Study Guide to The Idylls of the King and Other Poems by Alfred Tennyson

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645420156
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for selected works by Alfred Tennyson, appointed Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during Queen Victoria's reign. Titles in this study guide include The Idylls Of The King, Ulysses and Tithonus, The Palace of Art, Lucretius, In Memoriam, and Demeter and Persephone.As a celebrated British poet of the nineteenth-century, he was one of the most renowned poets of the Victorian era. Moreover, Tennyson's early works are responsible for shaping the revival of the medieval period. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Tennyson's classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons they have stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains: - Introductions to the Author and the Work
- Character Summaries
- Plot Guides
- Section and Chapter Overviews
- Test Essay and Study Q&AsThe Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

ALFRED TENNYSON

INTRODUCTION

 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6, 1809 in his father’s rectory at Somersby, the second of eleven surviving children. Tennyson’s father, George, had been forced to become a clergyman when he was disinherited from the family fortune in favor of his younger brother. This misfortune had made George Tennyson a gloomy, bitter man, and it cast an oppressive shadow over the crowded little rectory. Despite the gentle sensitivity of his devout mother, Alfred Tennyson bore throughout his life the melancholy disposition inherited from his father and deepened by a long, close association with him. George Tennyson contributed other elements to the development of his son’s talent than that of romantic gloom, for he was both a scholar and a book-lover. Tennyson early took full advantage of his father’s library and scholarship, and later in life revealed a passion for learning and an accuracy of observation which no doubt reflected the influence of his father.

CHILDHOOD

Like the romantic poets of the previous generation, Tennyson enjoyed an outdoor country life from his earliest days. His companions were his many brothers and sisters and the farm folk living near his home. He did not occupy himself entirely in play, however, for later we find him remarking that his own poems written in early childhood entertained him more than those of other people. The influence of a literary father made itself felt in the precocious childhood verses of Alfred and some of his brothers.

EARLY EDUCATION

From the age of eight until he was twelve, Tennyson attended boarding school at Louth, ten miles from Somersby. Here he was desperately unhappy. The master bullied him and he was not a success with the other boys because he hated games. This experience confirmed him in his love of home and the quiet family circle, as well as in his shyness and suspicion of outsiders, qualities which were to be part of his character throughout his life. After his years at Louth, he was taught by the village schoolmaster for a time, but George Tennyson took increasingly direct charge of his son’s education. Under an academic regime that was more comprehensive than methodical, Tennyson flourished as he had not at school. His father’s wide-ranging intellect and taste in books afforded young Tennyson a broad classical education without limiting him to the ancient classics. Tennyson was an apt pupil, both at translating classical poetry and at imitating it in original verses of his own. His education was supplemented by the company of his thoughtful and creative brothers, with whom he enjoyed long country walks and literary conversations. The poetry of this adolescent period is marked by contrasting views of nature, which is seen as both tame and wild. Such an idea of nature reflects both the charm of his immediate surroundings and the sensitive, gloomy, chaotic landscape within his own mind.

LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE

Tennyson’s attendance at Cambridge rather than Oxford had a great influence upon his future. At Oxford, he would inevitably have been swept up in the “Oxford Movement,” which combined a traditional view of religion and the church with excellence in the classics. Cambridge, on the other hand, looked to the future rather than the past, and encouraged an intellectual attitude toward religion, taking account of nineteenth century developments in science. The circle into which Tennyson was drawn, called the “Apostles,” was a reform-minded undergraduate society interested in both intellectual and social problems. From the “Apostles” Tennyson drew a sense of his own destiny and his prophetic mission to enlighten his countrymen. The “Apostles” rescued Tennyson from a lonely, unhappy existence in his first months at college. Though his brother Frederick was already at Cambridge, Tennyson found it hard to make friends when he first arrived in 1828. It was common to see his tall, swarthy, fierce-eyed form striding about the campus in lonely grandeur. People remarked even at this period in his life that he had the appearance of a poet, and indeed he enjoyed a small reputation as the joint author, with his brother Frederick, of a modest volume called “Poems by Two Brothers,” published at Louth in 1827. After three years, Tennyson left Cambridge without taking a degree.

