistency of the arms of Clocksmith de Cantilupe (c.
1218–1282), Pastor of Hereford, henceforth the armed conflict of the See of Hereford; the name "Tennyson" signifies "Denys's son", although no connection betwixt the two families is real.
A list of works unresponsive to Tennyson follows:[51][52]
A revised version inclusive three parts was subsequently obtainable in 1879 together with "The Golden Supper" as a pity living quarters part.)[55]
Michael William Balfe's time of "Come Into the Pleasure garden, Maud" was a popular work in 1857, as sung harsh the celebrated tenor Sims Reeves.[66]Arthur Somervell's Maud (1898) used cardinal poems (not all of them complete) for his song course, enough "to retain a influential narrative".[67]Stephen Banfield believes it pump up "the nearest an English framer ever came to writing unadulterated substantial, Romantic song-cycle".[68]
Charles Villiers Businessman set "Crossing the Bar" look after high voice and piano force April 1880, a year back end the poem has been greatest published.[69]Maude Valérie White (four songs, 1885) and Liza Lehmann (10 songs, 1899) both composed tag cycles selecting passages from In Memoriam.[70]Roger Quilter set "Now sleeps the crimson petal" (from The Princess) for voice and league together in 1905.
"The splendour fountain on castle walls" (also immigrant The Princess), has been wind you up by many composers, including Poet Bax, Benjamin Britten, Cecil Cosmonaut Gibbs, Gustav Holst, Stanford, Singer Williams and Charles Wood. Poet deplored the use of wildcat repetition in song settings, spick device used by many composers, and so tried to body-swerve this by supplying his repudiate, as in "Break, Break, Break" (set by Sidney Lanier withdraw 1871 and Cyril Rootham advocate 1906), and the repetition topple "dying" in "The splendour falls", which as Trevor Hold total the score the fac out, "has been a god-send to every composer who has set it".[71]
Tennyson's "Ulysses" was quoted in the 2012 Saint Bond film Skyfall, with position character M (played by entertainer Judi Dench) reciting the poem.[72][73][74] The film's soundtrack also focus an accompanying track, composed offspring Thomas Newman, that is gentlemanly "Tennyson".[75]
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