WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.140 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:03.140 --> 00:00:06.259 a file on a man who is, I think it's fair to 00:00:06.259 --> 00:00:09.019 say, the architect of the way we speak. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:12.339 Especially about grief, about loss, and heroism 00:00:12.339 --> 00:00:15.480 in, well, in the English language. He really 00:00:15.480 --> 00:00:18.300 is. If you grew up speaking English, I guarantee 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:20.260 this man's words are rattling around in your 00:00:20.260 --> 00:00:22.719 head whether you even realize it or not. We're 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:25.160 talking about Alfred. Lord Tennyson. The giant 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:27.179 is usually the word that comes to mind. You really 00:00:27.179 --> 00:00:30.379 can't talk about the Victorian era or the whole 00:00:30.379 --> 00:00:33.399 mindset of the 19th century without putting Tennyson 00:00:33.399 --> 00:00:35.859 dead center. Right at the middle of it. He is 00:00:35.859 --> 00:00:37.859 the sun that everything else orbited around for 00:00:37.859 --> 00:00:40.159 about 50 years. Seriously. And that's what struck 00:00:40.159 --> 00:00:42.020 me looking at the research stack you sent over. 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:44.799 We usually think of the Victorian era as this 00:00:44.799 --> 00:00:48.439 buttoned up, stiff upper lip period. Very proper, 00:00:48.619 --> 00:00:51.840 very repressed. Exactly. But when you look at 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:55.380 Tennyson. the guy who literally defined the voice 00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:59.420 of that era, he is chaotic. He's a mess. He's 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:02.630 messy. He's deeply clinically depressed for huge 00:01:02.630 --> 00:01:05.430 chunks of his life. He's obsessed with the sound 00:01:05.430 --> 00:01:07.950 of words to a degree that, and I found this fascinating, 00:01:08.150 --> 00:01:10.549 some of his contemporaries thought was actually 00:01:10.549 --> 00:01:13.290 a symptom of mental illness. It is a massive 00:01:13.290 --> 00:01:15.510 contradiction, and that is what makes him so 00:01:15.510 --> 00:01:18.650 fun to analyze. You have the public figure, the 00:01:18.650 --> 00:01:21.549 bearded sage, you know, the establishment guy 00:01:21.549 --> 00:01:25.069 who was poet laureate for over 40 years. 42 years, 00:01:25.170 --> 00:01:27.390 I think. But underneath that laurel wreath, he 00:01:27.390 --> 00:01:31.579 was just this raw... exposed nerve of a human 00:01:31.579 --> 00:01:33.900 being. Okay, so before we get into the messiness, 00:01:33.980 --> 00:01:35.620 and I really want to get into the wood carving 00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:37.500 scheme because that just blew my mind. Oh, the 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:40.140 wood carving, yeah. I want to prove to you, the 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:43.700 listener, just how embedded this guy is. You 00:01:43.700 --> 00:01:46.019 pulled a stat from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. 00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:48.939 I did. He is the ninth most frequently quoted 00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:51.640 writer in the entire dictionary. That is wild. 00:01:52.379 --> 00:01:54.819 Top 10 all time. All time. That puts him up there 00:01:54.819 --> 00:01:57.200 with Shakespeare and the Bible. And Pope. Yeah. 00:01:57.239 --> 00:01:59.920 And the funny thing is, people quote him constantly 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:02.000 without knowing it's him. It's just in the air. 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:05.159 His words have just seeped into the groundwater. 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:07.859 It's incredible. Give us the greatest hits. I 00:02:07.859 --> 00:02:09.900 want to see if I can recognize them without knowing 00:02:09.900 --> 00:02:11.680 the source. Okay, well, the big one, obviously, 00:02:11.879 --> 00:02:13.300 you see this on Instagram, you hear it in rom 00:02:13.300 --> 00:02:16.759 -coms. Tis better to have loved and lost. than 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:20.280 never to have loved at all okay yes i feel like 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:22.300 i see that cross -stitched on pillows that's 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:24.909 tennyson That is Tennyson. And usually people 00:02:24.909 --> 00:02:27.189 use it in the context of, you know, a breakup. 00:02:27.330 --> 00:02:29.610 Oh, well, at least I dated him. Sure. But when 00:02:29.610 --> 00:02:32.389 you find out why he wrote it and who he was writing 00:02:32.389 --> 00:02:35.889 it for, it takes on this much heavier, darker 00:02:35.889 --> 00:02:38.389 meaning. It's not about a breakup. It's about 00:02:38.389 --> 00:02:40.090 death. We're definitely going to unpack that. 00:02:40.210 --> 00:02:42.629 OK. What else? If you talk about the military 00:02:42.629 --> 00:02:45.810 or corporate duty or even just a bad boss, you 00:02:45.810 --> 00:02:49.379 know this one. There's not to reason why. There's 00:02:49.379 --> 00:02:52.280 but to do and die. The Charge of the White Brigade, 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:55.580 of course. Exactly. A poem about a complete military 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:58.740 blunder that somehow became an anthem for bravery. 00:02:59.039 --> 00:03:01.520 It's a neat trick. That's amazing. And then if 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:03.879 you look at how we talk about nature or evolution, 00:03:04.259 --> 00:03:07.039 there's the phrase, nature, red in tooth and 00:03:07.039 --> 00:03:09.840 claw. Wait, red in tooth and claw is Tennyson? 