TEN'NYSON, ALFRED, first Baron Tennyson (1809-92). The most representative English poet of Victoria's reign. He was horn on August 6, 1809, at Soniersby, in Lincolnshire, a village of which his father was recto•. Two of his brothers also displayed no slight poetic gifts, Frederick (q.v.). and Charles, afterwards known as Charles Tennyson Turner (q.v.). Alfred spent four years (1816-201 at the grammar school of Louth, a few miles from his home, and for the next eight years his education was directed by his father, a man of some literary talent. He roamed through the woods, laying the foundations of that knowledge of nature for which his verse is conspicuous, read extensively, and tried his hand in the manner of Pope, Thomson, Scott, Moore, and Byron. Fragments of this early work found their way into Poems by Two Brothers (1827: reprinted 1893), written in conjunction with his brother Charles. In 1828 the two brothers en tered Trinity College, Cambridge, to which Fred erick had gone a year earlier. At the university Tennyson was associated with a remarkable group of young men, most of whom formed the famous society known as 'The Apostles.' To this group belonged Thaekeray, Spedding, Trench, Slonekton Minos, afterwards Lord Boughton, Merivale, Alford. and Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the historian. who discerned his friend's genius and in 1529 told Gladstone that Tennyson "prom ised fair to be the greatest poet of our genera tion, perhaps of our eentnry." In that same year. with Timbuctoo, a poem in blank verse. Tennyson won the Chancellor's gold medal. and while still in residenee published the epoch-making volume of Poems. Chiefly Lyrical. In 1830, when the slim little hook appeared, po etry seemed to be dead. Murray had given up publishing verse, and the novel, under the impulse of the unprecedented success of the Warcr/ey series, held the field. Showing the influence of Coleridge and Keats, the poems in this volume were in no sense imitative; rather, they contain in germ nearly all of Tennyson's great original qualities. In the same year lie traveled in the Pyrenees with Haliain, and there, in the Valley of Cauterets, he wrote parts of "tEnone." ITe left Cambridge without a degree in Feb ruary, 1831, for various reasons, but chiefly the ill health of his father, who died a few weeks later. The family. however, remained at Som
ersby for six years longer. The second volume of Poems (1833) contained many of his choicest minor pieces: "The Lady of Shalott," "The Mil ler's Daughter," "The Palace of Art," "The Lo tos-Enters," and "A Dream of Fair Women." Be yond the circle of the poet's friends, the collection was not well received ; Lockhart wrote an espe cially brutal review in the Quaricr/y for April. In September a life-long sorrow fell upon the poet in the death of Hallam, his dearest friend, who was at that time engaged to his sister Emily. For ten years lie remained silent, reading largely, revising old poems, and writing new ones. By 1S36 he had definitely given his heart to his fu ture wife, Emily Sarah Sellwood. the sister of his brother Charles's wife. But. though deficiency of income seemed an insuperable bar to mar riage, and though her relatives forbade even correspondence, Tennyson had no thought of de serting the art to which his life belonged to take up any profes.sion more lucrative than poetry.
In 1842 he gained his public with Poems in two volumes, representing a wide range of theme and metrical structure. Here first appeared "Movie d'Arthur." the first sketch of the Idylls of the Ding; "Ulysses.•"*Locksley "Godiva," "Break, break, break," and "The Two Voices." Tennyson's place in English poetry was now secure; hut fortune seemed far off. His little capital was shattered by a strange investment in wood-carving machin ery; and in 1S45 Peel was moved by Lord Bough ton to grant him a civil-list pension of £200. In 1847 appeared The Princess, a romantic medley in musical blank verse, marked at every point by his "curious felicity" of style, and containing some wonderful lyrics. The year 1850 has been railed his wines mirabilis. In June he published In Memoriam, a tribute to the memory of Arthur Hallam. At first not well understood, it has now definitely taken its place with Lyeidas, Adonais, and Thyrsis nt the head of English elegies. In the same month he married Miss Bellwood (with whom, lie said afterwards, "the peace of God came into my life") ; and in November lie was appointed poet laureate in succession to \fo•ds worth.