1. Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (6
August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate
of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen
Victoria's reign and remains one of the most
popular British poets.
Tennyson was born in Somersby. He was born into
a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had a
noble and royal ancestry. Tennyson and two of his
elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens,
and a collection of poems by all three was published locally when Alfred
was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner later
married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred's future wife; the
other was Frederick Tennyson. Another of Tennyson's brothers, Edward
Tennyson, was institutionalised at a private asylum. Though Prince
Albert was largely responsible for Tennyson's appointment as Laureate,
Queen Victoria became an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, writing
in her diary that she was "much soothed & pleased" by reading In
Memoriam A.H.H. after Albert's death. The two met twice, first in April
1862, when Victoria wrote in her diary, "very peculiar looking, tall, dark,
with a fine head, long black flowing hair & a beard, — oddly dressed,
but there is no affectation about him." Tennyson met her a second time
nearly two decades later, and the Queen told him what a comfort In
Memoriam A.H.H. had been.
Mariana
Mariana is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson published in 1830. The
poem follows a common theme in much of Tennyson's work—that of
despondent isolation. The subject of Mariana is a woman who
continuously laments her lack of connection with society. The isolation
defines her existence, and her longing for a connection leaves her
wishing for death at the end of every stanza. The premise of Mariana
originates in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, but the lover
of Tennyson's Mariana does not return at the end of the poem.
The narrator of the poem is disconnected from Mariana, and he is able
to see what she cannot. In particular, he is able to describe the "sweet
heaven" whereas Mariana refuses to take in the scene as well as she is
unable to understand the movement of time:
-telling a story through the poem.
Causes of her trauma =
1. a man promised to come see her but didn’t.
2. waiting for nothing – mental
3. someone left her and she is waiting for them to come back for years but
they haven’t