Mimnermos was one of several ancient, Greek poets who composed verses about solar eclipses, and there was in fact a total solar eclipse of his home town, Smyrna, on April 6, 648 BC^[1] His poetry survives only as a few fragments yet they afford us a glimpse of his "brilliantly vivid" style.^[2]

Mimnermus (Greek: Μίμνερμος, Mímnermos) was a Greek elegiac poet from either Colophon or Smyrna in Ionia, who flourished about 630-600 BC. He was strongly influenced by the example of Homer yet he wrote short poems suitable for performance at drinking parties and was remembered by ancient authorities chiefly as a love poet. Mimnermus in turn exerted a strong influence on Hellenistic poets such as Callimachus and thus also on Roman poets such as Propertius, who even preferred him to Homer for his eloquence on love themes (see Comments by other poets below). His work was collected by Alexandrian scholars in just two 'books' (relatively few compared for example with the twenty-six books for Stesichorus) and today only small fragments survive. The fragments confirm the ancient estimate of him as a "consumate poet"^[3] but also indicate that he was in fact a "sturdier character" than the indulgent love poet he was assumed to be by various ancient commentators.^[4] Almost no reliable, biographical details have been recorded. One ancient account linked him romantically with a flute girl who subsequently gave her name to one of his two books - Nanno.

Life and work[link]

The Byzantine encyclopaedia Suda provides a good example of the biographical uncertainties.

"Mimnermus, son of Ligyrtyades, from Colophon or Smyrna or Astypalaea, an elegiac poet. He flourished in the 37th Olympiad (632-29 BC) and so is earlier than the seven sages, although some say that he was their contemporary. He was also called Ligyaistades because of his harmonious clarity. He wrote...books."^[5]

The gap indicates a corruption in the text and the original wording probably testified to two books, though the only source we have for this number was the grammarian Pomponius Porphyrion.^[6] Suda's mention of Astypalaea, an island in the southern Aegean, as a possible candidate for the poet's home town, is mere fantasy.^[7] Smyrna seems to be the most likely candidate.^[8] The nickname Ligyaistades was probably taken by Suda from an elegy addressed to Mimnermus by one of the seven sages — the Athenian lawgiver and elegiac poet, Solon (see Comments by other poets). Solon clearly admired the skills of the older poet, whom he addressed as Ligyaistades, yet he objected to his hedonism and singled out this couplet for criticism:

Girl playing the aulos, an instrument conventionally used to accompany the singing of elegies.

αἲ γὰρ ἄτερ νούσων τε καὶ ἀργαλέων μελεδωνέων

ἑξηκονταέτη μοῖρα κίχοι θανάτου.

"Would that my fated death might come at sixty, unattended by sickness and grievous cares."^[9]

Solon thought he should be willing to live to eighty. Plutarch was another ancient author critical of the poet's self-indulgence, dismissing one poem (see Fragment 1 in Poetic style below) as "the utterances of intemperate people."^[10] Mimnermus however was not timid in his hedonism, as indicated by a couplet attributed to him in the Palatine Anthology, an exhortation to others to live intemperately: "Enjoy yourself. Some of the harsh citizens will speak ill of you, some better.". However, the same lines have also been attributed to Theognis.^[11] A robust side to his personality is shown by his versatility as a poet. Archaic elegy was often used for patriotic purposes, to screw courage to the sticking place in times of war and to celebrate national achievements, and there is ample evidence that Mimnermus assumed this role as a poet. A quote recorded by the geographer Strabo represents the earliest surviving account of the Ionian migration, celebrating the settlement of Colophon and Smyrna from Pylos,^{[12] [13]} while another quote, recorded by Stobaeus, describes the heroic exploits of a Greek warrior against the cavalry of the Lydian king, Gyges, early in the 7th century — Mimnermus evidently hoped thereby to strengthen his countrymen's resolve against further Lydian encroachments.^[14] In fact the name 'Mimnermus' might have been chosen by his parents to commemmorate a famous Smyrnean victory against Gyges near the Hermus river (and yet names ending in 'ermus' were quite common in Ionia).^[15] He was alive when Smyrna was besieged for the final time by the Lydians under Alyattes II and possibly he died with the town.^[16] The disappearance of Smyrna for the next three hundred years might be the reason why Colophon was able to claim the poet as one of its own, yet Smyrna's own claim persisted and this suggests that its claim had the advantage of being true.^[17]

Unlike epic and lyric verse, which were accompanied by stringed instruments (the cithara and barbiton respectively), elegy was accompanied by a wind instrument (the aulos) and its performance therefore required at least two people — one to sing and one to play.^[18] Ancient accounts associate Mimnermus with a female aulos player, Nanno, and one makes him her lover (see quote from Hermesianax in Comments by other poets below). Another ancient source indicates that Mimnermus was a pederast,^[19] which is consistent with conventional sexual themes in Greek elegy. However, as noted by Martin Litchfield West, Mimnermus could have been a pederast and yet still have composed elegies about his love for Nanno: "Greek pederasty...was for the most part a substitute for heterosexual love, free contacts between the sexes being restricted by society."^[20] Mimnermus apparently was also capable of playing all by himself — Strabo described him as "both a pipe-player and an elegiac poet".^[21] According to the poet Hipponax, Mimnermus when piping used the melancholy "fig-branch strain," apparently a traditional melody played while scapegoats were ritually driven from town, whipped with fig branches.^[22]

Weeping Stone, Mount Sipylos — associated with the tragic figure of Niobe.

Smyrna lay near Mount Sipylos, one of whose rocky outcrops was traditionally imagined to be the tragic figure Niobe. Like other archaic poets, Mimnermus adapted myths to his own artistic needs and Aelian recorded that he attributed twenty children to Niobe, unlike Homer, for example, who attributed twelve to her.^[23] According to Sallustius, Mimnermus was just as creative in his poetical account of Ismene, representing her as being killed by Tydeus at the command of the goddess, Athena, in the very act of making love to Theoclymenus^[24] — an original account that was soon accepted by an international audience, being represented on an early Corinthian amphora^[25] (pictured below). Imaginative accounts of the sun, voyaging at night from west to east in a golden bed, and of Jason the Argonaut voyaging to "Aeetes' city, where the rays of the swift Sun lie in a golden storeroom at the edge of Oceanus", survive in brief quotes by ancient authors.^[26] According to Strabo, Smyrna was named after an Amazon and, according to a manuscript on proverbs, Mimnermus once composed on the theme of the proverb "A lame man makes the best lover", illustrating the Amazonian practice of maiming their men.^[27]

