Tennyson
Tennyson names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Tennyson ten'1-son, Alfred
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
ten'1-son, Alfred, an English poet. He was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, August 6, 1809. He died at Aldworth, near Hazlemere, October 6, 1892. His father was a country pastor. Pictures of the old rectory in which Tennyson's childhood was passed show a rambling, comfortable, two-story house surrounded by trees and shrubbery. Alfred was the fourth of twelve children. The family was noted for character, courtesy, intelligence, poetry, and music. Young Alfred was a leader in storytelling, in imaginative games, and in juvenile dramas. He began to write rhymes when he was eight years old. He was a great reader, an admirer of his father's fine library. He was placed in school for a short time under a schoolmaster of the flogging type. It does not appear that young Alfred was treated harshly, yet in later life he wrote, "How I did hate that school!" His father then took charge of his education, undertaking to prepare him for college. In 1826 while still at home, Alfred and a younger brother, Charles, published a thin volume of verse entitled Poems by Two Brothers. It contained poems of some merit. Regarded as the effort of two lads, one of whom later became a great poet, it is an interesting performance. In 1828 Tennyson entered Trinity College, Cambridge University , where he became one of a group of intellectual young men who formed a most enthusiastic friendship for each other. The central figure was Arthur Henry Hallam. One of the group writing later described Alfred Tennyson as follows: "Six feet high, broadchested, strong-limbed; his face Shakespearean, with deep eyelids; his forehead ample, crowned with dark, wavy hair; his head finely poised; his hand the admiration of sculptors,--long fingers, with square tips, soft as a child's, but of great size and strength. What struck one most about him was the union of strength with refinement." A year later, he won the University prize for a blank verse poem called Timbuctoo. Tennyson's young friends were enthusiastic in the belief that he was destined to become a great poet. Keats, Shelley, Byron, and Scott were dead. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and Moore were resting on their faded laurels. Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle, and Browning were still unknown. Matthew Arnold was a schoolboy at Rugby. In 1830, urged on by his coterie of friends, Tennyson published a little volume of verse, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, and two years later, another volume, Poems. His acquaintances were, of course, loud in his praise, but of the first volume, Christopher North wrote in Blackwood's "Drivel, and more dismal drivel, and even more dismal drivel," and, in speaking of a particular poem called The Owl, he added: "Alfred himself is the greatest owl. All he wants is to be shot, stuffed, and stuck in a glass case to be made immortal in a museum." Tennyson replied with the lines: You did late review my lays, Crusty Christopher; You did mingle blame and praise, Rusty Christopher. When I learnt from whom it came, I forgave you all the blame, Musty Christopher; I could not forgive the praise, Fusty Christopher. Lockhart, reviewing the second volume in the Quarterly, apologized to Mr. Tennyson for not having seen the first volume, and hailed him in mock adulation as "a new prodigy of genius, another and a brighter star of that galaxy or Milky Way of poetry of which the lamented Keats was the harbinger." Tennyson's friends were partial, his critics were harsh. He profited by both. He kept still for ten years. In the meantime the Reverend Charles Tennyson died, the family removed to a cottage in Epping Forest. Money was not plenty, yet the family was above want. Young Alfred left the university, but continued to pursue a literary life. In 1833 Arthur Hallam, his Cambridge friend, the accepted lover of his sister, died in Vienna. The friendship of the two young men was of an unusual nature. Hallam's death cast a sadness over Tennyson's whole life. In 1842 Tennyson appeared in print again, this time in two small volumes. Among other poems were Locksley Hall, The Talking Oak, and Break, Break, Break. Tennyson's friends were triumphant; the critics were convinced. Tennyson's poems sprang at once into popularity. The reading public discovered that his older poems, such as The Lady of Shalott, The May Queen, The Miller's Daughter, The Lotus Eaters, and A Dream of Fair Women, possessed rare beauty. From this time on Tennyson's literary career ran smoothly. He derived an income from his publisher. He purchased a beautiful residence. In 1850 he married Miss Emily Sellwood. In the same year he was appointed poet laureate to succeed Wordsworth. With abundant means at his command, he purchased a beautiful country-house at Farringford in the Isle of Wight, and later, a home at Aldworth, where he passed his old age. In 1883, at the suggestion of Gladstone, Queen Victoria made Tennyson a member of the House of Lords , giving him the title of Baron of Aldworth and Farringford. Returning