Tennyson

by Christopher Ricks

A biographical and critical study of Tennyson aiming to show what went into the making of the man, exploring the power, subtlety and variety of his poems, along with the artistic principles and preoccupations which shaped his life's work.

Genres: Poetry, Literary Criticism

390 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 1989

About the author

Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks, FBA, is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (U.S.) and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (England) from 2004 to 2009. He is the immediate past-president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. He is known as a champion of Victorian poetry; an enthusiast of Bob Dylan, whose lyrics he has analysed at book-length; a trenchant reviewer of writers he considers pretentious (Marshall McLuhan, Christopher Norris, Geoffrey Hartman, Stanley Fish); and a warm reviewer of those he thinks humane or humorous (F. R. Leavis, W. K. Wimsatt, Christina Stead). Hugh Kenner has praised his 'intent eloquence', and Geoffrey Hill his 'unrivalled critical intelligence'. W. H. Auden described Ricks as 'exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding'.

Reviews

[André · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had only read short poems by Tennyson, such as "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "The Kraken," which are phenomenal in my opinion. After reading this book, containing several of Tennyson's poems, I have to conclude that those are his best poems: the deep, dark poems, the mostly lyrical poems. His narrative poems however were disappointing, because they seem to lose all lyricism. Every lengthy narrative poem left me thinking: "this would have been better as a simple prose narrative." Taking into account that most poems in this book are precisely the lengthy narrative ones, which in my opinion are Tennyson's worst, I have to recommend that people read his shorter, lyrical ones.

[Jacek]

April 25th, 2021 : A brief (300 pages, minus appendices) but satisfying overview of the life of the poet, and a terrific introduction to what makes his verse great. I read out of sequence at first; the chapter on Idylls of the King, in which Ricks quotes both the bits he adores and the bits he deplores, sometimes in the same short quote, hooked me. So I went back to the beginning. The early life (through the passing of Arthur Hallam, let's say) is fascinating, as the early poetry rarely is. And it seems to be circa In Memoriam (itself many years in the making) that the maker discovers himself. And I can't help but love the biographer—who else would quote The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest in a book about the Victorian poet laureate...?

[Janice Leff · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite poems, Ulysses . . .
"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now the strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

[Roxana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful reading of a well-curated selection of Tennyson's work.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lost a star for me because the whole recording is only a little over an hour long. Still, a good representative sampling, very ably read. Available as an audio download from nypl.org