Tennyson
was poet laureate and the darling of the Romantic Age in England.
Enobled by Victoria he was the son of a poor parish priest who had 12
children, the family living on in the manse after the father’s
death until forced to move. The death of his friend Hallam figured
highly in his life and verse.
To
ears accustomed to Blank and Free Verse it seems remarkable that
everything here rhymes. To modern ears some of this verse can seem
somewhat stilted but his ability to express himself in rhyming verse
is nothing short of remarkable. The order of words in a sentence is
altered to emphasize certain thoughts and facilitate rhymes in a
manner that has come to be thought of as poetic expression. Think of
the way Yoda talks in Star Wars. This is the poet of the Victorian
Era.
After
working our way through the early works and short poems we come to
long form verse. The Princess is 80 pages followed by In Memorium
written to mark the death of his friend, another 80 pages.
And
so a year after I began the reading I reach the close though with a 6
month hiatus for travel.
The book was my mother’s. Truly an antique printed at a time when copyrite dates were not yet part of the process. Leatherbound witth ancient platic wrapper long disintigrated enclosed in slipcover. Printed in fine type on onion skin paper with built-in ribbon bookmark.
The final log-form poem is a classic tale of a love triangle involving two boys and a girl in a small port town. In an age before modern communications sailors disappeared for decades at a time without any word reaching home. Some were lost without record, were shipwrecked on isolated desert islands inspiring tales such as Robinson Crusoe, or traveled the world on shipboard knowing little of the exotic ports of call they visited save the bars and brothels of the waterfront.
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