Alfred Tennyson (1809-92)

Life.- Alfred Tennyson was born at Sommersby Rectory, Lincolnshire, on August 6, 1809. In 1826 he and his brother Charles published in collaboration a small volume of verse, entitled Poems by Two Brothers. In 1828 he entered Cambridge, and the next year gained the Chancellor’s English medal for a poem on Timbuctoo. In 1833 a heavy blow fell upon him in the death of his dear friend Arthur Hallam. In 1850 he married Emily Sellwood, and was appointed poet laureate in succession to Wordsworth. Thenceforth his life was placid and uneventful. Active in his art to the last, he died at Farringford, near Freshwater, Isle of Wight, on October 6, 1892. He had been raised to the peerage in 1883 as Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farringford. Works.- His principal publications are: Poems, chiefly Lyrical (1830) Poems (1833) The Princess (1847) In Memoriam (1850) Maud (1855) Idylls of the King (1859-85) Enoch Arden (1864) Queen Mary (1875) Harold (1876) Ballads etc. (1880) The Cup and the Falcon (1884) Becket (1884) Tiresias and other Poems (1885) Locksley Hall Sixty Years after (1886) Demeter and other Poems (1889) The Death of Cenone, etc. (1892)

Character.- Tennyson’s character was remarkable for the combination of ruggedness and delicacy. Lord Selborne’s lines are quite telling in this respect: He writes that Tennyson was noble, simple, reverent as well as strong, with a frankness which might at times seem rough, but which was never inconsistent with the finest courtesy and the genteel heart. Morbidly shy of strangers and a horror of publicity, he shunned the general intercourse of men. (Lord Selborne, Memoir, II. 459) His devotion to his art was admirable, but his recluse-like habits narrowed his outlook upon life and left their mark upon his work. Views on Religion.- Tennyson’s temper was hesitant and timorous.

What use to brood? This life of mingled pain And joys to me, Despite of every Faith and Creed, remains The Mystery. (To Mary Boyle.)

By the burden of this mystery he was always haunted. But he found firm ground in two positive affirmations which he regarded as data of consciousness – God and immortality. He once, James Knowles records, formulated “quite deliberately his own religious creed in these words. “There’s Something that watches over us, and our individuality endures. That’s my faith, and that’s all my faith. “ (Nineteenth Century, January 1893) His theology was vague and fluctuating, and speculation occasionally led him rather far afield, but on the whole his ideas were in harmony with the liberal of Broad Church movement of his time. Politics and Society.- In general terms Tennyson may be described as an exponent of the very cauious Liberalism of the mid-Victorian age. Dread of revolution, of rash rupture with the past, of intemperate experiments, and of “raw haste, half sister to delay,” lay at the very root of his thought, and made him essentially the poet of tradition and order. Yet he was an apostle of gradual progress and of the freedom which “slowly broadens down from precedent to precedent.” In early manhood he was moved to enthusiasm by the new developments in science and commerce:

Not in vain the distance beckons, forward, forward let us range, Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. (Locksley Hall)

But the sanguine mood presently gave place to one of profound alarm at the results of science and commerce in the materialization of light and thought: Forward rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one, Let us cease this cry of Forward till ten thousand years be gone. (Locksley Hall Sixty Years After)

His belief in evolution, always a steadying element in his thought, brought a certain hope back to him at the end, but while he had faith in a cosmic purpose his philosophy recquired countless years for its consummation:

But if twenty millions of summers are stored in the sunlight still We are far from the noon of man, there is time for the race to grow. (The Dawn)

In democracy h he had no confidence, and while he showed genuine sympathy with the masses, it was obviously the sympathy of an aristocratic outsider.

