(DOWNLOAD) "Epistolary Tennyson: The Art of Suspension (Alfred Tennyson) (Critical Essay)" by Victorian Poetry # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Epistolary Tennyson: The Art of Suspension (Alfred Tennyson) (Critical Essay)
- Author : Victorian Poetry
- Release Date : January 22, 2009
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 206 KB
Description
Probably only Tennysonians know a group of his poems that may loosely be called verse epistles, and as less than a Tennysonian I discovered them myself fairly recently. The occasion was a small course I taught in Victorian writers where Tennyson was the first poet considered and where the students, bright enough ones, seemed to be having trouble with him. We worked hard with some of the poems of 1842, then with In Memoriam and parts of Maud, but whatever they made of "major" Tennyson, they did not much appear to be enjoying him. So it seemed a good idea to suggest that along with poems in the grand style ("Ulysses," "Tithonus") and of psychological-moral debate (In Memoriam), there existed a more "social" Tennyson, conveyed in a poetic voice from whose register urbanity and humor were not excluded. Here the Norton Anthology (The Victorian Age) was of absolutely no help, since except for parts of Maud and a couple of the Idylls, post-In Memoriam Tennyson pretty much consisted of "Crossing the Bar." Fortunately I made use of Christopher Ricks's critical biography in which he considers, trenchantly though briefly, some of the poet's epistles. I brought four or five of them into class, reading parts aloud so as to demonstrate a different Tennyson from what the students had experienced so far. However much or little they made of the examples, I was delighted with the discovery that, with Ricks's invaluable help, I had made. The index to Ricks's edition of Tennyson lists thirty-five poems, almost all with "To" in their title, that qualify as one or another sort of epistle. Of these, this essay will concern itself with the following, listed in chronological order: "To J.S.," "To the Vicar of Shiplake," "The Daisy," "To the Rev. F. D. Maurice," "Prologue to General Hamley," "To E. FitzGerald," "To Ulysses," "To Mary Boyle," and "To the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava." Some decades ago, a critic offered the following definition of the verse epistle, which I have not seen bettered:
 "Epistolary Tennyson: The Art of Suspension (Alfred Tennyson) (Critical Essay)" by Victorian Poetry # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}