In memoriam. Annotated by the author

by Alfred Tennyson

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Victorian, 19th Century, Literature, British Literature, School

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1850

About the author

Works, including In Memoriam in 1850 and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1854, of Alfred Tennyson, first baron, known as lord, appointed British poet laureate in 1850, reflect Victorian sentiments and aesthetics.

Elizabeth Tennyson, wife, bore Alfred Tennyson, the fourth of twelve children, to George Tennyson, clergyman; he inevitably wrote his books. In 1816, parents sent Tennyson was sent to grammar school of Louth.

Alfred Tennyson disliked school so intensely that from 1820, home educated him. At the age of 18 years in 1827, Alfred joined his two brothers at Trinity College, Cambridge and with Charles Tennyson, his brother, published Poems by Two Brothers , his book, in the same year.

Alfred Tennyson published Poems Chiefly Lyrical , his second book, in 1830. In 1833, Arthur Henry Hallam, best friend of Tennyson, engaged to wed his sister, died, and thus inspired some best Ulysses and the Passing of Arthur .

Following William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson in 1850 married Emily Sellwood Tenyson, his childhood friend. She bore Hallam Tennyson in 1852 and Lionel Tennyson in 1854, two years later.

Alfred Tennyson continued throughout his life and in the 1870s also to write a number of plays.

In 1884, the queen raised Alfred Tennyson, a great favorite of Albert, prince, thereafter to the peerage of Aldworth. She granted such a high rank for solely literary distinction to this only Englishman.

Alfred Tennyson died at the age of 83 years, and people buried his body in abbey of Westminster.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I plunged into the grimy morass of this incredible - incredible in its impact of a richly dense despair - long verse cycle in the spring of 1970. At the exhausted end of it I finally realized that the meaning of life could never be entangled by mere logic.

No.

Reason had failed Tennyson. It could not go any deeper into the justification for a beloved friend's senseless death at such a young age.

So, I resolved, it had failed me as well.

To see my point, you have to enter into the full savage intensity of this literary titan's bereavement process.

And I can guarantee you: if you allow yourself to become fully involved in Tennyson's loss - a loss nowadays, in yet another plague year, that we cannot easily dismiss offhand - you'll feel like...

Well, like - say for the sake of argument - like you're climbing up a blank blackboard with your fingernails.

Gravity rules, so we ALL know what happens next!

That's the feeling that led me to admit I was beaten, but not lost.

Life was henceforth to be a Journey Without Maps, as Graham Greene said.

Well and good.

But did I eventually reach my destination?

YES - for in my Old age my anxious doubts have "resolved themselves into a dew," as Hamlet once proclaimed.

For 50-odd years later I have at last found PEACE, after groping for what seems forever in the dark...

In order to turn the Light Switch ON.

For now, in the Light, I saw I was only doing what ANY of us wounded, fallible souls have done, as well as we could -

In our lives humbly and finally finding acceptance with God.

[Sean Barrs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately, and I’m starting to get a real taste for it. This poem is an emotional and heartfelt lament to someone who was very dear to the poet. Indeed, Tennyson has lost someone very close to him and spent seventeen years making this poem in his memory. Well, that’s devotion for you. His poetry is a real pleasure to read because of this, and structurally speaking it’s wonderful. The rhymes and metre are superb. Each verse in itself is a feat of poetic form. However, I think Tennyson’s lament could have been said in perhaps ten verses of the poem. Instead there are one hundred and fifty or so of them. Individually they’re all great to read, but when taken together it was simply too much. Here’s one of my favourites though:

“I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.”





This is the first stanza of the fifth set of verses, so it comes very early on. I think it perfectly sums up the main motif of the entire work. Tennyson feels his loss deeply, but he questions this grief. His friend’s death is the will of God, so to question the necessity of the death is to question God. Therefore, his grief reveals his doubting soul to the world. He insecure about faith; he begins to look towards science for the answers. But, instead of condemning either science or religion, he suggests that they can coexist. Knowledge gained through science is God’s will. Scientific understanding can add to religious faith and an understanding of the world, so together they can work. Through this combination of ideas he grieves further for his friend.

This was all good, but I really don’t recommend reading the whole thing because it begins to grow incredibly repetitive. He considers his loss from so many angles that it’s practically mind boggling. I wouldn’t say he goes too far, but in terms of actual emotional effect it’s awfully drawn out. Each verse centres on the same thing, and whilst not directly saying the same thing, it felt repetitive. I would have stopped reading if I didn’t have to study this for university. I just think that everything that needed to be said was said very early on. Anything that came later was surplus and unnecessary.

I much preferred The Lady of Shalott

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a free version of the poem. My rating is for the poem alone.

