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Tennyson: Poems

by Alfred Tennyson, Peter Washington (Editor)

4.29 of 5 stars 4.29 · rating details · 143 ratings · 10 reviews

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a more complex writer than his status as Queen Victoria’s favorite poet might suggest. Though capable of rendering rapture and delight in the most exquisite verse, in another mode Tennyson is brother in spirit to Poe and Baudelaire, the author of dark, passionate reveries. And though he treasured poetic tradition, his work nevertheless engaged dir...more

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published February 17th 2004 by Everyman's Library

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Jun 03, 2010 Rowland Bismark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Tennyson first began to achieve critical success with the publication of his Poems in 1842, a work that include “Ulysses,” “Tithonus,” and other famous short lyrics about mythical and philosophical subjects. At the time of publication, England had seen the death of Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats, and indeed all of the great Romantic poets except Wordsworth; Tennyson thus filled a lacuna in the English literary scene. In 1845, he began receiving a small government pension for his poetry. In 185...more Tennyson first began to achieve critical success with the publication of his Poems in 1842, a work that include “Ulysses,” “Tithonus,” and other famous short lyrics about mythical and philosophical subjects. At the time of publication, England had seen the death of Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats, and indeed all of the great Romantic poets except Wordsworth; Tennyson thus filled a lacuna in the English literary scene. In 1845, he began receiving a small government pension for his poetry. In 1850, Wordsworth, who had been Britain’s Poet Laureate, died at the age of 80; upon the publication of “In Memoriam,” Tennyson was named to succeed him in this honor. With this title he became the most popular poet in Victorian England and could finally afford to marry Emily Sellwood, whom he had loved since 1836. The marriage began sadly—the couple’s first son was stillborn in 1851—but the couple soon found happiness: in 1853 they were able to move to a secluded country house on the Isle of Wight, where they raised two sons named Hallam and Lionel.

Tennyson continued to write and to gain popularity. His later poetry primarily followed a narrative rather than lyrical style; as the novel began to emerge as the most popular literary form, poets began searching for new ways of telling stories in verse. For example, in Tennyson’s poem “Maud,” a speaker tells his story in a sequence of short lyrics in varying meters; Tennyson described the work as an experimental “monodrama.” Not only were his later verses concerned with dramatic fiction, they also examined current national political drama. As Poet Laureate, Tennyson represented the literary voice of the nation and, as such, he made occasional pronouncements on political affairs. For example, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) described a disastrous battle in the Crimean War and praised the heroism of the British soldiers there. In 1859, Tennyson published the first four Idylls of the King, a group of twelve blank-verse narrative poems tracing the story of the legendary King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This collection, dedicated to Prince Albert, enjoyed much popularity among the royal family, who saw Arthur’s lengthy reign as a representation of Queen Victoria’s 64-year rule (1837-1901).

Tennyson’s poetic output covers a breadth difficult to comprehend in a single system of thematics: his various works treat issues of political and historical concern, as well as scientific matters, classical mythology, and deeply personal thoughts and feelings. Tennyson is both a poet of penetrating introspection and a poet of the people; he plumbs the depths of his own consciousness while also giving voice to the national consciousness of Victorian society.

As a child, Tennyson was influenced profoundly by the poetry of Byron and Scott, and his earliest poems reflect the lyric intensity and meditative expressiveness of his Romantic forebears. These early poems demonstrate his ability to link external scenery to interior states of mind. However, unlike the Romantics, whose nature poems present a scene that raises an emotional or psychological problem, Tennyson uses nature as a psychological category. In “Mariana,” for example, he uses Keatsian descriptions of the natural world to describe a woman’s state of mind; he conveys via his natural setting the consciousness of a woman waiting vainly for her lover, and her increasing hopelessness.

