Tennyson

Tennyson, ALFRED, LORD, was born on the 6th of August, 1809, at Somersby, in Lincolnshire. His family, through the D'Eyncourts, claimed descent from the Plantagenets, and, to the aristocratic feeling thus imparted to the boy, clerical influence was added by both his parents. His father was rector of Somersby and vicar of Grimsby; his mother, Elizabeth Fytche, daughter of the vicar of Louth. He was the third son, and both his elder brothers, Frederick and Charles, became poets. Charles was his companion at the grammar school of Louth, which the two boys quitted in 1820. Their education was then conducted at home and the freedom which they enjoyed bore fruit in an early devotion to poetry. In 1827 they sold Poems by Two Brothers for £10 to a firm of printers in Louth, and in 1828 they proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where Fredenck had already gained a umversity prize for Greek verse. Alfred, in 1829, won the Chancellor's Medal for a prize poem, Timbuctoo, the first of such compositions in blank verse, but sought no further distinctions, and left the university without a degree. Among the friends he made at Cambridge were Monckton Milnes, Maurice, and Arthur Hallam, who met in a society called "The Apostles," and, by their fearless discussions, lald down the foundations of a broad faith at the time when the best intellects of Oxford were narrowing themselves into the Tractarian theology. In 1830 Tennyson went with Hallam to the Pyrenees, to carry money and letters to the leaders of a revolt, and published Poems Chiefly Lyrical containing Isabel, Mariana, etc. In 1833 appeared Poems, including The Lady of Shalott, The Miller's Daughter, and A Dream of Fair Women. The Lover's Tale, published in the same year, was suppressed, to be republished with its conclusion, The Golden Supper, in 1879. In the autumn of 1833 Hallam died, and for the next nine years little is heard of Tennyson, who seems to have lived mainly with his mother, now a widow and his sisters. In 1842 he brought out a revised edition of his earlier volumes, with some new poems, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Morte d' Arthur, The Gardener's Daughter, Locksley Hall, etc. In 1845 he received a Civil List pension of £200 a year, which was the cause of an attack by Bulwer Lytton in The New Timon, to which he replied in Punch in The New Timon and the Poets, and Afterthought. He published The Princess in 1847, and, in 1850, In Memoriam. In this year he married, Emily Sellwood, daughter of a solicitor at Horncastle, niece of the Arctic explorer, Sir John Franklin, and sister to the wife of his brother Charles. Shortly after his marriage he was created Poet-Laureate in succession to Wordsworth. In 1852 he wrote the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, and in the next yeax settled in the Isle of Wight, at Farringford, near Freshwater. In 1854 he published The Charge of the Light Brigade and in 1855 Maud. He helped the Voiunteer movement of 1859 with his poem, The War, and in the same year made a fresh reputation with the first four Idylls of the King, Enid, Vivien, Elaine, and Guinevere. Enoch Arden and The Northern Farmer (Old Style) came out in 1864, The Victim, Lucretius, and The Northern Farmer (New Style), in 1868. At this time the poet was building himself a house, Aldworth, near Haslemere, in Surrey, where he afterwards spent the summer months, returning to the Isle of Wight for the winter. In 1869 he published The Coming of Arthur, Pelleas and Etarre, The Holy Grail, and The Passing of Arthur; in 1871, The Last Tournament; and, in 1872, Gareth and Lynette. He next turned his attention to the development of the dramatic power, of which he had always shown traces, and produced a succession of plays - Queen Mary (1875), Harold (1877), Becket (1878), The Falcon (1879), The Cup (1881), The Promise of May (1882) and The Foresters (1892). Meanwhile he did not cease to publish poetry. In 1880 he brought out Ballads and other Poems, containing Rizpah, The Village Wife, Sir John Oldcastle, etc. in 1885 Tiresias; in 1886, Locksley Hall, Sixty Years After; in 1889, Demeter and other Poems. After he died, in 1892, The Death of OEnone and other Poems appeared. Beyond this record of work accomplished, there is little to add as to the life of the poet, who abhorred the custom of making private details public property. He was thrice offered a baronetcy, and in 1884, on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone, was created Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farringford. He was buried in Westmmster Abbey. As a thinker, in politics he looked for social progress on conservative lines, and he strove, in philosophy, both before and after the publication of Darwin's work, to interpret the struggle for existence in the light of a broad Christianity. The melody and stately simplicity of his language are unrivalled, and he stands alone as the poet who has been completely successful in various fields - in lyrics of love and war, in broad humour, in epic and dramatic creation. A Life by his son Hallam appeared in 1897.