STUDIES IN TENNYSON

Also by Hallam Tennyson

MINDS IN MOVEMENT: THE HISTORY OF RELATIONS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

ONE-ACT PLAYS OF THE SEVENTIES (editor) SAINT ON THE MARCH TALKING OF GANDHI (editor) THE DARK GODDESS THE WALL OF DUST TITO LIFTS THE CURTAIN

STUDIES IN TENNYSON Edited by Hallam Tennyson

This book is published to commemorate the centenary of Sir Charles Tennyson, the poet's grandson and biographer, born 8 November 1879, died 22 June 1977.

Selection, editorial matter and Part I, Chapter I © Hallam Tennyson 1981. Foreword © Sir John Betjeman 1981. Chapter 2 © Robert Bernard Martin 1981. Part II, Chapter I © W. W. Robson 1981. Chapter 2 © Christopher Ricks 1981. Chapter 3 © Theodore Redpath 1981. Chapter 4 © Philip Collins 1981. Chapter 5 © Michael Mason 1981. Chapter 6 © William E. Fredeman 1981. Chapter 7 © John

Bayley 1981

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

without permission

ISBN 978-1-349-05136-6

First published 1981 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD

London and Basingstoke Companies and representatives

throughout the world

First published in the USA 1981 by BARNES & NOBLE BOOKS

81. Adams Drive Totowa, New Jersey 07512

ISBN 978-1-349-05134-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-05134-2

BARNES & NOBLE ISBN 978-0-389-20236-3 LCN 79-55520

The editor dedicates his share of this book to

1 ames An caster first President of the Tennyson Society: the

devoted friend of Charles Tennyson

Contents Preface Hallam Tennyson

Foreword Sir John Betjeman

Abbreviations

Part I Charles Tennyson 1. A Personal Memoir 2. Writer and Scholar

Part II Alfred Tennyson

Hallam Tennyson Robert Bernard Martin

IX

XI

XIV

3 28

1. The Present Value of Tennyson W. W. Robson 45 2. Tennyson Inheriting the Earth Christopher Ricks 66 3. Tennyson and the Literature of Greece and Rome

Theodore Redpath 105 4. Tennyson In and Out of Time Philip Collins 131 5. The Timing of In Memoriam Michael Mason 155 6. One Word More-on Tennyson's Dramatic

Monologues William E. Fredeman 169 7. Tennyson and the Idea of Decadence John Bayley 186

Notes 206

vii

Preface In 1976 when my father reached ninety-seven in undiminished mental and physical vigour, those close to him became convinced that he would live to see his own centenary. I, therefore, got together an informal group, consisting of Professor Christopher Ricks, Professor Philip Collins and Mr Tom Baker (then Secretary of the Tennyson Society) to decide on how best to celebrate the forthcoming event. We agreed to explore the possibility of a series of lectures to be sponsored by universities and by the Tennyson Society and to be given by some of the leading Tennyson scholars in England and America. The list of these lectures would be drawn up and handed to my father as a surprise present on his ninety-ninth birthday: the lectures would then be delivered during his lOOth year and published in book form on his centenary.

When he died-and I am still tempted to add the word 'unexpectedly'!-a few months before he was ninety-eight, the scheme was still little more than a gleam in my eye and I was very uncertain as to whether we should proceed with it. However, Tom Baker, Christopher Ricks and Philip Collins were adamant that the love and respect which my father had inspired in so many made it more than ever necessary th&t we should celebrate his life. My father's good friends at Macmillan (he had for some time been their oldest author) were equally firm in their resolve to publish the results.

Such is the high critical esteem in which Alfred Tennyson is now held-due in considerable measure to my father's own enthusiastic work-that outstanding lecturers choosing widely different fields of study were not hard to find. In addition it was decided to open the book with a memoir of my father and with a study of his contribution to Victorian scholarship. Compiling and editing the book has been, for me, a labour of love: but I could not have done it without the very special help and encouragement of Professor Ricks, while the generous support of Trinity College and King's College, Cambridge, the Tennyson Society, the Lincoln County Council, the Universities of Hull, Leicester, London, Oxford and British Columbia, who sponsored the lectures, has

ix

X Preface

been absolutely crucial. I am grateful, too, to my father's old friend, Sir John Betjeman, the present Poet Laureate, for his moving foreword.

17 December 1978 Hallam Tennyson

Foreword Sir John Betjeman

To know Charles Tennyson was to love him. Yet how can one describe him to those who did not know him? His personality was calm, understanding, modest; he suffered afflictions but he bore them with patience and equanimity. This is the sort of statement usually made about the recently dead: yet in Charles' case there is a difference-the statement is deeply and profoundly true. A study of his immense legacy of papers, such as his son Hallam has undertaken, reveals his uprightness and unshakeable consideration for others. Deceit was quite literally beyond him, and never once during his 97 years did he perform a shabby deed. Loyalty and dependability were the keynotes of his character-even after twenty years of marriage it was usual for him to write two or three times a day to his wife.

