Uncharted Depths: Delving into Young Tennyson's Turbulent Years
The poet Tennyson existed as a conflicted spirit. He famously wrote a poem called The Two Voices, where two versions of the poet argued the merits of ending his life. Through this illuminating volume, the author elects to spotlight on the lesser known persona of the literary figure.
A Defining Year: 1850
In the year 1850 proved to be pivotal for Tennyson. He unveiled the significant poem sequence In Memoriam, for which he had laboured for almost twenty years. As a result, he became both celebrated and wealthy. He got married, subsequent to a extended engagement. Before that, he had been living in leased properties with his mother and siblings, or lodging with bachelor friends in London, or staying in solitude in a rundown dwelling on one of his home Lincolnshire's bleak coasts. Then he moved into a home where he could entertain notable visitors. He was appointed the official poet. His career as a renowned figure started.
Starting in adolescence he was imposing, even charismatic. He was of great height, messy but handsome
Family Turmoil
His family, observed Alfred, were a “black-blooded race”, indicating inclined to temperament and sadness. His paternal figure, a unwilling minister, was irate and regularly intoxicated. Transpired an incident, the particulars of which are vague, that caused the family cook being fatally burned in the rectory kitchen. One of Alfred’s male relatives was confined to a psychiatric hospital as a youth and remained there for life. Another endured profound despair and emulated his father into drinking. A third developed an addiction to the drug. Alfred himself experienced episodes of debilitating sadness and what he termed “bizarre fits”. His poem Maud is voiced by a madman: he must frequently have pondered whether he could become one in his own right.
The Intriguing Figure of Young Tennyson
Even as a youth he was imposing, even charismatic. He was of great height, unkempt but handsome. Even before he adopted a dark cloak and headwear, he could dominate a space. But, being raised crowded with his brothers and sisters – three brothers to an attic room – as an grown man he craved solitude, escaping into quiet when in company, disappearing for individual walking tours.
Deep Concerns and Crisis of Belief
In that period, earth scientists, celestial observers and those early researchers who were beginning to think with Charles Darwin about the origin of species, were introducing disturbing questions. If the story of existence had commenced ages before the appearance of the mankind, then how to maintain that the world had been created for people's enjoyment? “It is inconceivable,” stated Tennyson, “that the entire cosmos was simply created for mankind, who reside on a minor world of a ordinary star The modern telescopes and lenses exposed areas vast beyond measure and beings tiny beyond perception: how to keep one’s belief, given such evidence, in a God who had made mankind in his form? If ancient reptiles had become died out, then would the human race do so too?
Persistent Themes: Kraken and Friendship
Holmes ties his story together with two recurrent motifs. The first he presents early on – it is the image of the Kraken. Tennyson was a young scholar when he penned his work about it. In Holmes’s view, with its blend of “Norse mythology, “earlier biology, “futuristic ideas and the biblical text”, the short verse establishes ideas to which Tennyson would repeatedly revisit. Its impression of something immense, unutterable and mournful, submerged out of reach of human understanding, anticipates the atmosphere of In Memoriam. It marks Tennyson’s debut as a expert of rhythm and as the creator of images in which terrible mystery is condensed into a few dazzlingly suggestive phrases.
The additional motif is the contrast. Where the imaginary sea monster represents all that is lugubrious about Tennyson, his friendship with a real-life figure, Edward FitzGerald, of whom he would state ““there was no better ally”, conjures all that is affectionate and playful in the artist. With him, Holmes introduces us to a facet of Tennyson rarely before encountered. A Tennyson who, after intoning some of his grandest verses with “grotesque grimness”, would abruptly roar with laughter at his own solemnity. A Tennyson who, after seeing ““his friend FitzGerald” at home, wrote a grateful note in rhyme portraying him in his flower bed with his domesticated pigeons sitting all over him, planting their “rosy feet … on back, hand and leg”, and even on his head. It’s an image of joy nicely suited to FitzGerald’s notable celebration of pleasure-seeking – his interpretation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. It also evokes the excellent absurdity of the two poets’ shared companion Edward Lear. It’s gratifying to be informed that Tennyson, the mournful Great Man, was also the muse for Lear’s poem about the old man with a beard in which “two owls and a chicken, several songbirds and a small bird” constructed their homes.