00:03:10.460 --> 00:03:13.419 I honestly thought that was Charles Darwin. Everyone 00:03:13.419 --> 00:03:16.620 thinks that. Or maybe, like... A tagline for 00:03:16.620 --> 00:03:18.879 a nature documentary. It sounds so scientific, 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:21.379 doesn't it? But Tennyson actually wrote that 00:03:21.379 --> 00:03:24.319 before Darwin published The Origin of Species. 00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:28.120 No way. Yes. He was already wrestling with the 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:30.900 brutality of nature. This idea that nature is 00:03:30.900 --> 00:03:34.419 a violence machine before the science even fully 00:03:34.419 --> 00:03:37.199 caught up. OK, so that sets the stakes. Yeah. 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:39.580 We aren't just talking about a guy who wrote 00:03:39.580 --> 00:03:42.020 some rhymes in a dusty library. We are talking 00:03:42.020 --> 00:03:44.639 about the source code. for a lot of our modern 00:03:44.639 --> 00:03:46.479 idioms. That's a great way to put it, source 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:48.780 code. But the mission for this deep dive is to 00:03:48.780 --> 00:03:51.879 move past the quotes. I want to understand the 00:03:51.879 --> 00:03:55.199 guy, because the stack of notes we have, biographies, 00:03:55.199 --> 00:03:57.620 letters, analysis, it paints a picture of someone 00:03:57.620 --> 00:04:02.349 who is, well... Weird might be the wrong word, 00:04:02.389 --> 00:04:04.129 but certainly intense. Intense is definitely 00:04:04.129 --> 00:04:06.310 the right word. Hypersensitive is another one. 00:04:06.449 --> 00:04:08.370 We have no seer on his time in the House of Lords. 00:04:08.389 --> 00:04:11.349 His wax cylinder voice recordings, which is a 00:04:11.349 --> 00:04:13.169 creepy story in itself. I can't wait for that. 00:04:13.250 --> 00:04:16.149 And his waking trances. The trances. That was 00:04:16.149 --> 00:04:17.709 the part of the research that made me stop and 00:04:17.709 --> 00:04:20.069 just say, OK, this isn't what I expected from 00:04:20.069 --> 00:04:22.470 a Victorian gentleman. No, it's fascinating stuff. 00:04:22.550 --> 00:04:25.529 It borders on the psychedelic, really. Let's 00:04:25.529 --> 00:04:27.910 peel this back to understand the man. We have 00:04:27.910 --> 00:04:30.649 to start at the beginning. And usually when we 00:04:30.649 --> 00:04:33.189 do these deep dives, the childhood is just a 00:04:33.189 --> 00:04:35.529 preamble. You know, born here, went to school 00:04:35.529 --> 00:04:37.889 there, setting the stage. But with Tennyson, 00:04:38.069 --> 00:04:41.069 it feels like the childhood is the whole engine 00:04:41.069 --> 00:04:43.990 of the story. If you don't understand the house 00:04:43.990 --> 00:04:46.129 he grew up in, you don't understand the poetry 00:04:46.129 --> 00:04:48.490 at all. Absolutely. You cannot understand Alfred 00:04:48.490 --> 00:04:51.250 Tennyson without understanding the Summersby 00:04:51.250 --> 00:04:54.569 rectory and the. The shadow that hung over it. 00:04:54.649 --> 00:04:57.449 Let's go to Summersby, Lincolnshire. 1809. August 00:04:57.449 --> 00:05:01.230 6th, 1809. That's the birth date. And on paper, 00:05:01.410 --> 00:05:03.029 you know, looking at the census or whatever, 00:05:03.170 --> 00:05:05.829 this looks like a pretty standard setup. Successful 00:05:05.829 --> 00:05:08.430 middle class family. Dad's a clergyman. Lots 00:05:08.430 --> 00:05:10.709 of kids running around. It sounds like the setting 00:05:10.709 --> 00:05:13.170 of a Jane Austen novel. Right. A bit pastoral, 00:05:13.170 --> 00:05:15.670 a bit cozy. It looks like a Jane Austen novel 00:05:15.670 --> 00:05:18.029 on the outside, maybe Pride and Prejudice, but 00:05:18.029 --> 00:05:20.449 inside it was more like Wuthering Heights or 00:05:20.449 --> 00:05:23.389 a gothic horror story. Why? What was the dynamic? 00:05:23.610 --> 00:05:25.329 Because they had money, right? They were descended 00:05:25.329 --> 00:05:27.389 from earls or something. They had the blood, 00:05:27.430 --> 00:05:30.250 but the money is where the trauma starts. It 00:05:30.250 --> 00:05:33.730 all centers on his father, George Clayton Tennyson. 00:05:34.279 --> 00:05:37.500 Okay. Now, George was the eldest son of a very 00:05:37.500 --> 00:05:40.199 wealthy landowner and lawyer, also named George 00:05:40.199 --> 00:05:43.399 Tennyson. By all the laws of English tradition, 00:05:43.579 --> 00:05:46.439 specifically primogeniture George, Alford's father, 00:05:46.699 --> 00:05:49.980 should have inherited everything. The land, the 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:52.660 money, the power, the whole estate. Primogeniture 00:05:52.660 --> 00:05:54.939 is that firstborn takes all rule, right? It's 00:05:54.939 --> 00:05:57.339 the rule that drives the plot of, like, Succession 00:05:57.339 --> 00:05:59.000 and Game of Thrones. Correct. It keeps the estate 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:01.579 intact. But George didn't get it. Why not? Was 00:06:01.579 --> 00:06:03.740 he illegitimate or something? Nope. He was legitimate. 00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:06.819 But his father, so Alfred's grandfather, who 00:06:06.819 --> 00:06:09.000 was known as the old man of the wolds, decided 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:11.300 he simply didn't like George very much. He didn't 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:14.079 like him. He favored the younger brother, Charles. 00:06:14.829 --> 00:06:17.810 So the grandfather orchestrates this massive 00:06:17.810 --> 00:06:20.790 betrayal. He passes over George, the rightful 00:06:20.790 --> 00:06:23.629 heir, and gives the entire fortune and the estates 00:06:23.629 --> 00:06:26.250 to the younger brother, Charles. That is brutal. 