Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  Tennyson has always shunned publicity, living in a world apart — removed from the gaze of the profane crowd. He rarely goes into society, preferring rural retirement to social converse. As poet and man, he has gained by this voluntary seclusion. His delight is to mingle with the world of nature. The woods and skies, the streams and billows have been his comrades. How much they have contributed to his poetic greatness cannot be estimated. He is, however, a recluse with his eyes open. He has watched the progress of mankind and observed the trend of the times. Realizing the needs of the age, he grandly rose to the occasion — either to lift up his voice in protest against its faults, or to sing its achievements.

  For many years no strangers have been admitted to Farringford Park. Visitors, while welcome at Aldworth in the afternoon, have not been allowed to interrupt the accustomed occupations of the master of the house, who is very methodical in his habits. It has long been his custom to rise early and spend the morning hours in his study — writing and dreaming in an atmosphere laden with smoke and the odor of tobacco. He now uses the pen but little, owing to failing eyesight. The Honorable Hallam Tennyson is his secretary and constant companion.

  Personally, his lordship is a man who would attract attention anywhere, with his stalwart form slightly stooping, his noble face, his long flowing hair and bushy beard. He dresses carelessly, and when out of doors wears a shocking bad hat; with his cloak and walking-stick, he makes a picturesque figure. He is a confirmed pedestrian. “Every morning,” says a newspaper correspondent, “in hail, rain or snow, the poet dons his frouzy cap and his frouzier slouch hat, and promenades for an hour or so, none daring to disturb him.”

  Tennyson is taciturn and brusque before strangers, whose presence annoys him, but he is delightfully easy and spontaneous with friends. Edward Fitzgerald, in his letters to Frederick Tennyson and others, alludes again and again, in terms of enthusiastic appreciation, to Alfred’s wise and pointed conversation. One of his original “sayings, which strike the nail on the head,” was about Dante. It is well worth quoting in Fitzgerald’s concise language, taken from a letter written in 1876:

  “What Mr. Lowell says of him recalled to me what Tennyson said to me some thirty-five or forty years ago. We were stopping before a shop in Regent street where were two figures of Dante and Gœthe. I (I suppose) said, ‘What is there in old Dante’s face that is missing in Gœthe’s?’ And Tennyson (whose profile then had certainly a remarkable likeness to Dante’s) said: ‘The divine.’”

  From first to last Alfred Tennyson has recognized that the mission of the poet is that of an æsthetic teacher. Much has he done to educate English-speaking people in the appreciation of beauty. But he is emphatically more than this. A man of stainless reputation, his deeds and words have almost invariably been on the side of righteousness. His career has been free from the excesses which disgraced the lives of Marlowe and Shelley, of Byron and Poe. He is rather to be ranged with the Spensers and Miltons, the Wordsworths and Brownings, as a defender of truth and religion. In the main he has steadfastly kept in mind the austere ideal —

  Of those who, far aloof

  From envy, hate and pity, and spite and scorn,

  Live the great life which all our greatest fain

  Would follow, center’d in eternal calm.

  II.

  The current of Tennyson’s genius is like a rivulet placidly flowing through meadows and groves, occasionally rippling and swirling over stones, then pursuing its even course — gradually widening and deepening; not like a mighty river proudly sweeping in a resistless flood through a wilderness, or tumbling down rocky chasms. All that he has given the world during sixty years of literary activity is contained in less than a dozen volumes of verse. Only a rapid survey of his poetical career is attempted here.

  Passing by without comment Poems by two Brothers (1826), “The Lover’s Tale” (composed about 1828), and “Timbuctoo” (1829), we come to Tennyson’s first bid for fame in Poems, chiefly Lyrical (1830). This slender volume included (along with much rubbish) a few pieces which are perennial favorites with lovers of Tennyson, viz.: “Mariana,” “Recollections of the Arabian Nights,” “The Dying Swan,” “A Dirge,” “Love and Death,” and “Circumstance.” Among the poems suppressed in later editions is one in an unusual vein—”Nero to Leander” — which Emerson inserted in his Parnassus.

