(under construction) 1/1/97
Tennyson in Context is a Seminary held at Princeton University in the Summer of 1993 as a National Endowment for the Humaities grant for Educators across the United States. The seminary was masterfully taught by Professor Linda M. Shires of Princeton University.
The 15 participants from across the United States were very much co-teachers; as Professor Shires called from the group creativity and mutual enlightenment.
PARTICIPANTS
This Seminar emphasized the CONTEXT for Tennyson and TENNYSON in CONTEXT. Below will be participants special presentations and essays on aspects of pre-and-post Tennyson poets, and aspects of Tennyson's poetry.
Context Overview
Chronology ----- Victorian Poetry:
Some significant events by
Decades:
POETRY OTHER LIT POLITICAL 1830s: Tennyson POEMS CHIEFLY Carlyle The FR. Reform Bill; expan- LYRICAL: POEMS. Hallam's REVOLUTION: Dickens sion of press; Victoria death PICKWICK PAPERS crowned. 1840s: Tennyson COLLECTED Ruskin MODERN PAINTERS; Victoria weds; Chartist POEMS; Wardsworth Poet PUNCH founded; Many novels: riots; Failure of the Laureate; E. Barrett JANE EYRE, VANITY FAIR, DAVID Irish potato crops; PEOMS; Browning DRAMATIC COPPERFIELD, WUTHERING Revolutions across ROMANCES AND LYRICS; Arnold HEIGHTS; TENANT OF THE Europe; Bedford College THE STRAYED REVELLER WILDFELL HALL; many more Women; Punjab annexed. Dickens, etc. 1859s: E.B.Browning SONNETS Pre Raphaelites: THE GERM; Great Exhibition; FROM THE PURTUGUESE; Ruskin's STONE OF VENICE; Crimean War; Australia Tennyson IN MEM.; pre-Raphaelite painting; colonies given govts. Wordsworth THE PRELUDE Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES: pub. posthumously; Tennyson Mill ON LIBERTY, etc. Poet Laureate; Arnold EMPEDOCLES ON AETNA; Arnold POEMS;E.B.Browning AURORA LEIGH; Morris EARTHLY PARADISE; Tennyson IDYLLS OF THE KING 1860s: C. Rossetti GOBLIN MARKET; Arnold ESSAYS IN CRITICISM; Albert Dies; Meredith MODERN LOVE; G. ELiot ADAM BEDE Carrol Second Reform Swinburne ATLANTA IN CALYDON; ALICE BOOKS; Dickens OUR Bill Browning THE RING AND THE BOOK; MUTUAL FRIEND and GREAT EXPECTATIONS 1870s: Tennyson enlarged IDYLLS G. Eliot MIDDLEMARCH First Women's College Hopjins "The Wreck of the and DANIEL DERONDA at Oxford. Deutschland" 1880s: WIlde POEMS; Rossetti BALLADS Gilbert and Sullivan Boer War and SONNETS; Swinburne POEMS "PATIENCE" and BALLADS; Kipling DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES 1890s: Alfred Austin Poet Laureate Yeats POEMS;Kipling BARRACKS ROOM BALLADS; Hardy WESSEX POEMS 1901: Edward VII crowned
PAPERS and PRESENTATIONS
Patricia and Glenroy Wolfsen, 7/20/93
TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIUM, SECTION
SEVEN
Tennyson's IN MEMORIUM is a long poem, written over a period of seventeen years. The chronology of the writing of the various sections of the poem is not certain; but, what ever they may be, it is sure that those written nearest the beginning of this creative process are those that are the most linked to the direct experience of Hallam's death. They are the most authentic emotional response to Hallam's death and the sorrow of Tennyson's Sister losing a soon-to-be husband. Then there are the later sections which are the more reflective; recollections and meditations, if you will: on the experience of somt time ago, with the opportunity for philosophical and/or religious extrapolations after the wisdom that time brings.(1). Thus there are parts of this poem that reflect the "I" of Tennyson, and other parts that speak through this "I" to the self of all human beings. Another consideration is grouping of various sections in meaningful units by topic, or ideational/emotional content. It can be seen from several suggestions for grouping that section vii falls within ideational/emotional categories of despair and loss. It also falls within Tennyson's grouping of the sections from 1 to 8. It was written nearer the beginning of Tennyson's poetic project than the end: (Section 9 in 1833, Section 6 in 1840, Sections 3,4,& 5 in 1841).