00:06:26.290 --> 00:06:28.870 So George is just cut out. Just, sorry, I like 00:06:28.870 --> 00:06:31.490 your brother better. Effectively, yes. And it 00:06:31.490 --> 00:06:34.959 gets worse. Because George was a man of, they 00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:38.540 said, superior abilities. The records show he 00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:40.980 was talented in architecture, painting, music, 00:06:41.180 --> 00:06:44.439 poetry. He had this real artistic spirit. He 00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:46.040 probably would have been a great patron of the 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:48.420 arts or a gentleman scholar. But because he was 00:06:48.420 --> 00:06:50.360 disinherited, he had to make a living. Right. 00:06:50.420 --> 00:06:52.600 He needed a job. So he was forced into the church. 00:06:52.759 --> 00:06:55.060 He became the rector of Summersby, a country 00:06:55.060 --> 00:06:57.139 clergyman. So you have a guy who should have 00:06:57.139 --> 00:06:59.899 been a wealthy landowner. Who has the soul of 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:02.060 an artist, and he's forced to be a small -town 00:07:02.060 --> 00:07:04.600 preacher while his little brother lives in the 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:06.939 family castle. Literally the family castle down 00:07:06.939 --> 00:07:09.720 the road. Precisely. And that injustice didn't 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:13.100 just annoy him. It broke him. It festered. The 00:07:13.100 --> 00:07:14.980 atmosphere in the Summersby Rectory was thick 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:17.399 with bitterness. The father was an alcoholic, 00:07:17.740 --> 00:07:21.439 prone to black moods, fits of rage, and then 00:07:21.439 --> 00:07:24.199 these periods of... Total despondency. So he 00:07:24.199 --> 00:07:27.139 was unstable. Very. He felt cheated by the universe. 00:07:27.259 --> 00:07:30.160 He felt the world was fundamentally unfair. And 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:32.220 Alfred is growing up right in the middle of this. 00:07:32.420 --> 00:07:35.759 He's soaking it all in. The family was comfortably 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:37.639 well off in the sense that they weren't starving. 00:07:37.819 --> 00:07:40.439 They could afford summer holidays to the coast 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:43.800 at Mablethorpe and Skegness. Okay, so not poor, 00:07:43.939 --> 00:07:46.579 but... But the psychological weight was crushing. 00:07:47.220 --> 00:07:49.740 Tennyson later called it the black blood of the 00:07:49.740 --> 00:07:53.040 Tennysons. He was terrified for his whole life 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:55.839 that he had inherited this melancholia, this 00:07:55.839 --> 00:07:58.279 mental instability from his father. It sounds 00:07:58.279 --> 00:08:00.439 like a pressure cooker. But here's the twist 00:08:00.439 --> 00:08:02.420 that I found interesting in the notes. Despite 00:08:02.420 --> 00:08:04.379 the dad being so bitter and having these black 00:08:04.379 --> 00:08:06.579 moods, he was actually a really good teacher, 00:08:06.660 --> 00:08:08.699 wasn't he? He was. He didn't check out on the 00:08:08.699 --> 00:08:11.120 kids. He didn't. That's the complexity of the 00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:13.699 man. George poured all that artistic energy, 00:08:13.939 --> 00:08:15.839 however frustrated it was, into his children. 00:08:16.040 --> 00:08:19.519 He built a massive library in the rectory. He 00:08:19.519 --> 00:08:22.180 drilled them in the classics, Virgil, Horace, 00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:24.579 Homer. So he was very involved in their education. 00:08:24.759 --> 00:08:27.100 Deeply. And it wasn't just Alfred. The literary 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:30.100 talent in that house was just overflowing. Alfred 00:08:30.100 --> 00:08:32.759 had two brothers, Charles and Frederick, and 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:34.820 they were all writing poetry in their teens. 00:08:35.139 --> 00:08:37.059 I saw that note. They published a book. They 00:08:37.059 --> 00:08:40.200 did. Poems by Two Brothers. Alfred was only 17. 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:42.700 17. It was actually Poems by Three Brothers. 00:08:42.860 --> 00:08:45.080 Frederick contributed a few, but they titled 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:47.919 it Two Brothers. 17 years old and publishing 00:08:47.919 --> 00:08:51.139 a collection of poetry. That is precocious. I 00:08:51.139 --> 00:08:53.679 was playing video games at 17. It is. And it 00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:55.559 shows they were just desperate to escape that 00:08:55.559 --> 00:08:57.320 house to make a mark. They were looking for an 00:08:57.320 --> 00:08:59.740 outlet and they were looking up to Lord Byron. 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:02.779 Byron was the rock star of the day. The ultimate 00:09:02.779 --> 00:09:06.600 idol for a brooding, unhappy teenager. Byron 00:09:06.600 --> 00:09:26.399 represents... That is the most emo thing I have 00:09:26.399 --> 00:09:29.009 ever heard. Yeah. Carving Byron is dead into 00:09:29.009 --> 00:09:31.470 a rock. It just shows how deeply he felt things, 00:09:31.549 --> 00:09:33.370 doesn't it? He was devastated. You can see that 00:09:33.370 --> 00:09:36.490 romantic, dark, Byronic influence all over his 00:09:36.490 --> 00:09:38.250 early work. He was trying to channel that same 00:09:38.250 --> 00:09:40.730 intensity. So we have the environment, dark, 00:09:40.990 --> 00:09:44.009 intellectual, high pressure, bitter. But then 00:09:44.009 --> 00:09:46.269 there's this internal thing, this waking trance 00:09:46.269 --> 00:09:47.710 I mentioned earlier. Can you walk me through 00:09:47.710 --> 00:09:50.230 this? Because this comes from a psychology textbook, 00:09:50.389 --> 00:09:52.820 not a literary one. Right. This is cited in William 00:09:52.820 --> 00:09:55.580 James's classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience. 