Tennyson’s Life and
Poetry: and Mistakes
Concerning Tennyson

By EUGENE PARSONS.

COPYRIGHT, 1892, By EUGENE PARSONS.

Printed by The Craig Press, Chicago.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

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 Church’s Laureate’s Country, and Napier’s Homes and Haunts of Lord Tennyson. There is a mass of material, both critical and biographical, in Shepherd’s Tennysoniana; Wace’s Life and Works of Tennyson; Tainsh’s Study of the Works of Tennyson; Jennings’ Sketch of Lord Tennyson; and Van Dyke’s Poetry of Tennyson. Besides these may be mentioned Brightwell’s Tennyson Concordance; Irving’s Tennyson; Lester’s 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 Dawson’s Study of “The Princess”; Mann’s Tennyson’s “Maud” Vindicated; Elsdale’s Studies in the Idyls; and Nutt’s Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail. A collection of Tennyson’s songs, set to music by various composers, has been issued by Stanley Lucas and by Harper & Bros.

Several volumes of selections from Tennyson’s writings have appeared as follows: Ausgewählte 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 People’s 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 Tennyson’s 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; Aylmer’s 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: Horne’s Spirit of the Age; Howitt’s Homes and Haunts of British Poets; Hamilton’s Poets-Laureate of England; Robertson’s Lectures; Kingsley’s Miscellanies; Bagehot’s Literary Studies; Japp’s Three Great Teachers; Buchanan’s Master Spirits; Austin’s Poets of the Period; Forman’s Our Living Poets; Friswell’s Modern Men of Letters; Haweis’ Poets in the Pulpit; McCrie’s Religion of Our Literature; Devey’s Comparative Estimate of English Poets; Gladstone’s Gleanings of Past Years; Archer’s English Dramatists of To-Day; Stedman’s Victorian Poets; Cooke’s Poets and Problems; Fraser’s Chaucer to Longfellow; Dawson’s Makers of Modern English; Egan’s Lectures on English Literature; and Ritchie’s 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 Ruskin’s Modern Painters; Hamerton’s Thoughts on Art; Masson’s Recent British Philosophy; and Arnold’s Lectures on Translating Homer. Stray glimpses of the man in his personal relations are found in the Carlyle and Emerson Correspondence; Fanny Kemble’s Records of a Girlhood; Caroline Fox’s Memories of Old Friends; Reid’s 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. Ritchie’s 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 “Tennyson’s 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 critique—“Mistakes 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