Tennyson: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)
by Alfred Tennyson

Our Price: $14.74
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of Tennyson: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)

Book Review: "His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd..."
Summary: 5 Stars

comes from the very good notes supplied by the Editor
Aidan Day at the back of the volume].
The poems included in this volume which the scholar or
general reader might wish to know are here collected
in one edition [full texts], along with many more
than these mentioned, are: The Lady of Shalott; Oenone;
The Palace of Art; The Hesperides; The Lotos-Eaters;
Morte d'Arthur; Ulysses; Locksley Hall; short poems
from _The Princess_; IN MEMORIAM, A.H.H. (1850);
MAUD (1855); Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington;
The Charge of the Light Brigade; Tithonous; Lucretius;
To E. FitzGerald; Tiresias; The Ancient Sage; Locksley
Hall Sixty Years After (1886); Demeter and Persephone;
Crossing the Bar. These poems are presented in
chronological order in the text, and the very good
Table of Contents in the front of the book tells
the poetry collection and its date from which the
poems come.
Tennyson is one of those interesting poets that take
a bit of time (at least for me) to get used to -- to
want to read, to really listen to. Having had the
experience of being required to memorize some of
Tennyson for my early academic training in school
at least got me acquainted with the more accessible,
but somewhat less deep poems. But it has taken several
years, much experience, and depressed grief over the
loss of a beloved, to bring me into synch with
the deeper poetry...or at least, being able to hear
it with deeper understanding, deeper reading.
From these poems it is hard to pick "favorites," and
that almost seems too trite a word. Maybe "meaningful"
would be more appropriate as a term. The two I would
select out would be "The Palace of Art" (1832; rev.
1842) and IN MEMORIAM, A.H.H. (1833), on the death
of his dear, beloved friend Arthur Hallam.
From "The Palace of Art," these lines resonate:
* * * * * * * * *
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung
The royal dais round.

For there was Milton like a seraph strong,
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song,
And somewhat grimly smiled.

And there the Ionian father of the rest;
A million wrinkles carved his skin;
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast,
From cheek and throat and chin.
......
And thro' the topmost Oriels' coloured flame
Two godlike faces gazed below;
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam,
The first of those who know.

-- Arthur Lord Tennyson.
* * * * * * * *

Summary of Tennyson: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)

Poetry Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Poetry