(2). It has also been suggested by James Krausner in his article "In Memoriam 7 and the Song of Solomon", published in Victorian Poetry, 1991 (Spring, v29[1], pp. 93-96), that a grouping of Section 6,7, & 8 form a unit, framed by Sections 5 (discussing poetry), and Section 9 to 14 (describing the ship carrying Ballam's body). He suggests that Section 7 forms the central tableau of this group. As the date and grouping suggest: Section vii is personal to Tennyson more that it is universal. It is more emotional than ideational. Yet; it is not a good idea to strike an iron hard and fast in these categories. There is a universal message in the personal, and there are conceptional processes evoked by the imagal. We may note also, the "geographical setting" is very particular in this section. It is located at Hallam's house. There is also another section of this peom with the same geographical location. Section 119 is located on the same street and at the same door! The "heart" also beats there as in Section vii, and there is also a "hand". But it is "a pendant to veven", according to Rick's Selected Edition. The contrast is from despair to gentle hope. In Section vii there is silent weeping, but explicitly there is NO weeping in 119, and the hand that is not "clasp'd" in vii is pressed in the conclusion of 119. These two sections mirror then, a movement in time from immediate grief, through reflection, toward resolution, acceptance, and renewal of hope. In Section vii the house is dark; the streets are long and unlovely; no life moves, for it is very early in the morning. This physical scene helps evoke the central emotional scene. This scene begins at the door(s), with a remembrance of the beloved which quickens the writer's heart; quickened in anticipation of the tough of a HAND. The hand is important in this Section, and in Section 119, and in Tennyson's poetry in general. It symbolizes the intimate and close realization of human contact that is physical and charged with meaning. It is a despair in this section centered around this loss of touch, this loss of the intimate in human love and contact . . . it "can he slasp'd no more - ". All of the realization of the finality of death and loss centers here. After this heart-of-the-matter, we learn more details: that the writer woke so early because there was no sleep, and the writer wanted to come out before the streets came alive with people, for he had "guilt" to come out and be seen. The realization is finally born in on the writer, that he is not here, but gone (forever). At the close of the section we are again brought out of the personally emotional, to the geographical ... the streets are again seen; but this time they are not long and unlovely only - they are now ghastly as seen through a slow rain, and bald yet, as the life of business and day are only ninted at as dawn approaches. So the visit ends in secret as it and where it began. It is a visit of a solitary in search of love that has gone, vanished, and far away. The intimate reminder of the "clasp'd: hand brings the emotion of the lover/beloved into reality, so that it "feels" like a hand has actually been offered, but is suddenly taken away. Section vii then, is the raw material (along with other sections) that the creative spirit worked with in molding of gried and loss a work of art that makes of IN MEMORIUM a Scripture-like testament which shares a deep human condition - and in the sharing and the art, leads to healing the hope. James Krausner, (cited above) has suggested in his insightful essay that Section vii shares with the Song of Solomon (in the Hebrew Bible), in Chapter 3 and 5, themes of absence or disappearance of the beloved. For example, in Song 5.2-6 "the beloved comes to the door and then disappears, forning the narrator to search for him through the urban landscape". (3). The awareness of absence also occurs during the night in both cases; they are both moved to rise and search the streets, in inclement weather, and share the impossibility of reaching through a door to grasp a hand. The case is made for the Song of Solomon as source material for Tennyson's Sction vii, inviting a closer investigation of the passages cited and the way Tennyson handles material from other writers or works in his own creative poetic works. Section vii of IN MEMORIUM is a moving personal narrative, that even if very personal, resonates deeply for all people who in life, have suffered loss, and tried in vain to recapture the moment, the love, and the tough. It evokes the creative spirit to follow Tennyson in molding something of beauty and truth out of despair and loss. It is a masterpiece, set as a jewel, in a poem that one should live with forever. Other Tennyson Links Tennyson as Vicorian and His Literary RelationsOther examples of Tennyson's Poetry and Essays about Tennyson from the Unive rsity of Toronto Tennyson Studies, and South FLorida State U. Tennyson Center.