The Art Newspaper

Poetic justice: a new book on Tennyson celebrates him in the way he deserves

Coverage of the poet’s bicentenary has been inadequate, but this exhibition catalogue goes some way to compensate for the neglect

By Charlotte Gere. Web only
Published online: 05 October 2009

Celebrations of the Tennyson bicentenary have been somewhat patchy, but the exhibition at Farringford House (7 August-9 September 2009) could well have been the most sympathetic and evocative. Enjoying the unrivalled advantage of being set in the poet’s former home—actually in his newly restored library—it set the scene in conditions that could not be replicated anywhere else. This extended even to the device of illustrating the dramatic line from Maud, “The scream of a maddened beach dragged down by the wave”, with chalk and flints borrowed from the beach at Freshwater Bay (and now returned to their rightful place).

A wall of intense, searching portraits by Tennyson’s friend, George Frederic Watts (who, incidentally, fared rather better in his centenary year) together for the first time in decades, and seen actually in the library where the family and their friends must often have sat, brought the participants to life in a way that cannot be achieved in a gallery.

Tennyson’s physical presence, almost ghostly in its suggestiveness, was implied by his cloak, wide-brimmed hat and pipe. The realism of the setting was greatly enhanced by the loan from Carisbrooke Castle of Tennyson’s desk, carved oak armchair, spindle-back chair, globes and writing-slope, still owned by the present Lord Tennyson. However, it is no use detailing the wonders of the exhibition—extending even to Tennyson’s growly voice reciting Maud—now it is over, but the catalogue is a record and a thoroughly worthy addition to the Tennyson bookshelf.

In quoting the whole of the title page of the catalogue, a reviewer can save any amount of explanation—in the immortal advertising catchphrase, it does just what it says on the tin. Leonée Ormond’s introduction, with its frontispiece of the Tennyson family together at Farringford by Oscar Gustave Rejlander, meshes Tennyson’s response to his home, garden and wider surroundings into his poetry, with beautifully judged quotations from his letters and papers. The story opens with the milieu, Freshwater Bay and Farringford in their lovely setting of downs and cliffs and beach, beautifully evoked in drawings by Edward Lear and John William Inchbold. One of Helen Allingham’s exquisite watercolours, made to illustrate her survey of The Homes and Haunts of Tennyson, 1905, is also included. Emily Tennyson’s journal gives a speaking picture of how life on the Isle of Wight worked for the Victorians—their first visit together was accomplished by rowing boat—and the impact of the view and light on water.

Letters in Tennyson’s own hand and those of his correspondents, including Prince Albert and the pioneer photographer and near neighbour Julia Margaret Cameron, deliver an extraordinary immediacy to the rarefied world of genius. The dedication by Queen Victoria, recording her response to In Memoriam, is very moving. Robert Browning is more trenchant, criticising the later poems, including Enoch Arden. The many portraits, not just by Watts, but with Thomas Woolner and Helen Allingham adding their different interpretations, give an idea of Tennyson’s distinguished appearance while not belying the somewhat dishevelled man of the descriptions. Unknown photographs by Julia Cameron, of Ellen Terry and a Pre-Raphaelite composition admired by Rossetti, are an unexpected treat. Giuseppe Garibaldi takes his place among the distinguished visitors, along with Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands—whose throne, carved for the occasion, is here as well—Thoby Prinsep and F.D. Maurice, pioneer educator.

Tennyson’s poetical works enjoyed extraordinarily talented illustrators, through the enterprising Edward Moxon and the contribution to Idylls of the King by one of the most popular of Victorian graphic artists, Gustave Doré. With these visual treats there are also manuscripts and proofs, among them Emily’s copying of Crossing the Bar from Alfred’s crabbed handwriting. And Tennyson’s personal life would be unthinkable without his dogs: Watts’s larger-than-life-size sculpture of the poet includes a portrait of his venerable Russian wolfhound Karenina, shown here in a chalk drawing by Walter Field.

This brave venture may be the beginning of a programme that provides a fitting tribute to the 19th-century poet; it certainly bodes well for such an ambition.

Veronica Franklin Gould (ed), with an introductory essay by Leonée Ormond, Tennyson at Farringford: an Exhibition Celebrating the Life of Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) on the Bicentenary of his Birth (Tennyson House Publishing), 96 pp, £15.50 (pb) ISBN 9780956322302