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 English
author often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in
poetry. Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850; he was
appointed by Queen Victoria and served 42 years. Tennyson's works were
melancholic, and reflected the moral and intellectual values of his time,
which made them especially vulnerable for later critic. Alfred, Lord
Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire. His father, George Clayton
Tennyson, a clergyman and rector, suffered from depression and was
notoriously absentminded. Alfred began to write poetry at an early age in
the style of Lord Byron. After spending four unhappy years in school he was
tutored at home. Tennyson then studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where
he joined the literary club 'The Apostles' and met Arthur Hallam, who became
his closest friend. The undergraduate society discussed contemporary social,
religious, scientific, and literary issues. Encouraged by 'The Apostles',
Tennyson published POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL, in 1830, which included the
popular 'Mariana'. He travelled with Hallam on the Continent. By 1830,
Hallam had become engaged to Tennyson's sister Emily. After his father's
death in 1831 Tennyson returned to Somersby without a degree.
His next book, POEMS (1833), received unfavorable reviews, and Tennyson
ceased to publish for nearly ten years. Hallam died suddenly on the same
year in Vienna. It was a heavy blow to Tennyson. He began to write 'Im
Memorian' for his lost friend - the work took seventeen years. A revised
volume of Poems, which included the 'The Lady of Shalott' and 'The
Lotus-eaters'. 'Morte d'Arthur' and 'Ulysses' appeared in 1842 in the
two-volume POEMS, and established his reputation as a writer. In 'Ulysses
Tennyson portrayed the Greek after his travels, longing past days: "How dull
it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!"
After marrying Emily Sellwood, whom he had already met in 1836, the couple
settled in Farringford, a house in Freshwater on the Isle of Wright in 1853.
From there the family moved in 1869 to Aldworth, Surrey. Tennyson's life was
then uneventful. In London he was a regular guest of the literary and
artistic salon of Mrs Prinsep at Little Holland House. During these later
years he produced some of his best poems.
Among Tennyson's major poetic achievements is the elegy mourning the death
of his friend Arthur Hallam, In Memoriam (1850). The personal sorrow led the
poet to explore his thoughts on faith, immortality, and the meaning of loss:
"O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil."
Among its other passages is a symbolic voyage ending in a vision of Hallam
as the poet's muse. Some critics have seen in the work ideas, that
anticipated Darwin's theory of natural selection. "Who trusted God was love
indeed / And love Creation's final law - / Tho' Nature, red in tooth and
claw / With ravine, shriek'd against his creed - ", the poet wrote. He was
born in the same year as Darwin, but his view about natural history,
however, was based on catastrophe theory, not evolution. The patriotic poem
'Charge of the Light Brigade', published in MAUD (1855), is one of
Tennyson's best known works, although first Maud was found obscure or morbid
by critics ranging from George Eliot to Gladstone. Later the poem about the
Light Brigade inspired Michael Curtiz's film from 1936, starring Errol
Flynn. Historically the fight during the Crimean war brough to light the
incompetent organization of the English army. However, the stupid mistake
described in the poem honored the soldier's courage and heroic action.
In the 1870s Tennyson wrote several plays, among them poetic dramas QUEEN
MARY (1875) and HAROLD (1876). In 1884 he was created a baron. Tennyson died
at Aldwort on October 6, 1892 and was buried in the Poets' Corner in
Westminster Abbey. Soon he became the favorite target of attacks of many
English and American poets who saw him as a representative of narrow
patriotism and sentimentality. Later critics have praised again Tennyson.
T.S. Eliot has called him 'the great master of metric as well as of
melancholia' and that he possessed the finest ear of any English poet since
Milton.
A Farewell
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river;
No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
After-Thought
I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. -Vain sympathies!
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; -be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.
Crossing The Bar
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar
Source:
A Short Biographical Dictionary of
English Literature Author: John W.Cousin
Courtesy: Sehr Farrukh
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Sehr
Farrukh