  His second book of Poems (1833) was a more ambitious venture. Its contents, though marred by faults of crude taste, possessed in a marked degree, the characteristic qualities of the Laureate’s poetry. Nearly all of the lyrics in it have been found worthy of a permanent place in the collected editions of his poems, but most of them underwent countless changes before they were republished in 1842 — being corrected and polished till they were well-nigh perfect from a critical standpoint.

  The two volumes of Poems (1842) revealed Tennyson at his best — a mature singer whose dignified, harmonious verse compares favorably with the most splendid contributions to British poetry. “The Princess” (1847), “In Memoriam” (1850), and “Maud” (1855) made his position secure as the greatest of living poets.

  Not satisfied to rest content as a lyrist, Tennyson essayed extended narrative in Idyls of the King (1859) and “Enoch Arden” (1864). Gaining courage from the enthusiastic reception of the four Arthurian idyls, he undertook to carry out a long cherished design — which Milton and Dryden had conceived — of writing a national epic on King Arthur. He had already made several attempts at versifying incidents from the Mabinogion and Malory’s old romance Morte d’ Arthur, but they were isolated fragments. From time to time he added others, making the series of tales called the Round Table a complete cycle as follows:

  The Coming of Arthur, 1869; Gareth and Lynette, 1872; Geraint and Enid, 1859; Balin and Balan, 1885; Merlin and Vivien, 1859; Lancelot and Elaine, 1859; The Holy Grail, 1869; Pelleas and Ettarre, 1869; The Last Tournament, 1871; Guinevere, 1859; The Passing of Arthur, 1842, 1869.

  Then boldly entering the dangerous field of historical drama, Tennyson became a rival of Shakspeare himself in “Queen Mary” (1875), “Harold” (1876), and “Becket” (1884). Besides these, he brought forth three shorter plays or dramatic sketches—”The Cup” (1884), “The Falcon” (1884), “The Promise of May” (1886), and a lengthy idyllic drama called “The Foresters” (1892).

  As if to prove that his fertility was not exhausted in the province of the lyric, he made fresh incursions into fields of song long familiar to him. These winnowings of the last two decades are gathered into the following volumes:

  Ballads, and Other Poems (1880); Tiresias, and Other Poems (1885); Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. (1886); Demeter, and Other Poems (1889).

  Enough books have been named to give at least half a dozen minstrels a firm footing on Parnassus. The number of Tennyson’s meritorious performances is simply astonishing. But few poets have wrought with such unwearying patience. Not many can present as imposing a catalogue of works that are confessedly of such a high order of excellence. Browning has written more, but Browning has not taken the trouble to perfect himself in form — in short, he is not a finished artist. In literary workmanship, Tennyson stands supreme. It is universally admitted that none of his contemporaries ranks so high as man of letters. He is the brightest ornament of the Victorian reign.

  Without doubt the Laureate deserves his hard-won glory. In his hale old age, he has disarmed the critics of years ago who sneered at his empty lays and feminine ways. The question — Cui bono? could be asked as to many of Tennyson’s earlier efforts, such as “Oriana,” “The Lady of Shalott,” “Audley Court,” “Edwin Morris,” “Amphion,” “Lady Clare,” “The Lord of Burleigh,” “The Beggar Maid” and others. These lyrics and idyls are made up of ornate commonplaces which show the artistic instinct rather than the poetic. They abound with the ephemeral conceits of drawing-room poetry. They contain nothing that resembles vivacity or sublimity. They have not the interest which is general and universal as distinguished f
rom the private or the unusual. They are not representative of human nature, but of individual peculiarities. They are ideal pictures, not transcripts from experience.

  With a few exceptions, the minor poems published in 1855 and 1864 are of similar character; and it may be said that “The Princess,” “Maud,” “Enoch Arden,” and most of the Arthurian stories are in much the same vein. None of these works, when viewed as an organic whole, can be called great. In all of them, manliness is at a discount, and there is withal a dearth of ideas. Sentiment and ornament are overdone, and there is not enough of life. They can be described as a chaos of pretty fancies and idle reveries. Such are not the strains that shape a nation’s destiny and are treasured in its heart. In the centuries agone, such a songster would have been a first-class troubadour, much sought and praised in princely circles.

