as original as they are beautiful." | 77-105; 106-34; (Luce). If I were loved, p. 30. First printed in 1832; suppressed in later editions, and restored (in 1871–73 ?). The Bridesmaid, p. 30. First printed in Library edition, 187173. The bridesmaid was Emily Sellwood, afterward Lady Tennyson, and the bride was her younger sister, Louisa, married to the poet's older brother Charles (May 24, 1836). The Lady of Shalott, p. 31. First printed in 1832. Said to be named after an Italian romance, Donna di Scalotta. The poem is an earlier version of the story of Lancelot and Elaine. The Two Voices, p. 33. First printed in 1842, though written late in 1833 when Tennyson was broken in spirit by the death of Arthur Hallam. Tyrrell says of Lucretius: "I know of no other poem except Tennyson's Two Voices in which the same wealth of poesy is enlisted to explain and beautify abstruse argument. Nearly every verse of the Two Voices illustrates this exquisite marriage of poetry and logic." Devey, in his Estimate of Modern English Poets, pp. 290-91, thus comments on the poem: "In the Two Voices' the poet deals with the existence of evil and the enigma of life and death purely upon philosophic grounds, but his verses are little more than an English rendering of Goethe's, except that the casual conjectures which the German poet thought worthy of being treated only in a spirit of sportive banter, the English poet has invested with an air of sepulchral solemnity." The reference is likely to Faust, Prologue in Heaven and Act I. 135-54. Cf. stanzas 127-28 with To p. 28. The same thought is developed by Wordsworth in Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. The Miller's Daughter, p. 39. First printed in 1832. This exquisite lyric was rewritten and greatly im proved before its republication in 1842, It contains many borrowings from Homer, Ronsard, and other poets. The incident is related that the Queen chanced to pick up one of Tennyson's earlier books, and was charmed with the simple story of The Miller's Daugh ter; she procured a copy of the volume for the Princess Alice, and thus brought Tennyson's poetry into favor with the British aristocracy in the mid-century. First printed in 1832. Swinburne has The divisions of the argument are as a rather remarkable comment on this follows: stanzas 1-15; 16-33; 34-76; | poem: "In those six short stanzas, 694 The May Queen, p. 54. without effort, without pretence, with- | in 1842. One of Tennyson's representaout parade-in other words, without tive poems, showing him to be in touch any of the component qualities of with the growing democratic spirit in Byron's serious poetry-there is sim- England. ple and sufficient expression for the combined and contending passions of womanly pride and rage, physical attraction and spiritual abhorrence, all the outer and inner bitterness and sweetness of hatred and desire, resolution and fruition and revenge." (Miscellanies, p. 94.) The Palace of Art, p. 48. First printed in 1832. The poem was Lady Clara Vere de Vere, p. 53. The two first divisions of The May Queen were first published in 1832; the Conclusion in 1842, though composed in 1833. The Lotos-Eaters, p. 58. First published in 1832, and later sub. jected to thorough revision. So many lines in VIII. were changed, that it was practically a new stanza in the text of 1842. The suggestion of the poem was doubtless derived from the Odyssey, IX., 82-102, and other passages. Col lins says Tennyson “has laid other poets under contribution for his enchanting poem, notably Bion, Moschus, Spenser (description of the Idle Lake, Faerie Queene, bk. ii. canto vi.), and Thomson (Castle of Indolence)." A Dream of Fair Women, p. 61. First printed in 1832, but greatly changed before and after its appearance in 1842. Of some "balloon stanzas " beginning the poem of 1832 Fitzgerald said, "They make a perfect poem by themselves without affecting the 'dream.' The women seen by the poet in vision are Helen of Troy, Iphigenia, Cleopatra, Jephtha's daughter, Rosamund, Margaret Roper, and Queen Eleanor. Cf. Goethe's treatment of the story of Iphigenia (Iphigenia in Tauris, V., i., tr. by Swanwick): "I trembling kneeled before the altar First published in 1842 as an introduc First printed in A Selection from the tion to the blank-verse fragment, Morte Works of Alfred Tennyson, 1865. You ask me, why, p. 69. Written in 1833; first published in 1842. This poem and the two companion pieces following were occasioned by the discussion of the Reform Bill of 1832, which added half a million electors (from the middle classes). d'Arthur. The poem is interesting for its incidental references to the tenden cies of the age, social and religious. Morte d'Arthur, p. 74. The first draft of this poem seems to have been written as early as 1833, though not published until 1842. Afterward incorporated in the concluding poem of Idylls of the King (1869). Of old sat Freedom on the heights, Tennyson's epic, "his King Arthur, p. 69. Written in 