Locksley Hall
889 Words
First published in 1842, and no alterations were made in it subsequently to the edition of 1850; except that in the Selections published in 1865 in the third stanza the reading was "half in ruin" for "in the distance".
This poem, as Tennyson explained, was not autobiographic but purely imaginary, "representing young life, its good side, its deficiences and its yearnings". The poem, he added, was written in Trochaics because the elder Hallam told him that the English people liked that metre. The hero is a sort of preliminary sketch of the hero in 'Maud', the position and character of each being very similar: both are cynical and querulous, and break out into tirades against their kind and society; both have been disappointed in love, and both find the same remedy for their afflictions by mixing themselves with action and becoming "one with their kind".
'Locksley Hall' was suggested, as Tennyson acknowledged, by Sir William Jones' translation of the old Arabian Mo*****, a collection from the works of pre-Mahommedan poets. See Sir William Jones' works, quarto edition, vol. iv., pp. 247-57. But only one of these poems, namely the poem of Amriolkais, could have immediately influenced him. In this the poet supposes himself attended on a journey by a company of friends, and they pass near a place where his mistress had lately lived, but from which her tribe had then removed. He desires them to stop awhile, that he may weep over the deserted remains of her tent. They comply with his request, but exhort him to show more strength of mind, and urge two topics of consolation, namely, that he had before been equally unhappy and that he had enjoyed his full share of pleasures. Thus by the recollection of his past delights his imagination is kindled and his grief suspended. But Tennyson's chief indebtedness is rather in the oriental colouring given to his poem, chiefly in the sentiment and imagery. Thus in the couplet--
we are reminded of "It was the hour when the Pleiads appeared in the firmament like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems".
[Footnote 1: 1842. And round the gables.]
[Footnote 2: "Gleams," it appears, is a Lincolnshire word for the cry of the curlew, and so by removing the comma after call we get an interpretation which perhaps improves the sense and certainly gets rid of a very un-Tennysonian cumbrousness in the second line. But Tennyson had never, he said, heard of that meaning of "gleams," adding he wished he had. He meant nothing more in the passage than "to express the flying gleams of light across a dreary moorland when looking at it under peculiarly dreary circumstances". See for this, 'Life', iii., 82.]
[Footnote 3: 1842 and all up to and including 1850 have a capital 'R' to robin.]
[Footnote 4: Cf. W. R. Spencer ('Poems', p. 166):--
But this is of course in no way parallel to Tennyson's subtly beautiful image, which he himself pronounced to be the best simile he had ever made.]
[Footnote 5: Cf. Guarini, 'Pastor Fido':--
[Footnote 6: Cf. Horace's 'Annosa Cornix', Odes III., xvii., 13.]
[Footnote 7: The reference is to Dante, 'Inferno', v. 121-3:--
For the pedigree and history of this see the present editor's 'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 63.]
[Footnote 8: The epithet "dreary" shows that Tennyson preferred realistic picturesqueness to dramatic propriety.]
[Footnote 9: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'.]
[Footnote 10: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'.]
[Footnote 11: Tennyson said that this simile was suggested by a passage in 'Pringle's Travels;' the incident only is described, and with thrilling vividness, by Pringle; but its application in simile is Tennyson's. See 'A Narrative of a Residence in South Africa', by Thomas Pringle, p. 39:
"The night was extremely dark and the rain fell so heavily that in spite of the abundant supply of dry firewood, which we had luckily provided, it was not without difficulty that we could keep one watchfire burning.... About midnight we were suddenly roused by the roar of a lion close to our tents. It was so loud and tremendous that for the moment I actually thought that a thunderstorm had burst upon us.... We roused up the half-extinguished fire to a roaring blaze ... this unwonted display probably daunted our grim visitor, for he gave us no further trouble that night."]
[Footnote 12: With this 'cf'. Leopardi, 'Aspasia', 53-60:--
[Footnote 13: One wonders Tennyson could have had the heart to excise the beautiful couplet which in his MS. followed this stanza.
[Footnote 14: 1842 and all up to and inclusive of 1850. Droops the trailer. This is one of Tennyson's many felicitous corrections. In the monotonous, motionless splendour of a tropical landscape the smallest movement catches the eye, the flight of a bird, the gentle waving of the trailer stirred by the breeze from the sea.]
[Footnote 15: 'Cf'. Shakespeare, "foreheads villainously low".]
[Footnote 16: 1842. Peoples spin.]
[Footnote 17: Tennyson tells us that when he travelled by the first train from Liverpool to Manchester in 1830 it was night and he thought that the wheels ran in a groove, hence this line.]
[Footnote 18: 1842. The world.]
[Footnote 19: Cathay, the old name for China.]
[Footnote 20: 'Cf'. Tasso, 'Gems', ix., st. 91:--
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