Not only is Tennyson a poet of the natural and psychological landscape, he also attends frequently to the past, and historical events. “The Lady of Shalott” and the poems within Idylls of the King take place in medieval England and capture a world of knights in shining armor and their damsels in distress. In addition to treating the history of his nation, Tennyson also explores the mythological past, as articulated in classical works of Homer, Virgil, and Dante. His “Ulysses” and “The Lotos-Eaters”draw upon actual incidents in Homer’s Odyssey . Likewise, his ode “To Virgil” abounds with allusions to incidents in the great poet’s Aeneid , especially the fall of Troy. Tennyson thus looked both to historical and mythological pasts as repositories for his poetry.

Tennyson’s personal past, too, figures prominently in his work. The sudden death of his closest friend Arthur Henry Hallam when Tennyson was just 24 dealt a great emotional blow to the young poet, who spent the next ten years writing over a hundred poems dedicated to his departed friend, later collected and published as “In Memoriam” in 1850. This lengthy work describes Tennyson’s memories of the time he spent with Hallam, including their Cambridge days, when Hallam would read poetry aloud to his friends: thus Tennyson writes, “O bliss, when all in circle drawn / About him, heart and ear were fed / To hear him, as he lay and read / The Tuscan poets on the lawn!” Tennyson grapples with the tremendous grief he feels after the loss of such a dear friend, concluding famously that “ ’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.”

“In Memoriam” also reflects Tennyson’s struggle with the Victorians’ growing awareness of another sort of past: the vast expanse of geological time and evolutionary history. The new discoveries in biology, astronomy, and geology implied a view of humanity that much distressed many Victorians, including Tennyson. In Maud, for example, he describes the stars as “cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand/ His nothingness into man”; unlike the Romantics, he possessed a painful awareness of the brutality and indifference of “Nature red in tooth and claw.” Although Tennyson associated evolution with progress, he also worried that the notion seemed to contradict the Biblical story of creation and long-held assumptions about man’s place in the world. Nonetheless, in “In Memoriam,” he insists that we must keep our faith despite the latest discoveries of science: he writes, “Strong Son of God, immortal Love / Whom we, that have not seen they face, / By faith, and faith alone, embrace / Believing where we cannot prove.” At the end of the poem, he concludes that God’s eternal plan includes purposive biological development; thus he reassures his Victorian readers that the new science does not mean the end of the old faith.

Tennyson also spoke to his Victorian contemporaries about issues of urgent social and political concern. In “The Princess” he addresses the relations between the sexes and argues for women’s rights in higher education. In “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” he speaks out in favor of a controversial diplomatic maneuver, the disastrous charge on the Russian army by British troops in the Crimean War. Thus, for all his love of the past, Tennyson also maintained a lively interest in the developments of his day, remaining deeply committed to reforming the society in which he lived and to which he gave voice.
Tennyson lived during a period of great scientific advancement, and he used his poetry to work out the conflict between religious faith and scientific discoveries. Notable scientific findings and theories of the Victorian period include stratigraphy, the geological study of rock layers used to date the earth, in 1811; the first sighting of an asteroid in 1801 and galaxies in the1840s; and Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection in 1859. In the second half of the century, scientists, such as Fülöp Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, and Louis Pasteur, began the experiments and work that would eventually lead to germ theory and our modern understanding of microorganisms and diseases. These discoveries challenged traditional religious understandings of nature and natural history.

For most of his career, Tennyson was deeply interested in and troubled by these discoveries. His poem “Locksley Hall” (1842) expresses his ambivalence about technology and scientific progress. There the speaker feels tempted to abandon modern civilization and return to a savage life in the jungle. In the end, he chooses to live a civilized, modern life and enthusiastically endorses technology. In Memoriam connects the despair Tennyson felt over the loss of his friend Arthur Hallam and the despair he felt when contemplating a godless world. In the end, the poem affirms both religious faith and faith in human progress. Nevertheless, Tennyson continued to struggle with the reconciliation of science and religion, as illustrated by some of his later work. For example, “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After” (1886) takes as its protagonist the speaker from the original “Locksley Hall,” but now he is an old man, who looks back on his youthful optimism and faith in progress with scorn and skepticism.

