Tennyson, Alfred - life and works

Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson was born in the city of Somersby in 1809. He was the fourth son of the twelve children of a clergyman, this one was a cultivated but at the same tim he was an embittered man,also devoted to drinking. Part of the family heritage was epilepsy that was a disease then thought to be brought on by sexual excess and therefore it was considered shameful. At the beginning He was educated at his father’s rectory, and then he started to study at the Trinity College in Cambridge. in Cambridge he was living for the first time among young men of his own age who knew little of the problems that had surrounded and also helped him for a long period of his own life. He was an extraordinarily handsome, an intelligent and also humorous person; and soon he was at the centre of a group of young men interested in poetry and conversation. It was probably the happiest period of his life. In Cambridge he also met Arthur Hallam that was to become his close friend and inspire his poetry and works .But then, after a long period of his life, He left Cambridge without completing a degree. However, while he was studying there , in 1803 he decided to publish his first important collection of verse, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical,that was then followed by another volume two years later. He travelled a lot during his life and he also went to the Continent with his friend, but in 1833 Hallam died in Vienna and Tennyson spent many years meditating about his tragical death.