Lite
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, (born August 6, 1809, Somersby, Lincolnshire, England—died October 6, 1892, Aldworth, Surrey), English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. He was raised to the peerage in 1884.
Tennyson was the fourth of 12 children, born into an old Lincolnshire family, his father a rector. He was sent in 1815 to Louth grammar school—where he was unhappy. He left in 1820, but, though home conditions were difficult, his father managed to give him a wide literary education. Alfred was precocious, and before his teens he had composed in the styles of Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Scott, and John Milton.
In 1827 Alfred and Charles joined Frederick at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1829 he won the chancellor’s gold medal with a poem called Timbuctoo. In 1830 Poems, Chiefly Lyrical was published; and in the same year Tennyson, Hallam, and other Apostles went to Spain to help in the unsuccessful revolution against Ferdinand VII. In 1832 Tennyson published another volume of his poems (dated 1833), including “The Lotos-Eaters,” “The Palace of Art,” and “The Lady of Shalott.”
The new poems included “Morte d’Arthur,” “The Two Voices,” “Locksley Hall,” and “The Vision of Sin” and other poems that reveal a strange naïveté, such as “The May Queen,” “Lady Clara Vere de Vere,” and “The Lord of Burleigh.” In 1847 he published his first long poem, The Princess, a singular anti-feminist fantasia.
“Crossing the Bar” is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is considered that Tennyson wrote it in elegy; the narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the “sandbar” between river of life, with its outgoing “flood”, and the ocean that lies beyond [death], the “boundless deep”, to which we return.
Tennyson is believed to have written the poem (after suffering a serious illness) while on the sea, crossing the Solent from Aldworth to Farringford on the Isle of Wight. Separately, it has been suggested he may have written it on a yacht anchored in Salcombe. “The words”, he said, “came in a moment”.[1] Shortly before he died, Tennyson told his son Hallam to “put ‘Crossing the Bar’ at the end of all editions of my poems”.[1]
The poem contains four stanzas that generally alternate between long and short lines. Tennyson employs a traditional ABAB rhyme scheme. Scholars have noted that the form of the poem follows the content: the wavelike quality of the long-then-short lines parallels the narrative thread of the poem.
The extended metaphor of “crossing the bar” represents travelling serenely and securely from life through death. The Pilot is a metaphor for God, whom the speaker hopes to meet face to face. Tennyson explained, “The Pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him…[He is] that Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us.”
Ulysses is a white verse poem by Victorian British poet Alfred Tennyson (1809 – 1892), written in 1833 and published in 1842, as part of the second volume of Tennyson’s poems. Frequently cited in English literature, the poem is used with some assiduity to illustrate the structure of the dramatic monologue; In its content, Ulysses tells an indefinite audience of his discontent and nervousness upon returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, after having concluded a series of distant journeys as part of his exile. In the twilight of his life, Ulysses yearns to travel and explore again, despite having met his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus.
In most of this story, readers see Ulysses as a heroic and determined man, who is admired for his determination “to fight, explore, find and never give up.” 2 The opinion Tennyson had to create a heroic character, it was an idea that was based on his statements about the poem itself and the events of his life — particularly, the death of his closest friend
At the beginning of the poem, Ulysses returns back to his home located in the kingdom of Ithaca, after a long and hectic journey after fighting in the Trojan War. When confronted again with domestic life, Ulysses expresses his lack of joy and indifference towards the “wild race” he commands, in addition to contrasting his restlessness and boredom with his heroic past. In the midst of this general perception, he contemplates his advanced age and his near death – “One life over another would be entirely insufficient, and I have little left of the only one I have” —5 6 and eager to have more experience and knowledge. His son, Telemachus, was to inherit the throne that Ulysses left empty when he died. Although Ulysses assumes that his son will be a king at the height of the circumstances, he seems to have little empathy for him – “He does his thing, me, mine” —7 6 as well as the necessary methods of administration – “with prudent patience” 8 6 and “to take them slowly”. – 9 6 In the final part, Ulysses goes to the sailors and summons them to join him in another adventure, without any guarantee in as for the destiny that awaits them, but trying to return to their heroic past:
In Memoriam is a vast poem of 131 sections of varying length, with a prologue and epilogue. Inspired by the grief Tennyson felt at the untimely death of his friend Hallam, the poem touches on many intellectual issues of the Victorian Age as the author searches for the meaning of life and death and tries to come to terms with his sense of loss. Most notably, In Memoriam reflects the struggle to reconcile traditional religious faith and belief in immortality with the emerging theories of evolution and modern geology. The verses show the development over three years of the poet’s acceptance and understanding of his friend’s death and conclude with an epilogue, a happy marriage song on the occasion of the wedding of Tennyson’s sister Cecilia.
The lady of Shallot is a ballad of the English poet Alfred Tennyson. As in his other poems – Lancelot, Queen Geneva, and Galahad – the poem focuses on King Arthur and is based on medieval sources. Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one published in 1833, of 20 stanzas, and another in 1842, of 19 stanzas.
as a count of a 13th-century Italian novel entitled Donna di Scalotta. Tennyson focused on the isolation of the Lady (lady, lady) in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two matters not even mentioned in Donna di Scalotta.
Structure
The first four stanzas of the poem describe a pastoral environment. The Lady of Shalott lives in a castle on an island in a river that flows to Camelot, but local farmers know little about it.
From stanza five to eight describes the life of the lady. He has a mysterious curse and has to create images in his head continuously without directly seeing the outside, the world. On the contrary, look at a mirror that reflects the busy road and the people of Camelot who pass through its island. The reflected images are described as “shadows of the world”, a metaphor that clarifies that they are a bad substitute for the direct look at the world (“I am half-sick of shadows”, “I’m tired of the shadows”).
From stanza nine to twelve, he describes “Lord Lancelot” when he rides a horse and is seen by the lady.
The remaining seven stanzas describe what produces seeing Lancelot in the lady; stop creating images in his head and sees Camelot from his window, leaving the curse behind. Leave your tower, find a boat in which you write your name, and navigate downstream to Camelot. She dies before arriving at the palace. Among the gentlemen and ladies who saw her is Lancelot, who thinks she is beautiful.
His poetry is remarkable for its metrical variety, rich descriptive imagery, and exquisite verbal melodies. But Tennyson was also regarded as the preeminent spokesman for the educated middle-class Englishman, in moral and religious outlook and in political and social consciousness no less than in matters of taste and sentiment.