When looking at reviews of this poem, one of the first things you'll notice is that there are a lot of 3 star and 1 star reviews. I think many of the 3 star reviews are from people who hated reading the poem, but feared scorn from their academic peers if they were totally honest. The other group hated the poem, and didn't care what others thought. I'm sure there are plenty of high school students in the latter group.

I love the poem, but I believe the real reasons for people not "getting it" are two-fold. The first is that Tennyson's poetry is full of words and uses of words that we are unfamiliar with today. It's generally not fun to read something if you have to grab the dictionary every other line. The second reason is you must have experienced both deep friendship and loss for Tennyson's elegy to truly resonate with you. Otherwise, you are merely a spectator to another man's grief for over a hundred pages.

Thoreau said that we must put as much effort into reading as the author did into writing, and while I doubt that is possible for this poem, there are some things that can be done to better appreciate it.

1. Slow down-this is the most important step. It's easy to skim when reading poetry, but you'll quickly find that you don't know what the last 3 pages meant. If you have to, read out loud or at least move your lips. Poetry was meant to be heard as well as read.

2. Review-Tennyson broke his poem up into several smaller poems. At the end of each section, pause and make sure you can summarize at least some of what he said (don't expect to get it all.) If you can't, then reread. Most of the mini-poems are 4 to 5 stanzas, at most. In addition, they each tend to focus on a particular theme or perspective. Understanding by chunks will make it easier to see how everything fits into the whole.

3. Take breaks-your mind can only handle so much concentration at once.

If you do these steps I think you will find that In Memoriam is not only a poetic masterpiece, but is also a rather deep philosophical treatise on the meaning of life, memory, evolution, faith and grief.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grief often becomes immovable. No matter how hard one tries, it gets difficult to not let it diffuse with time. Tennyson's In Memoriam is something similar. With Arthur Hallam's death, Tennyson is neck-deep in loss and his sadness and melancholy made him question all sort of changes. Although I want to say that this poem is too lengthy with the same thought repeating itself time and again, I won't. Who am I to question someone's words if the grief is as personal as Tennyson's? It is extremely difficult to criticize a work if one knows how personal it is.

[R.F. Gammon · Rating 5 out of 5]

People love to complain about this poem. My only thought is that they don’t understand the way grief works. Every word of this aches deep within my bones and brings tears to my eyes.

[Maisie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

to have a friend, lose a friend, and then have a 133-poems long crash out and crisis of faith about it ❤️‍🩹

[Yules]

An elegy to his beloved friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson’s poem is beautiful and complex, wrestling with 19th century scientific advancements, especially in geology,* and giving us timeless lines such as:

“‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”

However, ...

“I count it crime
To mourn for any overmuch”

As far as such crimes go, this poem is a felony. Too long by half, in my view, but I will probably enjoy it much more on a second reading.

*can you imagine just living a regular Christian life when all of a sudden geologists discover dinosaurs? Holy nervous breakdown!

[Maya Joelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in Thy wisdom make me wise.
-from poem I-

Tennyson is a wonderful and skilled poet, one of my favorites. I didn't understand everything he wrote, and I didn't like everything I did understand. But that's all right. I'll return to this collection again, and I'll learn to love it better. For now, I am grateful for his words.

~

-LIV-
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

~

That last stanza will haunt me forever. Two centuries ago, Tennyson captured the pain and beauty of trusting God when you do not know the answers. For all shall be well.

[Wreade1872 · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very long poem lamenting the loss of a friend and brother-in-law. I don't give ratings based on quality only enjoyment. And overall i thought this was pretty meh.
There are times when it sparkles but the quality seems very uneven. I like poetry best when its telling a story or painting a picture.
I understand this was written over 17 years but it feels like there was a significant gap before the final 5th, as suddenly it becomes more philosophical and the grief seems severely reduced from the first 4/5ths.
The read does raise some interesting questions though. Due to its length it can come across (perhaps quite wrongly) as self-centered, being so focused on the authors grief with seemingly no thought for anyone else's. Including his sister who was married to the deceased. In fact she barely gets a mention until the end.
I also wonder how much of this affection was returned. Call me cynical but in my experience love/friendship is never mutually strong.
I've always had trouble processing/appreciating poetry that isn't story based (like Idyll's of the King which is awesome!) and this read has none nothing to show that i've grown over the years :) .

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of me swears Terrence Malick was Tennyson in another life....except I don't believe in that sort of thing. How else can I explain the similarities between their work? It turns out that being ultra personal with what you share in your work (film or poetry) is most universal. Tennyson wrote In Memoriam for his best friend, Hallam, who passed away suddenly at a young age; Malick made Tree of Life for his two brothers who passed away.

I've always loved Malick's films because they're the physical representation of poetry--Tennyson's epic poem is that poetry.

I recommend reading Canto 131 with Psalm 131, and the Prologue with Job 42.

For fans of Malick and existentialism coming to a hopeful conclusion.

