Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and ELaine, The passing of Arthur

Preface

This edition of certain Idylls of the King is more fully annotated than the college requirement in itself demands, but behind these modern poems lies such a wealth of mediaeval romance, such a vast playground for the imagination, that it seemed desirable to suggest it through the notes. The hope has been to have these notes, which consist largely of illustrative quotations from Malory, Crestien de Troyes, and other romancers, deepen, rather than dim, the golden atmosphere of the Arthurian world, — that world to which, for most of us, Tennyson first gave the Open Sesame.

The groups of questions have been added at the request of teachers.

OONTEE'TS

PAGE

I. A Brief Life of Tennyson .... 1 11. Autobiographical Hints in Tennyson's

Poems 9

III. The Arthurian Legend .... 21

Lancelot and Elaine Ill

The Passing of Arthur . . o . . . 165

Introduction

I. A BRIEF LIFE OF TENNYSON

Alfred Tennyson was born, August 6, 1809, in the little village of Somersby, Lincolnshire, where his father was rector. The Rev. George Clayton Tennyson was a man of magnificent build, melancholy temperament, and artistic instinct — respects in which his son resembled him. The mother, of delicate physique, brought to her husband's stormy strength gifts of deep tenderness, gentleness, and serenity. Of their twelve children, the eldest, George, died in babyhood. Next came Frederick, Charles, and Alfred, poets all. As little lads, they wrote verses with their slate pencils, and in their teens they prepared and published (1827) a volume entitled Poems by Two Brothers; for Frederick, though he allowed Charles and Alfred to include four of his productions with their own, did not choose to identify himself more closely with the venture. This httle book, not without metrical facility and dignity of diction, is boyish in its display of learning and youthful in its tone of remorseful gloom. It had a special right to both these characteristics, for

INTJmX>^TJCTl0N the young Tennysons /^^^'wejl rea(if partly through attendance at the Gramm^'Schqol of Miith, a neighbouring market town,, but more through Jij'eir father's tuition in the Latin classics ; and mel^-nch^^t^;^ was in their blood. London used to delight in aWabsurd story about one of the younger brothers, who was discovered by an early dinner-guest lying at full len^h, a mighty man of Spanish complexion, oh the rug before the fire in their host's drawing-room. Rising with a deep sigh, the dark giant said: ''I must introduce myself. I am Septimus, the most morbid of the Tennysons."

The year after the publication of their book of verses, Charles and Alfred entered upon their university life (February, 1828) at Trinity College, Cambridge, where Frederick had been for a year already and had won the university medal for the best Greek ode on the Pyramids. In their second year Charles and Alfred each achieved honours in English, Charles gaining a scholarship by the grace of his classical translations, and Alfred taking a prizej the chancellor's gold medal, for the best Enghsh poem on the assigned theme, Timbuctoo.

Shy and sensitive, these tall, swarthy brothers from the little Lincolnshire village held somewhat aloof from the gay and careless student life about them, but the friends they made were among the choicest spirits in the university. Alfred became a member of a debating club called, because its members in residence were limited to twelve, "The Apostles." In that fine fellowship he learned to know and to love Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the distinguished historian, and himself a poet. Hallam had tried for the Timbuctoo medal and failed, but this generous rival delighted in his friend's success. Of Tennyson's Timbuctoo Hallam wrote to Gladstone: "The splendid imaginative power that pervades it will be seen through all hindrances. I consider Tennyson as promising fair to be the greatest poet of our generation, perhaps of our country."

While still an undergraduate, Tennyson published (1830) a volume of Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, about half of which are retained in his collected works. Charles Tennyson put forth, at the same time, a volume of sonnets. Leigh Hunt, v/ho gave the books a series of critiques in The Tatler, decided that the work of Alfred was the more significant, but Coleridge took especial interest in that of Charles. Hallam wrote an enthusiastic review of his friend's poems for The Englishman's ^fagazine, but Blackwood's, then a great and dreaded name in English criticism, laughed them to scorn. -,:>ft .

In the summer vacation of 1830, Tennyson and P^JIIm made a romantic journej'' to the Pyrenees, holding there a secret meeting with the leaders of the Spanish revolution. The following winter Tennyson's Cambridge career was broken off by the death of his father. Frederick and Charles stayed on for their degrees, but Alfred settled down at Somersby, where the use of the rectory was secured for a few years longer, and took charge of the family affairs. How well-fitted the poet was for the practical responsibilities that thus devolved upon hinx may be gathered from Fitzgerald's word portrait, written W about two years after Dr. Tennyson's death ; — v

"Very well informed; just and upright; a rectifier or setter to rights of people; diligent, constant, sincere; has great discernment; industrious, decided, and possesses great strength of mind; a very valuable friend; generous, but not extravagant; punctual; cool and clear in judgment."

