City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Tennyson, to strive, to seek, to find, John Batchelor

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

individual biography

illustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

Tennyson

John Batchelor

to strive, to seek, to find

Lord Alfred Tennyson was the major poet of his age. In 1850, he succeeded William Wordsworth as Queen Victoria's Poet Laurete, and this book begins and ends with Tennyson's direct contacts with the Queen, whom Tennyson had first came to know at audience at an Osborne House on the Isle of Wight in 1862. John Batchelor's enthralling new biography presents a Tennyson who is stronger, more self-reliant, and more business-like than previous biographies have displayed. Like many successful Victorians he was a provincial determined to make good in the capital while retaining his provincial strengths; in his particular case he never lost his Lincolnshire accent and in his relationships he remained close to his roots. At the same time and through his Laureteship, he determined the literary taste of the mid-to late Victorian period; and then, strategically, and with a secure instinct for the market, he fed that taste. The ascendancy of Tennyson was neither the irresistible triumph of pure genius nor an accident of history; he skilfully crafted his own career and his relationship with his audience

1.Somersby, 1809-1827 -- 2.Cambridge, 1827-1830 -- 3.Somersby and Arthur Hallam, 1831-1833 -- 4.Wandering, tribulation and lost love, 1833-1845 -- 5.Growing reputation and The Princess, 1845-1850 -- 6.In Memoriam, marriage and the Laureateship, 1850-1854 -- 7.The reception of Maud and the problems of fame, 1855-1862 -- 8.Idylls of the King and the creation of Aldworth, 1862-1872 -- 9.The completion of the Idylls and the aspiring playwright, 1872-1886 -- 10.Tragedy and resolution, 1886-1892

adult