to his poetry, The Princess, his chief long poem, appeared in 1847. In this poem he treats the question of woman's place in society, showing that neither man nor woman can afford to be independent of the other. Many of the finest bits of his poetry are imbedded in this poem, illuminating the more sober portions "like flashes of lightning." In 1850 Tennyson published in Memoriam, a long poem in commemoration of his friend, Arthur Hallam. Henry Van Dyke, an appreciative student of Tennyson, says "In Memoriam is a dead march, but is a march into immortality." The key-note of the poem may be found in the lines, 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. Maud, the story in verse of a morbid man, was published in 1855. In 1859 Tennyson began the publication of a series of epics which he called Idylls of the King . In these he used the material of the old legend pertaining to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. As a genius, Tennyson stands a little lower than Shakespeare and Milton. It would be difficult to fix his rank with respect to Chaucer, Spenser, Keats, and Shelley. He is better known than they are; he is more popular than Browning. His is without doubt the greatest name in the era of Queen Victoria. Many critics consider him the third poet who has written in the English language. Without doubt, he combined reason, reverence, and a love of beauty in a rare degree. Tennyson has been called the poet of science. While Darwin, Tyndall, and Huxley were establishing the doctrine of evolution, and giving the scientific essay a new place in literature, Tennyson was their poetic counterpart. His verses are full of confidence that a better world is evolving out of the old. Through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. Tennyson never scoffs. Burns, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Kipling, and other writers of genius lash out at times, but Tennyson is always reverent. Family training and familiarity with the Bible may be traced in word and thought from cover to cover of his volumes. The oft-repeated statement that the Bible is the fountain source of literature finds abundant illustration in his verses. Biblical allusions and quotations steal through his verse like golden threads in the woof of tapestry. The Queen of Sheba, Lot's wife, and Jonah's gourd appear in The Princess. Queen Esther appears in Enid. The last line of The May Queen is a quotation from Job. Allusions to Eden and to "gardener Adam," to Moses and Mount Sinai, to Ruth, to the Psalmist, to Job, to Bethlehem, and to the crucifixion, are everywhere. Tennyson has been called a poet of nature. He was fond of the sea. He studied its different moods in storm and calm. He was an admirer of the English landscape, rolling sward, hawthorn hedgerows, and village spires. He was familiar with the birds, brooks, and flowers. Walking with a friend he suddenly fell on his knees in the grass and began to gather and smell, with "Man, get down on your marrowbones, here are violets." He was a man of quiet, scholarly habits. He never knew the pangs of poverty, but he was not unmindful of the destitution which prevailed among operatives in the manufacturing towns. In all social matters he was true to his early training. His private life was pure. He stood for truth, honor, marriage, home life, and all the sturdy virtues that have made England what it is. His poems are very unequal in attractiveness. A good third of his poetry consists of drama, little read by anybody. The May Queen, The Goose, Break, Break, Break, Locksley Hall, Lady Clare, The Beggar Maid, The Eagle, The Brook, and The Charge of the Light Brigade, are the poems with which the young reader should begin. Sweet and Low and The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls are gems imbedded in The Princess. Lady Clara Vere de Vere and Enoch Arden should be read next. The Northern Farmer, The Northern Cobbler, and The Village Wife deal with peasant thought. In Memoriam is his greatest single poem. The Idylls of the King may be read one at a time as each is a complete story. They are, however, connected, and the theme of the whole cycle cannot be grasped unless they are read as a single poem. At the close of his life, Tennyson's remains were laid at rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, near Robert Browning. One of his last poems was Crossing the Bar. It is, without comparison, the most exquisite farewell to the world, the greatest swan song, ever written. It was read at his funeral. We have refrained from quoting at length in order to save space for this poem complete: 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 the' 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 crost the bar. See Browning ; North; Huxley ; Arthur ; Round Table ; Wight ; Cambridge; Westminster Abbey ; Idylls Of The King
