Parsons - Tennysons Life and Poetry / And Mistakes Concerning Tennyson

Tennysons Life and
Poetry: and Mistakes
Concerning Tennyson

By EUGENE PARSONS.

COPYRIGHT, 1892, By EUGENE PARSONS.
Printed by The Craig Press , Chicago.

There is already an extensive Tennyson literature. Of books relating to the scenes connected with his life and works, are Walters In Tennyson Land; Brooks Out of Doors with Tennyson; also Churchs Laureates Country, and Napiers Homes and Haunts of Lord Tennyson. There is a mass of material, both critical and biographical, in Shepherds Tennysoniana; Waces Life and Works of Tennyson; Tainshs Study of the Works of Tennyson; Jennings Sketch of Lord Tennyson; and Van Dykes Poetry of Tennyson. Besides these may be mentioned Brightwells Tennyson Concordance; Irvings Tennyson; Lesters Lord Tennyson and the Bible; also Collins Illustrations of Tennyson.

Valuable help for understanding and appreciating In Memoriam is afforded by the volumes on that poem written by Robertson, Gatty, Genung, Chapman and Davidson. Much interesting information is given in Dawsons Study of The Princess; Manns Tennysons Maud Vindicated; Elsdales Studies in the Idyls; and Nutts Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail. A collection of Tennysons songs, set to music by various composers, has been issued by Stanley Lucas and by Harper & Bros.

Several volumes of selections from Tennysons writings have appeared as follows: Ausgewhlte Gedichte, with notes (in German) by Fischer, Salzwedel, 1878; Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson, with notes (in Italian) by T. C. Cann, Florence, 1887; Lyrical Poems of Lord Tennyson, annotated by F. T. Palgrave; Select Poems of Tennyson, and Young Peoples Tennyson, both edited by W. J. Rolfe; Tennyson Selections, with notes by F. J. Rowe and W. T. Webb; and Tennyson for the Young, edited by Alfred Ainger.

Among school editions of Tennysons poems, are The Princess, with notes by Rolfe, also by Wallace; Enoch Arden, with notes by Rolfe, by Webb, and by Blaisdel; Enoch Arden, with notes (in German) by Hamann, Leipzig, 1890; Enoch Arden, with notes (in French) by Courtois, Paris, 1891; Enoch Arden, with notes (in French) by Beljame, Paris, 1891; Les Idylles du roi, Enoch Arden, with notes (in French) by Baret, Paris, 1886; Enoch Arden, les Idylles du roi, with notes (in French) by Sevrette, Paris, 1887; Aylmers Field, annotated by Webb; The Two Voices and A Dream of Fair Women, by Corson; The Coming of Arthur and The Passing of Arthur, by Rowe; In Memoriam and other poems, by Kellogg.

Innumerable papers on Tennyson and his poetry have been published in newspapers and periodicals. A large number of these reviews and some descriptive articles are contained in the following volumes: Hornes Spirit of the Age; Howitts Homes and Haunts of British Poets; Hamiltons Poets-Laureate of England; Robertsons Lectures; Kingsleys Miscellanies; Bagehots Literary Studies; Japps Three Great Teachers; Buchanans Master Spirits; Austins Poets of the Period; Formans Our Living Poets; Friswells Modern Men of Letters; Haweis Poets in the Pulpit; McCries Religion of Our Literature; Deveys Comparative Estimate of English Poets; Gladstones Gleanings of Past Years; Archers English Dramatists of To-Day; Stedmans Victorian Poets; Cookes Poets and Problems; Frasers Chaucer to Longfellow; Dawsons Makers of Modern English; Egans Lectures on English Literature; and Ritchies Light-Bearers.

For favorable or unfavorable estimates of Tennyson, the reader is referred to the lectures of Dowden and Ingram in the Dublin Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, and to the collected essays of Brimley, Bayne, Hadley, Masson, Stirling, Roscoe, Hayward, Hutton, Swinburne, Galton, Noel, Heywood, Bayard Taylor and others.

Some side-lights are thrown on the Laureate in Ruskins Modern Painters; Hamertons Thoughts on Art; Massons Recent British Philosophy; and Arnolds Lectures on Translating Homer. Stray glimpses of the man in his personal relations are found in the Carlyle and Emerson Correspondence; Fanny Kembles Records of a Girlhood; Caroline Foxs Memories of Old Friends; Reids Life of Lord Houghton; and in the Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald.

But with all that has been written concerning Tennyson, no monograph, so far as I am aware, has hitherto appeared which is at once comprehensive and accurate. Mrs. Ritchies beautiful portraiture of the Laureate, with its touch of hero-worship, lacks a great deal of being a survey of his literary career. No biography of Alfred Tennyson has been published which is worthy the name. For many years students and lovers of the poet encountered difficulty in obtaining full and exact information on the chief events of his life. I undertook to supply this want in the essay entitled Tennysons Life and Poetry.

In the preparation of this paper, I had occasion to consult various periodicals and works of reference. With scarcely an exception, I found the articles on Tennyson in cyclopedias and biographical dictionaries faulty in many particulars. Even the sketches in recent compilations and journals are full of misleading and conflicting statements. I became impressed with the thought that these errors ought to be exposed and corrected. The result was the critiqueMistakes concerning Tennyson. I gathered my materials from a variety of sources, and always aimed to disengage the truth. I depended largely on Rev. Alfred Gatty, Mrs. Ritchie, Mr. Gosse, Prof. Palgrave, Prof. Church, Mr. C. J. Caswell, and Dr. Van Dyke as the most trustworthy authorities.

My thanks are due Dr. W. F. Poole, of the Newberry Library, for placing at my disposal an immense collection of bibliographies, catalogues and bulletins of foreign books. I desire also to express my obligations to Dr. Henry van Dyke, of New York City, for aiding me in my researches.

Eugene Parsons.

3612 Stanton Ave., Chicago,
April, 1892.

I.

Alfred Tennyson was born August 6, 1809, in Somersby, a wooded hamlet of Lincolnshire, England. The native village of Tennyson, says Howitt, who visited it many years ago, is not situated in the fens, but in a pretty pastoral district of softly sloping hills and large ash trees. It is not based on bogs, but on a clean sandstone. There is a little glen in the neighborhood, called by the old monkish name of Holywell. There he was brought up amid the lovely idyllic scenes which he has made famous in the Ode to Memory and other poems. The picturesque Glen, with its tangled underwood and purling brook, was a favorite haunt of the poet in childhood. On one of the stones in this ravine he inscribed the words Byron is Dead ere he was fifteen.