The study of language was central to the thinking of Tennyson and his circle of friends. The period of his education was a time of interest in the subject, as a new form of philology became widely known and accepted in Britain. In this study, Donald S. Hair discusses Tennyson’s own view of language, and sets them in the context of the language theories of his day. The scope of the book is broad. Hair draws upon a wide range of Tennyson’s poetry, from a quatrain he wrote at the age of eight to an ‘anthem-speech’ he wrote at the age of eighty-two, and pays particular attention to two major works: In Memoriam and Idylls of the King. He explores these in relation to the two theoretical traditions Tennyson inherited. One is derived from Locke and the language theory set out in Book III of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the other from Coleridge and the language theory of what Mill called the ‘Germano-Coleridgian’ tradition. He goes back to Plato’s Cratylus and Aristotle’s On Interpretation, and forward to the continental philology introduced into England by Tennyson’s friends, Kemble and Trench, among others. Finally, he links Tennyson’s language to thinkers such as Whewell, Hallam, and Maurice, who are not in themselves philologists but who make language part of their concerns—and Whewell was Tennyson’s tutor, Hallam and Maurice his friends. Hair offers a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory in Britain while also providing some close readings of key passages of Tennyson’s work and examinations of the poet’s faith and views of society.

Tennyson's Language (Heritage)

Literature & Fiction

Hair, Donald

British & Irish

University of Toronto Press

Tennyson shared the assumptions of his age concerning the value of family life, and treated the domestic as the source of the heroic in both action and character. This book provides a critical examination of these major Victorian themes as they appear in Tennyson's poetry and demonstrates how the poet's assumptions illuminate his use of elegy, idyl, and epyllion and his treatment of romance. Professor Hair analyses In Memoriam, the English Idylls, The Princess, and Idyls of the King; he examines Tennyson's view of the family as the model of social order, a civilizing influence on the nation, and a place where the greater man, or hero, is nurtured; and he reveals how much of Tennyson's poetry explores the link between domestic and heroic. He also discusses the patterns into which these pervasive domestic concerns fall, with emphasis on the most significant: separation and reunions. The myth of Demeter and Persephone, the Biblical story of Ruth, and the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale are all versions of Tennyson's treatment of this pattern. The English Idylls and other idyls and epyllia are explored as varying combinations of romance, satire, tragedy, comedy, and irony, with a detailed analysis of The Princess, the most complex of these medleys. Idylls of the King, wherein the fate of Camelot rests on the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere, is treated as the fullest exploration of the link between domestic and heroic.

Domestic and Heroic in Tennyson's Poetry (Heritage)

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Books by Hair, Donald

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hair, Donald. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Tennyson's Language (Heritage)

Domestic and Heroic in Tennyson's Poetry (Heritage)