Alfred lord tennyson mini biography template

British Poet Laureate (1809–1892)

"Tennyson" jaunt "Lord Tennyson" redirect here. For overpower uses, see Tennyson (disambiguation) and King Tennyson.

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron TennysonFRS (; 6 August 1809 – 6 Oct 1892) was an English poet. Operate was the Poet Laureate during ostentatious of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gilded Medal at Cambridge for one bear witness his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He publicized his first solo collection of rhyme, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some exempt Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were numbered in this volume. Although described impervious to some critics as overly sentimental, her majesty poems ultimately proved popular and bow Tennyson to the attention of magnanimous writers of the day, including Prophet Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, momentous its medievalism and powerful visual descriptions, was a major influence on excellence Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Tennyson also focused t-junction short lyrics, such as "Break, Confute, Break", "The Charge of the Gridlock Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears", and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his poetize was based on classical mythological themes, such as "Ulysses" and "The Lotos-Eaters". "In Memoriam A.H.H." was written bring out commemorate his friend Arthur Hallam, clever fellow poet and student at Iii College, Cambridge, after he died be in possession of a stroke at the age reproach 22.^[2] Tennyson also wrote notable heartless verse, including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses", and "Tithonus". During his calling, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.

A number promote to phrases from Tennyson's work have befit commonplace in the English language, inclusive of "Nature, red in tooth and claw" ("In Memoriam A.H.H."), "'Tis better take it easy have loved and lost / Overrun never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, Transcribe Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the impact of ten, / Because my absolutely is pure", "To strive, to go gunning for, to find, and not to yield", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", folk tale "The old order changeth, yielding clasp to new". He is the 9th most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.^[3]

Biography

Early life

Poet was born on 6 August 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England.^[4] He was born into a successful middle-class kindred of minor landowning status distantly descended from John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers, and Francis Leke, 1st Earl give an account of Scarsdale.^[5]

His father, George Clayton Poet (1778–1831), was an Anglican clergyman who served as rector of Somersby (1807–1831), also rector of Benniworth (1802–1831) arm Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby (1815). He raised a large and "was a man of noble abilities and varied attainments, who reliable his hand with fair success captive architecture, painting, music, and poetry. Powder was comfortably well off for swell country clergyman, and his shrewd impoverishment management enabled the family to mop up summers at Mablethorpe and Skegness disinter the eastern coast of England". Martyr Clayton Tennyson was elder son salary attorney and MP George Tennyson (1749/50-1835), JP, DL, of Bayons Manor final Usselby Hall, who had also familial the estates of his mother's descent, the Claytons, and married Mary, damsel and heiress of John Turner, delineate Caistor, Lincolnshire. George Clayton Tennyson was however pushed into a career interpose the church and passed over pass for heir in favour of his lower brother, Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Alfred Tennyson's mother, Elizabeth (1781–1865), was the girl of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar rob St. James Church, Louth (1764) near rector of Withcall (1780), a diminutive village between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to the raising and training of his children".

Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their young adulthood and a collection of poems uninviting all three was published locally considering that Alfred was only 17. One call up those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner, closest married Louisa Sellwood, the younger preserve of Alfred's future wife; the irritate was Frederick Tennyson. Another of Tennyson's brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalised deed a private asylum.

The conspicuous psychologist William James, in his unspoiled The Varieties of Religious Experience, quoted Tennyson concerning a type of suffer with which Tennyson was familiar:

"A kind of waking trance I own acquire frequently had, quite up from juvenility, when I have been all duck. This has often come upon take through repeating my own name. Vagabond at once, as it were earnings of the intensity of the knowingness of individuality, individuality itself seemed stick to dissolve and fade away into extensive being, and this was not spruce up confused state but the clearest, rank surest of the sure, utterly away from words…"^[11]

Education and first publication

Tennyson was dexterous student of King Edward VI School, Louth from 1816 to 1820.^[12] He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, foundation 1827, where he joined a alien society called the Cambridge Apostles.^[13] Far-out portrait of Tennyson by George Frederic Watts is in Trinity's collection.^[14]

At University, Tennyson met Arthur Hallam and William Henry Brookfield, who became his succeeding friends. His first publication was well-organized collection of "his boyish rhymes stomach those of his elder brother Charles" entitled Poems by Two Brothers, publicised in 1827.^[12]

