The Vast Unknown: Examining Early Tennyson's Restless Years
The poet Tennyson was known as a torn individual. He famously wrote a verse named The Two Voices, in which contrasting versions of the poet contemplated the merits of ending his life. Through this revealing book, the biographer decides to concentrate on the more obscure identity of the literary figure.
A Defining Year: 1850
The year 1850 was decisive for the poet. He unveiled the monumental poem sequence In Memoriam, for which he had laboured for almost a long period. Therefore, he became both famous and wealthy. He wed, following a 14‑year engagement. Before that, he had been living in temporary accommodations with his relatives, or lodging with unmarried companions in London, or staying by himself in a rundown dwelling on one of his local Lincolnshire's desolate shores. Then he acquired a home where he could entertain notable callers. He became the official poet. His career as a celebrated individual commenced.
From his teens he was commanding, verging on glamorous. He was very tall, messy but handsome
Family Turmoil
The Tennyson clan, observed Alfred, were a “given to dark moods”, indicating susceptible to emotional swings and depression. His father, a reluctant priest, was volatile and frequently drunk. Occurred an event, the facts of which are vague, that led to the domestic worker being burned to death in the home kitchen. One of Alfred’s siblings was admitted to a lunatic asylum as a child and lived there for the rest of his days. Another experienced deep melancholy and emulated his father into drinking. A third fell into narcotics. Alfred himself endured bouts of overwhelming gloom and what he called “bizarre fits”. His work Maud is narrated by a lunatic: he must frequently have pondered whether he could become one himself.
The Fascinating Figure of Early Tennyson
Starting in adolescence he was commanding, verging on charismatic. He was exceptionally tall, disheveled but good-looking. Before he began to wear a Spanish-style cape and wide-brimmed hat, he could command a gathering. But, having grown up hugger-mugger with his family members – several relatives to an cramped quarters – as an mature individual he sought out privacy, withdrawing into silence when in groups, disappearing for solitary walking tours.
Deep Fears and Upheaval of Conviction
During his era, rock experts, star gazers and those scientific thinkers who were starting to consider with the naturalist about the origin of species, were introducing frightening queries. If the timeline of living beings had commenced ages before the arrival of the human race, then how to hold that the earth had been made for mankind's advantage? “It seems impossible,” wrote Tennyson, “that the whole Universe was simply made for humanity, who reside on a insignificant sphere of a ordinary star The new viewing devices and microscopes exposed spaces vast beyond measure and creatures tiny beyond perception: how to keep one’s religion, given such findings, in a divine being who had formed mankind in his likeness? If ancient reptiles had become died out, then could the human race follow suit?
Persistent Elements: Kraken and Companionship
The author binds his narrative together with dual persistent themes. The first he presents at the beginning – it is the concept of the Kraken. Tennyson was a 20-year-old undergraduate when he wrote his verse about it. In Holmes’s perspective, with its blend of “ancient legends, “earlier biology, “futuristic ideas and the Book of Revelations”, the 15-line poem presents concepts to which Tennyson would continually explore. Its impression of something enormous, unutterable and tragic, hidden out of reach of human understanding, prefigures the mood of In Memoriam. It represents Tennyson’s introduction as a master of rhythm and as the originator of symbols in which terrible mystery is condensed into a few brilliantly indicative lines.
The additional element is the Kraken’s opposite. Where the imaginary beast epitomises all that is gloomy about Tennyson, his friendship with a actual person, Edward FitzGerald, of whom he would say ““there was no better ally”, summons up all that is loving and playful in the poet. With him, Holmes presents a facet of Tennyson infrequently previously seen. A Tennyson who, after uttering some of his most majestic verses with ““bizarre seriousness”, would unexpectedly burst out laughing at his own solemnity. A Tennyson who, after calling on ““the companion” at home, composed a thank-you letter in verse portraying him in his flower bed with his tame doves perching all over him, setting their ““reddish toes … on back, wrist and knee”, and even on his skull. It’s an image of delight perfectly tailored to FitzGerald’s significant praise of enjoyment – his version of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. It also evokes the superb nonsense of the pair's common acquaintance Edward Lear. It’s satisfying to be learn that Tennyson, the melancholy renowned figure, was also the source for Lear’s verse about the aged individual with a facial hair in which “two owls and a fowl, several songbirds and a tiny creature” made their dwellings.
