Misfortune and madness, not surprisingly, haunted the whole Tennyson family. The year he died, Dr. Tennyson said of his children, "They are all strangely brought up."
Early Poetry and Cambridge
Tennyson began writing poetry as a child. At 12 he was writing a 6,000-line epic in imitation of Sir Walter Scott. Other youthful models were Lord Byron, whose death in 1824 he particularly mourned, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. When he was 14, Tennyson wrote a play called The Devil and the Lady, a dexterous imitation of Elizabethan comic verse.
In 1827 there appeared an unpretentious volume entitled Poems by Two Brothers; the book, despite its title, included poems by three of the Tennyson brothers, a little less than half of them probably by Alfred. That same year Alfred and Charles joined their brother Frederick at Trinity College, Cambridge University. In 1829 Tennyson joined the Apostles, an undergraduate discussion group, some of whose members would over the years continue to be his closest friends. Tennyson's undergraduate days were a time of intellectual and political turmoil in England. The institutions of church and state were being challenged, and the Apostles debated the issues which led to the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832.
This is a free page. This page contains 189 words. This
biography contains 1,575 words (approx. 5 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Alfred Tennyson Access Pass.
