Alfred Tennyson

The English poet Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809-1892), was regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest poet of Victorian England. A superb craftsman in verse, he wrote poetry that ranged from confident assertion to black despair.

Alfred Tennyson, who is known as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was born on Aug. 6, 1809, in the rectory of the village of Somersby, Lincolnshire. His parents were the Reverend George Clayton Tennyson and Elizabeth Fytche Tennyson; he was one of eight sons - there were four daughters as well. Dr. Tennyson, the poet's father, was the elder of the two sons of a prosperous businessman who favored his younger son and thus left Dr. Tennyson embittered and relatively impoverished. He was an educated man, a country clergyman, and Alfred read widely in his father's library. As Dr. Tennyson grew older, he grew more passionate and melancholy: he took to drink, he suffered from lapses of memory, and he once even tried to kill his eldest son. Misfortune and madness, not surprisingly, haunted the whole Tennyson family. The year he died, Dr. Tennyson said of his children, "They are all strangely brought up."

Early Poetry and Cambridge

Tennyson began writing poetry as a child. At 12 he was writing a 6, 000-line epic in imitation of Sir Walter Scott. Other youthful models were Lord Byron, whose death in 1824 he particularly mourned, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. When he was 14, Tennyson wrote a play called The Devil and the Lady, a dexterous imitation of Elizabethan comic verse.

In 1827 there appeared an unpretentious volume entitled Poems by Two Brothers; the book, despite its title, included poems by three of the Tennyson brothers, a little less than half of them probably by Alfred. That same year Alfred and Charles joined their brother Frederick at Trinity College, Cambridge University. In 1829 Tennyson joined the Apostles, an undergraduate discussion group, some of whose members would over the years continue to be his closest friends. Tennyson's undergraduate days were a time of intellectual and political turmoil in England. The institutions of church and state were being challenged, and the Apostles debated the issues which led to the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832. Among the Apostles, Tennyson's closest friend was Arthur Hallam, a wonderfully gifted young man whose early tragic death in 1833 would inspire In Memoriam.

In 1830 the Apostles took up the cause of a group of Spanish revolutionaries; Tennyson and Hallam went to the Pyrenees on an unsuccessful mission to aid the rebels. Also in 1830 Tennyson published his Poems, Chiefly Lyrical; of these poems perhaps the best-known and most characteristic is "Mariana, " where melancholy is suggested by the depiction of a landscape much like that of Tennyson's native Lincolnshire. Those who knew Tennyson as a university student were impressed by his commanding physical presence and by his youthful literary achievements. In 1831 his father died, and Tennyson left the university without taking a degree.

Discovery of a Vocation

In the volume entitled Poems, which Tennyson published in 1832, a recurring theme is the conflict between a selfish love of beauty and the obligation to serve society. The collection includes "The Lady of Shalott, " a narrative set in Arthurian England in which retired estheticism is destroyed by a dangerous "real" world, and "The Palace of Art, " an allegory which finally affirms the teaching obligations of the poet. Tennyson was depressed by some of the reviews of this book, and he was cast down by Hallam's death; for the next 10 years he published nothing. In 1836 he fell in love with Emily Sellwood, whom he met at the marriage of her sister to his brother George. In 1840 he invested what money he had inherited in a scheme for woodworking machinery; by 1843 he had lost his small patrimony.

Poems, Two Volumes (1842) presaged a change in Tennyson's fortunes. Here for the first time appeared one of the several poems which would eventually make up the Idylls of the King. Other poems in this collection are "Ulysses, " a dramatic monologue in which the aging king urges his companions to undertake a final heroic journey, and "The Two Voices, " an interior debate between the death wish and the will to live. Poems, Two Volumes was well received, and Sir Robert Peel, the prime minister, who was particularly impressed by "Ulysses, " awarded Tennyson a pension which guaranteed him £200 a year.