00:09:56.240 --> 00:09:58.240 James, who is basically the father of American 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:01.600 psychology, uses Tennyson as a case study for 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:03.500 mystical experiences. What was happening to him? 00:10:03.559 --> 00:10:05.580 Was he having seizures? No, it was self -induced. 00:10:05.620 --> 00:10:07.600 Tennyson describes it as something that started 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:09.960 when he was a boy, usually when he was all alone 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:12.299 in that very crowded house. Yeah. He would start 00:10:12.299 --> 00:10:15.830 repeating his own name, Alfred. Alfred, Alfred, 00:10:15.990 --> 00:10:18.649 just saying it over and over again, softly to 00:10:18.649 --> 00:10:21.009 himself. OK, I've done that as a kid. You say 00:10:21.009 --> 00:10:22.870 a word enough times and it starts to sound like 00:10:22.870 --> 00:10:25.450 nonsense. It's called semantic satiation. Right. 00:10:25.549 --> 00:10:28.149 But for Tennyson, it went further than just the 00:10:28.149 --> 00:10:31.490 word losing meaning. He said that as he did it. 00:10:31.769 --> 00:10:34.269 But individuality itself seemed to dissolve and 00:10:34.269 --> 00:10:37.129 fade away into boundless being. Boundless being. 00:10:37.250 --> 00:10:39.889 That sounds like a trip. Like ego death. It does. 00:10:39.950 --> 00:10:41.669 It sounds like something you'd hear from a Zen 00:10:41.669 --> 00:10:44.309 monk or someone on psychedelics. But he was very 00:10:44.309 --> 00:10:47.190 specific about it. He insisted this wasn't a 00:10:47.190 --> 00:10:50.049 hallucination or a state of confusion. He called 00:10:50.049 --> 00:10:52.850 it the clearest, the surest of the sure, utterly 00:10:52.850 --> 00:10:55.889 beyond words. It was like he was hacking his 00:10:55.889 --> 00:10:58.570 own brain to bypass his ego and touch something 00:10:58.570 --> 00:11:01.460 infinite. So why does this matter for us? Thus 00:11:01.460 --> 00:11:04.240 reading his poetry. Is it just a cool anecdote 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:06.940 or does it change the work? It matters because 00:11:06.940 --> 00:11:10.159 it explains his obsession with sound. Think about 00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:13.080 how he got there. By repeating a word, by the 00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:16.299 rhythm, the chant. Tennyson's poetry is famous 00:11:16.299 --> 00:11:18.879 for its musicality, its rhythm. Right. He wasn't 00:11:18.879 --> 00:11:20.500 just writing for the page, he was writing for 00:11:20.500 --> 00:11:23.299 the ear. He was trying to use the sound of words 00:11:23.299 --> 00:11:26.259 to induce that same kind of trance in the reader. 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:28.720 So when we read him, we're supposed to feel that 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:31.340 rhythm. Yes, he's an auditory poet. He's trying 00:11:31.340 --> 00:11:33.779 to dissolve the boundaries of the self through 00:11:33.779 --> 00:11:36.379 rhythm. He was a mystic who happened to write 00:11:36.379 --> 00:11:39.220 poetry. If you read his poems out loud, which 00:11:39.220 --> 00:11:42.019 you absolutely should, you start to feel that 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:44.399 hypnotic quality. That completely changes how 00:11:44.399 --> 00:11:47.120 I view him. He's not just observing nature. He's 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:49.519 trying to break through reality. OK, so he survives 00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:51.860 the childhood. He has these mystical experiences 00:11:51.860 --> 00:11:54.919 and finally gets to escape. He leaves the rectory. 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:57.870 He heads to university. Trinity College, Cambridge 00:11:57.870 --> 00:12:01.570 in 1827. And this is where the world just opens 00:12:01.570 --> 00:12:03.929 up from. It's a total transformation. He leaves 00:12:03.929 --> 00:12:06.889 the toxic, isolated atmosphere of Summersby and 00:12:06.889 --> 00:12:09.649 steps into the center of intellectual life. He's 00:12:09.649 --> 00:12:11.610 big. He was over six feet tall. He's handsome. 00:12:11.710 --> 00:12:14.830 He's brilliant. And he gets tapped for a secret 00:12:14.830 --> 00:12:17.480 society. The Cambridge Apostles. Yeah. Which 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:19.139 is just a cool name. It sounds like a conspiracy 00:12:19.139 --> 00:12:22.159 thriller. It was an exclusive debating club. 00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:24.820 The absolute brightest minds of the generation. 00:12:25.259 --> 00:12:27.879 They would meet to eat sardines, drink coffee, 00:12:28.039 --> 00:12:30.299 and debate the nature of God and the universe. 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:34.059 And it was there, in that circle, that he met 00:12:34.059 --> 00:12:36.440 the most important person in his life. Arthur 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:38.860 Hallam. Arthur Henry Hallam. Now we need to pause 00:12:38.860 --> 00:12:41.340 on Hallam. Because usually in these stories, 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:44.740 in biopics, in movies, the most important relationship 00:12:44.740 --> 00:12:48.440 is a romance. It's a wife or a lover or a muse. 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:51.440 Sure. But with Tennyson, it's this guy, Arthur 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:54.899 Hallam. Who was he? Hallam was everything Tennyson 00:12:54.899 --> 00:12:58.340 wasn't. Tennyson was shy, gruff, messy, socially 00:12:58.340 --> 00:13:00.720 awkward, carrying all that baggage from his father. 