Ancient commentators sometimes refer to a work called Nanno and there is one clear reference to a work called Smyrneis. Modern scholars have concluded that these could be the two books mentioned by Porphyrion. Nanno appears to have been a collection of short poems on a variety of themes (not just love), whereas Smyrneis appears to have been a quasi-epic about Smyrna's confrontation with the Lydians. A cryptic comment by the Hellenistic poet, Callimachus (see Comments by other poets below), also seems to refer to those two books, commending one for "sweetness" and destinguishing it from "the great lady". The latter seems to be a reference to Smyrneis, whereas the sweet verses — apparently the slender, economical kind of verses on which Callimachus modelled his own poetry — appear to refer to Nanno. However, the comment is preserved as an incomplete fragment and modern scholars are not unanimous in their interpretation of it.^[28] Another Callimachus fragment has been interpreted as proof that Mimnermus composed some iambic verse but this conjecture has also been disputed.^[29]

Poetic style[link]

Corinthian vase depicting Mimnermus's original account of Ismene's death. Tydeus is depicted in black (usual for a male), Ismene and her fleeing lover Theoclymenus are white (usual for females and appropriate for an adulterous male on the run).^[30]

Elegy has been described as "a variation upon the heroic hexameter, in the direction of lyric poetry,"^[31] and, in Mimnermus, this takes the form of a variation on Homer, as appears for example in Fragment 1, quoted below, about which one modern scholar had this to say.

"Mimnermus' dependence on Homer is striking: it is amusing to see him express such un-Homeric thoughts as those of fr.1 in language which is almost entirely Homer's. Homer's vocabulary, line-endings, formulas, similes, all reappear, but from this material Mimnermus creates quite a distinctive poetry of easy grace and pleasing rhythm..." — David A. Campbell^[32]

Fragment 1

τίς δὲ βίος, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης;

τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι,

κρυπταδίη φιλότης καὶ μείλιχα δῶρα καὶ εὐνή·

οἷ’ ἥβης ἄνθεα γίγνεται ἁρπαλέα

ἀνδράσιν ἠδὲ γυναιξίν· ἐπεὶ δ’ ὀδυνηρὸν ἐπέλθῃ

γῆρας, ὅ τ’ αἰσχρὸν ὁμῶς καὶ καλὸν ἄνδρα τιθεῖ,

αἰεί μιν φρένας ἀμφὶ κακαὶ τείρουσι μέριμναι,

οὐδ’ αὐγὰς προσορῶν τέρπεται ἠελίου,

ἀλλ’ ἐχθρὸς μὲν παισίν, ἀτίμαστος δὲ γυναιξίν·

οὕτως ἀργαλέον γῆρας ἔθηκε θεός.

Typically, the elegiac couplet enabled a poet to develop his ideas in brief, striking phrases, often made more memorable by internal rhyme in the shorter, pentameter line.^[33] Mimnermus employs the internal rhyme in the pentameter lines 2 (μοι... μέλοι) and 4 (ἄνθεα...ἁρπαλέα). Here is the same poem paraphrased in English to imitate the rhythms of an elegy, with half-rhymes employed in the same lines 2 (far...for) and 4 (youth...bloom):

What is life, what is sweet, if it is missing golden Aphrodite?

Death would be better by far than to live with no time for

Amorous assignations and the gift of tenderness and bedrooms,

All of those things that give youth all of its covetted bloom,

Both for men and for women. But when there arrives the vexatiousness

Of old age, even good looks alter to unsightliness

And the heart wears away under the endlessness of its anxieties:

There is no joy anymore then in the light of the sun;

In children there is found hate and in women there is found no respect.

So difficult has old age been made for us all by God!

Commenting on the poem, Maurice Bowra observed that "...after the challenging, flaunting opening we are led through a swift account of youth, and then as we approach the horrors of old age, the verse becomes slower, the sentences shorter, the stops more emphatic, until the poet closes with a short, damning line of summary."^[34]

Of all the other early elegists, only Archilochus might be compared with Mimnermus for effective use of language,^[35] both being lifelong poets of outstanding skill.^[36]

Comments by other poets[link]

Solon[link]

Addressing Mimnermus and criticizing him for his stated wish to die at 60 years of age, as quoted above in Life and work, the Athenian sage said:

ἀλλ᾽ εἴ μοι κἂν νῦν ἔτι πείσεαι, ἔξελε τοῦτον: —

μηδὲ μέγαιρ᾽ ὅτι σεῦ λῷον ἐπεφρασάμην: —

καὶ μεταποίησον, Λιγυαιστάδη, ὧδε δ᾽ ἄειδε:

ὀγδωκονταέτη μοῖρα κίχοι θανάτου.^[37]

"But if even now you will listen to me, remove this (i.e. Mimnermus's objectionable verse) —

and do not be offended because my thoughts are better than yours —

and changing it, Ligyaistades, sing as follows:

May my fated death come at eighty."^[38]

Hermesianax[link]

"And Mimnermus who, after much suffering, discovered the sweet sound and breath given off by the soft pentameter, was on fire for Nanno..."^[39]

Callimachus[link]

Defining the kind of poetry he liked and believed best suited to his own, much later times, the Alexandrian scholar-poet commended Mimnermus thus [brackets indicate gaps in the text]:

"Of the two [types of poetry] it was his slender [verses?], not the big lady, that revealed Mimnermus' sweetness.

Propertius[link]

plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero:

carmina mansuetus lenia quaerit Amor.^[40]

"In love the verses of Mimnermus prevail over those of Homer.

Gentle love calls for soft songs."^[41]

Horace[link]

si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore iocisque

nil est iucundum, vivas in amore iocisque.^[42]

"If, as Mimnermus believes, without love and jests

There is no joy, may you live amid love and jests."^[43]

Translations[link]

1. Greek lyric: an anthology in translation By Andrew M. Miller
2. Loeb vol. 1 lyric poetry
3. Several fragments translated by Steve Hays
4. Translation of Fragment 2 into Elegiac couplets

References[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mimnermus

William Cory

William Johnson Cory ( January 9, 1823 – June 11, 1892 ), born William Johnson, was an educator and poet, born at Torrington, and educated at Eton, where he was afterwards a renowned master, nicknamed Tute (short for "tutor") by his pupils. After Eton, he studied at King's College, Cambridge where he gained the chancellor's medal for an English poem on Plato in 1843, and the Craven Scholarship in 1844.^[1] He was a brilliant writer of Latin verse. Although best known for the much-anthologised Heraclitus ("They told me Heraclitus, they told me you were dead"^[2]), his chief poetical work is Ionica, showing a true lyrical gift (see below).

