Alfred Tennyson | Page 4

on the Biography by
Lord Tennyson (with his kind permission) and on the text of the Poems.
As to the Life, doubtless current anecdotes, not given in the Biography,
are known to me, and to most people. But as they must also be familiar
to the author of the Biography, I have not thought it desirable to include
what he rejected. The works of the "localisers" I have not read:
Tennyson disliked these researches, as a rule, and they appear to be
unessential, and often hazardous. The professed commentators I have
not consulted. It appeared better to give one's own impressions of the
Poems, unaffected by the impressions of others, except in one or two
cases where matters of fact rather than of taste seemed to be in question.
Thus on two or three points I have ventured to differ from a
distinguished living critic, and have given the reasons for my dissent.
Professor Bradley's Commentary on In Memoriam {1} came out after
this sketch was in print. Many of the comments cited by Mr Bradley
from his predecessors appear to justify my neglect of these curious
inquirers. The "difficulties" which they raise are not likely, as a rule, to
present themselves to persons who read poetry "for human pleasure."
I have not often dwelt on parallels to be found in the works of earlier

poets. In many cases Tennyson deliberately reproduced passages from
Greek, Latin, and old Italian writers, just as Virgil did in the case of
Homer, Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius, and others. There are,
doubtless, instances in which a phrase is unconsciously reproduced by
automatic memory, from an English poet. But I am less inclined than
Mr Bradley to think that unconscious reminiscence is more common in
Tennyson than in the poets generally. I have not closely examined
Keats and Shelley, for example, to see how far they were influenced by
unconscious memory. But Scott, confessedly, was apt to reproduce the
phrases of others, and once unwittingly borrowed from a poem by the
valet of one of his friends! I believe that many of the alleged
borrowings in Tennyson are either no true parallels at all or are the
unavoidable coincidences of expression which must inevitably occur.
The poet himself stated, in a lively phrase, his opinion of the hunters
after parallels, and I confess that I am much of his mind. They often
remind me of Mr Punch's parody on an unfriendly review of Alexander
Smith -
"Most WOMEN have NO CHARACTER at all." --POPE. "No
CHARACTER that servant WOMAN asked." --SMITH.
I have to thank Mr Edmund Gosse and Mr Vernon Rendall for their
kindness in reading my proof-sheets. They have saved me from some
errors, but I may have occasionally retained matter which, for one
reason or another, did not recommend itself to them. In no case are they
responsible for the opinions expressed, or for the critical estimates.
They are those of a Tennysonian, and, no doubt, would be other than
they are if the writer were younger than he is. It does not follow that
they would necessarily be more correct, though probably they would be
more in vogue. The point of view must shift with each generation of
readers, as ideas or beliefs go in or out of fashion, are accepted,
rejected, or rehabilitated. To one age Tennyson may seem weakly
superstitious; to another needlessly sceptical. After all, what he must
live by is, not his opinions, but his poetry. The poetry of Milton
survives his ideas; whatever may be the fate of the ideas of Tennyson
his poetry must endure.

CHAPTER I
--BOYHOOD--CAMBRIDGE--EARLY POEMS.

The life and work of Tennyson present something like the normal type
of what, in circumstances as fortunate as mortals may expect, the life
and work of a modern poet ought to be. A modern poet, one says,
because even poetry is now affected by the division of labour. We do
not look to the poet for a large share in the practical activities of
existence: we do not expect him, like AEschylus and Sophocles,
Theognis and Alcaeus, to take a conspicuous part in politics and war;
or even, as in the Age of Anne, to shine among wits and in society. Life
has become, perhaps, too specialised for such multifarious activities.
Indeed, even in ancient days, as a Celtic proverb and as the picture of
life in the Homeric epics prove, the poet was already a man apart--not
foremost among statesmen and rather backward among warriors. If we
agree with a not unpopular opinion, the poet ought to be a kind of
"Titanic" force, wrecking himself on his own passions and on the
nature of things, as did Byron, Burns, Marlowe, and Musset. But
Tennyson's career followed lines really more normal, the lines of the
life of