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Tennyson himself was known as a divided individual. He produced a poem titled The Two Voices, in which contrasting aspects of the poet contemplated the arguments of self-destruction. In this insightful book, the biographer decides to concentrate on the lesser known character of the writer.

A Defining Year: The Mid-Century

The year 1850 became pivotal for the poet. He unveiled the monumental collection of poems In Memoriam, over which he had laboured for nearly a long period. Consequently, he grew both celebrated and wealthy. He got married, following a 14‑year relationship. Earlier, he had been dwelling in leased properties with his mother and siblings, or residing with male acquaintances in London, or residing alone in a rundown house on one of his native Lincolnshire's barren coasts. Now he acquired a home where he could entertain notable callers. He became the official poet. His career as a Great Man commenced.

From his teens he was striking, verging on glamorous. He was exceptionally tall, unkempt but good-looking

Lineage Challenges

His family, observed Alfred, were a “prone to melancholy”, meaning inclined to temperament and sadness. His parent, a reluctant clergyman, was angry and very often inebriated. Transpired an incident, the particulars of which are obscure, that resulted in the family cook being burned to death in the rectory kitchen. One of Alfred’s siblings was admitted to a mental institution as a youth and lived there for his entire existence. Another endured deep melancholy and emulated his father into drinking. A third became addicted to narcotics. Alfred himself experienced episodes of debilitating sadness and what he referred to as “strange episodes”. His Maud is told by a madman: he must regularly have questioned whether he was one personally.

The Fascinating Figure of Early Tennyson

Starting in adolescence he was imposing, almost magnetic. He was of great height, unkempt but good-looking. Even before he began to wear a black Spanish cloak and wide-brimmed hat, he could command a space. But, being raised in close quarters with his siblings – several relatives to an cramped quarters – as an adult he sought out privacy, retreating into quiet when in social settings, vanishing for solitary excursions.

Philosophical Concerns and Crisis of Belief

In that period, earth scientists, star gazers and those early researchers who were starting to consider with the naturalist about the evolution, were introducing frightening queries. If the timeline of life on Earth had begun eons before the arrival of the humanity, then how to hold that the world had been formed for people's enjoyment? “It is inconceivable,” wrote Tennyson, “that the whole Universe was merely formed for humanity, who inhabit a third-rate planet of a third-rate sun The recent viewing devices and magnifying tools exposed areas infinitely large and organisms infinitesimally small: how to hold to one’s faith, in light of such evidence, in a God who had made man in his own image? If prehistoric creatures had become extinct, then would the human race do so too?

Persistent Themes: Mythical Beast and Companionship

Holmes ties his narrative together with a pair of recurring themes. The first he establishes initially – it is the image of the legendary sea monster. Tennyson was a young scholar when he composed his verse about it. In Holmes’s opinion, with its blend of “ancient legends, “historical science, “futuristic ideas and the scriptural reference”, the 15-line poem presents ideas to which Tennyson would repeatedly revisit. Its sense of something immense, unspeakable and sad, hidden inaccessible of investigation, foreshadows the mood of In Memoriam. It marks Tennyson’s debut as a expert of metre and as the originator of images in which dreadful unknown is condensed into a few brilliantly indicative words.

The additional element is the Kraken’s opposite. Where the fictional creature symbolises all that is gloomy about Tennyson, his friendship with a real-life figure, Edward FitzGerald, of whom he would state “I had no truer friend”, summons up all that is affectionate and lighthearted in the artist. With him, Holmes introduces us to a side of Tennyson infrequently previously seen. A Tennyson who, after intoning some of his most impressive lines with ““odd solemnity”, would abruptly roar with laughter at his own solemnity. A Tennyson who, after visiting “dear old Fitz” at home, wrote a grateful note in poetry portraying him in his garden with his tame doves perching all over him, setting their ““reddish toes … on shoulder, hand and lap”, and even on his skull. It’s an image of joy perfectly adapted to FitzGerald’s great celebration of hedonism – his interpretation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. It also summons up the brilliant nonsense of the pair's mutual friend Edward Lear. It’s pleasing to be informed that Tennyson, the sad Great Man, was also the muse for Lear’s verse about the aged individual with a facial hair in which “two owls and a fowl, four larks and a tiny creature” constructed their homes.

A Fascinating {Biography|Life Story|