Yet Tennyson had other aspects, — "httle humours and grumpinesses," which grew upon him in the lonely life of Lincolnshire. His was, in the main, however, a wholesome and noble personality during these years of his young manhood, when he was described as "a sort of Hyperion" in look, and one of his feats of strength, the lifting and carrying a pet pony on the Somersby lawn, made a Cambridge friend, Brookfield, protest that it was not fair he "should be Hercules, as well as Apollo."

Toward the close of 1832, Tennyson issued another volume, embodying the purest achievement of his early art and including among its thirty poems, A Dream of Fair Women, The Two Voices, The Lady of Shalott, CEnone, The Lotos-Eaters. A critical organ as authoritative and as brutal as Blackwood's, the Quarterly, that an old Lincolnshire squire assured Tennyson was '' the next book to God's Bible," assailed the volume with cruel mockery. But the poet had Hallam to hearten him, for the friendship had not suffered by Tennyson's withdrawal from Cambridge. Hallam, studying law in London, was often at Somersby for " week end" visits and had become betrothed to Emily Tennyson. The Quarterly review came out in July, 1833. In August Tennyson went to London to say good-bye to Hallam, who, a little out of health, was starting on a

European trip. In September Hallam died suddenly at Vienna. It was not until October that the word came to Somersby, not until January that the body was laid to rest in Clevedon church, beside the Bristol Channel.

The inner history of Tennyson's life for the next ten 3^ears may be read in In Memoriam, his great elegy for his friend. Of outer events there were but few. The Tennysons had to vacate the rectory in 1837, and settled near London, at High Beech, where the poet gradually came into association with the foremost Enghshmen of his time.

His brother Frederick, whimsical, passionate, highhearted, was drifting about the south of Europe. He married an Italian lady, settled in a Florentine villa, where he was fabled to sit in a spacious hall, "in the midst of his forty fiddlers,'' saw Swedenborgian visions, communed with spirits, and wTote poetry, mainly upon CIreek themes, — poetry that his brother hkened to "organ-tones echoing among the mountains." This, with the exception of a volume published in 1854, he kept by him in manuscript until his old age, when he issued, from 1890 to 1895, three volumes.

Charles had married, the year before the family removal from Somersby, IMiss Louisa Sellwood, a Lincolnshire lady whose elder sister, Emily, Alfred would gladly have made his bride at the same time, but he was too poor to be, in the eyes of her father, an acceptable suitor. Charles had inherited property by the death of an uncle, whose name. Turner, he added to his own. He took Holy Orders and passed a tranciuil life as vicar of Grasby, Lincolnshire, writing sonnets and metrical translations, and publishing three volumes of his poetry between the ages of fifty-six and sixty-five.

With a more single devotion than his brothers, Alfred Tennyson held, silently, assiduously, to his art. Hallam had written proudly, in 1832: "Alfred has resisted all attempts to force him into a profession, preferring poetry and an honourable poverty." This honourable poverty sometimes pressed so hard that, before leaving Somersby, he sold his Timbuctoo medal, and in 1840, so slight was the prospect that he could support a wife, Mr. Sellwood forbade further correspondence between his daughter and the impecunious poet.

From High Beech Tennyson, restless and dissatisfied, removed with his mother and sisters some forty miles to the south of London, settling first at a watering-place, Tunbridge Wells, and then at Boxley, near Maidstone, the county town of Kent.

In 1842, after ten years of hidden labour, there appeared Poems, by Alfred Tennyson, in two volumes. The first volume contained the best of the early work, carefully revised; the second consisted of new poems, including the Morte d'Arthur, Sir Galahad, St. Simeon Stylites, and Ulysses.

At last he had won the ear of England, who acknowledged a new poet. Three more editions were called for during the next four years. But Tennyson receiving homage was the same nonchalant, sad and solitary personage that he had been in his obscurity. The human sympathy in him, developed by loss and longing, was still, to many of his friends, the most precious element of the man. Carlyle wrote in a home letter : —

"A fine, large-featured, dim-eyed, bronze-coloured, shaggy-headed man is Alfred; dusky, smoky, free-andeasy; who swims outwardly and inwardly, with great composure, in an inarticulate element as of tranquil chaos and tobacco-smoke; great now and then when he does emerge; a most restful, brotherly, solid-hearted man."