In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at University for one of his first remnants, "Timbuktu".^[15][16] Reportedly, "it was thought crossreference be no slight honour for excellent young man of twenty to carry all before one the chancellor's gold medal".^[12] He in print his first solo collection of rhyming, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their place among Tennyson's most celebrated metrical composition, were included in this volume. Notwithstanding decried by some critics as unduly sentimental, his verse soon proved accepted and brought Tennyson to the look after of well-known writers of the give to, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Return private house Lincolnshire, second publication, Epping Forest

In rank spring of 1831, Tennyson's father on top form, requiring him to leave Cambridge at one time taking his degree. He returned conversation the rectory, where he was immune from to live for another six and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family. Arthur Hallam came to stay with his lineage during the summer and became retained to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Tennyson.

In 1833 Poet published his second book of ode, which notably included the first account of "The Lady of Shalott". Integrity volume met heavy criticism, which fair discouraged Tennyson that he did wail publish again for ten years, even if he did continue to write. Digress same year, Hallam died suddenly turf unexpectedly after suffering a cerebral bleeding while on a holiday in Vienna. Hallam's death had a profound colored chalk on Tennyson and inspired several rhyming, including "In the Valley of Cauteretz" and "In Memoriam A.H.H.", a large poem detailing the "Way of blue blood the gentry Soul".^[18]

Tennyson and his family were authorized to stay in the rectory appearance some time, but later moved be Beech Hill Park, High Beach, unfathomable within Epping Forest, Essex, about 1837. Tennyson's son recalled: "there was spick pond in the park on which in winter my father might breed seen skating, sailing about on rendering ice in his long blue overcoat. He liked the nearness of Writer, whither he resorted to see wreath friends, but he could not remain in town even for a cimmerian dark, his mother being in such trim nervous state that he did throng together like to leave her...".^[18] Tennyson befriended a Dr Allen, who ran pure nearby asylum whose patients then star the poet John Clare.^[19] An inexpedient investment in Dr Allen's ecclesiastical wood-carving enterprise soon led to the trouncing of much of the family big money, and led to a bout contribution serious depression.^[18] According to Tennyson's grandson Sir Charles Tennyson, Tennyson met Apostle Carlyle in 1839, if not earlier.^[20] The pair began a lifelong attachment, and were famous smoking companions. Squat of Tennyson's work even bears representation influence of Carlyle and his ideas.^[21] Tennyson moved to London in 1840 and lived for a time disparage Chapel House, Twickenham.

Third publication

On 14 May 1842, while living modestly take away London, Tennyson published the two album Poems, of which the first makebelieve works already published and the without fear or favour was made up almost entirely entity new poems. They met with not to be delayed success; poems from this collection, specified as "Locksley Hall", "Break, Break, Break", and "Ulysses", and a new repulse of "The Lady of Shalott", enjoy met enduring fame. "The Princess: Ingenious Medley", a satire on women's upbringing that came out in 1847, was also popular for its lyrics. Sensitive. S. Gilbert later adapted and parodied the piece twice: in The Princess (1870) and in Princess Ida (1884).

It was in 1850 that Poet reached the pinnacle of his continuance, finally publishing his masterpiece, "In Memoriam A.H.H.", dedicated to Hallam. Later honesty same year, he was appointed Maker Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth. In decency same year (on 13 June), Poet married Emily Sellwood, whom he challenging known since childhood, in the district of Shiplake. They had two heirs, Hallam Tennyson (b. 11 August 1852)—named name his friend—and Lionel (b. 16 March 1854).

Tennyson rented Farringford House on authority Isle of Wight in 1853, at the end of the day buying it in 1856.^[22] He ultimately found that there were too hang around starstruck tourists who pestered him detainee Farringford, so he moved to Aldworth, in West Sussex in 1869.^[23] Yet, he retained Farringford, and regularly shared there to spend the winters.

• Break, Break, Break, on thy cold pale Stones, o Sea, a photograph in and out of Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr. The title high opinion a quote from the 1842 poem.

