A Word About Tennyson

Nice beard, Mr. Tennyson

I’ve mentioned Alfred, Lord Tennyson here, here and here. So I thought I’d write a little bit about the man on his birthday—he was born on August 6, 1809. My favorite Tennyson poem (and one of my favorite poems, period) is “Ulysses.” Tennyson wrote it after the death of his best friend, Arthur Hallam. To me, this poem about getting that feeling that the best days are behind you, but pushing forward and realizing that good times can still be had. “Though much is taken, much abides,” he writes… I reread this poem quite a bit.

In grad school, I took a Victorian poetry class that I thought would be incredibly dull but in the end I really liked. We spent a lot of time on Tennyson. Actually, we spent a lot of time discussing his really long poem In Memoriam, which is also about the death of Tennyson’s BFF. And when I say “a lot of time,” I mean we analyzed EVERY stanza of that incredibly long poem. I’ll admit that somewhere along the way I completely lost interest in In Memoriam, and to this day, I have never read the whole thing. But I love the opening lines:
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

This, to me, means growing up and maturing—evolving, really. Oh, I can’t forget about “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” The poem is spectacular, but the story behind it is even more intriguing. I think Tennyson is like Shakespeare, in that that a lot of people are familiar with certain lines and passages of his poetry. For example, “’Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all” (from, you guessed it, In Memoriam). And: “Theirs not to make reply, /Theirs not to reason why, /Theirs but to do and die” (from “The Charge of the Light Brigade”). He was such an amazing poet. Remember, dear readers: “Tis not too late to seek a newer world” (that one’s from “Ulysses”).