Alfred Tennyson and His Work
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
