Western Literature Report-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Alfred, Lord Tennyson

• Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. Tennyson succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born on August 5, 1809 in Somersby, Lincolnshire. His father, George Clayton Tennyson, a clergyman and rector, suffered from depression and was notoriously absentminded. Alfred began to write poetry at an early age in the style of Lord Byron. After spending four unhappy years in school he was tutored at home.

Background

Tennyson then studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he joined the literary club 'The Apostles' and met Arthur Hallam, who became his closest friend. Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830, which included the popular "Mariana".

• His next book, Poems (1833), received unfavorable reviews, and Tennyson ceased to publish for nearly ten years. Hallam died suddenly on the same year in Vienna. It was a heavy blow to Tennyson. He began to write "In Memoriam", an elegy for his lost friend - the work took seventeen years. "The Lady of Shalott", "The Lotus-eaters" "Morte d'Arthur" and "Ulysses" appeared in 1842 in the two-volume Poems and established his reputation as a writer

Poetry -The Eagle

(Fragment)

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;他用彎曲的鉤爪攫住了峭壁，

Close to the sun in lonely lands, 在孤絕的地域上接近太陽，

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.他用以碧空為環紋的足站立著，

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;在它足下波皺的海，

He watches from his mountain walls,從山壁上的絕崖下看，

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

像迅雷般俯衝

全詩用三行體 (triplet) 一氣呵成，魄力雄勁，為 Tennyson 最短的傑作 。全篇六個韻末均用S，實為奇韻，而連用七個 K音 (clasps, crags, crooked, close, wrinkled, crawls) ， kl 和 kr 之聲在在暗示著鷹之雄勁，山之峭拔，石之猙獰，效果極佳。前五行雖寫靜態，而蓄勢侍發，風雨欲來；末行一落千丈，由靜入動 。此詩之出版，在 1851 年，當時 Tennyson 正四十二歲，已經做了一年的桂冠詩人，壯年之作，氣象不凡。

In Memoriam A.H.H.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

By faith, and faith alone, embrace,Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute;Thou madest Death; and lo, thy footIs on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:Thou madest man, he knows not why,

He thinks he was not made to die;And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,The highest, holiest manhood, thou.Our wills are ours, we know not how;

Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;They have their day and cease to be:

They are but broken lights of thee,And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

Victorian Values• Background

The Victorian Era describes things and events in the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). Victoria was just 18 years old when she became queen upon the death of her uncle William IV in 1837. Many people today believe that the Victorian Era is really connotations of prudish, old-fashioned, and very traditional. But, the Victorian Era is very paradoxical and very complex.

The industrial revolution flourished during this time and Britain became the world leader in manufacturing. Factory towns grew to large cities. Two classes of people also grew—the industrial working class and a modern middle class. During this time, Britain expanded its merchant fleet and navy, which they used to acquire new colonies in all parts of the globe. (It was during this time that Britain carves up Africa and expanded its control over what is now South Africa.) It was the Victorians who could boast, "the sun never sets on the British empire."

•In politics: Leaders pushed for electoral reform and a better trade policy. Women, though still not able to vote, attended universities. Parliament passed laws to reduce the working day for women and children, and to establish a system of free grammar schools. One of the most important issues left unresolved in the Victorian Age was the future of Ireland, where widespread poverty had bred bitter opposition to British control.

Victorian Values

• In literature: The ideas of the Victorian Age—political and moral, scientific and religious—helped to shape the works. As literacy increased, so did the impact of the written word. This time was also a time of social concern, and writers (such as Dickens-the writer of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield ) exposed a dark underside of the industrial age—brutal factory conditions and stinking slums that bred poverty and disease.

Victorian Values

•Work ethics:

1.Earnestness

2.Respectability-

the sense of duty, responsibility

•Reason?

Victorian Values

Sources of information:

• http://www.online-literature.com/tennyson/

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Tennyson,_1st_Baron_Tennyson

• http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1785310,00.html

• http://www.runet.edu/~ntaylor/victorian_age.htm

• http://www.echeat.com/essay.php?t=27664

工作分配• 95413107 林珮騏 - 搜尋 Tennyson 的簡介• 95413130 林佳蕙 - 提供 Tennyson 的資訊• 95413127 沈幸諭 - 搜尋 Victorian Value 資訊 /彙整 Tennyson 部分 PPT

• 95413126 陳思妤 - 提供資料及總彙整 Victorian Values 部分 PPT

• 95413128 謝欣君 - 提供 Tennyson 作品資料• 95413123 陳靜楡 - 總整理 Tennyson.