Cory became an assistant master at Eton in 1845 right after graduating from King's College Cambridge. As a pedagogue he insisted on the centrality of personal ties between teacher and student. The historian G. W. Prothero described him as "the most brilliant Eton tutor of his day." Arthur Coleridge described him as "the wisest master who has ever been at Eton." Among his former pupils are numbered several statesmen of the period, among whom Lord Rosebery; Capt. Algernon Drummond; Reginald Baliol Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher; Henry Scott Holland; Francis Eliot; W. O. Burrows; Howard Overing Sturgis; Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax; Lord Chichester; and Arthur Balfour. He was forced to resign from Eton at Easter 1872 after an "indiscreet letter" which Johnson had written to a pupil was intercepted by the parents and brought to the notice of the headmaster, who handled the matter badly.^[3] He retired to Halsdon and changed his name on 17 October 1872 to Cory (the maiden name of his paternal grandmother) before emigrating for health reasons to Madeira in February 1878, where he married and had a son. He returned to England in September 1882, settling in Hampstead, where he died.^[4]

Cory is well noted for a letter in which he poignantly and succinctly articulates the purpose of education. His words are taken by many as a justification for studying Latin. The full quotation goes thus:

At school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions. But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment's notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person's thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness. Above all, you go to a great school for self-knowledge. Eton College

In 1924, an entire book devoted to Cory was printed, entitled Ionicus. The author was Reginald Baliol Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher, one of the most eminent and powerful men of his time. Reginald had begun a correspondence with Cory while at Eton, and continued it until the time of Cory's death. The dedication mentions three Prime Ministers (Rosebery, Balfour, and Asquith) "who at Eton learnt the elements of high politics from IONICUS."

Bibliographic note. Ionica (Smith, Elder & Co., 1858. iv, 116 pages) contained 48 poems, two dated 1851 & 1855. Ionica II (C.U.P., 1877. 48 pages) had 25 poems, several bearing dates in the period 1859-1877. Ionica (George Allen, 1891. vi, 210 pages) contained 85 poems, omitting six of the 1858 volume & two of the 1877 book, but adding 20 new poems, three dated 1877, 1885 & 1889. The collected edition Ionica edited by A. C. Benson (George Allen, 1905. xxxii, 220 pages) restored five poems dropped in 1891 - three from the 1858 volume & two from the 1877 book - and added one from a letter of 1862 (first published in the Letters and Journals of 1897). Still omitted were "A Chobham Song", "Rhymes at the Wrong End" & "The Bridesmaid".

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: William Johnson Cory

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Author:William Johnson Cory

• Michael Matthew Kaylor, Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde (2006), a 500-page scholarly volume that considers the prominent Victorian writers of Uranian poetry and prose, such as Johnson (the author has made this volume available in a free, open-access, PDF version).
• Ionica. With biographical introd. and notes by Arthur C. Benson (1905)

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J. M. Dent & Sons; New York, E. P. Dutton.

Elliott Cook Carter Jr.

Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestral and chamber music as well as solo instrumental and vocal works.

He has been extremely productive in his later years, publishing more than 40 works between the ages of 90 and 100,^[1] and over 14 more since he turned 100 in 2008.^[2]

Biography[link]

Carter's father, Elliott Carter Sr., was a businessman and his mother was the former Florence Chambers. The family was well-to-do. As a teenager, he developed an interest in music and was encouraged in this regard by the composer Charles Ives (who sold insurance to his family). In 1924, a galvanized 15-year-old Carter was in the audience when Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the New York première of The Rite of Spring, according to a 2008 report. Carter was again in attendance (see below) at Carnegie Hall, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2008, when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine, again performed the Stravinsky piece as part of its tribute to Carter.^[3] Although Carter majored in English at Harvard College, he also studied music there and at the nearby Longy School of Music. His professors included Walter Piston and Gustav Holst. He sang with the Harvard Glee Club. He did graduate work in music at Harvard, from which he received a Master's degree in music in 1932. He then went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger (as did many other American composers). Carter worked with Mlle Boulanger from 1932–35 and in 1935 he received a doctorate in music (D Mus) from the Ecole Normale in Paris. Later in 1935, he returned to the US where he wrote music for the Ballet Caravan.

From 1940 to 1944, Carter taught in the program, including music, at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. On July 6, 1939, Carter married Helen Frost-Jones. They had one child, a son, David Chambers Carter. During World War II, Carter worked for the Office of War Information. He later held teaching posts at the Peabody Conservatory (1946–1948), Columbia University, Queens College, New York (1955–56), Yale University (1960–62), Cornell University (from 1967) and the Juilliard School (from 1972). In 1967, he was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1981, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, in 1985 the National Medal of Arts. Carter has lived in Greenwich Village since 1945.^[1]

On December 11, 2008, Carter celebrated his 100th birthday at Carnegie Hall in New York, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra and pianist Daniel Barenboim played his Interventions for Piano and Orchestra from 2008. Between the ages of 90 and 100, Carter published more than 40 works, and after his 100th birthday he has composed at least 14 more.^[1]

On February 7, 2009, Carter was given the Trustees Award (a lifetime achievement award given to non-performers) by the Grammy Awards.^[4]

Carter is on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center where he gives annual composition master classes.

Style and works[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2011)

Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky, Harris, Copland, and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic. He had a strict and thorough training in counterpoint, from medieval polyphony through Stravinsky, and this shows in his earliest music, such as the ballet Pocahontas (1938–39). Some of his music during the Second World War is frankly diatonic, and includes a melodic lyricism reminiscent of Samuel Barber.

His music after 1950 is typically atonal and rhythmically complex, indicated by the invention of the term metric modulation to describe the frequent, precise tempo changes found in his work. While Carter's chromaticism and tonal vocabulary parallels serial composers of the period, Carter does not employ serial techniques in his music. Rather he independently developed and cataloged all possible collections of pitches (i.e., all possible three-note chords, five-note chords, etc.). Musical theorists like Allen Forte later systematized these data into musical set theory. A series of works in the 1960s and 1970s generates its tonal material by using all possible chords of a particular number of pitches.

