Transcription
[Music] Hello everybody. [Applause] Welcome to this video on Alfred Tennyson, one of the most important poets and playwrights of the Victorian period. Tennyson was born in 1809 in a very big family. His father was a clergyman. He had—his father had—12 children. Tennyson was the eldest, and it was a gloomy family. There was epilepsy, depression, suicide tendency. This gave Tennyson a very pessimistic, gloomy tone in his writing.
Now let me tell you a little bit about the age. It was a gloomy age in itself. Tennyson’s age was a teenager of confusions. What is important: religion or science? What is important: rural or urban? The Victorian dilemma was there. Tennyson was a pessimistic writer, a gloomy writer, but he did not directly talk about the problems of the age until perhaps a little later in his career. Tennyson was known for his metrical poetry, for his Keatsy and descriptive power, picturesque descriptions, and he was also criticized for not reflecting his age very much.
Tennyson’s early poetry came when he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. It was his father who asked him to write poetry and publish. When he was 15 years old, he had written a poem called *Armageddon*. He later, when he was 16 years old, he revised it, and when he was 19, it became the poem *Timbuktu*, and it got the Chancellor’s gold medal at that time in Cambridge. *Timbuktu* is a poem about Africa, a legendary city in Africa. Now why would he write about Africa, and why would it become famous? Because this was the time of colonialism. This was the time when Europeans were encroaching into Africa and conquering Africa. More and more people were interested in African tales at this time. Tennyson’s *Timbuktu* became pretty famous, and unusually, it is an optimistic poem, while all his later poems are pessimistic.
A collection of Tennyson’s poems that came after this is called *Poems Chiefly Lyrical*. Early poems, but famous poems are there in this collection. Have you heard of *Kraken*? *Kraken* is an early poem by Tennyson that is taken from the Old Testament. *Kraken* is a monster from the Old Testament. It’s an irregular sonnet. Another poem in this collection is *To Memory*. It is a picturesque description of landscape, which is characteristic of later poems of Tennyson. And then there is a famous poem here that draws from Shakespeare. Do you know which one is that? It is from Shakespeare’s *Measure for Measure*. The poem is *Mariana*. *Mariana* is that lonely, waiting lover of Angelo in *Measure for Measure*. *Mariana*, the poem has an epigraph taken from Shakespeare’s *Measure for Measure*, and it is about love, longing, laws—typical themes in Tennyson, brilliantly using landscape also in a picturesque manner that is also characteristic of Tennyson.
Now, as a young poet, he brought out a collection in 1832-33. He brought out a collection called *Poems*. You will think, wow, he must have been so happy to do it. Far from it, because those same people who criticized Keats—remember Blackwood’s Magazine, Quarterly Review—they’re called Keats’ Cockney School because Keats had a working-class kind of style—those people attacked Tennyson also. Tennyson’s *Poems*, 1832-33, was attacked as he was called part of the Cockney School. You wouldn’t believe it. After this, for 10 years, Tennyson refused to publish. Tennyson said, “No way, I’m not publishing anymore,” because he was so depressed by his critical reviews, by the critical reviews that he got. It was only in 1844 that he would again publish. Ten years’ silence. It is called a new erotic refusal to publish.
At this time, Tennyson had a friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. Arthur Henry Hallam had fallen in love with Tennyson’s sister, Emily. Tennyson and Hallam both went to Pyrenees. Have you heard of Pyrenees? It is in Spain, border. Tennyson and Hallam wanted to make money because many people were going to the east, west, anywhere they could to make money in those days. Travel, colonialism were very important. Tennyson and Hallam did not make money, as you can expect. They are very sensitive poets. They didn’t know how to make money. They were not very materialistic. They lost their money, I suppose. But that experience in the Pyrenees gave him invaluable wealth. What is it? Experience. Many of his greatest poems are based on this period and his experience in the Pyrenees. Have you heard of *In Memoriam*? It is a dramatic monologue spoken by Paris’s former lover. Remember Paris from the Trojan War? Paris ran away with Helen of Troy and started the Trojan War. Paris had a former lover. She is Inani. She is looking at Paris’s life and the war and talking about it. It’s a dramatic monologue. And then the famous poem, *The Lotus-Eaters*. *The Lotus-Eaters* are about, again, the Trojan War. Sitting, Ulysses’ mariners are going, traveling, traveling, traveling, and they reach a lotus island where there are lotus fruits. They eat the lotus fruit, and they become drowsy. They just lie around like this, you know. Sometimes after a whole day’s class or a whole day’s work, in the evening you will come and you lie down like this, lazy, especially in hostels and all, like lotus eaters. And the lotus eaters are saying, “If death be the end of life, why should life all labor be? Why should we work hard so much? Because anyway, everything is going to be ending in death.” So *Lotus-Eaters* is like the opposite of *Ulysses*. *Ulysses* says, “No more rest. Come on, comrades. Come on, friends. Let us go. Let us seek experience. You know, follow, follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bounds of human thoughts.” That is what Ulysses wants. He can’t rest. But in *Lotus-Eaters*, it’s quite the opposite. “Let us rest.” That is the theme in *Lotus-Eaters*.
