OUTLINE OF TENNYSON'S BIOGRAPHY

1809, Aug. 6 Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby, a country village in Lincolnshire, the fourth son in a family of twelve children. His father, Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was the rector of Somersby and West Enderby, and was a scholar and poet.

1816 At the age of seven Alfred, with his elder brother Charles, went to the Louth Grammar School, under "a tempestuous, flogging master of the old stamp." He was brutally used by the boys at first, and spent four unhappy years

here.

1820 He then returned home, and studied under his father's direction. Besides studying Greek and Latin, he and his brothers Frederick and Charles read a large number of good books in English literature, and composed many poems.

1827 The first public sign of this verse-writing was the publication at Louth of a volume called Poems by Two Brothers. The present Lord Tennyson says that the poems were really written by the three brothers, Frederick, Charles, and Alfred.

1828, Feb. 20 He and his brother Charles went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where Frederick was already a student. 1829, June 6 He won the Chancellor's medal for his poem in blank verse, Timbuctoo. At this time he met Arthur Henry Hallam, with whom he formed a warm friendship, and whose early death was to inspire Tennyson's great poem, In Memoriam.

1830 He published his first independent volume of verse, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical.

1831 He left Cambridge without taking a degree, on account of the death of his father. He now became the manager of the household, and remained at home, diligently educating himself to be a poet.

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OUTLINE OF TENNYSON'S BIOGRAPHY

1832 His next volume was published, and was entitled Poems. 1833 Arthur Hallam, who had gone to the Continent for his health, died at Vienna.

1842 In this year he published Poems, in two volumes, a work which contained most of what he had published in the volumes of 1830 and 1832, rewritten and improved, together with much that was new. These volumes included many of those poems which are now regarded as the poet's best work, such as Locksley Hall, The Gardener's Daughter, and Ulysses. It must be specially noted that they also contained the Morte d'Arthur, which now forms lines 170-440 of the present Passing of Arthur, the closing book of the Idylls of the King. This year, therefore, marks the beginning of the Idylls. They were not finished until 1885.

1847 The Princess was next published.

1850 Ever since the death of Arthur Hallam, Tennyson had been

composing a series of poems which were inspired by his love for his friend. The result was In Memoriam, published in this year.

His poems now began to bring him fame, and he was appointed Poet Laureate. They were bringing him an income as well, and he was now enabled to marry Emily Sellwood.

1855 Maud, and Other Poems was published.

1859 The Idylls of the King was published in the earliest form. There were four Idylls in this volume, Enid, Vivien, Elaine, and Guinevere.

1864 Enoch Arden, and Other Poems.

1869 The Holy Grail, and Other Poems.

1871 The Last Tournament.

1872 Gareth and Lynette, and Other Poems.

These three Idylls took their proper place in the new edition

of the Idylls of the King, 1872.

1875 Queen Mary, A Drama.

1876 Harold, A Drama.

1884 Becket.

These are his three great historical dramas.

OUTLINE OF TENNYSON'S BIOGRAPHY

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1884 The poet was made Baron of Aldworth and Farringford. 1885 Tiresias and Other Poems. The volume contains Balin and Balan, the latest written of all the Idylls of the King.

Ballads, and Other Poems.

1886 Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc.

1889 Demeter, and Other Poems.

1892 Tennyson died October 6, and was buried October 12, in Westminster Abbey, beside Robert Browning, in front of Chaucer's tomb.

The Death of Enone, Akbar's Dream, and Other Poems, published October 24.

TENNYSON AND THE IDYLLS OF THE KING

In the Life of Tennyson, written by his son, we read that, from his earliest years, the poet had written out in prose various histories of King Arthur. His earliest poem on the subject appeared in 1832, when he published The Lady of Shalott, which is another form of Lancelot and Elaine in the Idylls of the King. The next poems on the Arthurian theme appeared just ten years later, in the volumes of 1842— Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere (partly, if not wholly, written in 1830), Sir Galahad, and Morte d'Arthur.

Of these the first two are lyrical in form; but the last is in blank verse, and marks the real beginning of the Idylls of the King. The poet, then, had written a poem on this subject, at least as early as 1830, and we know that the last one in the Idylls (Balin and Balan) was published in 1885, so that the Arthur story occupied a large share of Tennyson's attention for a period of fifty-five years. The outline of Tennyson's Biography (pp. vii-ix) gives the date at which each of the books was published. A glance at this succession of dates will show us how important a place the Idylls of the King occupied in the life work of the poet. He studied the old books about Arthur, travelled in Wales, Brittany, and other places associated with the name of the famous King, and endeavored, in every way, to make himself familiar with what he called "the greatest of all poetical subjects."

The story is, indeed, one of the greatest stories of the world, and one that has attracted more than one eminent English poet. Spenser (1552-1599), in his greatest poem, the Faerie Queene, used the story of King Arthur to portray "the image of a brave knight perfected in the twelve private moral virtues." We know that Milton, too (1608–1674), about half a century later, planned to write a poem on King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but he abandoned this subject for that of "Paradise Lost." Tennyson was the next famous poet who was especially attracted by the story, and the results of his interest are to be found at their best in this volume of selections from the Idylls of the King.

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THE ARTHUR LEGEND

William of Malmesbury, an early English historian, writing in 1125, informs us that the Britons of his time were in the habit of telling a series of tales about King Arthur, who had been the champion of the Celtic peoples against their enemies, and who was to come again and reign over them. These tales were connected with the struggles of the Britons in Cornwall and Wales against the Saxons who invaded Britain in 449 and finally conquered the island; but we have no reason to suppose that these stories were in any sense true to authentic history in their details. Indeed, we may be pretty certain that they were not, if we are to judge by the earliest elaborate account of the legendary history of Britain, written about 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his British History. Geoffrey professes to obtain his information from an ancient British chronicle, which his friend, Walter of Oxford, brought from Brittany; but this is probably only a device of the author to render his own inventions plausible.

In Geoffrey's day there was a great revival of stories about King Arthur. The Saxons, the old hereditary foes of the Britons in Wales, had been defeated by the Normans under William the Conqueror in 1066, and the wild dreams of the Britons concerning the great King Arthur who was to come again were spread abroad in village and court. These tales Geoffrey must