A TENNYSON COMPANION In the same series A JANE AUSTEN COMPANION F. B. Pinion A BRONTE COMPANION F. B. Pinion A COLERIDGE COMPANION John Spencer Hill A DICKENS COMPANION Norman Page A GEORGE ELIOT COMPANION F. B. Pinion A HARDY COMPANION F. B. Pinion A KIPLING COMPANION Norman Page A D. H. LAWRENCE COMPANION F. B. Pinion A GEORGE ORWELL COMPANION ]. R. Hammond AN EDGAR ALLAN POE COMPANION ]. R. Hammond A ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON COMPANION ]. R. Hammond AN H. G. WELLS COMPANION ]. R. Hammond A WORDSWORTH COMPANION F. B. Pinion Also by the same author THOMAS HARDY: ART AND THOUGHT A COMMENTARY ON THE POEMS OF THOMAS HARDY A GEORGE ELIOT MISCELLANY (editor) ONE RARE FAIR WOMAN (with Evelyn Hardy) THOMAS HARDY: TWO ON A TOWER (New Wessex Edition) THE STORIES OF THOMAS HARDY, 3 vols (New Wessex Edition) THE THOMAS HARDY SOCIETY REVIEW (annual) (Thomas Hardy Sociery) THOMAS HARDY AND THE MODERN WORLD (Thomas Hardy Sociery). BUDMOUTH ESSAYS ON THOMAS HARDY (Thomas Hardy Sociery) A TENNYSON COMPANION Life and Works F. B. PINION M MACMILLAN © F. B. Pinion 1984 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1984 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First edition 1984 Reprinted 1986 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG212XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Pinion, F. B. A Tennyson companion. - (Macmillan literary companions) I. Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron - Criticism and interpretation I. Title 821'.8 PR5588 ISBN 978-1-349-17595-6 ISBN 978-1-349-17593-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17593-2 Contents List of Illustrations page vii Acknowledgments Vlll PART ONE: TENNYSON'S LIFE Chronology 3 I Somers by to Cambridge, I 809-28 5 2 Arthur Hallam, I 828-34 I4 3 Poetic Recovery and Triumph, I834-50 22 4 Marriage and Farringford, I85o--67 33 5 Aldworth and the Last Twenty-Five Years, I867-g2 47 PART TWO: TENNYSON'S WRITINGS 6 Adolescent Poetry 63 7 A Young Man's Fancies 7I 8 Art and Life 83 9 Darkness and Living Light 93 IO English Idylls I02 I I The Princess II3 I2 In Memoriam A. H. H. I22 I3 The 'Locksley Hall' Poems and Maud I4I I4 Patriotism and Politics I 53 I5 Three Tales I62 I6 Idylls of the King I 72 I7 Epistolary Poems I95 I8 Drama 20I I9 Popular Dramatic Monologues 2IO 20 A Miscellany 2I8 v Contents Vl 21 The Gleam 226 22 Epilogue 233 Notes 245 Appendixes A. Family Tree 248 B. Glossary 249 C. The Story of The Princess 252 D. Select Bibliography 256 Index 259 List of Illustrations PLATES between pages IIB and II9 Mary Turner's home, Caistor, and Langton Hall, home of Bennet Langton 2 The rectory and brook at Somersby 3 The church at Somersby, exterior and interior 4 Portraits of Tennyson's grandfather and father 5 His mother and Louth Grammar School 6 The Great Gate and Great Court, Trinity College, Cambridge; Arthur Hallam 7 Tennyson and Hallam on the Leeds from Bordeaux to Dublin; Clevedon Church 8 Home of the Sellwoods, Horncastle, and Shiplake Church g Chapel House, Twickenham; Edmund Lushington; Park House, home of the Lushingtons IO Farringford from the lawn, and Tennyson's study at F arringford I I Tennyson and his family at Farringford I2 Charles (Tennyson) Turner; Thomas Woolner, R.A. I3 F. D. Maurice; Edward FitzGerald I4 Bayons Manor; Aldworth I 5 Alfred (Lord) Tennyson I6 Punch on Tennyson's peerage, and Lord and Lady Tennyson with Hallam Tennyson MAP 8 Tennyson Places in Holderness and Lincolnshire Vll Acknowledgments My indebtedness to the editing of Professor Christopher Ricks in The Poems if Ten'!Yson, Longmans, Ig6g (the text of which I have followed), is inestimable; I owe much also to R. B. Martin's Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart. Lines from 'To Poesy', 'Tithon', 'The Little Maid', and 'Hail Briton!' are included by agreement with Longman Group Limited. I am grateful to the Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, for generously enabling me to examine the late William D. Paden's Tennyson collections; and to the Inter-Library Loan Service department of the University of Sheffield. Dr Claudius Beatty of the University of Oslo, Professor Cecil Y. Lang of the University of Virginia, R. E. Elliott of Horncastle, and the Revd Geoffrey Peace of Halton Holgate have very kindly supplied helpful information. Permission has been granted to reproduce illustrations from the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincoln, by courtesy ofLord Tennyson and the Lincolnshire Library Service (4left, 4 right, I5), and from the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas (I I, the gift ofD r and Mrs William D. Paden). Non-copyright reproductions include the following: from A. J. Church, The Laureate's Country, I8gi (I above, 2 below, 5 right, 7 below, 8 below); George G. Napier, Homes and Haunts if Tennyson, I 8g2 (g upper left and right, g below); H. D. Rawnsley, Memories ift he Tennysons, I goo (5 left, 7 above, 8 above); andJ. Cuming Walters,ln Tennyson Land, I8go (I below, 2 above, 3 above, 3 below). Plates 6 above left and 6 below are from Le Keux, Memorials ifCambridge, I842; IO above and below, from The English Illustrated Magazine, I8g2; I6 right, from The Bookman, I8g7-8; and I 3 left is a copy ofF. Hall's engraving after a portrait by Lowes Dickinson. I am particularly grateful to Roy Wilson, Photographic Unit of the Library, University of Sheffield, for the reproduction of many illustrations from which to make a choice; to Susan Gates and Elizabeth Anne Melrose for their unfailing assistance at the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincoln; to Mrs julia Steward and Mrs viii Acknowledgments lX Valery Rose for encouragement and ready co-operation on behalf of the publishers; and, above all, to my wife for many helpful queries and recommendations arising from a critical examination of the text.