And then there are so many other poems that he wrote at this time. You would think, “Oh my god, because he went to Pyrenees, he got so much experience that he wrote all these poems.” Are you gonna eat? It is not only because of Pyrenees. So many hardships happened in Tennyson’s time, at this—at this time of his life, so many adversities. You know, like Wordsworth—sorry, Shakespeare said—like Shakespeare said, “Sweet are the uses of adversity,” like that. Tennyson understood that so many hardships in life must lead to great poetry. One adversity in his life you already know what is that: John Wilson Croker and other critics criticized Tennyson for writing like Keats, as if he is part of the Cockney School. Or at this time, Arthur Henry Hallam died. His best friend died because of some congenital brain disorder. Tennyson was so sad. Tennyson started writing poetry. Am I crying? A tear dropped. Tennyson was so sad. He started writing uh, elegies, one after the other. One led to two, led to three. 132 elegies, and all of it was published in 1850 as *In Memoriam*. [Music] A group of elegies. Array. In this poem, he is not only showing his grief. Grief is not only the only thing. He is also showing his reflections, his philosophy on life, on the world, on the times, etc. At this time, he wrote all his greatest poems. They’re all discussed in this awesome encyclopedia. My own—I am myself saying awesome, but it is because, you know, it is awesome. For 10, 15 years, like Tennyson wrote *In Memoriam*. I studied along with my friends, my research and development team. We all studied, studied, studied so much for 10, 15 years. After 10 years of study, we start—we publish the first encyclopedia. Now it has been more than 15 years. We are still studying to improve this material that will save your careers. See, in this encyclopedia, I have discussed all these great poems: *Ulysses*, *Morte d’Arthur*, *Tithonus*, *Tiresias*. They’re all dramatic monologues that Tennyson wrote in this period of great depression and adversity. Ultimately, in 1842—earlier I said 1844—it’s 1842 that he brought out his collection of poems after 10 years’ silence. He brought out his collection of poems in 1842. A very famous poem at this time is *The Lady of Shalott*. *The Lady of Shalott* came in 1832-80. That was when it was written. It is an Arthurian poem. *The Lady of Shalott* is for some wrong doing that she has done, probably because of secret love. She is imprisoned in a tower, and she has to remain within the tower. There is more to the curse. She should not look out of the window. She should not go out. She should remain within this room. She looks at a mirror in the room. In the mirror, the outside scenery is reflected. She looks at the mirror, looks at the scenery, and she weaves the tapestry, looking at the scenery. That scenery in the mirror is woven into a tapestry. One day, what happened? Horse gallop. Somebody is coming. She forgot everything, ran to the window, looked out. It was Prince Lancelot, the handsome hero. Iyo! What happened? The curse is fulfilled. She was not supposed to look out of the window. The tapestry began unraveling itself. The mirror cracked. She’s going to die. She ran out of the tower. She tries to escape in a boat. Finally, she dies. This is the story of *The Lady of Shalott*. Adventurous, exciting, but tragic. Almost all his poems are like this: love doesn’t get fulfillment; it ends in tragedy. *The Lady of Shalott* is an Arthurian story in ballad form depicting tragic love. One of his famous poems. Then there is *Ulysses*, published in 1842 poems. As all of you know, *Ulysses* has returned home to Ithaca, and he finds that, “I don’t want to remain here. I don’t want to be with my aging wife and all these people.” He’s actually looking at his own people and saying very negative things about them. He’s saying, “I don’t want to stay with them. I want to go and get adventure again. Come, mariners, even though we are also growing old, it is still—there is still time for adventure, for learning, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” That is the last line, which became like a motto for Victorianism. The Victorians were so inspired by this poem, which represented the Victorian spirit of adventure and seeking knowledge. Actually, colonialism was—imperialism and colonialism were projects that were done in the guise, in the pretext of adventure and seeking knowledge, you know, and it shows the colonial spirits. *Ulysses* shows the colonial spirit. It shows the Victorian spirit. It’s a very famous poem.