1833; first published in 1842. The poem briefly traces the development of constitutional liberty in England. Of this and the preceding poem Wordsworth remarked once in conversation: "I must acknowledge that these two poems are very solid and noble in thought. Their diction also seems singularly stately." some twelve books," was finished in 1885 by the publication of Balin and Balan, p. 619. The Gardener's Daughter, p. 79. Mentioned in letters of 1833, but first printed in 1842. Of the English idyls, "pictures of English home and country life," published in 1842, it has been remarked that the fundamental note is the sanctity of the family relation, the fidel ity of lover and sweetheart and of husWritten in 1833; first published in band and wife. On the purity of the Love thou thy land, p. 70. home depends not only the happiness | shrilled (p. 93), is often found in Tennybut the permanence of the nation. It son's later writings. Written as early as 1835; first printed in 1842. The pathetic incident of this idyl is based on a tale in Miss Mitford's Village. Said Tennyson of its style: "Dora,' being the tale of a nobly simple country girl, had to be told in the simplest possible poetical language, and therefore was one of the poems which gave most trouble." Wordsworth, who highly appreciated its merit, once remarked to him: "Mr. Tennyson, I have been endeavoring all my life to write a pastoral like your 'Dora' and have not succeeded." Aubrey de Vere called Dora " an English Ruth." Audley Court, p. 87. First printed in 1842. This poem, "partially suggested by Abbey Park at Torquay," is valuable for its vigorous pictures of middle-class life in England. The landscape and the men, as Aubrey de Vere says, "mutually reflect each other." Walking to the Mail, p. 89. First published in 1842. The poem is rather remarkable for its allusions to the stirring events of the thirties and forties. Of the "two parties" Tennyson belonged to "those that have," yet he was in sympathy with movements for the physical and intellectual improvement of the people. See Memoir, I., p. 185. Edwin Morris, p. 91. Written in Wales in 1839; first printed in Poems, 7th ed, 1851. A mannerism, First published in 1842. Of Ulysses, which was composed not long after Ar thur Henry Hallam's death, in 1833, Tennyson said it "was written under the sense of loss, and that all had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end." This striking poem not only shows Tennyson in his most heroic mood, it reflects the unrest and aspi ration of the period. The poet was especially indebted to Horace (I., 7) and to Dante (Inferno, 26) for the leading motive. Tithonus, p. 106. First printed in the Cornhill Maga zine, February, 1860. It was writter many years before, about the time that Ulysses was composed, and is as beautiful as that masterpiece. Waugh says: "Tithonus,' which in the original opened a little differently " Langsam rinnen aus einer die Stunder entfernter Geliebten : Gegenwärtigen fliesst eilig die zweite herab." Couplet 38, from Dante's Inferno, V., Ay me! Ay me! the woods decay and 121, is also similar to Alfred de Musset's fall,' is not only touched with Tennyson's richest color, it has also a distinct place in his work as an utterance of his favorite creed. Μηδὲν ἄγαν is once more its motto. The immortality which Tithonus desired turns to ashes in his mouth: he is sick of life, who cannot die." (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1893, p. 185.) Locksley Hall, p. 107. First printed in 1842; its composition is said to have occupied the poet six weeks. The main thought he owed to a translation of the Arabic Moâllakát, prize odes "which were written golden letters and hung up on the portals of the sacred shrine at Mecca." in lines in Lucie: "Il n'est pire douleur, Qu'un souvenir heureux dans les jours du malheur." The poet got the simile of the lion (line 135) from Pringle's Travels, which he was reading in 1837. A considerable number of the phrases and lines of this deservedly popular poem have become familiar quotations, admired for their consummate brevity. and felicity. Some of the more striking thoughts and images of Locksley Hall occur again and again in Tennyson's later works, in slightly different form. Godiva, p. 113. First published in 1842. While waitTennyson thus comments on the place ing for the train at Coventry in 1840and the poem: "Locksley Hall' is an Tennyson shaped this ancient legend imaginary place (tho' the coast is Lin- into an exquisite idyl, which has sugcolnshire) and the hero is imaginary. gested two or three statues of Lady The whole poem represents young life, Godiva. A brief account of the circumits good side, its deficiencies, and its stance, which took place in the eleventh yearnings. Mr. Hallam said to me that century, is given in Dugdale's Antiquithe English people liked verse in tro-ties of Warwickshire, 1656. Cf. poems chaics, so I wrote the poem in this on Godiva by Moultrie and Leigh Hunt. metre." |