The Piano Concerto (1964–65) uses the collection of three-note chords for its pitch material; the Third String Quartet (1971) uses all four-note chords; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969) all five-note chords; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras uses the collection of six-note chords. Carter also makes frequent use of "tonic" 12-note chords. Of particular interest are "all-interval" 12-tone chords where every interval is represented within adjacent notes of the chord. His 1980 solo piano work Night Fantasies uses the entire collection of the 88 symmetrical-inverted all-interval 12 note chords. Typically, the pitch material is segmented between instruments, with a unique set of chords or sets assigned to each instrument or orchestral section. This stratification of material, with individual voices assigned not only their own unique pitch material, but texture and rhythm as well, is a key component of Carter's musical style. Carter's music after Night Fantasies has been termed his late period and his tonal language has become less systematized and more intuitive, but retains the basic characteristics of his earlier works.

Carter's use of rhythm can best be understood within the concept of stratification. Each instrumental voice is typically assigned its own set of tempos. A structural polyrhythm, where a very slow polyrhythm is used as a formal device, is present in many of Carter's works. Night Fantasies, for example, uses a 216:175 tempo relation that coincides at only two points in the entire 20+ minute composition. This use of rhythm is part of his goal to expand the notion of counterpoint to encompass simultaneous different characters, even entire movements, rather than just individual lines.

Carter developed his technique to further his artistic goals. His use of rhythm allows his music a structured fluidity and sense of time perhaps unique in classical music. The music also is overtly expressive and dramatic. He has said that "I regard my scores as scenarios, auditory scenarios, for performers to act out with their instruments, dramatizing the players as individuals and participants in the ensemble."^{[cite this quote]} He has also talked about his desire to portray a "different form of motion," in which players are not locked in step with the downbeat of every measure.

He has said that such steady pulses remind him of soldiers marching or horses trotting, sounds that are not heard anymore in the late 20th century, and he wants his music to capture the sort of continuous acceleration or deceleration experienced in an automobile or an airplane. While Carter's atonal music shows little trace of American popular music or jazz, his vocal music has demonstrated strong ties to contemporary American poetry. He has set works of Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and Marianne Moore. Several of his large instrumental works such as the Concerto for Orchestra or Symphony of Three Orchestras are inspired by twentieth-century poets as well.

Among his better known works are the Variations for Orchestra (1954–5); the Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1959–61); the Piano Concerto (1964–65), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), loosely based on a poem by Saint-John Perse; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976). He has also written five string quartets,^[5] of which the second and third won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1960 and 1973 respectively. Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993–1996) is his largest orchestral work, complex in structure and featuring contrasting layers of instrumental textures, from delicate wind solos to crashing brass and percussion outbursts.

In spite of a usually rigorous derivation of all pitch content of a piece from a source chord, or series of chords, Carter never abandons lyricism, and ensures that a text is sung intelligibly, sometimes even simply. In A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975) (based on poems by Elizabeth Bishop) Carter writes colorful, subtle, transparently clear music; yet almost every pitch in the piece is derived from the content of a single sonority. Most of Carter's music is published by either G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers (works up to 1981) or Boosey & Hawkes (works since 1981).

Carter continues composing. Interventions for Piano and Orchestra received its premiere on December 5, 2008, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine featuring pianist Daniel Barenboim at Symphony Hall in Boston. The pianist reprised the work again with the BSO at Carnegie Hall in New York in the presence of the composer on his 100th birthday.^[1] Carter was also present at the 2009 Aldeburgh Festival to hear the world premiere of his song-cycle On Conversing with Paradise, based on Ezra Pound's Canto 95 (from the section Rock-Drill) and one of Pound's 'Notes' intended for later Cantos, and usually published at the end of the Cantos. ^[6] The premiere was given on June 20, 2009 by baritone Leigh Melrose and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by Oliver Knussen.^[7]

Figment V for marimba with Simon Boyar was premiered in New York on 2 May 2009 and Poems of Louis Zukofsky for soprano and clarinet had its first performance by Lucy Shelton and Stanley Drucker at the Tanglewood Festival on August 9, 2009. The US premiere of the Flute Concerto took place on February 4, 2010, with soloist Elizabeth Rowe and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine.

Partial list of works[link]

Ballet[link]

• Pocahontas (1938–39)
• The Minotaur (1947)

Chamber[link]

• Canonic Suite for saxophone quartet (AAAA) (1939)
• Elegy for viola and piano (1943)
• Piano Sonata (1945–46)
• Cello Sonata (1948)
• Woodwind Quintet (1948)
• Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for wind quartet (1949) [2]
• String Quartet No. 1 (1951)
• Sonata for flute, oboe, cello, and harpsichord (1952)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1959)
• Canon for 3 (1971)
• String Quartet No. 3 (1971)
• Brass Quintet (1974)
• Duo for violin and piano (1974)
• Birthday Fanfare for three trumpets, vibraphone, and glockenspiel (1978)
• Triple Duo (1983)
• Esprit rude/esprit doux for flute and clarinet (1984)
• Canon for 4 (1984)
• String Quartet No. 4 (1986)
• Enchanted Prelude for flute and cello (1988)
• Con leggerezza pensosa for clarinet, violin, and cello (1990)
• Quintet for piano and winds (1991)
• Trilogy for oboe and harp (1992)

1. Bariolage for harp
2. Inner Song for oboe
3. Immer Neu for oboe and harp

• Esprit rude/esprit doux II for flute, clarinet, and marimba (1994)
• Fragment I for string quartet (1994)
• String Quartet No.5 (1995)
• Luimen for ensemble (1997)
• Quintet for piano and string quartet (1997)
• Fragment II for string quartet (1999)
• Oboe Quartet, for oboe, violin, viola, and cello (2001)
• Hiyoku for two clarinets (2001)
• Au Quai for bassoon and viola (2002)
• Call for two trumpets and horn (2003)
• Clarinet Quintet (2007)
• Tintinnabulation for percussion sextet (2008)
• Tre Duetti for violin and cello (2008, 2009)

1. Duettone
2. Adagio
3. Duettino

• Trije glasbeniki for flute, bass clarinet, and harp (2011)
• String Trio (2011)
• Double Trio for trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, violin and cello (2011)

Choral[link]

• Tarantella for men's chorus and two pianos (1937)
• Let's Be Gay for women's chorus and two pianos (1937)
• Harvest Home for a capella choir (1937)
• To Music for a capella choir (1937)
• Heart Not So Heavy for a capella choir (1939)
• The Defense of Corinth for speaker, men's chorus and piano four hands (1941)
• The Harmony of Morning for women's chorus and chamber orchestra (1944)
• Musicians Wrestle Everywhere for a capella choir (1945)
• Emblems for men's chorus and piano (1947)

Concertante[link]

• Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord and 2 chamber orchestras (1959–61)
• Piano Concerto (1964)
• Concerto for Orchestra (1969)
• Oboe Concerto (1986–1987)
• Violin Concerto (1989)
• Clarinet Concerto (1996)
• Cello Concerto (2001)
• Boston Concerto (2002)
• Dialogues for piano and chamber orchestra (2003)
• Mosaic for harp and ensemble (2004)
• Horn Concerto (2007)
• Flute Concerto (2008)
• Concertino for bass clarinet and chamber orchestra (2009)
• Conversations for piano, percussion, and chamber/full orchestra (2010)
• Two Controversies and a Conversation for piano, percussion, and chamber/full orchestra (2011)

Large ensemble[link]

• Penthode for ensemble (1985)
• ASKO Concerto for sixteen players (2000)
• Réflexions for ensemble (2004)
• Wind Rose for wind ensemble (2008)

Opera[link]

• What Next? (opera in one act) (1997)

Orchestra[link]

• Symphony No. 1 (1942, revised 1954)
• Holiday Overture (1944, revised 1961)
• Variations for orchestra (1954–1955)
• A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976)
• Three Occasions for orchestra (1986–89)

1. A Celebration of Some 150x100 Notes
2. Remembrance
3. Anniversary

• Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretium spei (1993–96)

1. Partita
2. Adagio Tenebroso
3. Allegro Scorrevole

• Three Illusions for orchestra (2002–04)

1. Micomicón
2. Fons Juventatis
3. More's Utopia

• Soundings for piano and orchestra (2005)
• Interventions for piano and orchestra (2007)
• Sound Fields for string orchestra (2007)

Solo instrumental[link]

• Piano Sonata (1945–46)
• Eight Pieces for Four Timpani (1949/66)
• Night Fantasies for piano (1980)
• Changes for guitar (1983)
• Scrivo in Vento for flute (1991)
• Gra for clarinet (1994)
• 90+ for piano (1994)
• Figment for cello (1994)
• A 6-letter Letter for English horn (1996)
• Shard for guitar (1997)
• Two Diversions for piano (1999)
• Four Lauds for solo violin (1999, 1984, 2000, 1999)

1. I. Statement – Remembering Aaron
2. II. Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi
3. III. Rhapsodic Musings
4. IV. Fantasy – Remembering Roger

• Retrouvailles for piano (2000)
• Figment II for cello (2001)
• Steep Steps for bass clarinet (2001)
• Retracing for bassoon (2002)
• Intermittences for piano (2005)
• Caténaires for piano (2006)
• HBHH for oboe (2007)
• Figment III for contrabass (2007)
• Figment IV for viola (2007)
• Tri-Tribute for piano (2007, 2008)

1. "Matribute"
2. "Fratribute"
3. "Sistribute"

• Figment V for marimba (2009)
• Retracing II for horn (2009)
• Retracing III for trumpet (2009)

Voice[link]

• My Love Is in a Light Attire for voice and piano (1928)
• Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred for voice and guitar (1938)
• A Mirror on Which to Dwell for soprano and ensemble (1975)
• Syringa for mezzo-soprano, bass-baritone, guitar, and ensemble (1978)
• Three Poems of Robert Frost for baritone and ensemble (1942, orchestrated 1980)
• In Sleep, in Thunder for tenor and ensemble (1981)
• Of Challenge and of Love for soprano and piano (1994)
• Tempo e Tempi for soprano, oboe, clarinet, violin, and cello (1998–99)
• Of Rewaking for mezzo-soprano and orchestra (2002)
• In the Distances of Sleep for mezzo-soprano and chamber orchestra (2006)
• Mad Regales for six solo voices (2007)
• La Musique for solo voice (2007)
• Poems of Louis Zukofsky (2008) for mezzo-soprano and clarinet
• On Conversing with Paradise (2008) for baritone and chamber orchestra
• What Are Years (2009) for soprano and chamber orchestra
• A Sunbeam's Architecture (2010) for tenor and chamber orchestra
• Three Explorations (2011) for bass-baritone, winds, and brass

Partial discography[link]

• Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord; Sonata for Cello and Piano; Double Concerto for Harpsichord and Piano With Two Chamber Orchestras. Paul Jacobs, hpschd; Joel Krosnick, cello; Gilbert Kalish, piano; The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg, cond. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 79183-2.
• String Quartets Nos. 1 and 2. The Composers Quartet. Elektra/Nonesuch 9 71249-2
• Piano Concerto; Variations for Orchestra. Ursula Oppens, piano; Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Michael Gielen, cond. New World Records, NW 347–2.
• Triple Duo; Clarinet Concerto; short pieces. Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Lorraine Vaillancourt, cond. ATMA Classique, ACD2 2280.
• Complete Music for Piano. Charles Rosen, Piano. Bridge 9090.
• Vocal Works (1975–81): A Mirror on Which to Dwell; In Sleep, In Thunder; Syringa; Three Poems of Robert Frost. Speculum Musicae with Katherine Ciesinki, mezzo; Jon Garrison, tenor; Jan Opalach, bass; Christine Schadeberg, soprano. Bridge, BCD 9014.
• Dialogues; Boston Concerto; Cello Concerto; ASKO Concerto. Nicolas Hodges, piano; Fred Sherry, cello; London Sinfonietta, BBC Symphony Orchestra, ASKO Ensemble, Oliver Knussen, cond. Bridge 9184.

Notable students[link]

• Ronald Caltabiano
• Joel Chadabe
• Alvin Curran
• Joel Hoffman
• Tod Machover
• Jeffrey Mumford
• Tobias Picker
• David Schiff
• William Schimmel
• Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

References[link]

Doering, William T. Elliott Carter: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 1993.