Poetic Theory.- Tennyson had the highest conception of the poet’s vocation. The moral and spiritual power of poetry was always uppermost in his mind: “ great is song used to great ends.” (The Princess) The doctrine of art for art’s sake was for him a pestilent heresy. He considered that there is something better than art for art’s sake, and that is art for man’s sake. At the same time, he attached the greatest importance to technique and to the labour which is requisite for the attainment of perfection. “The poet is made as well as born,” was one of his characteristic maxims. Poems.- Classic and romantic poems. The classic poems (Cenone, The Lotos-Eaters, Ulysses, Tithonus, Tiresias, Demeter and Persepone) contain some of Tennyson’s finest work. Like Keats, he was enamoured of the beauty of classic story. Like Wordsworth, he brought out its implicit moral meaning. It was in these semi-dramatic, semi-lyrical pieces that he found the right vehicle for what was undoubtedly his forte, the expression of a complex mood, with exquisite landscape harmonies. Except the epical but fragmentary Morte d’Arthur, the romantic poems (The Lady of Shalott, Sir Galahad, etc.), are much slighter things. English Idylls and kindred poems.- In these Tennyson followed Wordsworth in the poetry of simple life. Some of them (e.g. The Brook, Aylmer’s Field, Enoch Arden) are admirable axamples of careful workmanship, and one – Dora – received high praise of Wordsworth himself. It is proof of his extraordinary versatility that he did such works so well, for it was really out of his natural line. The dialect poems (The Grandmother, Northern Farmer, Spinster’s Sweetarts, etc.) are, however the fruit of first hand experience. The Princess is a contribution to the question of the higher education of women in the form of a socio-comic fantasy. The thesis expounded is the eternal dualism of sex: “Woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse.” In Memoriam was in origin an elegy on Arthur Hallam, but the theme expanded under the poet’s hands, and so the work, without ceasing to be personal, became a great religious poem as well. It records the spiritual struggles which followed upon his friend’s death, and sets forth his faith in God, immortality, and the “one far-off divine event// To which the whole creation moves.” Other Religious Poems.- All through life Tennyson brooded much over religious questions. In the early Two Voices he debated the value of existence, in the late Ancient Sage he returned to the same subject. Vastness is a striking exposition of his favourite theme without immortality life would be worthless. Akbar’s Dream is a superb prophecy of that universal religion of the spirit which men will ultimately reach through varying forms and rituals. In Maud: a Monodrama he protested against the materialism of the age, from which society is to be purged by the enthusiasm of a great war (the Crimean War). It was at first disliked, but it has scenes of great power, and contains some of Tennyson’s finest poetry. The Idylls of the King are twelve stories from the Arthurian cycle. Episodes from Malory are turned into a parable of “sense at war with soul,” and the downfall of Arthur’s kingdom presented as the result of the co-operation of two forces – sensuality and the perversion of religion. Dramas.- Tennyson was already nearing old age when he broke fresh ground in the drama. His three historical plays – Harold, Becket, and Queen Mary – deal with great crises in the history of the English people, and thus have a national significance. But these and his minor plays – The Promise of May, The Falcon, The Cup, The Foresters – have little importance. Characteristics.- Extraordinary variety, a reflection of the many-sidedness of modern life and the eclecticism of modern culture, is characteristic of Tennyson’s work. His style is marked by a wonderful combination of simplicity and ornateness. He is always absolutely clear and is rarely merely plain. His lyrical measures (many of which were his own invention) have often supreme beauty. As a poet of man he throws the emphasis always upon the need of “ self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, “ upon the dangers of all excess, and upon the sanctity of the moral law. His treatment of nature is mainly pictorial. In detail he is as accurate as Wordsworth, but he has none of Wordsworth’s spiritual feeling for Nature, which he looks at with the eye of the scientist as well as with that of the artist. The chief defect of his work as a whole is a want of virility. At times he descends to mere prettiness, his pathos is occasionally cheap, his sentiment is of the kind which easily degenerates into sentimentalism. However much criticism may fluctuate in respect of the absolute value of Tennyson’s work, his place as the representative poet of his age cannot be challenged. He was the supreme interpreter of the complex life of the Victorian era, he expressed in language of exquisite beauty the thoughts, feelings, struggles, and aspirations of those whom he addressed. Even his weaknesses – his narrowness, his insularity, his spirit of compromise – helped to ensure his popularity. His influence on other poets was, naturally, very great. Even the strongest of his younger contemporaries felt it, while innumerable minor singers imitated his mannierisms and got his tune by heart.