The Lords of British Literature: Byron and Tennyson and their Times

A comparison of the lives and works of Byron and Tennyson opens to readers the Romantic and Victorian periods of British Literature.  These two poets, both Lords, are emblematic of their respective eras.  George Gordon, Lord Byron has been described as the most “flamboyant” and “notorious” of the major Romantics (Poetry Foundation) while Alfred, Lord Tennyson, shy and withdrawn though he was, is said to be “the defining English poet of the Victorian era.” (Poetry Archive)  A reader may study but these two men and come away with well-founded impressions of British literature during the times in which these men lived and wrote, as well as a greater appreciation of their poetic works.

The respective ancestries of these two men provide early clues not only about the lives of the poets themselves, but also give hints as to the eventual character of the Romantic and Victorian eras.  Take first Lord Byron.  According to the editors of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, “Byron was descended from two aristocratic families, both of them colorful, violent, and dissolute.” (Greenblatt, 608)   This foreshadowed the notorious Byronic lifestyle, but it also prefigures the Romantic Period itself with its crime, madness, and rebellion against authority (Froisy, Week 3)  Mental illness, drug addiction, and some drunkenness were characteristics of Tennyson’s family, observable deviances in any age, but perhaps a bit more noticeable during the Victorian era as they contrasted so severely with the times.

Byron

While in his life Byron tended to perpetuate his family’s legacy, Tennyson managed to away from his.  Byron’s life could be described as perpetual adolescence, but Alfred Lord Tennyson rose from his youth to become his own man.  There is a parallel here with respect to their respective eras.  Emotionalism and an exaggeration of feeling tended to mark the Romantic writers, as well as an infatuation with nature and a common rejection of authority. (Froisy, Week 3)  This was George Gordon, Lord Byron.  But in the Victorian period that followed, with its tremendous advances in science and technology, the industrial revolution, and “far reaching new ideas, creating the greatest outpouring of literary production the world has ever seen.” (Froisy, Week 4)  The sheer output of Tennyson and the Victorian writers surpassed that of the previous era much as the labor of the grown man exceeds that of the child.

The physical stature of each of the two poets corresponds to the general moral tone of the writers of their respective eras.  Byron was born with a club foot.  His walk was affected.  This unfortunate deformity gained for Lord Byron in his youth an unnatural level of attention, particularly from the fairer sex, and may have contributed to his well-known moral laxity.  This is emblematic of the Romantic period, for some of that era’s brightest lights, Coleridge, Shelly, and others seemed perpetually drawn to scandal.  In their writings, they generally tended to scorn virtues like reason, judgment, authority, and revealed religion. (Froisy, Week 1)  They walked differently than others, as if they could walk no other way, but instead of shame this brought them adulation in many quarters.  It carved out for them a special legacy.  Tennyson, on the other hand, was blessed with a tremendously compelling physical presence.  He stood taller than Byron, was of a more robust constitution, and walked a much different line that his Romantic counterpart.  The differences in the two men’s physical makeup only reemphasizes the towering literary superiority of the Victorian era over the Romantic.

Byron and Tennyson had similar educations.  Both men attended Cambridge, but apparently only Byron received a degree. (Poetry Foundation)   Working as a counterweight to his lack of a degree, Tennyson received an extensive education as home, under the tutelage of his father, prior to his attendance at college. (The Tennyson Page)  This suggests that perhaps the fundamental difference between the Victorian and Romantic periods was not one of education but of character.

Like their physical dissimilarities, the two men’s respective character reveals much about their times.  Their works were suffused with glimpses into each poet’s—and their respective period’s—moral guideposts.  The “heroes” depicted in Byron’s works, for example, include the serial fornicator, Don Juan.  Don Juan was a work deemed so “unacceptably immoral” by his literary advisors that one of them only agreed to publishing its first two installments “without identifying Byron as the author or himself as the publisher.” (Greenblatt, 669).  Tennyson’s heroes reflect not only a much higher character of the man, but also of period which represents.  His poetry is replete with themes of Arthurian legend.  The soldiers portrayed in The Charge of the Light Brigade are typical of his heroes, which tend to project a certain manliness and even patriotism.