00:13:01.100 --> 00:13:03.940 Hallam was the golden boy. He was charismatic, 00:13:04.220 --> 00:13:06.559 articulate, the life of the party. He was widely 00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:08.860 considered the most promising young man of his 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:11.019 generation. Everyone thought Hallam was going 00:13:11.019 --> 00:13:13.179 to be prime minister one day. And they just clicked. 00:13:13.340 --> 00:13:15.299 Instant connection. They became inseparable. 00:13:15.620 --> 00:13:17.840 Hallam was the first person to really look at 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:20.539 Tennyson's poetry and say, you are a genius. 00:13:20.679 --> 00:13:23.259 You are the poet we've been waiting for. He validated 00:13:23.259 --> 00:13:26.450 it. He was his champion. He was. And the bond 00:13:26.450 --> 00:13:28.970 got even deeper because Hallam went home with 00:13:28.970 --> 00:13:32.009 Tennyson to Summersby and fell in love with Tennyson's 00:13:32.009 --> 00:13:34.750 sister, Amelia. Oh, wow. So they were literally 00:13:34.750 --> 00:13:38.149 going to be brothers. They were engaged. So Hallam 00:13:38.149 --> 00:13:40.730 is his best friend, his artistic champion, his 00:13:40.730 --> 00:13:43.110 intellectual equal, and his future brother -in 00:13:43.110 --> 00:13:46.129 -law. Tennyson's life finally looks like it's 00:13:46.129 --> 00:13:48.710 on track. He wins the Chancellor's Gold Medal 00:13:48.710 --> 00:13:52.529 for a poem called Timbuktu. Timbuktu. The City 00:13:52.529 --> 00:13:55.389 in Mali. Yes. It was the subject set for the 00:13:55.389 --> 00:13:58.009 prize that year. Tennyson reworked an old poem 00:13:58.009 --> 00:13:59.950 he had written about Armageddon, slapped the 00:13:59.950 --> 00:14:02.750 title Timbutt II on it, and won. That's resourceful. 00:14:02.870 --> 00:14:04.970 It was considered no slight honor for a 20 -year 00:14:04.970 --> 00:14:09.009 -old. Then, in 1830, he publishes his first real 00:14:09.009 --> 00:14:12.129 solo book, Poems, chiefly lyrical. It's got Claribel 00:14:12.129 --> 00:14:14.710 and Mariana in it. He's rising. It feels like 00:14:14.710 --> 00:14:17.429 the start of a great career. The trajectory is 00:14:17.429 --> 00:14:20.210 pointing straight up, and then we hit 1833. The 00:14:20.210 --> 00:14:22.409 pivot point. This year seems like a disaster 00:14:22.409 --> 00:14:24.509 on every single level. It's like the universe 00:14:24.509 --> 00:14:27.110 just decided to humble him. It starts with professional 00:14:27.110 --> 00:14:30.470 failure. He releases his second book. This one 00:14:30.470 --> 00:14:32.830 has the first version of The Lady of Shalott, 00:14:32.889 --> 00:14:35.169 which we now think of as a masterpiece. An absolute 00:14:35.169 --> 00:14:38.090 classic. It's iconic, but the critics at the 00:14:38.090 --> 00:14:41.190 time didn't think so. What happened? They shredded 00:14:41.190 --> 00:14:44.830 it. One reviewer called it drivel. They mocked 00:14:44.830 --> 00:14:47.169 his affectations. And you have to remember, Tennyson 00:14:47.169 --> 00:14:49.950 had that thin skin from his father. Right. He 00:14:49.950 --> 00:14:52.230 was hypersensitive. He took criticism incredibly 00:14:52.230 --> 00:14:55.399 personally. He was so hurt by the reviews that 00:14:55.399 --> 00:14:57.259 he effectively went silent. He didn't publish 00:14:57.259 --> 00:15:00.259 another book for 10 years. 10 years? That's a 00:15:00.259 --> 00:15:02.399 career ender for most people. He just took his 00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:04.840 ball and went home. He kept writing. In fact, 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:06.960 he wrote more than ever, but he refused to publish. 00:15:07.059 --> 00:15:08.899 He went into a shell. He didn't want to give 00:15:08.899 --> 00:15:11.740 the critics more ammunition. But the reviews, 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:15.139 they were nothing compared to what happened next. 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:17.600 The tragedy. Arthur Hallam was in Vienna. He 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:19.659 was on holiday with his father. He was only 22 00:15:19.659 --> 00:15:23.159 years old. Perfectly healthy. And one afternoon, 00:15:23.240 --> 00:15:26.700 he just died. Just like that. No warning. A sudden 00:15:26.700 --> 00:15:30.440 cerebral hemorrhage. A stroke. He went to take 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:33.399 a nap on the sofa and never woke up. His father 00:15:33.399 --> 00:15:35.539 came in and thought he was sleeping. I can't 00:15:35.539 --> 00:15:38.100 even imagine that phone call, or I guess that 00:15:38.100 --> 00:15:41.639 letter, since it's 1833. You're young, you think 00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:44.779 you have forever, and your anchor, the guy who 00:15:44.779 --> 00:15:46.960 believes in you more than anyone, is just gone. 00:15:47.419 --> 00:15:49.700 It completely shattered Tennyson. The sources 00:15:49.700 --> 00:15:52.379 say the effect was profound, but that's a huge 00:15:52.379 --> 00:15:55.240 understatement. It broke him. He lost his best 00:15:55.240 --> 00:15:57.799 friend, his confidant, and his link to the world. 00:15:57.980 --> 00:16:00.240 And his future brother -in -law. Exactly. And 00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:02.799 because Hallam was engaged to Amelia, the whole 00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:05.440 family was plunged into mourning. It wasn't just 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:07.679 losing a friend, it was losing a future. And 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:09.639 this is where the deep dive really gets interesting. 00:16:10.059 --> 00:16:12.759 Because most people would crumble. And Tennyson 00:16:12.759 --> 00:16:15.559 did crumble. But what did he do with the pieces? 