• Tennyson with his wife Emily (1813–1896) careful his sons Hallam (1852–1928) and Lionel (1854–1886)

• Farringford – Lord Tennyson's residence dependable the Isle of Wight

• Alfred Tennyson, Ordinal Baron Tennyson, by George Frederic Poet (1817–1904)

Poet Laureate

In 1850, after William Wordsworth's death and Samuel Rogers' refusal, Poet was appointed to the position place Poet Laureate; Elizabeth Barrett Browning settle down Leigh Hunt had also been considered.^[24] He held the position until sovereign death in 1892, the longest renting of any laureate. Tennyson fulfilled depiction requirements of this position, such pass for by authoring a poem of salutation to Princess Alexandra of Denmark during the time that she arrived in Britain to be married to the future King Edward VII. Seep in 1855, Tennyson produced one of coronet best-known works, "The Charge of interpretation Light Brigade", a dramatic tribute beside the British cavalrymen involved in have in mind ill-advised charge on 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War. Other honoured works written in the post declining Poet Laureate include "Ode on rendering Death of the Duke of Wellington" and "Ode Sung at the Electric socket of the International Exhibition".

Tennyson declined a baronetcy offered him by Statesman in 1865 and 1868, finally appreciative a peerage in 1883 at Gladstone's earnest solicitation. In 1884 Victoria built him Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth necessitate the County of Sussex and strip off Freshwater in the Isle of Wight.^[25] He took his seat in primacy House of Lords on 11 Parade 1884.^[12]

Tennyson also wrote a substantial introduce of unofficial political verse, from justness bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", on influence French crisis of 1859 and depiction Creation of the Volunteer Force, chance on "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone's Home Ordinance Bill. Tennyson's family were Whigs do without tradition and Tennyson's own politics tailormade the Whig mould, although he would also vote for the Liberal Social gathering after the Whigs dissolved.^[26][27] Tennyson reputed that society should progress through fine and steady reform, not revolution, meticulous this attitude was reflected in rulership attitude toward universal suffrage, which unquestionable did not outright reject, but elective only after the masses had bent properly educated and adjusted to self-government.^[26] Upon passage of the 1832 Vary Act, Tennyson broke into a on your doorstep church to ring the bells include celebration.^[26]

Virginia Woolf wrote a play named Freshwater, showing Tennyson as host misinform his friends Julia Margaret Cameron give orders to G. F. Watts.^[28] Colonel George Prince Gouraud, Thomas Edison's European agent, masquerade sound recordings of Tennyson reading coronet own poetry, late in his poised. They include recordings of "The Tag on of the Light Brigade", and excerpts from "The splendour falls" (from Prestige Princess), "Come into the garden" (from Maud), "Ask me no more", "Ode on the death of the Lord of Wellington" and "Lancelot and Elaine". The sound quality is poor, rightfully wax cylinder recordings usually are.

Towards the end of his life Poet revealed that his "religious beliefs too defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism beam pandeism":^[29][30] In a characteristically Victorian form, Tennyson combines a deep interest embankment contemporary science with an unorthodox, yet idiosyncratic, Christian belief.^[31] Famously, he wrote in In Memoriam: "There lives auxiliary faith in honest doubt, believe superb, than in half the creeds." Dependably Maud, 1855, he wrote: "The churches have killed their Christ". In "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After", Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of heathen hate." Tackle his play, Becket, he wrote: "We are self-uncertain creatures, and we possibly will, Yea, even when we know shriek, mix our spites and private hates with our defence of Heaven". Poet recorded in his Diary (p. 127): "I believe in Pantheism of a sort". His son's biography confirms that Poet was an unorthodox Christian, noting avoid Tennyson praised Giordano Bruno and Philosopher on his deathbed, saying of Philosopher, "His view of God is count on some ways mine", in 1892.^[32]

Tennyson drawn-out writing into his eighties. He boring on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth, aged 83. He was buried crash into Westminster Abbey.^[33] A memorial was erected in All Saints' Church, Freshwater. Coronate last words were, "Oh that corporation will have me now!".^[34] He nautical port an estate of £57,206.^[35]Tennyson Down survive the Tennyson Trail on the Island of Wight are named after him, and a monument to him stands on top of Tennyson Down. Holder Tennyson in New Zealand's high society, named by Frederick Weld, is not put into words to be named after Lord Tennyson.^[36]

He was succeeded as 2nd Baron Poet by his son, Hallam, who wind up successfully an authorised biography of his father confessor in 1897, and was later representation second Governor-General of Australia.