Interviews[link]

• Elliott Carter interview by Bruce Duffie, June 1986
• American Gothic: An Interview with Elliott Carter, by Andy Carvin, 1992
• A January 1994 interview with Elliott Carter by Phil Lesh
• NewMusicBox: Elliott Carter in conversation with Frank J. Oteri, 2000
• MusicMavericks.PublicRadio.org: An interview with Elliot Carter by Alan Baker, Minnesota Public Radio, July 2002
• Radical Connections on Counterstream Radio: Elliott Carter and Phil Lesh in Conversation, December 2007]
• Elliott Carter Centenary Podcast, an interview with Frank J. Oteri, November 27, 2007
• TV Interview (with Daniel Barenboim and James Levine) by Charlie Rose, December 10, 2008

Listening[link]

• Elliott Carter: A Life In Music, a documentary (1983)
• Art of the States: Elliott Carter four works by the composer
• Elliott Carter interview from American Mavericks site
• Excerpts from sound archives of Carter's works

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Elliott Carter

• Yale University Library: Research Guide to Elliott Carter's Life and Music
• Elliott Carter by photographer Philippe Gontier
• Elliott Carter: A Centennial Portrait in Letters and Documents by Felix Meyer & Anne C. Shreffler published by the Boydell Press in association with the Paul Sacher Foundation.
• Elliott Carter at G. Schirmer/AMP
• Elliott Carter at Boosey and Hawkes
• The String Quartets of Elliott Carter Booklet note for recording by the Arditti Quartet of Quartets 1–4 and Elegy (1988 ETCETERA KTC 1065/1066), by David Harvey
• CompositionToday – Elliot Carter article and review of works
• http://web.archive.org/web/20080201015213/http://www.carter100.com/ Elliott Carter Centenary 2008]
• John Link's Analysis of Night Fantasies
• Joshua B. Mailman's "Imagined Drama of Competitive Opposition in Carter's Scrivo in Vento (with Notes on Narrative, Symmetry, Quantitative Flux and Heraclitus)"
• (French) A biography of Elliott Carter, from IRCAM's website.
• Lifetime Honors - National Medal of Arts

Edwin Arlington Robinson
Born	December 22, 1869 Head Tide (Alna), Lincoln County, Maine
Died	April 6, 1935(1935-04-06) (aged 65) New York City[1]
Occupation	Poet and playwright
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	none

Edwin Arlington Robinson (December 22, 1869 – April 6, 1935) was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.

Biography[link]

Robinson was born in Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870. He described his childhood in Maine as "stark and unhappy":^[2] his parents, having wanted a girl, did not name him until he was six months old, when they visited a holiday resort; other vacationers decided that he should have a name, and selected a man from Arlington, Massachusetts to draw a name out of a hat.^[3]

Robinson in 1888

Robinson's early difficulties led many of his poems to have a dark pessimism and his stories to deal with "an American dream gone awry".^[4] His brother Dean died of a drug overdose. His other brother, Herman, a handsome and charismatic man, married the woman Edwin himself loved (Emma Löehen Shepherd), but Herman suffered business failures, became an alcoholic, and ended up estranged from his wife and children, dying impoverished in a charity hospital in 1901. Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" was thought by Emma (Herman's wife) to refer to this brother, her husband.^[5]

In late 1891, at the age of 21, Edwin entered Harvard University as a special student. He took classes in English, French, and Shakespeare, as well as one on Anglo-Saxon that he later dropped. His mission was not to get all A's; as he wrote his friend Harry Smith, "B, and in that vicinity, is a very comfortable and safe place to hang".

His real desire was to get published in one of the Harvard literary journals. Within the first fortnight of being there, The Harvard Advocate published Robinson's "Ballade of a Ship". He was even invited to meet with the editors, but when he returned he complained to his friend Mowry Saben, "I sat there among them, unable to say a word". Robinson's literary career had false-started.

Edwin's father, Edward, died after Edwin's first year at Harvard. Edwin returned to Harvard for a second year, but it was to be his last one as a student there. Though short, his stay in Cambridge included some of his most cherished experiences, and there he made his most lasting friendships. He wrote his friend Harry Smith on June 21, 1893:

I suppose this is the last letter I shall ever write you from Harvard. The thought seems a little queer, but it cannot be otherwise. Sometimes I try to imagine the state my mind would be in had I never come here, but I cannot. I feel that I have got comparatively little from my two years, but still, more than I could get in Gardiner if I lived a century.

Robinson had returned to Gardiner by mid-1893. He had plans to start writing seriously. In October he wrote his friend Gledhill:

Writing has been my dream ever since I was old enough to lay a plan for an air castle. Now for the first time I seem to have something like a favorable opportunity and this winter I shall make a beginning.

With his father gone, Edwin became the man of the household. He tried farming and developed a close relationship with his brother's wife Emma Robinson, who after her husband Herman's death moved back to Gardiner with her children. She twice rejected marriage proposals from Edwin, after which he permanently left Gardiner. He moved to New York, where he led a precarious existence as an impoverished poet while cultivating friendships with other writers, artists, and would-be intellectuals. In 1896 he self-published his first book, The Torrent and the Night Before, paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. Robinson meant it as a surprise for his mother. Days before the copies arrived, Mary Palmer Robinson died of diphtheria.

His second volume, The Children of the day, had a somewhat wider circulation. Its readers included President Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit, who recommended it to his father. Impressed by the poems and aware of Robinson's straits, Roosevelt in 1905 secured the writer a job at the New York Customs Office. According to Edmund Morris, author of Theodore Rex, a tacit condition of his employment was that, in exchange for his desk and two thousand dollars a year, he should work "with a view to helping American letters," rather than the receipts of the United States Treasury. Robinson remained in the job until Roosevelt left office.

Gradually his literary successes began to mount. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times in the 1920s.^[6] During the last twenty years of his life he became a regular summer resident at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where several women made him the object of their devoted attention, but he maintained a solitary life and never married.^[7] Robinson died of cancer on April 6, 1935 in the New York Hospital (now New York Cornell Hospital) in New York City. ^[8]

Recognition[link]

Edwin Arlington Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times: in 1922 for his first Collected Poems, in 1925 for The Man Who Died Twice, and in 1928 for Tristram.^[6]

Selected works[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Edwin Arlington Robinson

Poetry[link]

• The Torrent and the Night Before (1896)
• Luke Havergal (1897)
• The Children of the Night (1897)
• Richard Cory (1897)
• Captain Craig and Other Poems (1902)
• The Town Down the River (1910)
• Miniver Cheevy (1910)
• The Man Against the Sky (1916)
• Merlin (1917)
• Ben Trovato (1920)
• The Three Taverns (1920)
• Avon's Harvest (1921)
• Collected Poems (1921)
• Haunted House (1921)
• Roman Bartholomew (1923)
• The Man Who Died Twice (1924)
• Dionysus in Doubt (1925)
• Tristram (1927)
• Fortunatus (1928)
• Sonnets, 1889-1917 (1928)
• Cavender's House (1929)
• Modred (1929)
• The Glory of the Nightingales (1930)
• Matthias at the Door (1931)
• Selected Poems (1931)
• Talifer (1933)
• Amaranth (1934)
• King Jasper (1935)
• Collected Poems (1937)

Plays[link]

• Van Zorn (1914)
• The Porcupine (1915)

Letters[link]