Money losses and illness weighed heavily upon Tennyson in the very year of the publication of his Poems, but with 1845 the horizon began to brighten. To begin with, he was offered and accepted, at Carlyle 's suggestion, a pension of £200 a year in recognition of his services to English letters. Two years later he published The Princess, which by 1853 had run through five editions, while his Poems had achieved their eighth. But 1850, the turning year of the century, crowned Alfred Tennyson's life. In this year he gave to the world his supreme poem, In Memoriam; he wedded the woman whom he had loved so long; and he succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate.

From this time on the world went well with him. Of his wife he said: ''The peace of God came into my life before the altar when I wedded her." Their beautiful home, Farringford, on the Isle of Wight, — a home purchased with the proceeds of his lyrical love-drama, Maud, — was brightened by two sons, Hallam and Lionel. When Farringford had become too much the shrine of literary pilgrimage, Tennyson built for himself a summer retreat, Aldworth, on the summit of a Surrey hill.

His devotion to his high caUing never flagged. Maud

(1855) was followed by the first four Idylls of the King (1859), a book that met with a joyous welcome, and gave Thackeray, so he said, the greatest delight that had come to him since his youth. Enoch Arden (1864), with its twofold appeal of love for the sea and sympathy for the common people, added thousands of the humbler English folk to his great audience. He dramatized certain significant epochs of English history, as Queen Mary (1875), Harold (1876), and Bccket (1884). Meanwhile he had published a few other plays, romantic and domestic, of less value, and, in 1880, a volume of notable ballads, including The Revenge and The Defence of Lucknow. This volume, again, made a national appeal and renewed the chorus of praise. So popular had the poet become that his volume of 1889, Demeter and Other Poems, sold twenty thousand copies in the first week after publication. The dedication of this volume records the one deep grief of Tennyson's later life, the death by jungle fever, on the home voyage from India, of his younger son, Lionel, whose body was committed to the Red Sea.

The relations between the Queen and her Laureate were genuinely cordial. She wished to confer on him some signal honour, but he t\\nce declined, in 1873 and 1874, the offer of a baronetcy. Ten years later, however, he consented, partly for the sake of literature, to accept a peerage.

Lord Tennyson died at Aldworth, October 6, 1892. "Nothing could have been more striking," said the medical bulletin, "than the scene during the last few hours. On the bed a figure of breathing marble, flooded and bathed in the light of the full moon streaming through the oriel window ; his hand clasping the Shakespeare which he had asked for but recently, and which he had kept by him to the end; the moonlight, the majestic figure as he lay there, 'drawing thicker breath,' irresistibly brought to our minds his own 'Passing of Arthur.'''

Tennyson's body rests in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, beside that of Robert Browning and in front of the Chaucer monument.

But the only real biography is autobiography. Of this Tennyson's poems yield a fair amount, most of all that cry of heart and soul, In Memoriam.

II. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL HINTS IN TENNYSON's POEMS

Ode to Memory

This poem, said in the 1830 volume, where it first appeared, to have been written " very early in life," abounds in pictures of Tennyson's Lincolnshire home and surroundings.

Song: A Spirit haunts the Year's Last Hours

This song suggests the rectory garden, where it is said to have been written.

The Dying Swan

This poem has the scenery of Lincolnshire.

Isabel

This sketch derived its main features from the character of Tennyson's mother.

Far, Far Away

These words had for Tennyson, even in early childhood, ''a strange charm."

LXXIX

This section, addressed to Tennyson's brother Charles, dwells upon their likeness of temperament and of early experience.

LXXXVII

This section depicts the Cambridge of Tennyson's student days, with the debates of "The Apostles," among whom Arthur Hallam was the leading spirit.

cix-cxiv

These sections give Tennyson's estimate of the character and promise of Hallam, who died at the age of twenty-two.

Sonnet to J. M. K.

This sonnet was addressed to one of Tennyson's Cambridge friends, John Mitchell Kemble, who afterward abandoned his intention of becoming a clergyman and devoted his life to Early English scholarship.

The Poet

This poem, first printed in 1830, shows how. high and'^''- noble was Tennyson's ideal of his vocation.

To J. S.

In this poem, addressed to James Spedding, one of the Cambridge ''Apostles," is a reference (stanzas 5-6) to the death of Tennyson's father. The poem was first pub- Hshed in 1833.