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:18.019 He wrote, he stopped publishing, but he started 00:16:18.019 --> 00:16:20.879 writing furiously. He used the grief as fuel. 00:16:21.019 --> 00:16:23.080 This is when he starts writing the elegies that 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:25.620 would eventually become an emorium. He wrote, 00:16:25.720 --> 00:16:27.860 in the valley of Cotterets. So it was like the 00:16:27.860 --> 00:16:30.759 grief unlocked a new level of depth in him. Exactly. 00:16:31.240 --> 00:16:35.559 Before this, his poetry was beautiful, melodic, 00:16:35.559 --> 00:16:37.899 but maybe a little decorative, a little bit art 00:16:37.899 --> 00:16:41.039 for art's sake. After Hallam dies, it becomes 00:16:41.039 --> 00:16:43.720 real. It becomes a desperate search for meaning. 00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:46.940 He's asking, where did my friend go? Does the 00:16:46.940 --> 00:16:49.259 universe make any sense? So he's in this wilderness 00:16:49.259 --> 00:16:52.379 period. His friend is dead. He's not publishing. 00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:56.340 He's just drifting. But then... It gets weirder. 00:16:56.500 --> 00:16:59.139 He makes some really, really bad decisions, right? 00:16:59.340 --> 00:17:01.480 This is the part I've been waiting for. He really 00:17:01.480 --> 00:17:03.539 does. This is the part of the biography that 00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:05.680 usually gets skipped in English class because 00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:08.359 it doesn't fit the wise poet narrative. Of course 00:17:08.359 --> 00:17:10.680 not. The family eventually gets kicked out of 00:17:10.680 --> 00:17:12.720 the Summersby Rectory because the father dies, 00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:15.359 and a new rector needs the house. They move to 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.799 Epping Forest around 1837, and Tennyson befriends 00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:21.579 a guy named Dr. Allen. Dr. Allen, who ran an 00:17:21.579 --> 00:17:24.160 asylum? Yes, a nearby asylum. Matthew Allen. 00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:27.259 charismatic talker, a bit of a schemer, and Dr. 00:17:27.460 --> 00:17:30.279 Allen had a surefire business idea. Uh -oh. He 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:32.640 pitched Tennyson on a startup. Please tell me 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:34.859 what the startup was. Ecclesiastical wood carving. 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:37.960 I'm sorry. Using a new machine, a pyroglyph, 00:17:38.059 --> 00:17:40.579 to carve fancy wood decorations for churches 00:17:40.579 --> 00:17:43.539 and homes, like automated manufacturing of gothic 00:17:43.539 --> 00:17:45.940 wood panels. That was the pitch. We're going 00:17:45.940 --> 00:17:48.200 to disrupt the church wood carving industry with 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:51.059 steam power. That was the pitch. And Tennyson, 00:17:51.299 --> 00:17:53.779 who was desperate for money to support his mother 00:17:53.779 --> 00:17:56.019 and siblings, and who probably wanted to secure 00:17:56.019 --> 00:17:58.799 his future so he could marry, went all in. Oh, 00:17:58.839 --> 00:18:01.559 no. He sold his small patrimony. He invested 00:18:01.559 --> 00:18:03.839 the family fortune. This is a train wreck in 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:06.880 slow motion. It is. Dr. Allen didn't really have 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:08.859 the technology worked out. The business model 00:18:08.859 --> 00:18:10.839 was flawed. And you can guess what happened. 00:18:10.940 --> 00:18:13.119 What do you think? It was a total disaster. The 00:18:13.119 --> 00:18:15.990 unwise investment wiped them out. The family 00:18:15.990 --> 00:18:18.890 lost nearly everything. Tennyson was humiliated. 00:18:19.069 --> 00:18:21.710 So now look at the scoreboard. His best friend 00:18:21.710 --> 00:18:23.730 is dead. The critics hate him. He hasn't published 00:18:23.730 --> 00:18:26.210 in years. And he just lost all his money on a 00:18:26.210 --> 00:18:28.970 wood carving scheme. He hit rock bottom. He fell 00:18:28.970 --> 00:18:31.490 into a serious clinical depression. He actually 00:18:31.490 --> 00:18:33.869 had to go into a hydropathic establishment like 00:18:33.869 --> 00:18:37.109 a water cure sanitarium to recover. He was physically 00:18:37.109 --> 00:18:39.390 ill from the stress. It's incredible that he 00:18:39.390 --> 00:18:41.930 survived this. I mean, honestly, looking at that 00:18:41.930 --> 00:18:43.890 list of failures, most people would just check 00:18:43.890 --> 00:18:47.880 out. But this brings us to the comeback, 1842. 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:51.039 The turning point. He finally decides to face 00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:53.599 the public again. He needs money, and he knows 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:56.079 the only thing he can actually do is write. He 00:18:56.079 --> 00:18:59.299 publishes the two -volume poems. Volume 1 is 00:18:59.299 --> 00:19:01.299 the old stuff, heavily revised, because he's 00:19:01.299 --> 00:19:03.759 been obsessively editing for 10 years. Volume 00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:06.579 2 is the new stuff. And this time. Immediate 00:19:06.579 --> 00:19:09.180 success. The critics had changed. The public 00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:11.980 taste had changed. This is the volume that has 00:19:11.980 --> 00:19:15.000 the heavy hitters. Loxley Hall. Break, break, 00:19:15.180 --> 00:19:19.240 break. And crucially, Ulysses. We have to talk 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:21.700 about Ulysses because that poem, I mean, Judi 00:19:21.700 --> 00:19:23.579 Dench quotes it in Skyfall. It's the