• Selected Letters (1940)
• Untriangulated Stars: Letters to Harry de Forest Smith 1890-1905 (1947)
• Edwin Arlington Robinson's Letters to Edith Brower (1968)

Miscellany[link]

• Uncollected Poems and Prose (1975)

References[link]

1. ^ University of Illinois
2. ^ poets.org biography
3. ^ American Poets: From the Puritans to the Present, by Hyatt H. Waggoner (1968); excerpted at On "Miniver Cheevy"
4. ^ PBS - I Hear America Singing
5. ^ "Shepherd Family Residence", Edwin Arlington Robinson site
6. ^ ^{a b} "Search: arlington, edwin, robinson," The Pulitzer Prizes, Pulitzer.org, Web, Apr. 22, 2011.
7. ^ East Tennessee State University
8. ^ [1]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Edwin Arlington Robinson

• Edwin Arlington Robinson, An American Poet (Gardiner Library)
• Robinson Bokardo.com
• Critique of Robinson's Poetry
• An extensive collection of Robinson's sonnets
• April 9, 1916 New York Times article by Joyce Kilmer: Edwin Arlington Robinson Defines Poetry; A Language, Says Well-Known Poet, That Tells Us Through More or Less Emotional Reaction Something Which Cannot Be Said

The Right Honourable The Lord Tennyson FRS
1869 Carbon print by Julia Margaret Cameron
Born	(1809-08-06)6 August 1809 Somersby, Lincolnshire, England United Kingdom
Died	6 October 1892(1892-10-06) (aged 83) Haslemere, Surrey, England United Kingdom
Occupation	Poet Laureate
Alma mater	Cambridge University
Influences William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Milton, John Keats

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language.

Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "In the Valley of Cauteretz", "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain haemorrhage before they could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses," and "Tithonus." During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success.

A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplaces of the English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw", "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.^[1]

Early life[link]

Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, a rector's son and fourth of 12 children.^[2] He derived from a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had noble and royal ancestry.^[3]

His father, George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831), was rector of Somersby (1807–1831), also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby (1815). . Rev. George Clayton Tennyson raised a large family and "was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music, and poetry. He was comfortably well off for a country clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe and Skegness, on the eastern coast of England."^[3] Alfred Tennyson's mother, Elizabeth Fytche (1781–1865), was the daughter of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar of St. James Church, Louth (1764) and rector of Withcall (1780), a small village between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to the education and training of his children."

Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens, and a collection of poems by all three were 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, where he died.

Education and first publication[link]

Tennyson was first a student of Louth Grammar School for four years (1816–1820)^[3] and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827,^[4] where he joined a secret society called the Cambridge Apostles. At Cambridge Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his closest friend. His first publication was a collection of "his boyish rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles" entitled Poems by Two Brothers published in 1827.^[3]

In 1829 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuctoo".^[5][6] Reportedly, "it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal."^[3] He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their place among Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Return to Lincolnshire and second publication[link]

Tennyson with his wife Emily (1813–1896) and his sons Hallam (1852–1928) and Lionel (1854–1886).

In the spring of 1831 Tennyson's father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree. He returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years, and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family. Arthur Hallam came to stay with his family during the summer and became engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Tennyson.

In 1833, Tennyson published his second book of poetry, which included his well-known poem, The Lady of Shalott. The volume met heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson that he did not publish again for 10 years, although he continued to write. That same year, Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage while on vacation in Vienna.^[7] Hallam's sudden and unexpected death in 1833 had a profound impact on Tennyson, and inspired several masterpieces, including "In the Valley of Cauteretz" and In Memoriam A.H.H., a long poem detailing the 'Way of the Soul'.^[7]

Tennyson and his family were allowed to stay in the rectory for some time, but later moved to High Beach, Essex about 1837, leaving in 1840.^[8] An unwise investment in an ecclesiastical wood-carving enterprise soon led to the loss of much of the family fortune. Tennyson then moved to London, and lived for a time at Chapel House, Twickenham.

Third publication[link]

In 1842, while living modestly in London, Tennyson published two volumes of Poems, of which the first included works already published and the second was made up almost entirely of new poems. They met with immediate success. Poems from this collection, such as Locksley Hall, "Tithonus", and "Ulysses" have met enduring fame. The Princess: A Medley, a satire on women's education, which came out in 1847, was also popular for its lyrics. W. S. Gilbert later adapted and parodied the piece twice: in The Princess (1870) and in Princess Ida (1884).

It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the pinnacle of his career, finally publishing his masterpiece, In Memoriam A.H.H., dedicated to Hallam. Later the same year he was appointed Poet Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth. In the same year (on 13 June), Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had known since childhood, in the village of Shiplake. They had two sons, Hallam Tennyson (b. 11 August 1852) – named after his friend – and Lionel (b. 16 March 1854).

Poet Laureate[link]

Lord Tennyson.

After Wordsworth's death in 1850, and Samuel Rogers' refusal, Tennyson was appointed to the position of Poet Laureate, which he held until his own death in 1892, by far the longest tenure of any laureate before or since. He fulfilled the requirements of this position by turning out appropriate but often uninspired verse, such as a poem of greeting to Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the future King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of his best known works, "The Charge of the Light Brigade", a dramatic tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised charge on 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War. Other esteemed works written in the post of Poet Laureate include Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition.

Farringford – Lord Tennyson's residence on the Isle of Wight

Queen Victoria was an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, and in 1884 created him Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. Tennyson initially declined a baronetcy in 1865 and 1868 (when tendered by Disraeli), finally accepting a peerage in 1883 at Gladstone's earnest solicitation. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 11 March 1884.^[3]

Tennyson also wrote a substantial quantity of non-official political verse, from the bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", on the French crisis of 1859, to "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone's Home Rule Bill.

Statue of Lord Tennyson in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Virginia Woolf wrote a play called Freshwater, showing Tennyson as host to his friends Julia Margaret Cameron and G.F.Watts.^[9]

Tennyson was the first to be raised to a British Peerage for his writing. A passionate man with some peculiarities of nature, he was never particularly comfortable as a peer, and it is widely held that he took the peerage in order to secure a future for his son Hallam.^{[citation needed]}

Thomas Edison made sound recordings of Tennyson reading his own poetry, late in his life. They include recordings of The Charge of the Light Brigade, and excerpts from "The splendour falls" (from The Princess), "Come into the garden" (from Maud), "Ask me no more", "Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington", "Charge of the Heavy Brigade", and "Lancelot and Elaine"; the sound quality is as poor as wax cylinder recordings usually are.

