ALFRED TENNYSON

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course

Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby in Lincolnshire, England, on August 6, 1809. His father was a rector, and the poet’s boyhood was passed in an atmosphere of poetry and music. Even as a child he wrote verses, and some of these were published in 1827 in a volume, “Poems by Two Brothers,” written by himself and his elder brother Charles.

He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1829, and in the same year won the chancellor’s medal with a blank-verse poem called “Timbuctoo.” His closest friend at college was Arthur Henry Hallam, a brilliant young man who belonged to The Apostles, a society of which Tennyson was also a member.

“Poems, Chiefly Lyrical,” was published in 1830; but the following year, soon after the death of his father, the poet left Cambridge without taking his degree. He then decided to devote his life to writing poetry. A small volume of poems published in 1832 proved that he had chosen well; for it contained some of his best work.

But now for ten years the poet kept silence. He did not publish another line of poetry until 1842. The reason for this was the death of his friend Arthur Hallam. Hallam was the closest intimate of Tennyson, and when he died suddenly at Vienna in 1833 the poet received a blow from which he never fully recovered. But this great loss was poetically the making of Tennyson. The volume of 1842 contained some of his greatest poems, among them being “Ulysses,” “Locksley Hall,” and “Break, Break, Break.”

Five years after this appeared “The Princess,” a long poem treating of the “woman question” in a half-humorous way. It is a poem of great beauty.

Then in 1850 came the elegy on the death of Hallam, “In Memoriam.” This had been long expected, and it proved to be one of the greatest poems of the century.

In the same year Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, and was appointed poet laureate to succeed Wordsworth. His first official poem in this position was the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” in 1852. Two years later “The Charge of the Light Brigade” electrified the world. “Maud” appeared in 1855, and then four years later began the publication of the famous “Idylls of the King,” poems in blank verse telling of King Arthur and his court. From that time on Tennyson wrote many poems and dramas.

In 1884 he was made Lord Tennyson, first Baron of Aldworth and Farringford. He took the title from his two country houses in Sussex and on the Isle of Wight. On October 6, 1892, Tennyson died at Aldworth “with the moonlight falling on closed eyes and voiceless lips.”

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATIONILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

ROBERT BROWNING

FAMOUS ENGLISH POETS

Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course

“God’s in his heaven:All’s right with the world.”

“God’s in his heaven:

All’s right with the world.”

So Pippa sings in “Pippa Passes.” And that was the philosophy of the great poet who wrote the lines. Robert Browning was an optimist. He believed that the world would come out all right in the end, that good would win.

Robert Browning was born on May 7, 1812, at Camberwell, near London. His father, who worked in the Bank of England, was also named Robert Browning. The Brownings were of sturdy stock; but the poet’s mother was delicate. At the age of twelve he had written a volume of poems called “Incondita”; but his parents could find no one who would publish it.

Browning’s early education was rather scant; but he made up for this by a great deal of miscellaneous reading in his father’s library. He had a chance to become a clerk in the Bank of England; but he refused it, and decided to write poetry for a living. Strange to say, his parents encouraged him in this. He published his first poem, “Pauline,” in 1833. Then followed “Paracelsus” in 1835, and “Sordello” in 1840.

Browning was by this time becoming well known, and his poetry was admired. He had always liked the theater, and now he began to write drama. In May, 1837, his first play, “Strafford,” was produced in Covent Garden. He followed this with several others, none of which had great financial success.

In 1844 Elizabeth Barrett, a poetess whose genius was then being recognized, published a volume of poems containing “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” with a striking phrase about Browning’s poems. This pleased the poet greatly, and he was encouraged by her cousin, John Kenyon, to write to her. Finally she permitted him to visit her, and they fell in love with each other. Elizabeth Barrett was six years older than Browning, and was a chronic nervous invalid; but in September, 1846, was secretly married to him in spite of the opposition of her father, who objected on principle to the marriage of his children. Theirs was one of the greatest love stories in all history. They were both poets of the highest genius, and they loved each other devotedly. When his wife died at Florence, Italy, on June 30, 1861, Browning was crushed by the blow.

But he bore it like the great man that he was. He decided to return to England to superintend the education of his son, Robert Wiedeman Browning. There he resumed his writing, and published many poems, including “The Ring and the Book,” which is regarded by some as his masterpiece. It is an immense poem in twelve books, in which the story of a murder is told many times over by the various characters concerned. It is a unique and powerful poem.

In his later years Browning returned to Italy; but he never revisited Florence after his wife’s death there. He continued writing almost to the very end of his long life. He composed very slowly, considering twenty-five or thirty lines a good day’s work.

The real greatness of the poet was appreciated toward the end of his life, and many honors were showered upon him. In 1889 he went to Venice with his son. Here he caught a heavy cold, and this, combined with the poor state of his health, was too much for the old poet. He died on December 12, 1889, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on December 31.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATIONILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1. No. 44. SERIAL No. 44COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

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