  But former estimates of Tennyson must be revised. The slurs at the euphonious jingler and effeminate Alfred are in place no more. He has abandoned the domain of the legendary and the fantastic. Romance has given way to history, and dreams to reality. Sensuous effects are now subordinate. His verse no longer cloys with sweetness. It is simple, natural, impassioned.

  “Queen Mary” and “Becket” certainly rank foremost among the few powerful plays that have appeared since Shelley wrote “The Cenci.” There are some Bulwer-Lyttonish passages in “Becket,” but they are more than redeemed by the imperial magnificence of other passages in the same tragedy. The ballads and other lyrics published within the last dozen years display a rugged virility that was quite foreign to the labored “Idyls of the King.” “Rizpah” and “The Revenge” have the ring of genuine metal. There is no hollow sound in the manly tributes to E. Fitzgerald and to his ancient Mantuan master. The introspective poet of “The Two Voices” has grown to fuller intellectual stature in “The Ancient Sage.” The music and majesty of “Tiresias” and “Demeter” are unsurpassed in “Ulysses” and “Tithonus.” “Romney’s Remorse” excels “Sea Dreams” in portraying the better instincts of humanity on the domestic side, and its tender lullaby—”Beat upon mine, little heart!” — almost equals the incomparable “Sweet and low.” While “Vastness” and “Crossing the Bar” repeat the lyrical triumphs of his palmiest days.

  Time has dealt gently with the venerable harper, whose hands sweep the strings with surer touch and greater compass than before. Age has brought more forceful speech and clearer vision. Some of his senile efforts betray less of conscious effort, as though long practice in using metrical language as a vehicle of thought and imagery had made it a pure mirror of the poet’s mind. His worn-out mannerisms appear occasionally, also his subtleties of expression and feeling. There is the same imaginative sorcery as of old, and the same consummate style, but the studied elegance and artful devices of earlier productions are less noticeable. There is less of minute finish in form and more of epic grandeur in tone and spirit. A healthier inspiration has visited him in the evening of life. His genius has gradually ripened. The full cup of advanced years was needed to bring out what was best in him, to effect his complete development.

  Since the hysterical explosion of “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,” the Laureate seems to have attained the calmness of soul which belongs to the true poetical spirit. He is no longer the fretful author of “The New Timon,” “The Spiteful Letter,” and “Literary Squabbles,” who lacked the restraint of entire self-possession. A more serious tone pervades the personal poems—”To Ulysses,” “To Mary Boyle” and others in his 1889 volume. A wiser man wrote the stately measures of “Happy” and “By an Evolutionist,” one who looked down upon past follies from spiritual heights never before reached. There is a touch of Miltonic loftiness in his “Parnassus,” and the philosophic resignation of Gœthe in “The Progress of Spring.” His is the tranquil, fruitful old age that crowns a well ordered career.

  MISTAKES CONCERNING TENNYSON.

  A STUDY IN CONTEMPORANEOUS BIOGRAPHY.

  “Alfred Tennyson was born August 5, 1809, at Somersby, a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England, of which, and of a neighboring parish, his father, Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was rector. The poet’s mother was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Stephen Fytche, vicar of Louth. Alfred was the third of seven sons — Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Horatio, Arthur, and Septimus. A daughter, Cecilia, became the wife of Edmund Law Lushington, long professor of Greek in Glasgow University. Whether there were other daughters, the biographies of the poet do not mention.”

  This is the opening paragraph of the Introduction to a school edition of “The Two Voices” and “A Dream of Fair Women,” by Dr. Hiram Corson. Here are several inaccuracies as to the Tennyson family and the poet’s birthday, and the same mistakes and others are found in nearly all the sketches of the Laureate in periodicals and works of reference.

  It is generally supposed that cyclopedia articles are prepared by specialists who know what they are writing about. This is the popular conception, but this is evidently not the case in regard to Tennyson, who has fared sadly at the hands of his biographers. The brief accounts of his life given in Appleton’s, the Americanized Britannica, and other cyclopedias fairly bristle with blunders and objectionable features. As they stand, most of these articles are utterly untrustworthy. Their assertions are often misleading, or so vague as to be practically valueless. As a result, most people are more or less at sea in regard to Tennyson chronology.

  Dr. Tennyson and Family.