Sketch of Alfred Tennyson published one year after his death in 1892, seated in his favourite arbour at his Farringford House home in the village of Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

Towards the end of his life Tennyson revealed that his "religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism":^[10] Famously, he wrote in In Memoriam: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." [The context directly contradicts the apparent meaning of this quote.] In Maud, 1855, he wrote: "The churches have killed their Christ." In "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of heathen hate." In his play, Becket, he wrote: "We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites and private hates with our defence of Heaven." Tennyson recorded in his Diary (p. 127): "I believe in Pantheism of a sort." His son's biography confirms that Tennyson was not an orthodox Christian, noting that Tennyson praised Giordano Bruno and Spinoza on his deathbed, saying of Bruno, "His view of God is in some ways mine," in 1892.^[11]

Tennyson continued writing into his eighties. He died on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth, aged 83. He was buried at Westminster Abbey. A memorial was erected in All Saints' Church, Freshwater. His last words were; "Oh that press will have me now!".^[12]

He was succeeded as 2nd Baron Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an authorised biography of his father in 1897, and was later the second Governor-General of Australia.

Stained glass at Ottawa Public Library features Charles Dickens, Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott, Lord Byron, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Thomas Moore

The art of Tennyson's poetry[link]

Alfred Tennyson, portrait by P.Krämer-Friedrich Bruckmann

Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. The influence of John Keats and other Romantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing. He also handled rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat of Break, Break, Break emphasises the relentless sadness of the subject matter. Tennyson's use of the musical qualities of words to emphasise his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. The language of "I come from haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like the brook in the poem and the last two lines of "Come down O maid from yonder mountain height" illustrate his telling combination of onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance:

The moan of doves in immemorial elms

And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively. Few poets have used such a variety of styles with such an exact understanding of metre; like many Victorian poets, he experimented in adapting the quantitative metres of Greek and Latin poetry to English. He reflects the Victorian period of his maturity in his feeling for order and his tendency towards moralising and self-indulgent melancholy. He also reflects a concern common among Victorian writers in being troubled by the conflict between religious faith and expanding scientific knowledge. Like many writers who write a great deal over a long time, he can be pompous or banal, but his personality rings throughout all his works – work that reflects a grand and special variability in its quality. Tennyson possessed the strongest poetic power; he put great length into many works, most famous of which are Maud and Idylls of the King, the latter one of literature's treatments of the legend of King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table.

Homoerotic imagery[link]

The poem In Memoriam about a man’s love for another man includes sexual imagery; for example, the poet compares his sorrow to the sorrow of a loving widower who misses his late wife in bed.

Tears of the widower, when he sees
A late-lost form that sleep reveals,
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
Her place is empty, fall like these;^[13]

This is not a unique example and material that can be interpreted as homoerotic is widespread in Tennyson’s work. There has been speculation that Tennyson may have experienced homosexual feelings for his friend, though there is no question that he was strongly attracted to women. If Tennyson had bisexual feelings there is no firm evidence that he acted on them.^[14]

Partial list of works[link]

• From Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830):
  • The Dying Swan
  • The Kraken
  • Mariana
• Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)
• From Poems (1833):
  • The Lotos-Eaters
  • The Lady of Shalott (1832, 1842) – three versions painted by J.W. Waterhouse (1888, 1894 and 1916). Also put to music by Loreena McKennitt on her album The Visit (1991).
  • The Palace of Art
• St. Simeon Stylites (1833)
• From Poems (1842):
  • Locksley Hall
  • Tithonus
  • Vision of Sin ^[15]
  • The Two Voices (1834)
  • "Ulysses" (1833)
• From The Princess; A Medley (1847)
  • "The Princess"
  • Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal – it later appeared as a song in the film Vanity Fair, with musical arrangement by Mychael Danna
  • "Tears, Idle Tears"
• In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849)
• Ring Out, Wild Bells (1850)
• The Eagle (1851)
• The Sister's Shame^[16]
• From Maud; A Monodrama (1855/1856)
  • Maud
  • The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) – an early recording exists of Tennyson reading this.
• From Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1862/1864)
  • Enoch Arden
  • The Brook – contains the line "For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever" which inspired the naming of a men's club in New York City.
• Flower in the crannied wall (1869)
• The Window – Song cycle with Arthur Sullivan. (1871)
• Harold (1876) – began a revival of interest in King Harold
• Idylls of the King (composed 1833–1874)
• Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)
• Crossing the Bar (1889)
• The Foresters – a play with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan (1891)
• Kapiolani (published after his death by Hallam Tennyson)^[17]

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Alfred, Lord Tennyson on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

• Tennyson's Grave, Westminster Abbey
• Poems by Alfred Tennyson
• Tennyson index entry at Poets' Corner
• Biography & Works (public domain)
• Online copy of Locksley Hall
• Selected Poems of A. Tennyson
• The Twickenham Museum – Alfred Lord Tennyson in Twickenham
• Farringford Holiday Cottages and Restaurant, Home of Tennyson, Isle of Wight
• Tennyson in Twickenham
• Works by Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson at Project Gutenberg
• Complete Biography & Works
• Illustrations of Tennyson's poetry by the Dutch artist Anja Cazemier
• Settings of Alfred Tennyson's poetry in the Choral Public Domain Library
• The Louverture Project: Anacaona – poem by Alfred Tennyson – Poem about the Taíno queen.
• Works by or about Alfred, Lord Tennyson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Selected Works at Poetry Index
• Sweet and Low
• Recording of Tennyson reciting "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
• Anonymous (1873). Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day. Illustrated by Frederick Waddy. London: Tinsley Brothers. pp. 78–84. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Cartoon_portraits_and_biographical_sketches_of_men_of_the_day/Alfred_Tennyson. Retrieved 6 January 2011. 

v t e Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson People Arthur Hallam (friend) Emily Tennyson (wife) Emilia Tennyson (sister) Hallam Tennyson (son) Early poetry "The Deserted House" "The Lady of Shalott" The Lotos-Eaters Mariana Oenone Poetry "Break, Break, Break" "The Charge of the Light Brigade" The Day-Dream Idylls of the King In Memoriam A.H.H. Lady Clara Vere de Vere "Locksley Hall" "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" The Princess Sir Galahad St Simeon Stylites "Tears, Idle Tears" The Two Voices "Ulysses" Late poetry "Crossing the Bar" "The Eagle" "Enoch Arden" Maud "Ring Out, Wild Bells" "Tithonus" Miscellaneous works The Foresters The Window Related articles Chapel House, Twickenham