The Princess: A Medley (1847) is Tennyson's attempt to meet the charge that he had neglected the social responsibilities of the poet. This fable, in some 3, 000 lines of blank verse, is concerned with the cause of woman's rights. The poem is a generally lighthearted work - in 1870 William S. Gilbert produced a comic stage version - and Tennyson cautiously advocates a greater appreciation of the feminine intelligence.

In Memoriam

The great year of Tennyson's life is 1850: on June 1 he published In Memoriam, the long elegy inspired by the death of Hallam; less than 2 weeks later he married Emily Sellwood, with whom he had fallen in love 14 years before; and in November he was appointed poet laureate to succeed William Wordsworth. Tennyson's years of uncertainty and financial insecurity were over; he became the greatly esteemed poetic spokesman of his age.

In Memoriam is in form a series of 129 lyrics of varying length, all composed in the same stanzaic form. The lyrics may be read individually, rather like the entries in a journal, but the poem has an overall organization. It begins with the death of Hallam, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, and it ends with the marriage of another sister. Tennyson described it as a "kind of Divina Commedia, ending with happiness." The poem covers a period of roughly 3 years, punctuated by three celebrations of Christmas. The movement of the poem, though it is as irregular as a fever chart, is from grief through resignation to joy. The poem combines private feeling with a perplexity over the future of Christianity which was shared by many of Tennyson's contemporaries.

With his family Tennyson settled in Farringford on the Isle of Wight in a seclusion frequently interrupted by admiring tourists, many of them Americans. More welcome visitors were his friends Edward Lear, the comic poet; Charles Kingsley, the novelist; Benjamin Jowett, the master of Balliol College; and even Albert, the Prince Consort, who took away cowslips to make tea for Queen Victoria.

Although Tennyson was now settled and prosperous, his next book, Maud and Other Poems (1855), is notable for another study in melancholy. He called the title poem a "monodrama, " a form somewhere between a dramatic monologue and a verse play. We hear only one voice, that of a hysterical young man who is sometimes close to madness. Tennyson described the poem as a "little Hamlet." It almost certainly expresses some of the author's youthful anxieties as recollected in middle age. The hero furiously rejects the materialism and callousness of 19th-century society. He is preoccupied by thoughts of his father's suicide, and his reason is endangered when he accidentally kills the brother of Maud, the girl he loves. The hero then exiles himself to France, and, when he learns of Maud's death, he enlists to fight in the Crimea in the hope that the violence of war will somehow redeem him. The poem is now much admired for its metrical virtuosity and for its dramatization of neurotic states of mind. Of the other poems in the 1855 volume, the best-known are "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "The Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, " certainly the greatest of the poems written by Tennyson in his capacity as poet laureate.

The Idylls of the King

Between 1856 and 1876 Tennyson's principal concern was the composition of a series of linked narrative poems about King Arthur and the Round Table. He worked on this project for more than 20 years: one section was written as early as 1833; another part was not published until 1884. As definitively collected in 1889, The Idylls of the King consists of a dedication to the Prince Consort, 12 blank-verse narratives (the idylls) which deal with Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Guenevere, and other figures in the court, and an epilogue addressed to the Queen. The individual narratives are linked by a common theme: the destructive effect of sexual passion on an honorable society. The Round Table is brought down in ruins by the illicit love of Lancelot and Guenevere. Some of Tennyson's contemporaries regretted that he had lavished so much attention on the legendary past; it is clear, however, that this myth of a dying society expressed some of his fears for 19th-century England.

Plays and Last Years

Tennyson had a long and immensely productive literary career, and a chronology shows that he did ambitious work until late in his life. In his 60s he wrote a series of historical verse plays - Queen Mary (1875), Harold (1876), and Becket (1879) - on the "making of England." The plays were intended to revive a sense of national grandeur and to remind the English of their liberation from Roman Catholicism.

