The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 1

The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

PREFACE

A Critical edition of Tennyson's poems has long been an acknowledged want. He has taken his place among the English Cla.s.sics, and as a Cla.s.sic he is, and will be, studied, seriously and minutely, by many thousands of his countrymen, both in the present generation as well as in future ages. As in the works of his more ill.u.s.trious brethren, so in his trifles will become subjects of curious interest, and a.s.sume an importance of which we have no conception now. Here he will engage the attention of the antiquary, there of the social historian. Long after his politics, his ethics, his theology have ceased to be immediately influential, they will be of immense historical significance. A consummate artist and a consummate master of our language, the process by which he achieved results so memorable can never fail to be of interest, and of absorbing interest, to critical students.

I must, I fear, claim the indulgence due to one who attempts, for the first time, a critical edition of a text so perplexingly voluminous in variants as Tennyson's. I can only say that I have spared neither time nor labour to be accurate and exhaustive. I have myself collated, or have had collated for me, every edition recorded in the British Museum Catalogue, and where that has been deficient I have had recourse to other public libraries, and to the libraries of private friends. I am not conscious that I have left any variant unrecorded, but I should not like to a.s.sert that this is the case. Tennyson was so restlessly indefatigable in his corrections that there may lurk, in editions of the poems which I have not seen, other variants; and it is also possible that, in spite of my vigilance, some may have escaped me even in the editions which have been collated, and some may have been made at a date earlier than the date recorded. But I trust this has not been the case.

Of the Bibliography I can say no more than that I have done my utmost to make it complete, and that it is very much fuller than any which has. .h.i.therto appeared. That it is exhaustive I dare not promise.

With regard to the Notes and Commentaries, I have spared no pains to explain everything which seemed to need explanation. There are, I think, only two points which I have not been able to clear up, namely, the name of the friend to whom the 'Palace of Art' was addressed, and the name of the friend to whom the 'Verses after Reading a Life and Letters'

were addressed. I have consulted every one who would be likely to throw light on the subject, including the poet's surviving sister, many of his friends, and the present Lord Tennyson, but without success; so the names, if they were not those of some imaginary person, appear to be irrecoverable. The Prize Poem, 'Timbuctoo', as well as the poems which were temporarily or finally suppressed in the volumes published in 1830 and 1832 have been printed in the Appendix: those which were subsequently incorporated in his Works, in large type; those which he never reprinted, in small.

The text here adopted is that of 1857, but Messrs. Macmillan, to whom I beg to express my hearty thanks, have most generously allowed me to record all the variants which are still protected by copyright. I have to thank them, too, for a.s.sistance in the Bibliography. I have also to thank Mr. J. T. Wise for his kindness in lending me the privately printed volume containing the 'Morte d'Arthur, Dora,' etc.

INTRODUCTION

I

The development of Tennyson's genius, methods, aims and capacity of achievement in poetry can be studied with singular precision and fulness in the history of the poems included in the present volume. In 1842 he published the two volumes which gave him, by almost general consent, the first place among the poets of his time, for, though Wordsworth was alive, Wordsworth's best work had long been done. These two volumes contained poems which had appeared before, some in 1830 and some in 1832, and some which were then given to the world for the first time, so that they represent work belonging to three eras in the poet's life, poems written before he had completed his twenty-second year and belonging for the most part to his boyhood, poems written in his early manhood, and poems written between his thirty-first and thirty-fourth year.

The poems published in 1830 had the following t.i.tle-page:

"Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson.

London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1830".

They are fifty-six in number and the t.i.tles are:--

Claribel.

Lilian.

Isabel.

Elegiacs.+ The "How" and the "Why".

Mariana.

To----. Madeline.

The Merman.

The Mermaid.

Supposed Confessions of a second-rate sensitive mind not in unity with itself. + The Burial of Love.

To--(Sainted Juliet dearest name.) Song. The Owl.

Second Song. To the same.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights.

Ode to Memory.

Song. (I'the the glooming light.) Song. (A spirit haunts.) Adeline.

A Character.

Song. (The lint-white and the throstle c.o.c.k.) Song. (Every day hath its night.) The Poet.

The Poet's Mind.

Nothing will die. + All things will die. + Hero to Leander.

The Mystic.

The Dying Swan.

A Dirge.

The Gra.s.shopper.

Love, Pride and Forgetfulness.

Chorus (in an unpublished drama written very early).

Lost Hope.

The Deserted House. +@ The Tears of Heaven.

Love and Sorrow.

To a Lady Sleeping.

Sonnet. (Could I outwear my present state of woe.) Sonnet. (Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon.) Sonnet. (Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good.) Sonnet. (The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain.) Love.

Love and Death.

The Kraken. + The Ballad of Oriana.

Circ.u.mstance.

English War Song.

National Song.

The Sleeping Beauty.

Dualisms.

We are Free.

The Sea-Fairies. +@ Sonnet to J.M.K.

[Greek (transliterated): oi rheontes]

Of these the poems marked appeared in the edition of 1842, and were not much altered.

+ Those marked + were, in addition to the italicised poems, afterwards included among the 'Juvenilia' in the collected works (1871-1872), though excluded from all preceding editions of the poems.

+@ Those marked @+ were restored in editions previous to the first collected editions of the works.

In December, 1832, appeared a second volume (it is dated on the t.i.tle-page, 1833):

"Poems by Alfred Tennyson. London: Moxon, MDCCCx.x.xIII."

This contains thirty poems:--

Sonnet. (Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free.) # To--. (All good things have not kept aloof.) # Buonaparte. # Sonnet I. (O Beauty pa.s.sing beauty, sweetest Sweet.) Sonnet II. (But were I loved, as I desire to be.) # The Lady of Shalott. + Mariana in the South. + Eleanore.

The Miller's Daughter. + [Greek: phainetai moi kaenos isos theoisin hemmen anaer]

?none. + The Sisters.

To--. (With the Palace of Art.) The Palace of Art + The May Queen.

New Year's Eve.

The Hesperides.

The Lotos Eaters.

Rosalind. # A Dream of Fair Women + Song. (Who can say.) Margaret.