  A multitude of errors have been perpetrated about Dr. Tennyson and family. We are told that Bayons Manor was his native place, and that he was “rector of Somersby and vicar of Bennington and Grimsby.” One writer uncritically imagines him a doctor of divinity. According to some questionable authorities, he died “about 1830;” “in 1830;” “about 1831;” “on the 18th of March, 1831;” and in 1832. Mrs. Tennyson is said to have died “in her eighty-first year;” also “in her eighty-fourth year.”

  The number of sons and daughters in the Tennyson household is rarely given correctly. Alfred is called, in a hit-or-miss fashion, one of three, four, six, seven and eight brothers. His sisters are variously reckoned as one, three, four and five.

  The Rev. George Clayton Tennyson was born at Market Rasen, December 10, 1778. He graduated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1801; he received the degree of M. A. in 1805, and of LL.D. in 1813. He married (August 6, 1805) Miss Elizabeth Fytche of Louth. He moved to Somersby in 1808, where he was rector till his death. If the inscription on his tomb is to be trusted, Dr. Tennyson was rector of two neighboring parishes — Benniworth and Bag Enderby — and was vicar of Great Grimsby; and died March 16, 1831. The poet’s mother died February 21, 1865, in her eighty-fifth year.

  Alfred Tennyson was the fourth of eight sons — George (who died in infancy), Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Arthur, Septimus, and Horatio. The sisters were Mary, Emily, Matilda, and Cecilia. Excepting George and Frederick, all of the children were born at Somersby.

  Alfred’s Birthday.

  The discussion as to the poet’s birthday is now practically at rest — his lordship himself having authoritatively settled the matter. Would that he would enlighten us on some other perplexing points in his history! Mrs. Tennyson kept August 6 as Alfred’s birthday. Tourists who have hastily examined the parish registers of Somersby have mistaken the figure 6 for a 5, owing to the fading of the ink “at the back, or left, of the loop.” But careless hackwriters, depending upon the compilations published decades ago, continue to assert that the Laureate was born August 5; April 9, or April 6.

  Year of Tennyson’s Birth.

  In Welsh’s English Literature is a “biography” of Tennyson which says, amid various other slips, that he was born in 1810. Allibone’s Dictionary of Authors (p. 2371) is a year out of the way. When this ponderous work was first published, not much was definitely known of the poet, but Alden’s Cyclopedia of Literature (1890), and other unreliable authorities put 1810 or 1811 as the year of his birth.

  In the parish register
s of Somersby, Dr. Tennyson’s handwriting records Alfred’s birth and baptism among the entries of 1809. Here is an instance where one can put to flight a host — for the names of those who assign 1810 as the year of the poet’s birth are legion.

  Tennyson’s Schooldays.

  There is a want of precision in many of the statements that have been made by Tennyson’s biographers concerning his school days. In the Encyclopedia Americana (1889), vol. iv., p. 660, Dr. C. E. Washburn says Alfred “attended for a time Cadney’s village school, and for a brief period the grammar-school at Louth,” — which is partly true, but curiously misrepresents the matter. He was a pupil in Louth Grammar School four years (1816-20) — not a very “brief period.” Howitt and others make the length of time “two or three years,” and some have the mistaken impression that he passed some time in Cadney’s school before he went to Louth. Cadney came to Somersby about 1820, and, in the autumn of the next year, he instructed the Tennyson boys in arithmetic at the rectory. Cook erroneously supposes that Charles and Alfred were at Louth in 1827.

  There has been considerable guessing as to the time when Tennyson went to Cambridge. He is said to have entered Trinity College in 1826; in 1827; about 1827; in 1829; and “early in 1829.” There is no occasion for such indefiniteness. To be exact, Alfred became a student of Trinity in October, 1828. He left college without graduating, at the time of his father’s death. His brothers, Frederick and Charles, finished the course in 1832.

  COINCIDENCES.

  The cyclopedias also present numerous examples of coincidences as well as variations — some of the incorrect details being repeated almost verbatim, as though successive compilers had copied over and over the mistakes of their superficial predecessors. This ought not to go on forever.

  The sketches of Tennyson in Lippincott’s Biographical Dictionary (1885) and in the Americanized Britannica (1890) may be taken as samples. In the following sentence from Lippincott’s the writer manages to make five or six misstatements: