LORD TENNYSON, TENNYSON life and works , LORD TENNYSON poems

Alfred LORD TENNYSON,  TENNYSON: LIFE AND WORKS :

Alfred Tennyson was born in August 1809 in Lincolnshire where his father was a rector. It is said that the rectory had an enchanting landscape that moulded the aesthetic taste of Tennyson. Not only did he take in the beautiful topography of his birth place, he tried to compose lines that could match the sights and the sounds that he experienced as a child and as a young man. Tennyson's father had an academic bent of mind. He made the young boy learn Latin and Greek classics seriously. So when Tennyson came to Cambridge University in 1828 he had sufficient intellectual training to cope with the studies and other challenges of the legendary educational institution. 

In Cambridge Tennyson became intimate with Arthur Hallam, the son eminent historian. Later on Mr. Hallam was engaged to Tennyson's sister; he died, however, in Vienna on a trip with his father. Tennyson had already written poems that won distinction. But the death of Arthur Hallam shattered him. For some time he was dumb with grief and melancholy. Yet in this period he found poetic composition as a means of psychic relief. He composed-short lyrics as his moods dictated him. This continued for a couple of years and the result was In of the Memoriam, a great elegiac poem. The poem is supposed to reflect not only the intense personal sorrow of the poet, but also to represent the chief conflict of the Victorian age – the conflict between science and religion. The fact that Tennyson could transcend his personal losses and think in a systematic way about the larger concerns and issues of his age is of singular importance. It gives Tennyson's poetry a lasting appeal. The classical training that his father imparted to him remained a principal stimulus to Tennyson's poetic life. He is one poet who chose a number of medieval and Greek legends as subjects for his works. But in all his works he tried to interpret the life of his times. In other words, the sense of historical continuity gives his perception of modern issues a sharper edge. His poetry makes the readers feel that there exists a sure fusion between the past and the present.