Short biography of Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6,1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, where his father was the rector. Alfred Tennyson is one of the most well-loved Victorian poets. He was the fourth of twelve children. Alfred was a talented and bright boy, and the fine physique and manly good looks which characterized him as an adult were noticeable even at an early age.

At the age of twelve he wrote a 6,000-line epic poem. His father, the Reverend George Tennyson, tutored his sons in classical and modern languages. Until he was eleven, Tennyson attended a grammar school in the nearby town of Louth, of which he later had very unhappy memories. From then on, he remained at home, where he studied under the close supervision of his scholarly father.

Tennyson escaped home in 1827 to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. In that same year, a small volume entitled Poems by Two Brothers, containing works by Alfred and Charles Tennyson, as well as a few short contributions by Frederick Tennyson, was published in Louth. Although the poems in the book were mostly juvenilia, they attracted the attention of the “Apostles," an undergraduate literary club led by Arthur Hallam. In 1828, Tennyson enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge. Despite his intelligence and good looks, he was excessively shy and was quite unhappy.

Hallam’s sudden death in 1833 greatly affected the young poet. The long elegy In Memoriam and many of Tennyson’s other poems are tributes to Hallam. Queen Victoria was a fervent admirer of Tennyson’s writings and made him the Baron Tennyson of Aldworth in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight in 1884.

At the age of 41, Tennyson had established himself as the most popular poet of the Victorian era. The money from his poetry (at times exceeding 10,000 pounds per year) allowed him to purchase a house in the country and to write in relative seclusion.

Alfred Tennyson married Emily Sellwood on June 13, 1850 in the village of Shiplake. Both knew each other since childhood days, but didn’t come close until Tennyson’s brother Charles married Emily’s younger sister, Louisa.

All his life Tennyson continued to write poetry. His later volumes include Maude, A Monodrama (1853),Enoch Arden (1864), Ballads and Poems (1880), Tiresias and Other Ballads (1885), Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Demeter and Other Poems (1889), and The Death of Oenone (published posthumously in 1892). He also wrote a number of historical dramas in poetic form, among which areQueen Mary (1875), Harold (1877), Beckett (1884), and The Foresters (1892). Tennyson published the first poems of Idylls of the Kings, which sold more than 10,000 copies in one month. In 1884.

At the age of 83, Tennyson died at Aldworth House, his home in Surrey, on October 6, 1892 He was buried at Westminster Abbey. Later, a memorial was erected for him in All Saints' Church, Freshwater.