The Age of Tennyson

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THE AGE OF TENNYSON

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HANDBOOKS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

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THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1631). By THOMAS SECCOMBE and J. W. ALLEN With an Introduction by Professor HALES. 2 vols. Vol. I. Poetry and Prose. Vol. II. The Drama. 8th Edition, revised.

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THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1798-1832). By Professor C. H. HERFORD, Litt.D. 12th Edition.

THE AGE OF TENNYSON (1830-1870). By Professor HUGH WALKER. 9th Edition.

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Handbooks of English Literature Edited by Professor Hales

THE AGE OF TENNYSON

LONDON: G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. PORTUGAL STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO. NEW YORK: HARCOURT BRACE & HOWE BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER AND CO.

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THE AGE OF TENNYSON

by HUGH WALKER, M.A.

Professor of English Literature at St. David's College Lampeter

London G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. 1921

First Published, September, 1897. Reprinted, December, 1897; 1900, 1904, 1908, 1909, 1921.

PREFACE.

The age of Tennyson is defined, for the purpose of the present volume, as extending from 1830 to 1870. The date selected as the beginning of the period needs no explanation; but perhaps the question may be asked why the age of Tennyson should be supposed to end more than twenty years before Tennyson died. The answer is twofold. First, I may plead the strong law of necessity. Sixty years, among the most fertile and varied in our literary history, could be compressed within the limits of a volume like the present only by completely changing the scale of treatment; and this again would have put it out of harmony with the other volumes of the series. But, secondly, about the year 1870 or before it there took place a change in the personnel of literature, less complete perhaps than that which marked the beginning of the epoch, but still sufficiently remarkable. Among the historians, Macaulay was dead and Carlyle had done his work. Among the novelists, Dickens died in 1870, Thackeray seven years before, and Charlotte Bronte still earlier; while, though George Eliot survived till 1880, the only great work of hers which lies beyond the limits of the period is Middlemarch. Mill, who had been so long the dominant power in philosophy, died in 1873. The poets, Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold and Rossetti, survived. In poetry however Arnold's voice was by this time almost dumb. Browning continued to produce copiously; but after The Ring and the Book his style changed, and changed decidedly for the worse. Tennyson changed too, but in his case there was some gain to balance what was lost. The best of the younger poets, like William Morris and Swinburne, clearly show the influence of new ideals. The old order was changing, and new ambitions were beginning to sway men's minds. In short, if by the age of Tennyson we mean the period during which the influences which formed Tennyson and his contemporaries were dominant, we find that it came to an end long before Tennyson's life closed.