Tennyson's last years were crowned with many honors. The widowed Queen Victoria ranked In Memoriam next to the Bible as a solace in her grief. In 1883 Tennyson was awarded a peerage. He died on Oct. 6, 1892, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey after a great funeral. The choir sang a musical setting for "Crossing the Bar, " the poem, written a few years earlier, which is placed at the end of all collections of his work.

Further Reading

The best edition of Tennyson's work is Christopher B. Ricks, The Poems of Tennyson (1969). Hallam Tennyson, Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A Memoir (2 vols., 1897), is the official biography. Important new materials are in Sir Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (1949). The most recent biography, Joanna Richardson, The Pre-eminent Victorian: A Study of Tennyson (1964), is readable but shallow. Particularly valuable critical studies are J. H. Buckley, Tennyson: The Growth of a Poet (1960), and Valerie Pitt, Tennyson Laureate (1962). Important specialized studies include Edgar Finley Shannon, Tennyson and the Reviewers (1952); John Killham, Tennyson and the Princess: Reflections of an Age (1958); and R. W. Rader, Tennyson's Maude: The Biographical Genesis (1963). The reactions of Tennyson's first readers may be studied in John D. Jump, ed., Tennyson: The Critical Heritage (1967).

For more information on Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (of Aldworth and Freshwater), visit Britannica.com.

Tennyson, Alfred, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809-92). Tennyson was the first poet to be made a peer of the realm, since Macaulay, author of Lays of Ancient Rome, had been an active politician. He was the son of a Lincolnshire rector and attended Louth Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge. His first volume of poetry in 1830 sold badly, though it contained ‘Mariana’: the next volume in 1832 included ‘The Lady of Shalott’. His collected volume in 1842 established him as a major poet. He succeeded Wordsworth as poet laureate in 1850, and was given his barony during Gladstone's ministry in 1884.

Tennyson, Alfred Lord (1809–92), English poet, central figure in the Arthurian revival, who drew from classical myth and Celtic legend to write allegorical stories about the ideals and failings of his society. He was particularly influenced by Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485), an important source for his Arthurian idylls. In his first fully Arthurian poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ (1833), the lady, whose fairy nature is only referred to in passing, is drawn out of her island‐world by the sight of Lancelot on his way to Camelot, and dies. In 1842, Tennyson published three Arthurian poems, ‘Morte d'Arthur’, ‘Sir Galahad’, and ‘Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere’, which would later be incorporated into Idylls of the King (1859). While Tennyson's poems can be read as socio‐political or religious allegories, they are also reflections on art and the artist: in ‘Merlin and the Gleam’ (1889), Merlin the magician is the figure of the poet (‘I am Merlin’).

— Anne Duggan

Early Life and Works

Tennyson was the son of an intelligent but unstable clergyman in Lincolnshire. His early literary attempts included a play, The Devil and the Lady, composed at 14, and poems written with his brothers Frederick and Charles but entitled Poems by Two Brothers (1827). In his three years at Cambridge, Tennyson wrote a prizewinning poem, Timbuctoo (1829), and Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) and began his close friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the historian Henry Hallam.

Upon the death of his father in 1831, Tennyson became responsible for the family and its precarious finances. His volume Poems (1832) included some of his most famous pieces, such as “The Lotus-Eaters,” “A Dream of Fair Women,” and “The Lady of Shalott.” In 1833 he was overwhelmed by the sudden death of Hallam.

Mature Works and Later Life

Tennyson's next published work, Poems (1842), expressed his philosophic doubts in a materialistic, increasingly scientific age and his longing for a sustaining faith. The new poems included “Locksley Hall,” “Ulysses,” “Morte d'Arthur,” and “Break, Break, Break.” With this book he was acclaimed a great poet, and in addition, he was granted an annual government pension of £200 in 1845.

The Princess (1847) was followed in 1850 by the masterful In Memoriam, an elegy sequence that records Tennyson's years of doubt and despair after Hallam's death and culminates in an affirmation of immortality. The same year saw his appointment as poet laureate and his marriage to Emily Sellwood, whom he had courted since 1836 but had been unable to marry because of his precarious financial position. Occasional poems, such as the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” (1852) and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1855), were part of his duties as laureate.