Tennyson also talks about Arthurian legends more in further poems. We already talked about *The Lady of Shalott*. Then came *Morte d’Arthur*. In this poem, uh, he is talking about the final battle of Arthur and his death. And he published this poem as an epic with some lines before it and some lines after it. Later he took this poem, *Morte d’Arthur*, and put it in a larger epic book that he wrote, *Idylls of the King*. *Idylls of the King* is a group of twelve Arthurian poems, and it started with four books, and when it was first published, there were only four books, but then he added more and more to it, and *Morte d’Arthur* was added as *The Passing of Arthur*. Then other major poems are *Locksley Hall*. *Locksley Hall* is about a world-weary man going to his childhood home, looking for his past there and childhood. He used to be in love with Amy. Being Tennyson, you know what happened: they didn’t get married. And then there is also the poem *Tithonus*. It is also a very depressing poem, a dramatic monologue, the mythological story of Tithonus, who was once upon a time a beautiful man, and he was chosen by Aurora, the goddess of dawn, as her lover. She granted him immortality, array. She did not grant him youth. He became an old, decrepit man without mortality. He can’t die, like the Sibyl. So it is a poem of suffering. Actually, Tennyson wrote at least four dramatic monologues that are his masterpieces: *Morte d’Arthur*, *Ulysses*, *Tithonus*, and *Tiresias*. *Morte d’Arthur*, *Ulysses*, *Tithonus*, and *Tiresias* are four major dramatic monologues that are considered his masterpieces.
And then in 1847—what is the year 1847? Very important year. It is the year in which *Jane Eyre* is published, *Wuthering Heights* is published, *Agnes Grey* is published, *Vanity Fair* is published, *Princess* is published by Tennyson. *The Princess*, a medley. Princess Ida is a mutinously intellectual princess. She is heading a ladies’ academy. And Princess Ida is a new woman. She is a masculinist woman, but at the end of the poem, she succumbs to the man. She doesn’t remain a feminist till the end. *The Princess* is a long poem that contains many other famous poems: *The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls*. Have you heard of it? *Break, Break, Break* on the cold gray stones. Oh, have you heard? And there are poems like *Tears Idle Tears*. So many famous poems. There are also a number of other poems that we should know: *The Miller’s Daughter*, where the speaker is in love with the miller’s daughter; *The Palace of Art*, where a man is building—it’s an allegory—a man is building a palace of art for his soul. Another poem that I have mentioned here is the most famous poem, *In Memoriam*. I have detailed it here. *In Memoriam* is an obituary. The title denotes an obituary, published in 1850, the year in which Tennyson became Poet Laureate. 1850 was Tennyson’s *annus mirabilis*. As I already told you, *In Memoriam* is a collection of 132 elegies written over a period of 17 years. Like I took so many years to write the encyclopedia and made it so good, like that, Tennyson wrote his masterpiece over a period of 17 years in memory of ah, or rather, Henry Hallam. Did you know the original title of *In Memoriam* was *The Way of the Soul*, and it has also been called *Fragments of an Elegy*? *In Memoriam* begins with an invocation to the strong Son of God and goes on to talk about the times in which he lived in very pessimistic ways, depressing ways. Queen Victoria loved this poem because at this time she had just lost her husband, Prince Albert, and *In Memoriam* became like a representative poem of the Victorian age. She called Tennyson—Queen Victoria called Tennyson—the perfect poet of love and loss. That is what she called him. There are so many famous expressions in this poem that are often quoted. Have you heard the expression, “Nature, red in tooth and claw”? That is a very famous expression that shows the destructive power of nature. It alludes to natural selection and survival of the fittest. Another famous quote, all of you might know it, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” That is also a famous expression from *In Memoriam*.
