Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson

(an assessment on the events in Lord Tennyson’s)

Start of the Victorian Era, the beginning of the industrial revolution, these were the times in which Alfred Lord Tennyson was born. With a striking good looking beard, Tennyson will be the artist of many thought provoking texts, many texts that will later be argued over and discussed for centuries. “Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers,” in the words of Smith. However, an intriguing question to ask is what is it that would Lord Tennyson to write such proving words? By using Alfred Lord Tennyson’s three texts, In Memoriam, The Lady Of Shalott, and Ulysses, the reasons for Tennyson’s thoughts can be unfolded.

To begin, In Memoriam is a very sad and dreadful excerpt that can be easily understood if one is to know that his reasoning for writing it is the loss of a loved one. In Memoriam consists of Lord Tennyson just moping. He’s sad, he has depression and he has no hope for himself. Why would a young man be in such a state without something dramatic happening in his life? It’s because something did happen. Lord Tennyson lost a dear countenance and friend. “Arthur Henry Hallum, has passed away,” says Alena O’ Conner in her article In Memoriam. From the seventh section of his Memoriam line 5-8 he says, “A hand that can be clasped no more—behold me, for I cannot sleep and like a guilty thing I creep at earliest morning to the door.” He’s losing sleep. He’s lost his friend and these lines and the lines following go to show that it is making a dramatic effect on him.

The Lady of Shalott is a prime example of the complicated relationship that Alfred Lord Tennyson had towards women during the 19th Century. Te...

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...; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.” In other words, we’re not as strong as we used to be. We don’t have that kind of strength anymore. However, we are what we are, and I’m going to push through to the very end.

From the death of a dear friend, to the fall of his own country, these very dramatic events helped Alfred Lord Tennyson come up with the idea to write these texts. In the words of Wilson, “in his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons, a reputation no other poet writing in English has ever had.” He didn’t just pull them out of nowhere. Which begs another intriguing question. Did all of Lord Tennyson’s stories come from some life event that he had, or did he just make others up for the mere pleasure of being an author?