The first group of Idylls of the King appeared in 1859; it was expanded in 1869 and 1872, and in 1885 Tennyson added the final poem. He arranged the 12 poems chronologically in 1888 to constitute a somber ethical epic of the glory and the downfall of King Arthur. In the Arthurian legend, Tennyson projected his vision of the hollowness of his own civilization. Included among his other works are Maud (1855), a “monodrama”; Enoch Arden (1864); several poetic dramas, most notably Becket (1879; produced 1893); Ballads and Other Poems (1880); and Demeter and Other Poems (1889), which contained “Crossing the Bar.”

Tennyson passed his last years in comfort. In 1883 he was created a peer and occupied a seat in the House of Lords. Throughout much of his life he was a popular as well as critical success and was venerated by the general public. Unappreciated early in the 20th cent., Tennyson has since been recognized as a great poet, notable for his mastery of technique, his superb use of sensuous language, and his profundity of thought.

Bibliography

See biographies by his son H. Tennyson (4 vol., 1897), his grandson C. Tennyson (1949, repr. 1968), H. L. Fausset (1923, repr. 1968), and P. Levi (1993); studies by J. H. Buckley (1960), C. Ricks (1972), and D. J. Palmer, ed. (1973).

Quotes:

"God's finger touched him and he slept."

"Authority forgets a dying king."

"There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds."

"Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things."

"Her eyes are homes of silent prayers."

"Faith lives in honest doubt."

See more famous quotes by Lord Alfred Tennyson

The Lord Tennyson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Born:	6 August 1809(1809--) Somersby, Lincolnshire, England
Died:	6 October 1892 (aged 83) Westminster Abbey
Occupation:	poet

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and is one of the most popular English poets.

Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, although In Memoriam was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and classmate at Trinity College, Cambridge who was engaged to Tennyson's sister but died from a cerebral hæmorrhage. One of Tennyson's most famous works is Idylls of the King (1885), a series of narrative poems based entirely on King Arthur and the Arthurian tales, as thematically suggested by Sir Thomas Malory's earlier tales on the legendary king. The work was dedicated to Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. During his career, Lord Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success even in his lifetime.

Tennyson wrote a number of phrases that have become commonplaces of the English language, including: "nature, red in tooth and claw", "better to have loved and lost", "Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die", and "My strength is as the strength of ten,/Because my heart is pure".

He is the second most frequently quoted writer in the English language, after Shakespeare. ^[1]

Early life

Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, a rector's son and fourth of 12 children. He was one of the descendants of King Edward III of England.^[2] Reportedly, "the pedigree of his grandfather, George Tennyson, is traced back to the middle-class line of the Tennysons, and through Elizabeth Clayton ten generations back to Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and farther back to Edward III."^[3]

His father, Rev. George Clayton Tennyson (1778-1831), was a rector for Somersby (1807-1831), also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby (1815). The reverend was the elder of two sons, but was disinherited at an early age by his own father, the landowner George Tennyson (1750-1835) (who belonged to the Lincolnshire gentry as the onwer of Bayons Manor and Usselby Hall)^[3], in favour of his younger brother Charles, who later took the name Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a large family and "was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music, and poetry."^[3] Rev. Tennyson was "comfortably well off for a country clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe and Skagness, on the eastern coast of England.^[3] Alternatively, some allege that Rev. Tennyson was perpetually short of money and that he drank heavily and became mentally unstable.^{[citation needed]} His mother, Elizabeth Fytche (1781-1865) was the daughter of Stephen Fytche (1734-1799), vicar of Louth (1764) and rector of Withcall (1780), a small village between Horncastle and Louth.^[3] Tennyson's father "carefully attended to the education and training of his children."^[3]

Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens, and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred's future wife; the other poet brother was Frederick Tennyson.