All this makes Charles sound like a paragon of Victorian virtue. But that is as far as possible from being the case. Charles was interested in everything-he would go to the Tate Gallery to see an exhibition of Op Art with the same enthusiasm as he went to take his hundredth American guest round Westminster Abbey or to see a Beckett play for the opening of the National Theatre--and he was interested in everybody. In comparison with others he always put himself last, with the result that in his company the others always glowed and felt at their best. Add to this the fact that Charles had inherited a great deal of Alfred's sense of humour, a keen delight in broad farce as well as in dry but unmalicious irony, and you can see why right up to the end he continued to make new friends.

With these characteristics it is not surprising Charles' old age should have been so splendid. Charles had had a busy 'working' life. He was created CMG in 1915 for his work at the Colonial Office and knighted in 1945 for his pioneer efforts in promoting factory design. In between he had been the first secretary and deputy director of the new Federation of British Industries (FBI), leaving the Federation in 1928, at the invi-

XI

xii Foreword

tation of Sir Eric Geddes, to become Secretary to the Dunlop Rubber Company. At this time he contributed mightily to the development of the British film industry as Chairman of the FBI's Film Group. Later in the 1930s he was to have an even greater influence on industrial design through the registry of artists which he set up, the Central Institute of Art and Design, and through his twenty-year chairmanship of the Utility Furniture Committee.

It was during the Second World War that Charles, evacuated with Dunlop, away from his wife and family, prepared his definitive life of his grandfather which was published by Macmillan in 1949. When he retired in 1950, already aged seventy, one could have been forgiven for thinking his closing days would be spent in well-earned rest. How wrong can one be! During the twenty-seven years that were left to him Charles published seven books and innumerable essays. He appeared frequently on radio and television. He travelled to Greece, France, Spain and many times to Italy, and made two lecture tours in America.

But, of course, more important than all these activities was the foundation of the Tennyson Society in 1959, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Alfred's birth. The Tennyson Society led to the Tennyson Research Centre at Lincoln and here, of course, the generosity of Harold, Lord Tennyson, in making a permanent loan of his manuscripts and memorabilia as well as the whole of Dr George Tennyson's library, was absolutely crucial. To mark this outstanding contribution to Tennyson studies both Lord Tennyson and Sir Charles were presented with the Honorary Freedom of the City of Lincoln.

Owing to the special circumstances of their childhood, Harold and his brother Mark had come to regard their cousin Charles as a second father and Harold's generosity must be thought of, I feel sure, as every bit as much an expression of love and esteem for Charles as a deliberate promotion of the study and appreciation of their common ancestor. Harold knew that his gift would keep Charles endlessly and fascinat­ingly occupied during his nineties-and how right he was! The Tennyson Research Centre has become the most important Victorian literary quarry in England. It has inspired scholars; it is the inspiration of this book, whose rich variety of contribution and contributors (with Americans, as is proper, well to the fore) perfectly reflects the wide and expanding interest in Tennyson which Charles and the Centre have stimulated.

When working with Charles on choosing The Hundred Best Sonnets of the poet's elder brother Charles Tennyson Turner, I came to realise how like Charles was to the great-uncle after whom he had been named.

Foreword X111

Not so high church of course and, though absentminded, probably rather more astute and clearheaded. But they shared the same awestruck wonder at the beauty of the Universe and the same total disregard of self.

I remember another incident when Charles and I were working together on a BBC film about Tennyson. On location in Lincolnshire Charles, already well on in his eighties, was the life and soul of the camera-crew, sound recordists and 'grips'. We went to the Isle of Wight for the last shot of the film. Rain came on, the light went and a tractor started up in a nearby field. Then a miracle happened: the sun came out, all the birds started to sing, and aeroplanes and tractors fell silent as if by command. Charles' arms shot up in a typical gesture of humorous triumph and we were able to complete the film.

Charles' life was like that-a thing of beauty, long and carefully prepared for, that ended in a blaze of sunshine.

Abbreviations All quotations and titles from Tennyson's poems are taken from The Poems of Tennyson, edited by Christopher Ricks (London: Longmans, 1969). They will be cited in the text with reference to the first page of the poem in the Ricks edition, followed by line numbers where appropriate, for example R 1772, II 39-46.

All quotations from In Memoriam, however, will be separately cited in the text by reference to sections and stanzas, for example XXI, 4.

All quotations from or references to Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir (1897), by his son (Hallam Lord Tennyson), will be cited thus (either in the text or the endnotes): Mem., i, 241.

All quotations from or references to Alfred Tennyson, by Charles Tennyson (London: Macmillan, 1949; paperback edn 1968) will be cited thus (either in the text or the endnotes): Alfred Tennyson, pp. 61-7.

Other quotations or references will be separately enumerated in the endnotes on each chapter found hereafter.

xiv