Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809-1892) with his wife Emily (1813-1896) and his sons Hallam (1852-1928) and Lionel (1854-1886)
WHEN in may 2019 Simon Armitage turned into appointed Poet Laureate, he joined the list of lugubriously Northern-accented country wide bards led with the aid of Carol Ann Duffy and Ted Hughes. they had all been preceded via the equally non-RP tones of the resolutely Lincolnshire Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892).
Tennyson in no way fairly geared up the cliché of "Victorian poet". He was an unusually tall man and so powerfully developed that he once picked up a donkey and carried it out of his backyard. far from being a closeted intellectual, his typical reading covered murder mysteries and lightweight romantic novels, and at times his rough method may well be a humiliation.
One night after dinner at the Oxford and Cambridge club with chums, Tennyson put his ft on the desk and tilted his chair lower back within the American fashion. His friends complained but he neglected them, asserting he changed into at ease with the position.
"all and sundry's watching you" insisted some of the chums.
"Let 'em stare" retorted Tennyson.
Then one man had an idea. "Alfred, americans will believe that you're Henry Longfellow."
The ft descended.
youngsters, his mastery of the English verse kind was under no circumstances in doubt. Famously described by TS Eliot as "the saddest of all English poets" he created such admired strains as "Nature, purple in enamel and claw", and "'Tis more desirable to have adored and lost, Than on no account to have cherished at all".
The loss of life of his Cambridge friend Arthur Hallam on the age of only 22 caused Tennyson to write his masterpiece In Memoriam, ultimately published in 1850.
This changed into followed via the frequent success of his resounding can charge of the gentle Brigade. It become said that "Tennyson had the British Empire for God and Queen Victoria for Virgin Mary". much less bombastically, he referred to that the line of which he become most proud became: "The mellow ouzel fluted within the elm".
After a slow beginning to his career, the 12 months of 1850 noticed a profound upturn in Tennyson's fortunes. firstly his wedding within the village of Shiplake (near Henley-on-Thames) to Emily Sellwood marked the birth of a long-lasting and massively chuffed marriage.
They spent their honeymoon in the Lake District, which led one American newspaper to remark: "We hope now that Mr Tennyson is married and has back to his native lakes, he will give up opium".
they had confused him with the notorious Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Later that year he turned into appointed to the Laureateship. In 1883 when Tennyson became the first poet to be given a peerage, EF Benson commented that: "The condominium of Lords became more honoured by his entering it than he turned into through getting into."
His connection to Camden changed into sealed when he installed his mom at 40 New conclusion rectangular in Hampstead, and his sister just round the corner at seventy five Flask stroll.
He observed that he walked lower back from his visits to peer them "over fields not yet constructed on".
He did not endure from excessive modesty, a trait his contemporaries were not sluggish to factor out. William Morris pronounced jogging with Tennyson once they noticed two cyclists coming near in the distance.
Tennyson started to grouse that they have been sure to stop and demand autographs. once they swept past without halting, he turned to Morris and indignantly exclaimed: "They under no circumstances even checked out me!"
Neither did he thrive in social instances. At one backyard birthday celebration he was added to a shy young woman who was tongue-tied at assembly the first-rate man. For a few minutes they sat in embarrassed silence. ultimately, Tennyson spoke: "Your stays are too tight."
The girl stammered out: "I – I don't suppose so, sir."
"sure, certainly" insisted Tennyson. "i can hear them creaking."
purple-confronted with confusion, the girl leaped up and scurried away to mingle with the other visitors. Half an hour later she was mortified to see Tennyson lumbering in opposition t her again. When he spotted her, the poet bellowed throughout the heads of the garden birthday party: "young woman, my apologies! i was incorrect! It become not your stays. It turned into my braces!"
Tennyson delighted in analyzing his poetry aloud to awed visitors, besides the fact that children yet once more issues did not always go to devise. On one occasion he sat a younger girl on his knee while he study to her from Maud. When he reached the strains: Birds in the excessive hall-backyard, when twilight become falling, Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, they have been crying and calling, he requested the lady which bird she idea he had been describing. She answered: "A nightingale?"
Tennyson: "This made me so angry that I just about flung her to the ground. 'No, idiot! Rook! Rook! Rook!'"
His conclusion changed into nearly theatrically applicable. as the full moon shone on his deathbed, he known as for a copy of Shakespeare. He turned the pages until he reached Cymbeline, then expired, his hand still protecting the booklet.
At his funeral in Westminster Abbey, the nave become lined through men of the Balaclava gentle Brigade.
• tailored from Neil Titley's e-book The Oscar Wilde World of Gossip. For greater particulars go to wildetheatre.co.uk/the-oscar-wilde-world-of-gossip/
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