Education and first publication

Tennyson was first a student of Louth Grammar School for four years (1816-1820)^[3] and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1828, where he joined the secret society called the Cambridge Apostles. At Cambridge Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his best friend.

His first publication was a collection of "his boyish rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles" entitled Poems by Two Brothers published in 1827.^[3]

In 1829 he was awarded the Chancellor's gold medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, on "Timbuctoo".^{[4] [5]} Reportedly, "it was thought to be no slight honor for a young man of twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal."^[3]

In 1830 he published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical (1830+). "Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their place among Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by some critics as oversentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Return to Lincolnshire and second publication

In the spring of 1831, Tennyson's father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree. He returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years, and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and her large brood. His friend Arthur Hallam came to stay with him during the summer and became engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Tennyson.

In 1833, Tennyson published his second book of poetry, which included his well-known poem, The Lady of Shalott, a story of a princess who cannot look at the world except through a reflection in a mirror. As Sir Lancelot rides by the tower where she must stay, she looks at him, and the curse comes to term; she dies after she places herself in a small boat and floats down the river to Camelot, her name written on the boat's stern. The volume met heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson that he did not publish again for 10 more years, although he continued to write.

In 1833, that same year, Hallam suffered a cerebral hæmorrhage while on holiday in Vienna and died. It devastated Alfred, but inspired him to produce a body of poetry that has come to be seen as among the world's finest and best poems. However, roughly a decade of poetic silence followed Hallam's death.

Tennyson and his family were allowed to stay in the rectory for some time, but later moved to Essex. An unwise investment in an ecclesiastical wood-carving enterprise soon led to the loss of much of the family fortune.

Third publication and recognition

In 1842, while living modestly in London, Tennyson published two volumes of Poems, the first of which included works already published and the second of which was made up almost entirely of new poems. They met with immediate success. The Princess: A Medley, a satire of women's education, which came out in 1847, was also popular. W. S. Gilbert later adapted and parodied the piece twice: in The Princess and in Princess Ida. Poems from this collection, such as Locksley Hall, "Tithonus", and "Ulysses" have met enduring fame.

The Golden Year

It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the pinnacle of his career, being appointed Poet Laureate in succession to William Wordsworth and in the same year producing his masterpiece, In Memoriam A.H.H., dedicated to Hallam. In the same year (June 13), Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had known since childhood, in the village of Shiplake. They had two sons, Hallam (b. Aug. 11, 1852) — named after his friend — and Lionel (b. March 16, 1854).

Farringford - Lord Tennyson's residence on the Isle of Wight

The Poet Laureate

He held the position of Poet Laureate from 1850 until his death, turning out appropriate but often mediocre verse, such as a poem of greeting to Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the future King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of his best known works, "The Charge of the Light Brigade," a dramatic tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised charge on 25 October, 1854, during the Crimean War. Other works written as Laureate include Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition.

Statue of Lord Tennyson in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Queen Victoria was an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, and in 1884 created him Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. Tennyson initially declined a baronetcy in 1865 and 1868 (when tendered by Disraeli), finally accepting a peerage in 1883 at Gladstone's earnest soliciation. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 11 March 1884.^[3]

Tennyson's life at Freshwater features in Virginia Woolf's play of the same name, in which Tennyson mingles with his friend Julia Margaret Cameron and G.F.Watts. He was the first English writer raised to the Peerage. A passionate man with some peculiarities of nature, he was never particularly comfortable as a peer, and it is widely held that he took the peerage in order to secure a future for his son Hallam. Recordings exist of Lord Tennyson declaiming his own poetry, which were made by Thomas Edison, but they are of relatively poor quality.

