Alfred Lord Tennyson: Early Life
Alfred Tennyson, the son of clergyman, was born at Somersby in Lincolnshire 0n 6th August 1809. At seven he was sent to Louth Grammar School. He did not like the schooling there. So he left it after four years and was educated at home by his father.
Life & Works: Alfred Lord Tennyson
He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1828. Here he won the Chancellor’s Medal for a poem, ‘Timbuctoo’. At that time he formed friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam, whose death he mourned in his great elegy, In Memoriam. He left Cambridge without taking a degree. After this for several years he passed a tranquil existence, living chiefly with his parents and writing much poetry. In 1844 he lost most of his small means by an unlucky speculation. But soon by a luck chance in 1845 he received a government pension. In 1850 he married Emily Sellwood whom he courted since 1832. This year he was made poet Laureate in Succession to Wordsworth who died this year in April. In 1853 he went to stay at Freshwater in the Isle of Wight where he stayed for the next 20 years. In later years recognition and honour came upon him increasingly. He was regarded the greatest poet of his time. In 1884 he was made a baron and sat in the House of Lords. For a time he took up politics rather seriously. He died at Aldsworth, near Haslemere in Surrey on 6th October 1892. He was buried in Westminster Abbey near the grave of Robert Browing.
Alfred Lord Tennyson Poems
His first publication was poems by Two Brothers (1827) composed along with his elder brother, Charles. Then appear his first volume of poems Chiefly Lyrical (1830). Three more volumes of poems appeared in course of twelve years. After the tragic death of his friend Arthur Hallam in 1833 he was overwhelmed with grief and started writing an elegy, In Memoriam which he completed and published in 1850. In 1847 The Princess came out. The best among his longer poems published after 1850 were Maud, Idylls of the King and Enoch Arden.
