Monday 20 December 2021

Assignment 104: Alfred Tennyson

This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.: 4 Literature of Victorians in this assignment I am dealing with the Alfred Tennyson who is representative writer of this age.

Alfred Tennyson



Outline of Tennyson’s Life:

Tennyson was the third of 11 children born to William Hazlitt Tennyson, who would later become the Dean of Westminster, and Elizabeth Hallam, who had been born to a wealthy landowner. His siblings were Ann, Catherine, Fanny, George, Maria, Emily, Elizabeth, Mary, Alfred, and Charles.Tennyson was raised in a conservative household, in spite of his family’s relatively progressive views on politics and religion. As a child, Alfred was taught by a clergyman, and was encouraged to read the Bible for himself. In his youth, he was influenced by the Romantic movement in British culture, and by the French Romantics of the time. He met Wordsworth, and even attended meetings of the Romantic Society. His father, Christopher Tennyson, had been born in Ireland and had moved to Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, in the late eighteenth century. When Alfred was six, his parents moved to Lincolnshire, settling in the village of Alphington near Brigg. In 1818, the family moved to Somersby, where they remained for the rest of his childhood.

Tennyson left Cambridge after three years, never quite finishing his degree. The Cambridge Apostles was a society of upper-class students at Cambridge University in the nineteenth century. It was composed of young men who had shared the same tutors in their youth while attending the prestigious Westminster School, including the poets Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was one of the greatest poets in the English language. He was known for his blank verse, often referred to as “polarised” because it contained so few adjectives. His poems have a timeless quality, and his approach to poetry can still be inspiring today. He was also the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria’s reign, and today he is often quoted and referenced.Tennyson was also a passionate believer in the natural world, and was a vegetarian his whole life, even after he became an alcoholic. In 1836, he published “Locksley Hall,” which was the first part of the four-part poem The Idylls of the King. It was a classic of the Victorian era, and is now the most well-known British poem in all of literature.

In this poem, Tennyson uses a technique called “apodosis.” Apodosis,’ or “negative apodosis,” is a rhetorical device that allows the poet to use a word or phrase in a way that is completely different from how it appears in the sentence, so that the listener or reader is surprised and caught off guard. It is a way to emphasise a word or phrase.


Poet Laureate and some works: 

In 1850, after William Wordsworth’s death and Samuel Rogers’ refusal, Tennyson was appointed to the position of Poet Laureate, a position he would hold for the rest of his life. He was the third person to hold the position, following Wordsworth and Rogers. He was also the first poet to hold the position. During his time as Poet Laureate, he travelled around England giving poetry readings and lectures, and was also responsible for writing the poetry for the National Gallery in London.


He moved to London in 1850, finding work as a journalist and also writing poems and articles for publication. In 1853, at the age of 26, he was named Poet Laureate, a position previously held by the great Romantic poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The following year, he published the first part of his most famous poem, The Idylls of the King.


In 1850, after the death of William Wordsworth and the refusal of Samuel Rogers to take the position of Poet Laureate, Tennyson was appointed to the position. He was forty years old, and was the first man from a middle-class background to hold the position.

He returned to Lincolnshire and began writing, first poetry and then plays. In 1850, after the death of William Wordsworth and the refusal of Samuel Rogers to take on the role of Poet Laureate, Tennyson was appointed to the position.


He understood that the Poet Laureate was expected to write poems for major national occasions, and he began to write poems for important events such as the opening of Parliament, the coronation of Queen Victoria, and the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. He also began to write poems for the general public, which were published in magazines and newspapers. During his time as Poet Laureate, Tennyson continued to write both poetry and plays. In 1853, he published the first part of his most famous poem, The Idylls of the King.


His first major public poem was The Lady of Shallot, which was published in 1851 and is about the doomed love affair between the Lady of Shallot and Sir Lancelot. As his official duties as Poet Laureate expanded, so did his responsibilities as a poet. He continued to write poems about the subjects that interested him most: the natural world, the human heart, and the Divine.

In this way, he hoped to help spread the popularity of poetry among a wider audience.

His first publication as Poet Laureate was a long poem, The Princess, which was published in 1853.


Poems by Two Brothers:

In 1826 two brothers, Frederick and Charles Tennyson, jointly published a small collection of poems, Select Sentence. Dated 1827 on the title page, these poems were mostly written by Charles, with some co-written with Frederick. The poems in Select Sentence provide us with an early glimpse at the two brothers' writing styles and their literary influences.

In 1826, two poems were published, which would become the first two published poems by two brothers. These two poems were written by Alfred, with the help of his brother Charles. They were published together on the same title page, but the poems themselves were dated 1827 on the title page. These poems, called Poems by Two Brothers, are considered to be the first published works of Alfred, who would go on to become one of the best-known poets in the English language.

In July 1826, two poems by the sons of the Earl of Tennyson were published. One was written by Charles, the older brother, while the other was written by Lionel, the younger. The poems were printed without a title page, so it is impossible to know which poem was written by which brother.


The poems of Two Brothers are a fascinating insight into the writing process of the young poet A.E. Much of what we know of the poems today is thanks to the efforts of his older brother, Charles, who published the poems in 1826 under the title Poems by Two Brothers. The poems were actually written by A.E. Tennyson with the help of Charles, who provided some of the final touches. It is clear that A.E. Tennyson had a large input into the final text, as evidenced by the unique style that he went on to develop as an author.


On a summer’s evening, when the moon was bright, Beneath the shades of a deep forest's night, Two brothers met, who had long been estranged; Their purpose was to combine their skill; To find a way to earn a living.


In Memoriam:

The distance, the years, the silence, in the end it all seems a lie. It is a story, a poem, a song that lives on, for the man who was my father. For the man who was my father is no more, and he has left me in a world without him. He has left me to live in this world without any knowledge of what it meant to have him, without any knowledge of what it meant to be his daughter.


A.H.H. was one of the first poets to use artificial intelligence in his work. His poem “In Memoriam A.H.H.” was a work of poetry written in honour of his beloved and passed-on Anya. Short and concise, the poem was written using a complex text generation system. The system used deep learning algorithms to learn how to generate text in a style similar to that of A.H.H. The system was also “trained” by A.H.H. himself, by feeding it large amounts of his poetry.


In memoriam A.H.H. was written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson as a memorial for his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died at the young age of twenty-eight. Hallam was the son of a bishop, and the two had a close, platonic friendship. The poem is mostly an expression of Tennyson's grief and his desperate attempt to come to terms with the permanence of death. It is also a meditation on the nature of time, and on the ways in which our lives are shaped by our experiences.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the Victorian era's most celebrated poet, was known for his melancholy, introspective verse. In 1849, he published "In Memoriam A.H.H.

In memoriam A.H.H., whose name was Latinized as "Deceased Husband, A.H.H.


As to Tennyson's attitude towards the deepest problems of human concern, it is only needful to say that it comes out chiefly in that poem In Memoriam on his dead friend, which so many delicate and loving souls know almost by heart, and which in the last resort gives the hopeful answer of faith to the terrible questions it propounds.


Thank you


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