Tennyson took a great interest in the scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century, and his poetry manifests this interest in its reliance on scientific language. “The Kraken” (1830), which describes an ancient, slumbering sea beast, mentions a “cell” (8) and “polypi” (9). Section 21 of In Memoriamalludes to the 1846 discovery of Neptune. There, a traveler tells the speaker not to grieve for his friend. Rather than grieve, the traveler says, the speaker should rejoice in the marvelous possibilities of science. Section 120, in contrast, features the speaker wondering what good science might do in a world full of religious doubt and despair. Other poems praise technological discoveries and inventions, including the steamships and railways discussed in “Locksley Hall,” or mention specific plants and flowers, as does “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832, 1842). Taking metaphors and poetic diction from science allowed Tennyson to connect to his age and to modernize his sometimes antiquarian language and archaic verse forms.(less)

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Mar 16, 2012 Bonny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

Tennyson lives large in my mind partly because of my ten year old self having to memorize and recite The Charge of the Light Brgade in front of my classmates in school. Drama, more drama and death is what I recall, and that pretty much sums up his poetry for me now. Some of his subject matter (Homer, Camelot, Milton, Demeter) I find difficult to connect with, yet certainly appreciate his skill and effort in crafting each poem. My favorites of Tennyson are those dealing with the most basic univer...more

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May 14, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: romance-and-poetry

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Jan 03, 2011 Venus added it

Shelves: poem

Birds' love and birds' song
Flying here and there,
Birds' songand birds' love
And you with gold for hair!
Birds' songand birds' love
Passing with the weather,
Men's song and men's love,
To love once and forever.

Men's love and birds' love,
And women's love and men's!
And you my wren with a crown of gold,
You my queen of the wrens!
You the queen of the wrens --
We'll be birds of a feather,
I'll be King of the Queen of the wrens,
And all in a nest together.

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Jun 22, 2012 Michaela rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-best-books

This book was an amazing example of Tennyson's best poetry, worth reading until known by heart, especially the Lady of Shallot.

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Feb 11, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: art, classic, e-book, library_book, poetry, romance, tragedy

A recent trip to the UK reintroduced me to a half dozen different paintings interpreting portions of 'The Lady of Shalott'. Great to read the original poem again, and explore so much more of Tennyson's amazing work.

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Feb 21, 2013 Gloriavirtutisumbra rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

My copy of Tennyson went missing, and and I got this one as a replacement. This is a good short collection, and a nice handy size for carting around. But it's missing so many personal favorite poems of mine, that I just can't be satisfied with it, i will have to go in search of another edition that actually has more of his longer poems like 'Locksley Hall' in it.

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Jan 11, 2010 Toni Whitney rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have an 1800's illustrated volume/

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Dec 12, 2007 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry, essential-classics

I read a fair amount of Tennyson in an English Lit class and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

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Apr 05, 2007 Jeanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

always reading and rereading---

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May 22, 2013 Niko marked it as to-read

May 20, 2013 Greg West rated it 5 of 5 stars

May 20, 2013 Eli marked it as to-read

May 13, 2013 Courtnie is currently reading it

May 12, 2013 Matt marked it as to-read

May 07, 2013 Chelsea Reimer marked it as to-read

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May 04, 2013 Ahmed Elafifi marked it as to-read

May 04, 2013 Remmy marked it as poetry

May 03, 2013 Fauzia Lakh marked it as to-read

Apr 28, 2013 Anne Pride-Wilt marked it as acquire-to-read

Shelves: acquire

Apr 10, 2013 Casey Kessenich rated it 4 of 5 stars

Apr 04, 2013 Kevin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: everymans_library

Apr 02, 2013 Alison marked it as to-read

Mar 29, 2013 Christa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mar 28, 2013 Lt marked it as to-read

Mar 26, 2013 K8 marked it as to-read-classics

Recommended to K8 by: TID

Shelves: poetry

Mar 15, 2013 Basil rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mar 13, 2013 Karl added it

Shelves: 2013

Mar 09, 2013 Pooja Wadhwa marked it as to-read

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About Alfred Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (most commonly known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular English-language poets. He is particularly known for his polished style and exact understanding of metre.

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