Towards the end of his life Tennyson revealed that his "religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism":^[6]

Famously, he wrote in In Memoriam: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." In Maud, 1855, he wrote: "The churches have killed their Christ." In "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of heathen hate." In his play, Becket, he wrote: "We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites and private hates with our defence of Heaven." Tennyson recorded in his Diary (p. 127): "I believe in Pantheism of a sort." His son's biography confirms that Tennyson was not Christian, noting that Tennyson praised Giordano Bruno and Spinoza on his deathbed, saying of Bruno: "His view of God is in some ways mine." D. 1892.^[7]

Tennyson continued writing into his eighties, and died on 6 October, 1892, aged 83. He was buried at Westminster Abbey. He was succeeded as 2nd Baron Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an authorised biography of his father in 1897, and was later the second Governor-General of Australia.

The art of Tennyson's poetry

Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. The influence of John Keats and other Romantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing. He also handled rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat of Break, Break, Break emphasizes the sadness and relentlessness of the subject matter. Tennyson's use of the musical qualities of words to emphasize his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. The language of "I come from haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like the brook in the poem and the last two lines of "Come down O maid from yonder mountain height" illustrate his telling combination of onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance:

The moan of doves in immemorial elms

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively. Few poets have used such a variety of styles with such an exact understanding of metre. He reflects the Victorian period of his maturity in his feeling for order and his tendency towards moralizing and self-indulgent melancholy. He also reflects a concern common among Victorian writers in being troubled by the apparent conflict between religious faith and scientific progress. Like many writers who write a great deal over a long time, he can be pompous or banal, and his personality rings throughout all his works—work that reflects a grand and special variability in its quality. Tennyson possessed a poet's strongest artistic forces; he put great length into many works, most famous of which are Maud and Idylls of the King, the latter among literature's greatest addressings of the legend of King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table.

Partial list of works

• From Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830):
  • The Dying Swan
  • The Kraken
  • Mariana
• Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)
• From Poems (1833):
  • The Lotos-Eaters
  • The Lady of Shalott (1832, 1842)
• From Poems (1842):
  • Locksley Hall
  • Tithonus
  • The Two Voices (1834)
  • "Ulysses" (1833)
• The Princess (1847)
  • "Tears, Idle Tears"
• In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849)
• Ring Out, Wild Bells (1850)
• The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) - an early recording exists of Tennyson reading this
• Maud (1855/1856)
• Enoch Arden (1862/1864)
• Flower in the crannied wall (1869)
• The Window - Song cycle with Arthur Sullivan. (1871)
• Harold (1876) - began a revival of interest in King Harold
• Idylls of the King (composed 1833-1874)
• Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)
• Crossing the Bar (1889)
• The Foresters - a play with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan (1891)

References

1. ^ The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th ed. OUP 1999
2. ^ Genealogists Discover Royal Roots for All
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Eugene Parsons (Introduction). New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1900.
4. ^ Enjoying "Timbuctoo" by Alfred Tennyson
5. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire/asop/people/alfred_tennyson.shtml
6. ^ Cambridge Book and Print Gallery
7. ^ Freethought of the Day, August 6, 2006, Alfred Tennyson

External links

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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson

• Tennyson's Grave, Westminster Abbey
• Biography & Works (public domain)
• Online copy of 'Locksley Hall'
• Selected Poems of A.Tennyson
• The Twickenham Museum - Alfred Lord Tennyson in Twickenham
• Tennyson in Twickenham
• Works by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson at Project Gutenberg
• Complete Biography & Works
• Selected Works of Tennyson at Inspired Poetry
• Illustrations of Tennyson's poetry by the Dutch artist Anja Cazemier

Preceded by William Wordsworth	British Poet Laureate 1850–1892	Succeeded by Alfred Austin
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New creation	Baron Tennyson	Succeeded by Hallam Tennyson

Persondata
NAME	Tennyson, Alfred, 1st bardo yo Tennyson
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Alfred Lord Tennyson
SHORT DESCRIPTION	English poet, Poet Laureate of the UK
DATE OF BIRTH	6 August 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH	Somersby Rectory, Lincolnshire, England
DATE OF DEATH	6 October 1892
PLACE OF DEATH	Aldworth, Blackdown, Sussex, England

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