As I told you, 1850 was Tennyson’s *annus mirabilis*, means wonderful year. In 1850, Tennyson married his sweetheart, Emily Sellwood, became Poet Laureate. As Poet Laureate, he had to write many political verses about the Crimean War. He wrote *The Charge of the Light Brigade*, about India’s First War of Independence also. He wrote many poems supporting the British defense of Lucknow. Is one such poem. In 1855 came a mono drama by Tennyson called *Maud*. *Maud* is a mono drama, that means very little action is there. It is mostly dialogue. In *Maud*, there are 27 lyric poems that are combined into one poem, and it ends happily, but it has a tragic tone. It is a criticism of the rising materialism of the Victorian period. The poem begins with a very negative statement: “I hate the little hollow behind the dreadful wood”—sorry—“I hate that dreadful hollow behind the little wood.” That is how he begins it. The narrator falls in love with Maud. Maud’s brother prevents this alliance. He has to kill—the narrator has to kill the brother. Maud goes mad and dies. The narrator also goes mad at the end. The narrator joins the Crimean War. So it is a very dark and depressing poem, actually. And I already mentioned Tennyson’s *Idylls of the King*. *Idylls of the King* was published from 1859—year of *Origin of Species*—up to 1885. It’s a group of 12 narrative poems. At first, there were only four that were published: *Enid*, *Vivien*, *Elaine*, and *Guinevere*. Four poems only were there, but then he added more and more and more. The last poem to be added was *Balin and Balan*. As I told you, *The Passing of Arthur*, or *Morte d’Arthur*, is part of this collection. Another poem that he wrote is *Enoch Arden*. A man is supposed to be dead. He’s a sailor. He’s supposed to be dead, but when he returns, he finds that his wife has remarried. He just goes away without making his identity known. He doesn’t stay and fight for his wife. He doesn’t drive away her new husband or anything. He just disappears. So again, here it is: love unfulfilled. And did you know Tennyson wrote a lot of poetic plays at the end of his career? *Becket*, *Harold*, *The Cup*, *Queen Mary*. These are all poetic plays that Tennyson wrote towards the end of his career, and these are all historical plays, sometimes reflecting the troubles of the times in which he lived. Not only in the poetic plays, in his later plays, last plays also, he reflected the discontent and pessimism of his times. In his later career, he has written some remarkable poems that could be very important. One is *Akbar’s Dream*. Akbar, our Mughal Emperor, *Akbar’s Dream*. There is another poem, *The Brook*, which is a very simple poem spoken by the brook or the stream, but it is considered very important. *Crossing the Bar* is a poem about death, crossing the sandbar between the river and the ocean, and it is actually foreshadowing his own death. And then the last poem by Tennyson is supposed to be *The Dreamer*, which expresses hope for a golden age. These last poems are not perfect poems, but they are famous because they show some new concerns than before. In his earlier poetry, he just wrote in a picturesque manner, but in these last poems, he is showing some deeper concerns about the age as well.
Tennyson was an embodiment of his age in many ways. He was the official spokesperson for Queen Victoria and her reign, and many of the later poets who came after Tennyson admired him. For example, the Pre-Raphaelites. The Pre-Raphaelites imitated Tennyson’s picturesque style. It was T.S. Eliot who called him the poet of metre and melancholia, because he was very perfect in his metrical composition, and he also was a very melancholic poet, as I have already mentioned. The greatest quality of Tennyson’s writing is its metrical cadences, the rhythmic quality. He had Keatsy and descriptive power, and even though throughout his career he did not do it, towards the end of his career, he reflected the trials and tribulations of the Victorian period. So that is all about Tennyson.
Now let me tell you something else completely uh, different from Tennyson. Many of you have asked me how to manage time. Many of you say, “We are working people. We don’t have time to sit and listen to everything.” We like your short videos because long videos mean more time. Dear friends, let me tell you one thing: you don’t have to sit and study for long, long hours, like five, six hours at a stretch. No, you don’t have to do that. Make sure you make use of 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, like you get in between. I do some things that I can share with you when I study, which I do even now, always, every time. In your life, you have to be a student. I think, “Okay, I’m going to have lunch, but before I have lunch, for 10 minutes I will study Tennyson. Before I sleep, for half an hour I will watch this video. Before I take a shower, let me finish these two pages and then take a shower,” like that. You get some filler time in between which you can make use of productively. There is something else that I do when I study. All the difficult things I will write on small slips of paper, and I will just note down the key words there that I have to remember. I will put them under my toothbrush, or under my plate where I—in which I’ll have lunch, in between my clothes, under the cup in which I drink water. Before I drink water, I will see the slip, revise it. Before I have lunch, I will see the slip, revise it. Before I wear my clothes, I will see the slip, revise it. Like that, creatively devise some methods with which you can study in an easy manner, continuous manner throughout the day, in an enjoyable manner, interesting manner. Please don’t tax yourselves. Please don’t trouble yourselves with heavy work. Make it lighter with your creativity. Okay, if you don’t want to watch long, long videos, like 10 PM videos, no problem. You can watch 10 minutes of it first, and then 15 minutes of it another time, rest of it at least in bricks and pieces, in fragments, please watch them, because there is awesome material in all these videos. Also take our PDF from the Telegram group. Together with all this, in a fun way, we can all study together. So in a fun way, I will teach you the next order tomorrow. Until then, bye-bye. You.