Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Tennyson and the Fabrication of Englishness Thesis How to cite: Sherwood, Marion Frances (2011). Tennyson and the Fabrication of Englishness. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2011 The Author Version: Version of Record Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk UNReSTRlCTC-P ' Marion Frances Sherwood MA TENNYSON AND THE FABRICATION OF ENGLISHNESS Doctor of Philosophy: The Open University Faculty of Arts: Department of English Submitted on 30 September 2010 X)aX<~ o l 5ubvYuS5tf3t^', 2 $ S^ptowb^/ Zoif Date,qj f\Waf(L: March. 2o|i ProQuest Number: 13837621 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13837621 Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Thesis Abstract Tennyson and the Fabrication of Englishness Nineteenth-century preoccupation with the meaning of Englishness began with the origin of the term in 1804. By the late nineteenth century, an ideology of Englishness had been established which was both reflected in and shaped by cultural forms and emerging myths in general and Tennyson’s poetry in particular. Critics identified Tennyson as an English poet from the first reviews of his published poems in the late 1820s. As Poet Laureate for over forty years, Tennyson became the authoritative public voice of English poetry. This thesis examines Tennyson’s ‘domestic poetry’ - his portrayals of English nature and landscape, monarchy, medievalism, and the ‘English Empire’ - written throughout his career and in their changing nineteenth-century context - to confirm that many representations of England and the English were more idealized than real, hence fabrications. However, the thesis argues that Tennyson’s representations of Englishness are complex and often conflicting fabrications, revealing ideological and personal faultlines. Although Tennyson’s oeuvre reveals an enduring love of English nature and landscape, poetic imagery suggests a qualified commitment to the developing ideology of rural England. His poems of monarchy mirror and enhance increasing public veneration of monarchy and fail to acknowledge the continuing co-existence of radical and republican sentiment. Tennyson’s Arthurian poems reveal that emerging gendered moralities were mythologized and both supported and qualified by revived interest in medievalism. Nineteenth-century concepts of Englishness were increasingly shaped by the imperial project and related questions of race. Tennyson’s attitude to the ‘English Empire’ changed from early ambivalence to resounding defence of ‘ever-broadening England’. Ultimately therefore Tennyson attained an imperial position in poetry in both senses of the term. This study confirms that the poet both reflected and shaped defining ‘moments of Englishness’ throughout his career and concludes that a significant defining moment of nineteenth-century Englishness was the birth of Alfred Tennyson in 1809. Contents Acknowledgements A Note on the Text Introduction: The Enigma of Englishness Chapter One: ‘A Poet in the Highest and Truest Sense’: The Early Poems and their Reception Chapter Two: ‘Mr. Tennyson’s Singular Genius’: The Reception of Poems (1832) Chapter Three: ‘Mr. Tennyson’s Truly English Spirit’: Landscape and Nature in Poems (1842) Chapter Four: ‘Fair Victoria’s Golden Age’: Tennyson and Monarchy Chapter Five: ‘To Serve as Model for the Mighty World’: Tennyson and Medievalism Chapter Six: ‘Ever-broadening England: Tennyson and Empire Conclusion: Fabricating Englishness Bibliography Acknowledgements First of all, I should like to thank the Open University for the opportunity to pursue this immensely rewarding project and for the excellent Library resources. I also wish to thank my supervisors for their support during the preparation of this thesis. Suman Gupta has been an informative guide to the Empire, postcolonialism, and Open University procedures for preparation and submission. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to Rebecca Stott, who has been an exemplary supervisor. Constantly supportive, she has encouraged me to have faith in my own ideas and has shaped my writing to express those ideas to greater effect. The concept of the topic sentence is gratefully embedded. I knew that research degree study would be rewarding - 1 had not expected to find it so companionable. Thank you to everyone in the English Department for conferences and admin, friendship and support, coffee and house white. I first encountered Englishness as a subject for study in the final presentation year of an Open University course on Arts and Society in 1930s Britain, then in the inspirational course on Literature in the Modern World. But my interest in Englishness had its origins closer to home - in the life story of my late husband, who came to England at the age of sixteen as a refugee from Nazi-ism and had to create a new, English identity. This thesis is therefore dedicated to the memory of Heinz Sherwood, ne Schapira (Vienna 1923 - London 1985). A Note on the Text The following works were referred to frequently; the titles are therefore abbreviated: The Poems o f Tennyson, ed. by Christopher Ricks, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London: Longman, 1987) - abbreviated to Poems Tennyson: A Selected Edition, ed. by Christopher Ricks, 2nd edn (London: Longman, 1989) - abbreviated to Selected Edition The Letters o f Alfred Lord Tennyson, ed. by Cecil Y. Lang and Edgar F. Shannon, Jr, 3 vols (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1982-90) - abbreviated to A T Letters Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, by his Son, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1897) - abbreviated to Memoir, 1897 For the footnotes and bibliography I have followed the guidelines of the MHRA Style Guide (2002). I have modernized book titles and capitalization when referring to nineteenth- century reviews of Tennyson’s poems. When the author of an unsigned review is known, the name is placed in square brackets. The titles of long poems are italicized; the titles of short poems are in single quotation marks. Part of Chapter Two was published as an article on ‘The Reception of Poems (1832)’ in the Tennyson Research Bulletin, 8 (2005), 251-69. ii Introduction The Enigma of Englishness Critics and reviewers identified Tennyson as an English poet from the first reviews of his published poems. Early critics discerned in his work a ‘desire to imitate the old English poets’,1 hailed him as the successor to ‘the great generation of poets which is now passing away’,2 and considered the poet’s influence on ‘national feelings and character’.3 A kindly critique of Poems by Two Brothers (1827) welcomed ‘a graceful addition to our domestic poetry’.4 Tennyson referred in his poems both to Britain and England, but it was England that evoked his deepest feelings. In this thesis I examine Tennyson’s ‘domestic poetry’ - his portrayals of English nature and landscape, the monarchy, medievalism, and the ‘English Empire’,5 written throughout his career and in their changing nineteenth-century context - to consider whether Tennyson’s representations of England and the English were idealized portrayals, therefore fabrications, and to consider whether and in what ways his representations reflected or challenged established or emerging ideas of Englishness in the nineteenth century. Defining terms Tennyson’s life and work spanned much of the nineteenth century, thus his poetry provides us with a unique insight into many evolving ideas and preoccupations of the Victorian age. He was first published as Reform Bill agitation raised questions of national identity and critics of the early volumes sought to define Tennyson’s role and responsibilities as a national poet. As Poet Laureate he became the public voice of English poetry and 1 Unsigned review, 'Poems, Chiefly Lyrical', Atlas, 27 June 1830, p. 411. 2 [R.M. Milnes], 'Timbuctoo', Athenaeum, 22 July 1829,p.456. (Keats, Shelley and Byron had died in 1821, 1822 and 1824.) 3 [W.J. Fox], 'Poems, Chiefly Lyrical', Westminster Review, 14 (1831), 210-24 (p. 224). 4 Unsigned review, 'Poems by Two Brothers', Gentleman’s Magazine, 97 (1827), p. 609. 5 ‘Hands All Round [1882]’, 14. remained popular and influential for many years; his final poems, addressing the monarchy and the ‘English Empire’, were written only months before his death in 1892. Tennyson responded to and reacted against many of the nineteenth century’s events and figures and his ideas about Englishness changed with time. His portrayals were both descriptive and overtly or more subtly prescriptive, at times attempting to ‘raise the people and chastise the times’.6 However, T.S. Eliot observed that Tennyson was ‘the most instinctive rebel against the society in which he was the most perfect conformist’7 and the poems and their publication history betray doubts and ambivalences which suggest that the poet was willing to question not only ‘his own conservatism’8 but also the status quo he came to represent. A study of Tennyson and Englishness is timely, following the recent bicentenary of the poet’s birth and when the question of Englishness/Britishness is the subject of continuing debate. In this chronologically structured thesis, which explores Tennyson’s oeuvre in its historical context, I hope to reveal the changes and continuities obscured by studies with a narrower focus and thus offer a unique insight into developing ideas of Englishness in the nineteenth century.