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ALFRED, LORD, an English poet; born in Somersby, England, Aug. 6, 1809. He received his early education from his father, attended Louth Grammar School, and in due course proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where in 1829 he won the chancellor's medal by a poem in blank verse entitled "Timbuctoo." As early as 1827 he had published in conjunction with his brother Charles "Poems by Two Brothers," but his literary career may be said to date from 1830, when he published a volume entitled "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical." Its success was sufficient to encourage the poet to prepare a second collection, which appeared in 1833, and contained such poems as "A Dream of Fair Women," "The Palace of Art," "Enone," "The Lady of Shalott," and others. At this time he sustained a great loss in the death of his friend Arthur Hallam. It was not till 1842 that he again appealed to the public with a selection of his poems in two volumes, vol and it is from this time that we find his work beginning to receive wide recognition. The collection then issued included "Morte d'Arthur," "Locksley Hall," "The May ALFRED LORD TENNYSON Queen," and "The Two Voices," all of which, it was almost at once acknowledged, entitled him to rank high among poets. His reputation was more than sustained by the works that immediately followed. These were: "The Princess, a Medley" (1847); ; "In Memoriam" (1850), written in memory of his friend Arthur Hallam; and the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" (1852). The latter was his first great poem after receiving the laureateship (1850) upon the death of Wordsworth. Thereafter hardly a year passed without his adding some gem to our language. "Maud and Other Poems" was published in 1855; "Idylls of the King" followed in 1858; "Enoch Arden and Other Poems," in 1864; "The Holy Grail and Other Poems," in 1869; "The Window; or the Song of the Wrens," in 1870; and "Gareth and Lynette," in 1872, the latter volume, which included the "Last Tournament," completing the series of poems known as the "Idylls of the King." In 1855 the University of Oxford conferred on Tennyson the honorary degree of D.C.L., and in 1869 the fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, elected him an honorary fellow. So long ago as 1833 he had had printed for private circulation a poem entitled "The Lover's Tale"; in 1879 this was republished, together with a sequel entitled "The Golden Supper." In the following year appeared "Ballads and Other Poems." Among his later compositions are the dramas "Queen Mary" (1875); "Harold" (1876); and "The Cup." The latter was successfully produced by Mr. Irving at the Lyceum Theater in 1881, as had also been "Queen Mary." "The Falcon," another drama, was produced by Mr. and Mrs. Kendal in 1882, and "The Promise of May" was brought out at the Globe Theater the same year. "The Cup" and "The Falcon" were published as a single volume in 1884, and in the same year appeared the historical drama of "Becket." In 1885 appeared "Tiresias and Other Poems"; in 1886 "Locksley Hall: Sixty Years After," which also included "The Promise of May"; in 1889 "Demeter and Other Poems," and in 1892 his last book, "The Death of Enone: Akbar's Dream and Other Poems." Tennyson was raised to the peerage in 1884 as Baron Tennyson of Aldworth, Sussex, and Freshwater, Isle of Wight. He died in Aldworth, England, Oct. 6, 1892, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Tennyson HALLAM, LORD
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HALLAM, LORD, an English English biographer, son of Alfred; born Aug. 11, 1852; was educated at Marlborough College, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He wrote "The Life of Alfred, Lord Tennyson" (2 vols. 1897), contained a complete bibliography of his father's works; various magazine articles; and edited Charles Turner's "Collected Sonnets." He was appointed governor of South Australia (1899-1902); edited the Eversley edition of his father's works in 1908, and in 1912 published "Tennyson and His Friends."
Tennyson FREDERICK, an English poet
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FREDERICK, an English poet, brother of Alfred; born in Louth, Lincolnshire, June 5, 1807. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1828 took the medal for a Greek poem. He published various volumes of verse, including "Days and Hours" (1854); "The Isles of Greece" (1890); "Daphne, and Other Poems" (1891). He died in London Feb. 26, 1898.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The life Aiton's set out in 1910 still stands in nearly every detail; what has moved is the estimate. Within a generation of that entry the modernists had knocked Tennyson from the pedestal his Victorian admirers built, treating the Poet Laureate of Queen Victoria as fluent but complacent — though T. S. Eliot's grudging tribute to him as "the saddest of all English poets" and Christopher Ricks's great annotated edition of the poems (1969, revised 1987) restored him to serious study, and he is now firmly back on university syllabuses. The chief shift in reading is In Memoriam: where 1910 saw a monument of Christian consolation for a lost friend, critics since the 1970s have also read its intensity as evidence of a love for Arthur Hallam that resists tidy categories. One small correction: the peerage was conferred in 1884, as Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater, not of Farringford.
Written for this edition, 2026.