[iris loehr · Rating 5 out of 5]

fellas is it gay to reach for ur dead friend in bed at night only to find him gone ? fellas is it gay to be writing about his lips seventeen years later

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful poetry. RTC

[Hayden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really not a huge fan of poetry, but I have determined over the years that if I was to have a favorite poet, Tennyson would probably be the most worthy candidate for the position. That being said, this one was just so long that after I got through about half of it, I was getting impatient for it to conclude already. (and I've also realized that my version, which is in an anthology, actually doesn't include the entire poem, which I'm a little annoyed about because it didn't say it was abridged. At any rate, the vast majority of the poem was in there, so I'm not sure how much I missed, but it couldn't have been much.)

[Derek Mong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the finest, most moving elegy ever written.

[Suhaib · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this collection of elegies, Tennyson mourns the death of his friend, Arthur Hallam, who was engaged to his sister, Emilia, when he suddenly died in 1833. Queen Victoria said that this was her second favorite book after the bible, and that it brought her much consolation after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. Anyway, there is a developmental arc one notices as he reads through the poems. The elegies in the beginning depict a confused sense of multiplicity, a chaotic state in the aftermath of losing someone dear:

My Arthur, whom I shall not see
Till all my widow' d race be run;
Dear as the mother to the son,
More than my brothers are to me.

Arthur takes on many associations—widow, mother, son, brother—in the speaker’s confused attempt at dealing with his grief. This emotional entanglement, however, becomes consolidated in the epilogue into a more mature psychological attitude:

No longer caring to embalm
In dying songs a dead regret,
But like a statue solid-set.
And moulded in colossal calm.

Regret is dead, but love is more
Than in the summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before.

It is worth noting that In Memoriam was a major success upon its publication in 1850, which lead to Tennyson becoming appointed Poet Laureate at a relatively young age.

[Dhwani Shah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too much to talk about this poem. I will just bullet it so that even though all my thoughts are disjointed, they will look smart.

1. I thought this poem was 27 cantos and that felt long. This poem is actually 133 cantos and, a prologue and an epilogue. This poem is longer than all the poems I have read till now combined. This poem took me hours to read and I am kind of proud of myself for sticking it out.

2. Sahil, my dear friend said, "If they write one sonnet, they like you. If they write 300 sonnets, they like sonnets." This feels very true for this poem. Tennyson loved Arthur and there is no doubt about that, but the way he talks about Arthur and then keeps on talking about Arthur gets bland quickly. Keep in mind that there are 723 stanzas. I read them all, understood them all, felt them all.

3. There were some lines that made me miss Arthur even though I have never shared a day of my life with him. I had to take breaks to feel okay about life.

That loss is common would not make
my own less bitter, rather more:

This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish'd no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

My prospect and horizon gone.

My paths are in the fields I know.
And thine in undiscover'd lands.

So it is no surprise that when Tennyson starts feeling better, I felt better too. His happiness and hope at being able to meet Arthur in afterlife was enough for me to have faith in whatever he has faith in.

4. Lot of theories that Tennyson and Arthur may be more than friends. I am impartial to the theories because I like to believe that you can have friendship that is as good as having romantic love. It doesn't matter what they were, they were close and loved each other dearly. Even when I feel that Tennyson couldn't possibly feel that low about Arthur's death, he has to have at least feel half as bad to write such genius poems.

5. The structure of poem with abba rhyming scheme was so much fun to read. I love how words roll off my tongue when written with great beauty and precision. I read fast when Tennyson wanted me to, and slow when he desired so. There were cues in forms of punctuations to get completely absorbed in the poem. It is genius.

6. I will never be able to write like this. The reason for this is simple. The only way I know how to express myself is by using benchmarks that are devised by me. For example, today I feel as sad as the day in November last year when my cake fell on the ground before I could eat. These benchmarks are not universal. Nature is the universal benchmark. Looking at a hundred birds take flight in the sky at the same moment makes everyone feel the same burst of emotion. I have lived in brick houses, with and without a lawn, tended to my potted plants instead of a forest, missed seeing the stars because of the lights of the buildings, I have not lived and I have not died. What do I know about lilies blooming and the songs of larks? What do you know about hills that merge into other hills with no end in sight? How do I write about anyone if I haven't sat with them under a big, old tree and shared a beer?

7. I really wish that no one I love dies. I can't even write like Tennyson. How will I survive?

PS- The cover is beautiful and now after reading Tennyson's grief and hopes, it means so much to me.

PPS- on second read, I realise Tennyson's dilemma of nature and science. Sometimes I wish I were alive when Darwin's Origin of Species was published. Imagine the scandal, ooof. The journey from grief to letting go still holds perfectly. This time I read it in one go and felt less, pondered even lesser. I read Paradise Lost recently, this seems like cakewalk now.

