Biography Of
Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6th, 1809, at Somersby, Lincolnshire,
fourth of twelve children of George and Elizabeth (Fytche) Tennyson. The poet's
grandfather had violated tradition by making his younger son, Charles, his
heir, and arranging for the poet's father to enter the ministry. (See the
Tennyson Family Tree.) The contrast of his own family's relatively straitened
circumstances to the great wealth of his aunt Elizabeth Russell and uncle
Charles Tennyson (who lived in castles!) made Tennyson feel particularly
impoverished and led him to worry about money all his life.
He also had a lifelong fear of
mental illness, for several men in his family had a mild form of epilepsy,
which was then thought a shameful disease. His father and brother Arthur made
their cases worse by excessive drinking. His brother Edward had to be confined
in a mental institution after 1833, and he himself spent a few weeks under
doctors' care in 1843. In the late twenties his
father's physical and mental condition worsened, and he became paranoid,
abusive, and violent.
In 1827 Tennyson escaped the troubled atmosphere of his home when he
followed his two older brothers to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutor
was William Whewell — see nineteenth-century philosophy. Because they had
published Poems by Two Brothers in 1827 and each won university prizes for
poetry (Alfred winning the Chancellor's Gold Medal in 1828 for ÒTimbuctooÓ) the
Tennyson brothers became well known at Cambridge. In 1829 The Apostles, an
undergraduate club, whose members remained Tennyson's friends all his life,
invited him to join. The group, which met to discuss major philosophical and
other issues, included Arthur Henry Hallam, James Spedding, Edward Lushington
(who later married Cecilia Tennyson), and Richard Monckton Milnes — all
eventually famous men who merited entries in the Dictionary of National
Biography.
Arthur Hallam's was the most important of these friendships. Hallam, another
precociously brilliant Victorian young man like Robert Browning, John Stuart
Mill, and Matthew Arnold, was uniformly recognized by his contemporaries
(including William Gladstone, his best friend at Eton) as having unusual
promise. He and Tennyson knew each other only four years, but their intense
friendship had major influence on the poet. On a visit to Somersby, Hallam met
and later became engaged to Emily Tennyson, and the two friends looked forward
to a life-long companionship. Hallam's death from illness in 1833 (he was only
22) shocked Tennyson profoundly, and his grief lead to most of his best poetry,
including In Memoriam , "The Passing of Arthur", "Ulysses," and
"Tithonus."
Since Tennyson was always sensitive to criticism, the mixed reception of
his 1832 Poems hurt him greatly. Critics in those days delighted in the
harshness of their reviews: the Quarterly Review was known as the "Hang,
draw, and quarterly." John Wilson Croker's harsh criticisms of some of the
poems in our anthology kept Tennyson from publishing again for another nine
years.
Late in the 1830s Tennyson grew concerned about his mental health and
visited a sanitarium run by Dr. Matthew Allen, with whom he later invested his
inheritance (his grandfather had died in 1835) and some of his family's money.
When Dr. Allen's scheme for mass-producing wood carvings using steam power went
bankrupt, Tennyson, who did not have enough money to marry, ended his
engagement to Emily Sellwood, whom he had met at his brother Charles's wedding
to her sister Louisa.
The success of his 1842 Poems made Tennyson a popular poet, and in 1845
he received a Civil List (government) pension of £200 a year, which helped
relieve his financial difficulties; the success of "The Princess" and
In Memoriam and his appointment in 1850 as Poet Laureate finally established
him as the most popular poet of the Victorian era.
By now Tennyson, only 41, had written some of his greatest poetry, but
he continued to write and to gain in popularity. In 1853, as the Tennysons were
moving into their new house on the Isle of Wight, Prince Albert dropped in
unannounced. His admiration for Tennyson's poetry helped solidify his position
as the national poet, and Tennyson returned the favor by dedicating The Idylls
of the King to his memory. Queen Victoria later summoned him to court several
times, and at her insistence he accepted his title, having declined it when
offered by both Disraeli and Gladstone.
Tennyson suffered from extreme short-sightedness — without a monocle he
could not even see to eat — which gave him considerable difficulty writing and
reading, and this disability in part accounts for his manner of creating
poetry: Tennyson composed much of his poetry in his head, occasionally working
on individual poems for many years. During his undergraduate days at Cambridge
he often did not bother to write down his compositions, although the Apostles
continually prodded him to do so. (We owe the first version of "The
Lotos-Eaters" to Arthur Hallam, who transcribed it while Tennyson declaimed
it at a meeting of the Apostles.)
Long-lived like most of his family (no matter how unhealthy they seemed
to be) Alfred, Lord Tennyson died on October 6, 1892, at the age of 83.
Among Tennyson's major poetic achievements is the elegy mourning the death
of his friend Arthur Hallam, "In Memoriam" (1850). The patriotic poem
"Charge of the Light Brigade", published in Maud (1855), is one of
Tennyson's best known works, although at first "Maud" was found
obscure or morbid by critics ranging from George Eliot to Gladstone. Enoch
Arden (1864) was based on a true story of a sailor thought drowned at sea who
returned home after several years to find that his wife had remarried. Idylls
Of The King (1859-1885) dealt with the Arthurian theme.
In the 1870s Tennyson wrote several plays, among them the poetic dramas
Queen Mary (1875) and Harold (1876). In 1884 he was created a baron.
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