ultimate 00:19:23.579 --> 00:19:26.619 never give up anthem. It is. But knowing what 00:19:26.619 --> 00:19:28.799 we know now, knowing about the wood carving, 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:31.339 the depression, the death of Hallam, listen to 00:19:31.339 --> 00:19:33.819 the context. He wrote Ulysses shortly after Hallam 00:19:33.819 --> 00:19:36.180 died. So it's not about a Greek hero. It is about 00:19:36.180 --> 00:19:39.720 Odysseus, the Greek hero. The poem imagines him 00:19:39.720 --> 00:19:42.140 as an old man back home after the Trojan War. 00:19:42.440 --> 00:19:44.660 He's bored. He's sitting by the hearth among 00:19:44.660 --> 00:19:47.619 these barren crags. And he realizes he can't 00:19:47.619 --> 00:19:50.519 just rot there. He has to go back to sea. He 00:19:50.519 --> 00:19:53.059 has to do something before he dies. But really, 00:19:53.119 --> 00:19:55.660 it's Tennyson talking to himself. Exactly. The 00:19:55.660 --> 00:20:00.339 famous last lines. To strive, to seek, to find, 00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:02.839 and not to yield. When you read that on a motivational 00:20:02.839 --> 00:20:05.480 poster. It sounds triumphant, like a guy winning 00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:07.420 a marathon or something. When you realize Tennyson 00:20:07.420 --> 00:20:10.259 wrote it while he was suicidal, broke, and grieving, 00:20:10.579 --> 00:20:13.200 it's not a victory lap. It's a survival strategy. 00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:16.920 He is screaming at himself, do not yield. Wow. 00:20:17.079 --> 00:20:19.079 He is forcing himself to get out of bed. That 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:21.059 gives me chills. It changes it from a slogan 00:20:21.059 --> 00:20:24.230 into a lifeline. I am in hell. but I am going 00:20:24.230 --> 00:20:25.970 to keep walking. Precisely, and the Victorian 00:20:25.970 --> 00:20:28.329 public loved it. They needed that resilience. 00:20:28.710 --> 00:20:30.470 The Industrial Revolution was happening, the 00:20:30.470 --> 00:20:33.690 world was changing so fast, and people felt unmoored. 00:20:34.210 --> 00:20:36.769 Tennyson gave them a voice that said, it's okay 00:20:36.769 --> 00:20:39.410 to struggle as long as you keep moving. So he's 00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:42.130 back. He's famous. But he's not quite at the 00:20:42.130 --> 00:20:45.190 top yet. That happens in 1850, the golden year. 00:20:45.890 --> 00:20:48.849 1850 is arguably the best year any writer has 00:20:48.849 --> 00:20:51.859 ever had in history. Three massive life events 00:20:51.859 --> 00:20:54.700 happen almost at once. It's his Annus Mirabilis, 00:20:54.700 --> 00:20:56.579 his miracle year. Break it down for us. What 00:20:56.579 --> 00:20:59.259 happens? First, the personal. He gets married. 00:20:59.710 --> 00:21:03.329 Finally. To Emily Selwood. Yes. And this is a 00:21:03.329 --> 00:21:05.990 whole romance saga in itself. They'd known each 00:21:05.990 --> 00:21:08.329 other for years. They were engaged way back. 00:21:08.609 --> 00:21:10.670 But then the engagement was broken off because 00:21:10.670 --> 00:21:12.690 Tennyson was too poor. Thanks to the wood carving 00:21:12.690 --> 00:21:15.690 disaster. Exactly. And her father forbade the 00:21:15.690 --> 00:21:17.470 marriage. He didn't want his daughter marrying 00:21:17.470 --> 00:21:20.569 a penniless poet. But now that Tennyson is selling 00:21:20.569 --> 00:21:23.089 books and making money, the objection is dropped. 00:21:23.250 --> 00:21:25.430 They finally tie the knot. He gets the girl. 00:21:25.529 --> 00:21:28.180 Check. What's number two? The masterpiece. He 00:21:28.180 --> 00:21:30.119 finally publishes the thing he's been working 00:21:30.119 --> 00:21:34.640 on for 17 years in Memoriam AHH. 17 years. That's 00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:36.000 how long you worked on it. It's a collection 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:39.720 of 133 separate poems or cantos, all elegies 00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:41.960 for Hallam. He wrote them piece by piece over 00:21:41.960 --> 00:21:45.420 nearly two decades. It's not just a poem. It's 00:21:45.420 --> 00:21:48.359 a diary of grief. A diary. It tracks his journey 00:21:48.359 --> 00:21:51.680 from the moment Hallam died. Total despair, shock 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:54.380 through the anger, the doubt about God, the seasonal 00:21:54.380 --> 00:21:57.400 cycles of memory, and finally to acceptance and 00:21:57.400 --> 00:21:59.420 hope. That's a long time to live with a ghost. 00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:02.319 It is. But when it was published, anonymously 00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:04.240 at first, it was a sensation. It became the most 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:07.279 popular book of the era besides the Bible. Everyone 00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:09.859 who had lost someone read it. It was like a manual 00:22:09.859 --> 00:22:12.720 for how to grieve. And number three. The promotion. 00:22:13.339 --> 00:22:16.400 William Wordsworth, the old poet laureate, dies 00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:20.130 in 1850. The job opens up. It's the highest honor 00:22:20.130 --> 00:22:22.289 a poet can get in Britain. Who picks the poet 00:22:22.289 --> 00:22:25.470 laureate? The queen. Technically, the prime minister 00:22:25.470 --> 00:22:27.930 advises the monarch. They offered it to Samuel 00:22:27.930 --> 00:22:31.029 Rogers first. He was a wealthy banker poet, but 00:22:31.029 --> 00:22:33.789 he was ancient, 87 years old. He said, I'm too 00:22:33.789 --> 00:22:36.069 old to do the work. Fair enough. So they had 00:22:36.069 --> 00:22:38.609 to look for the next best option. Prince Albert, 00:22:38.849 --> 00:22:41.430 the queen's husband, was a fan of Tennyson. So 00:22:41.430 --> 00:22:43.650 Alfred Tennyson was appointed poet laureate of 00:22:43.650 --> 00:22:46.589 United Kingdom. Talk about a good year. Married? 