[Mina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esthetic and declarative, In Memoriam A.H.H. is vaguely reminiscent of Shakespeare's Sonnets (one seldom grows tired of a good "thou" and "dost"). It is more compact, not as accessible for the casual reader, which lessens the impact. It is much more extensive in its exploration of one theme.

While Tennyson ocassionally makes use of the more conspicuous elements of style, some repetition and even the occassional parallelism, there is not denying that this elegy stands mainly on the raw strength of its message. If anything, enclosed rhyme (ABBA) quatrains such as those present here, have a somber musicality that I'm particularly fond of, yet there is something in the rhythm that disrupts it, whether it is an intended irregularity or not.

Regardless, it was a great pleasure to read it, much improved by http://www.gradesaver.com/tennysons-p...

[Nidhi Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Touching. Till it got tiresome.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

they were GAY

[Rachel Edney]

“There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.”

I will never recover from this.

[Kenzie Scholer · Rating 2 out of 5]

They were so much more than friends

[Dorothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

so, so beautiful

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easily some of the most moving and beautiful poetry I’ve ever read. This is about the death of a friend and it is gold. Great collection!

[Amy Ahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shortly following his close Cambridge friend Arthur Hallam’s death in 1833, Afred Lord Tennyson began composing a long series of short poems that would later constitute the collection of poems in this book. As a whole this published piece served two functions--1) to fashion an elegy through which Tennyson could express his mourning for the loss of his friend, and 2) to commemorate the figure of Arthur Hallam by recalling him in the past.

Not light reading for sure. The lines maintain a dirge-like quality in the very monotony of their un-narrative content. There's definitely a very prominent (and relentless) overtone of grief throughout, but sorrow is probably one of the few thematic frameworks that deliberately provide cohesion for the 100+ fragmentary short poems found here. It's hard to tell how Tennyson intended the poems to cohere in other ways (if he did at all). However, there is a sort of therapeutic labor in moving through the text, which I suppose is reminiscent of the operation of grieving, and eventually, recuperating.

[liv · Rating 5 out of 5]

grief as a ghost grief as a haunting grief as possession grief as seeped in Nature and faith and sublimity and grief as everything. this was so crazy i understand why it was the most popular and studied poem of the 19th century. it’s also so crazy how this just got progressively more and more gay like

“my love has talk’d with rocks and trees;
he finds on misty mountain-ground
his own vast shadow glory crown’d;
he sees himself in all he sees.

two partners of a married life—
i look’d on these and thought of thee
in vastness and in mystery,
and of my spirit as of a wife.”

hello???? so insane. also the way the multiple christmases showed tennyson’s progression through his grief and how he wrote this poem for 10 years???? literally sick

[Nina Kristin (TheFeatherLibrary) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not a big fan of poetry, but I did like some of the pieces of this poem.
"It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all"

[eli. · Rating 5 out of 5]

STRONG SON OF GOD IMMORTAL LOVE

[Nathanael Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wonder if Nick Cave ever read this book

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
The stories behind two of the greatest and most influential poetic elegies ever published in English.

Part 2. Tennyson's In Memoriam- starring Holliday Grainger and James Cooney.

Although written centuries apart, in 1637 and 1833, the making and circumstances of these great elegies are full of interconnections, centred on the poetic response to grief and loss. Both Milton's Lycidas and Tennyson's In Memoriam were written in response to the sudden unexpected death of a young male friend, striking the poets in their mid-twenties. when the poets were students at Cambridge. The dead men were prodigiously gifted and also poets, early rivals and first readers to the poets who elegised them.

Milton and Tennyson were thereby thrown into personal grief and poetic challenge. But how to make a poetic elegy that honours and reflects that genuine grief whilst rising to the challenge of the first great poetic subject in these young poets' lives? Milton and Tennyson responded to these complex and terrible circumstances with radically different elegies that stand among the finest poems in English literature.

The line from Lycidas to In Memoriam is clear. Tennyson idolised Milton and wanted his elegy to emulate Milton's expansiveness and profundity. When Tennyson's friend the poet Edward Fitzgerald heard that he was working on an elegy for Hallam, he warned his friend that Milton had already done it all: 'Lycidas is the utmost length that an elegy can reach'


CAST

Holliday Grainger ..... Emily Tennyson
James Cooney ..... Alfred Lord Tennyson
Ashley Margolis ...... Diodati

Elegies was written and adapted from Lycidas by John Milton by Michael Symmons Roberts
Directed by Susan Roberts .
A BBC North production

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00...

[zoë aaliyah-kate mcpherson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings. Did I comprehend everything Tennyson wanted to communicate? Absolutely not. Did I still lose myself in his poetry and appreciate his craft? Absolutely yes. So I'll meet him halfway I guess...3 stars for you, Alfred.

Note: There were moments I did really relate and empathize with the feelings of loss and denial of death. So, maybe 3.5 stars.