Continuing with the character angle, it is instructive to read what others have said about each man.  Their remarks are indicative also of the broader context of the Victorian and Romantic periods of English literature.  Johann Wolfgang Goethe said of Byron “… I could not make any use of any man as the representative of the modern [Romantic] poetical era except him …”  He also said that “Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects, he is a child.” (Marilee)  Speaking of Byron’s tendency to touch upon religious (or irreligious) themes, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote—

… but in Byron it [religion] is blind, it sees not its true end—an infinite good, alive and beautiful, a life nourished on absolute beatitudes, descending into Nature to behold itself reflected there.  His will is perverted, he worships the accidents of society, and his praise of Nature is thieving and selfish. (Marilee)

While some have taken Byron’s worship of nature as an attempt of his to develop a new line of religious thought that is nature-centric, Emerson seems to say that there is something quite unnatural about this aspect of Byron’s writing.

Tennyson

Of Tennyson, T. S. Eliot called him “the great master of melancholia.” (Poetry Archive)  His masterpiece, In Memoriam, on which he labored for more than seventeen years, in addition to sounding the deeps of melancholia, explored also “the relation of human beings to God and to nature.”  Tennyson’s willingness to explore these deep subjects led some, such as T. H. Huxley, to consider him “an intellectual giant.” (Greenblatt, 1111)

Finally, in their deaths the two poets continued to mark the great differences between their respective eras.  Tennyson, emblematic of the longer Victorian Period, lived to be an old man, reaching the age of 83. (Everett)  Byron died young and in obscurity in a foreign country.  Tennyson, the nation’s poet laureate, was buried in “Poet’s Corner” at Westminster Abbey and was honored with a statue at Lincoln Cathedral. (Poets Graves)   In contradistinction, Lord Byron’s body was refused burial in Westminster Abbey, and it took England 145 years before place could be found in Poet’s Corner for a memorial plaque. (Poets Graves)

Thus the two Lords of English literature, Byron and Tennyson, each poet interesting in his own right, open to readers the times during which each man wrote.  Byron presents to us the Romantic period both in his poetry and in his reckless life.  Tennyson, whose writing and pronouncements were said at times to represent the voice of the nation, portrays for readers the majestic Victorian era.  Britain has had many great writers follow these two men, yet Alfred Lord Tennyson and George Gordon, Lord Byron tower still and will long be remembered.

Works Cited

Everett, Glenn.  Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Biography.  The Victorian Web.  Accessed February 9, 2012.       < http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/tennybio.html >.

Froisy, Carol.  Lecture Notes, Week 1.  Literature 211.  American Public University. 

_____.  Lecture Notes, Week 3.  Literature 211.  American Public University.

_____.  Lecture Notes, Week 4.  Literature 211.  American Public University.

Greenblatt, Stephen and M.H. Abrams.  Eds.   The Norton Anthology to English Literature.  8^th Ed., Vol. 2.  New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.

Marilee.  The Life of Lord Byron.  EnglishHistory.Net.  Accessed February 9, 2012.  < http://
englishhistory.net/byron/life.html >  < http://englishhistory.net/byron/emerson.html >  <http://englishhistory.net/byron/goethe.html >.

Poetry Foundation.  < http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lord-byron >.

Poets’ Graves: Serious about Poets and Poetry.  Accessed February 9, 2012.  < http://www.
poetsgraves.co.uk/byron.htm >  < http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/tennyson.htm >.

The Poetry Archive.  < http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=1569 >.

The Tennyson Page.  Tennyson’s Life: A Timeline.  Accessed February 11, 2012.  < http://
charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/tennchron.shtml >.