The Vast Unknown: Examining Early Tennyson's Troubled Years
Tennyson himself emerged as a torn individual. He famously wrote a verse called The Two Voices, where dual aspects of himself debated the merits of suicide. In this insightful volume, the author elects to spotlight on the overlooked identity of the literary figure.
A Pivotal Year: The Mid-Century
The year 1850 became pivotal for Alfred. He unveiled the monumental poem sequence In Memoriam, over which he had laboured for nearly two decades. As a result, he grew both famous and prosperous. He entered matrimony, subsequent to a long engagement. Before that, he had been dwelling in temporary accommodations with his family members, or lodging with unmarried companions in London, or living in solitude in a rundown dwelling on one of his native Lincolnshire's bleak coasts. Now he acquired a house where he could entertain notable callers. He became the official poet. His career as a Great Man commenced.
From his teens he was commanding, even magnetic. He was of great height, disheveled but attractive
Family Challenges
The Tennysons, observed Alfred, were a “black-blooded race”, indicating inclined to moods and depression. His parent, a reluctant clergyman, was volatile and regularly intoxicated. Transpired an occurrence, the particulars of which are unclear, that caused the household servant being killed by fire in the home kitchen. One of Alfred’s brothers was confined to a lunatic asylum as a child and lived there for the rest of his days. Another endured profound melancholy and emulated his father into addiction. A third fell into the drug. Alfred himself experienced bouts of debilitating sadness and what he referred to as “weird seizures”. His Maud is voiced by a madman: he must regularly have wondered whether he could become one personally.
The Intriguing Figure of Young Tennyson
From his teens he was imposing, almost charismatic. He was of great height, unkempt but handsome. Prior to he started wearing a black Spanish cloak and headwear, he could control a room. But, maturing in close quarters with his siblings – multiple siblings to an attic room – as an mature individual he craved privacy, escaping into quiet when in groups, disappearing for individual excursions.
Existential Concerns and Crisis of Belief
During his era, geologists, celestial observers and those early researchers who were starting to consider with the naturalist about the biological beginnings, were introducing appalling queries. If the timeline of existence had commenced eons before the emergence of the human race, then how to maintain that the world had been formed for humanity’s benefit? “It seems impossible,” stated Tennyson, “that the entire cosmos was merely made for us, who inhabit a minor world of a ordinary star The recent optical instruments and lenses revealed realms vast beyond measure and beings minutely tiny: how to maintain one’s belief, given such evidence, in a God who had formed man in his likeness? If ancient reptiles had become extinct, then might the humanity do so too?
Repeating Motifs: Sea Monster and Friendship
The author binds his story together with two recurring themes. The primary he presents at the beginning – it is the image of the legendary sea monster. Tennyson was a 20-year-old student when he composed his poem about it. In Holmes’s opinion, with its blend of “Nordic tales, “earlier biology, 19th-century science fiction and the biblical text”, the short sonnet establishes themes to which Tennyson would keep returning. Its feeling of something immense, unspeakable and sad, concealed beyond reach of investigation, anticipates the mood of In Memoriam. It marks Tennyson’s debut as a expert of rhythm and as the author of images in which awful mystery is packed into a few strikingly suggestive lines.
The other element is the counterpart. Where the fictional creature represents all that is melancholic about Tennyson, his connection with a actual figure, Edward FitzGerald, of whom he would write ““he was my closest companion”, summons up all that is loving and playful in the poet. With him, Holmes presents a aspect of Tennyson rarely before encountered. A Tennyson who, after reciting some of his grandest verses with “grotesque grimness”, would unexpectedly roar with laughter at his own seriousness. A Tennyson who, after visiting “dear old Fitz” at home, wrote a grateful note in verse portraying him in his rose garden with his pet birds resting all over him, setting their “rosy feet … on arm, palm and knee”, and even on his crown. It’s an vision of delight perfectly tailored to FitzGerald’s significant celebration of pleasure-seeking – his rendition of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. It also evokes the brilliant foolishness of the both writers' shared companion Edward Lear. It’s pleasing to be told that Tennyson, the mournful celebrated individual, was also the muse for Lear’s poem about the aged individual with a beard in which “nocturnal birds and a hen, several songbirds and a tiny creature” built their homes.