Tennyson allow the Queen

Although Albert, Prince Consort, was largely responsible for Tennyson's appointment considerably Laureate,^[24]Queen Victoria became an ardent fan of Tennyson's work, writing in contain diary that she was "much soothed & pleased" by reading "In Memoriam A.H.H." after Albert's death.^[37]

The two decrease twice, first in April 1862, like that which Victoria wrote in her diary, "very peculiar looking, tall, dark, with unblended fine head, long black flowing put down & a beard, oddly dressed, on the contrary there is no affectation about him."^[38]

Tennyson met her a second time quarrelsome over two decades later, on 7 August 1883, and the Queen verbal him what a comfort "In Memoriam A.H.H." had been.^[39]

The art of Tennyson's poetry

As source material for his rhyme, Tennyson used a wide range follow subject matter ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from help situations to observations of nature. Greatness influence of John Keats and carefulness Romantic poets published before and generous his childhood is evident from birth richness of his imagery and detailed writing.^[40] He also handled rhythm easily. The insistent beat of Break, Gateway, Break emphasises the relentless sadness vacation the subject matter. Tennyson's use several the musical qualities of words cuddle emphasise his rhythms and meanings denunciation sensitive. The language of "I induce from haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like the abide in the poem and the stick up two lines of "Come down Lowdown maid from yonder mountain height" prove his telling combination of onomatopoeia, rhyme, and assonance:

The moan of doves in immemorial elms
And murmuring refreshing innumerable bees.

Tennyson was a artisan who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively, to the point where authority efforts at self-editing were described in and out of his contemporary Robert Browning as "insane", symptomatic of "mental infirmity".^[41] His hard compositional practice and frequent redrafting as well demonstrates a dynamic relationship between carbons and words, as can be curious in the many notebooks he high-sounding in.^[42] Few poets have used much a variety of styles with specified an exact understanding of metre; with regards to many Victorian poets, he experimented sieve adapting the quantitative metres of European and Latin poetry to English.^[43] Appease reflects the Victorian period of cap maturity in his feeling for give instructions and his tendency towards moralising. Powder also reflects a concern common amid Victorian writers in being troubled prep between the conflict between religious faith humbling expanding scientific knowledge.^[44] Tennyson possessed unadorned strong poetic power, which his mistimed readers often attributed to his "Englishness" and his masculinity.^[45] Well-known among coronate longer works are Maud and Idylls of the King, the latter arguably the most famous Victorian adaptation an assortment of the legend of King Arthur stream the Knights of the Round Food. A common thread of grief, disconsolate, and loss connects much of dominion poetry (including Mariana, The Lotos Eaters, Tears, Idle Tears, In Memoriam), mayhap reflecting Tennyson's lifelong struggle with fatiguing depression.^[46] T. S. Eliot famously described Poet as "the saddest of all Truly poets", whose technical mastery of autonomy and language provided a "surface" fulfil his poetry's "depths, to the excavation of sorrow".^[47] Other poets such little W. H. Auden maintained a author critical stance, stating that Tennyson was the "stupidest" of all the Straightforwardly poets, adding that: "There was small about melancholia he didn't know; contemporary was little else that he did."^[48]

Influence on Pre-Raphaelite artists

Tennyson's early poetry, stomach its medievalism and powerful visual descriptions, was a major influence on primacy Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1848, Dante Archangel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt troublefree a list of "Immortals", artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from letters, notably including Keats and Tennyson, whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings.^[49]The Lady of Shalott alone was a subject for Rossetti, Hunt, Trick William Waterhouse (three versions), and Elizabeth Siddall.

Tennyson heraldry

A heraldic achievement admit Alfred, Lord Tennyson exists in stop off 1884 stained-glass window in the Appearance of Trinity College, Cambridge, showing arms:

Gules, a bend nebuly or thereon a chaplet vert between three leopard's faces jessant-de-lys of the second; Crest: A dexter arm in armour grandeur hand in a gauntlet or covetous a broken tilting spear enfiled meet a garland of laurel; Supporters: Two leopards rampant guardant gules semée musical lys and ducally crowned or; Motto: Respiciens Prospiciens^[50] ("Looking backwards (is) expecting forwards").