EARLY CAREER

The friends Tennyson made at Cambridge, among them Arthur Hallam, were tireless admirers of his poetry. They considered him the spokesman of the “Apostles,” and the bearer of their message of progress and literary renewal. They gave Tennyson’s Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830) uncritical praise. The volume was gently criticized and mildly approved by a few established critics, who were less sensitive to young Tennyson’s genius than his friends were. Tennyson was deeply upset by criticism even later in his career when he was a well-known poet, but in his youth he was particularly vulnerable to critical barbs. Neither Samuel T. Coleridge nor William Wordsworth, both poets whom Tennyson admired and learned from, found much to appreciate in the young poet. Christopher North, an acid-penned critic for the influential Blackwood magazine, mixed heavy criticism with a few scant words of praise. In revenge, Tennyson published a little poem ridiculing North in his third volume, put out in 1832. This was an error, for it set North and some of North’s friends against the young poet. Many prominent critics agreed that Tennyson was affected and slight, perhaps because of his undeserved reputation as a political radical. Their condemnation of his book was echoed all over England. In his humiliation, Tennyson even considered a self-imposed exile from his country. In his personal life also, Tennyson was plagued by troubles. His dearest friend, the gifted and charming Arthur Hallam, died suddenly in 1833 at the age of twenty-two years. Tennyson’s life was shattered by these events and he did not publish anything again for ten years. This was for him a period of emotional crisis, involving the resolution of religious doubts and temptations to despair, as well as a period of creative activity and growth.

ESTABLISHMENT OF REPUTATION

During the period of the “ten years’ silence,” Tennyson laid the groundwork for the future acceptance of his work. Critics had urged him to write less emotional, lyrical poetry and more of the instructional, homely type demanded by the age. Tennyson wanted to be accepted by his public, and in the poetry published after 1840, he made it clear that he would take the critics’ advice. This time his rise and fall were not to be meteoric as it had been between 1828 and 1832, but like the slow, steady advance of the moon across the sky. Not until after the end of Tennyson’s long life was his work to suffer critical eclipse again. In 1833, Tennyson retired to his “darling room” at Somersby, where he managed to find ample solitude for work despite the size of his mother’s large family. At the rectory, he applied himself to a regime of study that included German, philosophy and science. He may well have determined that no critic would ever again dismiss him as an intellectual lightweight, and he certainly had long since resolved to be a teacher to his generation. Apart from study, his time was profitably spent in the revision of the old, much-criticized poems and the composition of new works, particularly “Ulysses” and “In Memoriam.” Soon after Tennyson had left Cambridge, both his father and his grandfather died. The latter, especially, had wanted Tennyson to enter the service of the church. The young man had held both of them off, having no desire to be a clergyman. With their deaths, he was able to follow his own inclination without interference. He became head of the family and took charge of moving them from Somersby to Epping when the new rector took over at their old home.

In the new suburban environment, Tennyson was able to enjoy London society whenever he chose to. Epping proved uncomfortable and not rural enough to please the Tennysons, so they began a series of moves. Despite his grief and introspection, Tennyson was able to socialize in London on occasion. There he was part of a “poets’ circle” that included Leigh Hunt, Samuel Rogers, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Thomas Carlyle and Walter Savage Landor. Tennyson found a close friend in Carlyle, though their friendship was not based on Carlyle’s interest in Tennyson’s poetry. Tennyson needed the consolations of friendship, for until his marriage, when he was forty-one, he suffered from frequent depression, due to poverty, ill-health and increasing nearsightedness. He lost what little money he and his family had through a foolish investment, and this disaster was followed by a nervous breakdown. At this point, his friends were able to get him a pension of 200 pounds a year from Sir Robert Peel. His poetic reputation was again on the upswing. In 1835, John Stuart Mill had favorably reviewed the 1832 volume; and by 1837, some reviewers even claimed that Elizabeth Barrett was copying Tennyson’s style. Tennyson broke his silence in 1842 by the publication of Locksley Hall and Morte d’Arthur, which were received kindly by the critics and enthusiastically by the public. These were followed by The Princess, a work much admired by the Pre-Raphaelites, a group whose disgust with the squalor of modern England led them to return to the artistic and literary standards in force before the Renaissance.

FARRINGFORD PERIOD

Peel’s grant of a pension and his promising prospects as a poet allowed Tennyson to marry Emily Sellwood in 1850, after an engagement of fourteen years. This gentle woman largely succeeded in domesticating the gloomy poet, and some critics have held her responsible for the increasingly affected and sentimental elements in much of his poetry. His love for solitude kept Tennyson from mingling frequently with intellectuals and literary men from whom he might have gained new insights and received healthy criticism. Emily gave him the security of love and approval; she served as a capable and devoted secretary but could not serve effectively as a literary critic. The publication of “In Memoriam” (1850) and the approval it won from Queen Victoria and her consort led to Tennyson’s being offered the Laureateship in 1850. As Poet Laureate, he was subject to the rigors of fame, and when he retired with Emily to Farringford, on the Isle of Wight, she had to shield him from curious intruders so that he could work. The public, like Queen Victoria, loved “In Memoriam,” so the critics had to revise their initial unfavorable comments about the work. In March of 1862, Tennyson was summoned by the Queen to visit her at Osborne, her home on the Isle of Wight. The visit began a warm friendship which developed primarily through letters and ended only with the poet’s death.

