Author: Tennyson, Alfred
Biography:
TENNYSON, Alfred (1809-92: ODNB)
By most measures the greatest of Victorian poets, Tennyson appears in this bibliography at the very beginning of his splendid career. Of his first published collection, Poems by Two Brothers (1827), he requested later that none of the poems attributed to him should be included among his poetical works in future (Preface, 1893). The son of Elizabeth (Fytche) and George Clayton Tennyson, born at Somersby on 6 Aug. 1809, he followed his two elder brothers Frederick and Charles (qq.v.) to the grammar school in Louth (1816-20) and was then taught by his father at home in preparation for university. He went up to Trinity College, Cambridge (matric. 1828), where he was elected to the Apostles; won the Chancellor’s Medal for English verse with the poem “Timbuctoo”; met his dear friend Arthur Hallam (q.v.); and published Poems, chiefly Lyrical (1830) to mixed reviews. His father died in 1831. Tennyson left Cambridge without a degree but was able to support himself with an annuity from an aunt and some inherited money while he strove to make his way as a poet. He became engaged to Emily Sellwood (1813-96), sister of his brother Charles’s wife, but they did not marry until 13 June 1850. They had two sons who survived infancy, Lionel (1854-86) and Hallam (1852-1928). In Nov. 1853 they settled at Farringford, Freshwater, on the Isle of Wight, with a second home at Aldworth, Berkshire. After the publication of Poems (1842) Tennyson was granted a civil-list pension of £200 for life (1845). Arthur Hallam’s early and sudden death in 1833 was the inspiration for Tennyson’s major work, In Memoriam (1850), which brought the invitation of the laureateship, which he accepted and honoured. Other important works include The Princess (1847), Maud (1855), and The Idylls of the King (1859). In 1883 Tennyson accepted a peerage that he had declined three times before, and became Baron Tennyson; Hallam Tennyson succeeded to the title after the poet’s death at Aldworth on 6 Oct. 1892. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. His son wrote the first of many biographies. (ODNB 13 Aug. 2024; Poems by Two Brothers ed. Hallam Tennyson [1893]; ACAD) HJ
Other Names:
- A. Tennyson