Alfred Lord Tennyson

•Biography

•Poems

BiographyEnglish 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 In Memorandum for his lost friend - the work took seventeen years. A revised volume of Poems, included 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 unfurnished, not to shine in use!”Among Tennyson's major poetic achievements is the elegy mourning the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, In Memoriam (1850). 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 at 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 brought 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.

Photo Gallery

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

Summer Night

POEMS

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

HALF a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!' he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. 'Forward, the Light Brigade!' Was there a man dismay'd ? Not tho' the soldier knew Some one had blunder'd: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre-stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade ? O the wild charge they made! All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!

Break, break , break

Break, break, break,On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!And I would that my tongue could utterThe thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,That he shouts with his sister at play!O, well for the sailor lad,That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go onTo their haven under the hill;But O for the touch of a vanished hand,And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!But the tender grace of a day that is deadWill never come back to me.

Summer Night

NOW sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leavesA shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And slips into the bosom of the lake:So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slipInto my bosom and be lost in me.