ALDWORTH PERIOD

Tennyson found the tourists at Farringford too annoying, so he built a house at Haslemere in Surrey, called Aldworth. Despite its relative isolation, tourists followed him there also, and with them came distinguished Victorian personages. Tennyson’s home was now becoming a national shrine, embodying in its atmosphere all the virtues which Victorians honored and believed themselves to possess. Roses were named after him; his opinions on all subjects were eagerly solicited and accepted by all Englishmen. The public pressure on Tennyson’s personal life became ever stronger, and in 1874 Emily’s health broke under the strain of serving as both housewife and secretary. Their son, Hallam, had to be recalled from Cambridge to serve his father as secretary in his mother’s place. Tennyson had to be protected from any unflattering reviews, which he was still too sensitive to bear. He was also averse to biographies, as he was to all efforts of the public to relate the poet’s life to his poetry. His son Hallam was entrusted with the mission to report his father’s life accurately in order to forestall the prying of others. Despite his hatred of criticism, Tennyson was considered by those who knew him well as a straightforward, modest man, who was incapable of intellectual or artistic pretense. This judgment must be weighed against the common belief that Tennyson was overly anxious to please his complacent Victorian audience, and to suppress his inferior early work.

LAST YEARS

In old age, Tennyson was nearly as vigorous as he was in youth. His volumes of poetry followed one another in rapid succession, the last being published three weeks after his death. The conclusion to Tennyson’s life was one of mingled sorrows and triumphs. In 1884 he reluctantly accepted a peerage from his old friend, Prime Minister Gladstone, which he considered as much an honor to literature as to himself. His son Lionel died at sea of a fever in 1886, and the grieving father commemorated his son’s passing in Demeter and Other Poems. Tennyson was, in his last years, often overwhelmed by a sense of futility, perhaps because he had aimed so high. His Idylls of the King had been meant to instruct Englishmen in the high ideals of nobility and chivalry, but it seemed to him that the world honored these ideals less and less. After a brief period of declining health, Tennyson died peacefully, surrounded by his family, the moonlit silence of his room broken only by the words of his own prayer on the lips of a friend. He had dominated the poetic scene of England for sixty years and had been the voice of his age’s struggle for serenity and faith.

THE IDYLLS OF THE KING

INTRODUCTION

COMPOSITION

Tennyson had considered writing an epic on the subject of Arthur early in his poetic career. The Lady of Shalott (1833), his first treatment of the Elaine story, was written the year of his friend Hallam’s death. Having idealized Arthur Hallam in a personal way in “In Memoriam,” Tennyson was later to carry this identification into a larger, less restricted allegorical figure, that of the mythical King Arthur. In his Memoir, Tennyson said of the Idylls: “It is not the history of one man or of one generation, but a whole cycle of generations.” The fragment Morte d’Arthur was written in 1835, and in a volume published in 1842 the ballads Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, and Sir Galahad appeared. The series of idylls that were ultimately to be gathered into one organized, thematically united whole was not seriously begun until 1856. The final touches were not applied to the work until 1885, so that the poet spread his Arthurian labors over nearly half a century. Critics have said that the Idylls lack perfect unity of technique and theme, but one of the most remarkable features of the work is that Tennyson managed to maintain the high level of continuity and style that he did, over the extensive period of composition.

DATES

The first four idylls to be published were “Enid,” “Vivien,” “Elaine,” and “Guinevere,” (1859), which were paired as studies in feminine opposites. Ten years later the volume appeared which contained “The Coming of Arthur,” “The Holy Grail,” “Pelleas and Ettarre,” and “The Passing of Arthur,” “The Last Tournament,” and “Gareth and Lynette,” were published in 1871 and 1872, respectively, and the Enid story was divided into two parts in 1872. This was done to bring the number of idylls up to twelve, presumably so that the symbolic year would be completely represented. “Balin and Balan,” though written fifteen years earlier, was not published until 1885.

SOURCES

Interest in the Middle Ages had been stimulated by the Romantic poets of the early nineteenth century, as well as by the Gothic architectural revival and the writings of Ruskin and the Tractarians of Oxford. With the revival of the medieval period in the imagination of nineteenth century England came an upsurge of interest in the Arthurian story. This body of legendary material centering on a possibly genuine fifth century Anglo-Roman leader, Arturius, was to English popular lore what Siegfried was to the Germans and The Cid was to the Spanish. The chronicle of Nennius (in which the Arthurian story first appears) is usually dated c. 800 A. D., but may be as early as the sixth century. It places Arthur as a local hero who defended the civilized population against the invading Saxons when the Romans retreated from Northern England just beyond the River Humber. The legend was expanded in the History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1150), in which the symbolic and miraculous aspects of the familiar Arthurian story begin to appear, as well as resemblances to the life of Christ. Other authors throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period developed the Arthurian materials; and the greatest and most influential of these was Sir Thomas Malory, whose loose collection of tales, Morte d’Arthur (c. 1470), was the primary source for Alfred Tennyson. Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen (1589-96) also treated the Arthurian legend, and the Arthur pictured in this work is an idealized, Christ-like figure like Tennyson’s Arthur, m...