LXXXIX

This section tells how Hallam, as Tennyson's friend and Emily Tennyson's lover, would often escape from his law studies in London for happy visits at Somersby.

VII and cxix

These sections allude to the house at 67 Wimpole Street, London, where Hallam was Uving during the winter of 1832-1833. He told his friends that they would always find him at "sixes and sevens."

Break, Break, Break

"Made in a Lincolnshire lane at five o'clock in the morning between blossoming hedges" {Memoir: I, 190), but full of the passion of the sea and of heart-break.

The Two Voices

This poem Tennyson admitted to be autobiographic, — an expression of the struggle against despair which he endured in those first months after the death of Arthur Hallam.

ix-xix •

These sections have reference to the months intervening between the death of Hallam at Vienna, September 15, 1833, and his burial at Clevedon, January 3, 1834.

XXII-XXVII

These sections review the years of friendship and promise constancy.

xxviii-xxx

These sections have reference to the first Christmas at Somersby after Hallam 's burial.

XXXVIII

This section expresses a hope that the free spirit may be pleased with Tennyson's tribute of song.

XLI-XLIV

These sections express the poet's half-doubtful yearning for continued communion with his friend.

XLVI

*This section refers again to the five years of earthly friendship.

LVII

This section expresses a foreboding that Tennyson's poetic work, bereft of Hallam's sympathy, will fail.

LX-LXV

These sections express a fear that Hallam, even on earth ''a soul of nobler tone" and lifted now to "second state sublime," may have passed beyond the reach of the poet's friendship.

LXVII

The reference is to the tablet in Clevedon Church.

Lxviii and lxx

These sections tell how Tennyson was wont to dream of Hallam.

LXXI

This section refers to the summer journey of 1830, when Tennyson and Hallam went to aid the Spanish revolutionists.

In the Valley of Cauteretz

This poem, written in 1861, on the occasion of a second visit, re3ali3 an experience of that same vacation journey.

LXXII

The reference is to the anniversary of Hallam 's death. In Memoriam

LXXIII-LXXV

These sections suggest an appreciation, made keener by death, of the high endowments of Hallam.

LXXVIII

This section would seem to refer to Christmas, 1835.

LXXX-LXXXIII

These sections would seem to indicate that, as the springtide draws near, the poet is gaining a certain mastery over his sorrow.

LXXXIV

This section has reference to the broken hope of marriage between Arthur Hallam and Emily Tennyson.

LXXXV

In this section the poet, though responding to the claims of new friendship, asserts his unchanged allegiance to the love that has become " a part of stillness."

xcv

This section tells of a night at Somersby when Tennyson seemed to find in vision his lost friend again.

The Bridesmaid

This poem has reference to the wedding of Tennyson's brother Charles, May 24, 1836. The bride was Louisa Sellwood, and the bridesmaid her sister, Emily, whose hand the poet did not win until 1850.

XCVIII

This section is addressed to Tennyson's brother Charles, as he was setting forth, with his bride, on a Continental journey.

A Farewell

This poem, first published in 1842, is believed to refer to the brook at Somersby. The Tennysons moved away in 1837.

c-cii

These sections refer to the removal of the Tennyson family from Somersby.

civ-cv

These sections have reference to the loneliness of the first Christmas in a new home.

cvii

In this section the poet describes himself as keeping February 1, the anniversary of Hallam's birthday.

cxxix-cxxx

These sections express the spiritual victory of the poet's love for his friend.

Epilogue

The reference here is to the marriage, in 1842, of Edmund Law Lushington and Tennyson's youngest sister, Cecelia, to whom, though but eight years his junior, he had come to stand in a father's place. Their brother Charles performed the ceremony.

Ulysses

Concerning the part played by this poem in the grant of Tennyson's pension, 1845, the Memoir (Vol. I, p. 225) tells the following : —

"The question arose whether Sheridan Knowles or my father should be placed on the pension list. Peel knew nothing of either of them. Houghton said that he then made Peel read Ulysses, whereupon the pension was granted to Tennyson."

The poem was written soon after the death of Arthur Hallam. "It gave my feeling," said Tennyson to his son, " about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of hfe perhaps more simply than anything in In Memoriam."

Dedication to the Queen

This dedication was prefixed, in 1851, to the seventh edition of Tennyson's Poems. He had been created Poet Laureate in November, 1850.

The Daisy

This poem commemorates a Continental journey taken by Tennyson and his wife in 1851, the second year of their marriage.