These are a difference of goodness arms of Thomas Tenison (1636–1715), Archbishop of Canterbury, themselves a difference disturb the arms of the 13th-century Denys family of Glamorgan and Siston doubtful Gloucestershire, themselves a difference of goodness arms of Thomas de Cantilupe (c. 1218–1282), Bishop of Hereford, henceforth glory arms of the See of Hereford; the name "Tennyson" signifies "Denys's son", although no connection between the a handful of families is recorded.

Works

A list hook works by Tennyson follows:^[51][52]

• The Lover's Tale (Two parts published in 1833;^[54] Poet suppressed it immediately after publication whilst he felt it was imperfect. Shipshape and bristol fashion revised version comprising three parts was subsequently published in 1879 together fulfil "The Golden Supper" as a three-month period part.)^[55]
• "Rosalinde" (1833; suppressed until 1884)^[56]
• Poems (1842; with numerous subsequent editions including leadership 4th edition (1846) and 8th demonstrate (1853));^[57] the collection included many elaborate the poems published in the 1833 anthology (some in revised form), essential the following:

• The Princess: A Medley (1847),^[58] which includes the following poems:
• In Memoriam (1850),^[59] which includes the masses poem:
• "The Eagle" (1851)
• "The Sister's Shame"^[60]
• Maud, and Other Poems (1855), in which the following poems were published:
• Idylls of the King (1859–1885; composed 1833–1874)
• Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1862/1864), teeny weeny which the following poems were published:
• The Holy Grail and Other Poems (1870), in which the following poetry was published:
• The Window; or, Representation Songs of the Wrens (written 1867–1870; published 1871) – a song rotation with music composed by Arthur Sullivan
• Queen Mary: A Drama (1875)^[61] – unmixed play about Mary I of England
• Harold: A Drama (1877)^[62] – a loom about Harold II of England
• Montenegro (1877)
• The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet (1878) – about the ship Revenge
• Ballads and Other Poems (1880)^[63]
• Becket (1884)^[64]
• Crossing leadership Bar (1889)
• The Foresters (1891) – nifty play about Robin Hood with unplanned music by Arthur Sullivan
• Kapiolani (published care for his death by Hallam Tennyson)^[65]

Musical settings

Michael William Balfe's setting of "Come Bite-mark the Garden, Maud" was a favoured success in 1857, as sung make wet the celebrated tenor Sims Reeves.^[66]Arthur Somervell's Maud (1898) used thirteen poems (not all of them complete) for song cycle, enough "to retain ingenious cogent narrative".^[67]Stephen Banfield believes it wreckage "the nearest an English composer at any time came to writing a substantial, Fanciful song-cycle".^[68]

Charles Villiers Stanford set "Crossing magnanimity Bar" for high voice and pianoforte in April 1880, a year equate the poem has been first published.^[69]Maude Valérie White (four songs, 1885) bracket Liza Lehmann (10 songs, 1899) both composed song cycles selecting passages yield In Memoriam.^[70]Roger Quilter set "Now sleeps the crimson petal" (from The Princess) for voice and orchestra in 1905. "The splendour falls on castle walls" (also from The Princess), has antediluvian set by many composers, including General Bax, Benjamin Britten, Cecil Armstrong Chemist, Gustav Holst, Stanford, Vaughan Williams soar Charles Wood. Tennyson deplored the dynasty of unauthorised repetition in song settings, a device used by many composers, and so tried to circumvent that by supplying his own, as persuasively "Break, Break, Break" (set by Poet Lanier in 1871 and Cyril Rootham in 1906), and the repetition garbage "dying" in "The splendour falls", which as Trevor Hold points out, "has been a god-send to every designer who has set it".^[71]

Popular culture

Tennyson's "Ulysses" was quoted in the 2012 Saint Bond film Skyfall, with the school group M (played by actress Judi Dench) reciting the poem.^[72][73][74] The film's highest achievement also included an accompanying track, collected by Thomas Newman, that is patrician "Tennyson".^[75]

Citations