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:49.400 Published his magnum opus and gets the top job 00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:52.460 in poetry with a government salary. And just 00:22:52.460 --> 00:22:55.220 like that, the disinherited boy from the toxic 00:22:55.220 --> 00:22:57.960 rectory becomes the official voice of the British 00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:00.839 Empire. It's a complete turnaround. And this 00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:03.140 wasn't just a government appointment. Queen Victoria 00:23:03.140 --> 00:23:06.640 herself was an ardent admirer. Oh, that's right. 00:23:06.819 --> 00:23:08.660 And this connection is really interesting. We 00:23:08.660 --> 00:23:11.059 tend to think of the queen as this distant figure. 00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:16.019 But remember, later on in 1861. her husband prince 00:23:16.019 --> 00:23:18.339 albert dies and she went into mourning for the 00:23:18.339 --> 00:23:20.579 rest of her life deep deep mourning she wore 00:23:20.579 --> 00:23:23.160 black for 40 years she barely appeared in public 00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:26.220 and what did she read in memoriam so tannison 00:23:26.220 --> 00:23:29.460 who spent 17 years grieving hallam was the only 00:23:29.460 --> 00:23:31.599 person who had the language to match her grief 00:23:32.230 --> 00:23:34.150 Precisely. She wrote in her diary that she was 00:23:34.150 --> 00:23:36.950 much soothed and pleased by reading it. She felt 00:23:36.950 --> 00:23:39.109 that Tennyson understood her pain when no one 00:23:39.109 --> 00:23:42.130 else did. They met twice. Her diary entry about 00:23:42.130 --> 00:23:45.130 their first meeting in 1862 is hilarious. What 00:23:45.130 --> 00:23:47.390 does she say? She describes him as very peculiar 00:23:47.390 --> 00:23:50.549 looking, tall, dark, oddly dressed. Which is 00:23:50.549 --> 00:23:53.289 queen speak for he looked like a mess. He did. 00:23:53.529 --> 00:23:57.150 He had this long flowing black hair, a giant 00:23:57.150 --> 00:24:00.250 unkempt beard. He wore a big slouch hat and a 00:24:00.250 --> 00:24:03.769 cape. He looked like a wizard or a drifter. He 00:24:03.769 --> 00:24:06.009 didn't look like a courtier. But she noted there 00:24:06.009 --> 00:24:08.549 was no affectation. He wasn't faking it. He wasn't 00:24:08.549 --> 00:24:11.950 pretending. He was just him. She found him very 00:24:11.950 --> 00:24:14.890 elevated and unworldly. They were grief buddies. 00:24:15.289 --> 00:24:17.769 In a way, yes. The queen and the poet bonded 00:24:17.769 --> 00:24:21.390 by loss. So he holds this job for 42 years, the 00:24:21.390 --> 00:24:24.049 longest tenure ever. But being laureate isn't 00:24:24.049 --> 00:24:25.609 just hanging out with the queen and talking about 00:24:25.609 --> 00:24:28.269 sadness, right? It's a job. You have to write 00:24:28.269 --> 00:24:30.140 stuff for the state. It's a weird job. You're 00:24:30.140 --> 00:24:32.220 a government employee, essentially. You have 00:24:32.220 --> 00:24:34.839 to write verses for royal weddings, greetings 00:24:34.839 --> 00:24:37.859 to visiting princesses, odes for the funerals 00:24:37.859 --> 00:24:39.980 of generals. Which brings us to the most famous 00:24:39.980 --> 00:24:42.819 work assignment in history, the Charge of the 00:24:42.819 --> 00:24:46.779 Light Brigade. Written in 1855, the Crimean War. 00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:49.980 Talk about threading a needle. Because the actual 00:24:49.980 --> 00:24:52.660 event, the charge, was a total disaster, wasn't 00:24:52.660 --> 00:24:54.740 it? It was a screw -up by the generals. A massive 00:24:54.740 --> 00:24:57.819 blunder. Due to a miscommunication, the Light 00:24:57.819 --> 00:25:00.920 Brigade Light Cavalry was ordered to charge straight 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:03.500 into Russian cannons. It was a suicide mission. 00:25:03.839 --> 00:25:07.460 A complete catastrophe. 600 men charged, huge 00:25:07.460 --> 00:25:10.720 casualties. The public was furious at the leadership. 00:25:11.099 --> 00:25:13.579 So Tennyson has a problem. He's the poet laureate. 00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:16.700 He can't trash the army or the government. But 00:25:16.700 --> 00:25:18.059 he also can't pretend it was a great victory 00:25:18.059 --> 00:25:20.660 because everyone knows 600 guys just got slaughtered 00:25:20.660 --> 00:25:23.140 for no reason. So what does he do? He shifts 00:25:23.140 --> 00:25:25.660 the focus. He focuses entirely on the soldier's 00:25:25.660 --> 00:25:28.480 duty. There's not to reason why, there's but 00:25:28.480 --> 00:25:31.460 to do and die. Right. He acknowledges the mistake. 00:25:31.619 --> 00:25:34.380 He explicitly writes someone had blundered. But 00:25:34.380 --> 00:25:36.740 he frames the obedience of the soldiers as the 00:25:36.740 --> 00:25:39.140 highest form of bravery. He separates the warrior 00:25:39.140 --> 00:25:41.519 from the war. Exactly. He honors the sacrifice 00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:44.160 without validating the strategy. It's a master 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:46.700 class in public relations poetry. And it worked. 00:25:46.940 --> 00:25:49.920 The poem became definitive. It transformed a 00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:52.859 military embarrassment into a legend of British 00:25:52.859 --> 00:25:55.099 stoicism. I want to pivot back to the craftsman 00:25:55.099 --> 00:25:56.430 side of him. Because you mentioned earlier that 00:25:56.430 --> 00:25:58.190 he was obsessive. How obsessive were we talking? 00:25:58.430 --> 00:26:00.490 Robert Browning, who was another famous poet 00:26:00.490 --> 00:26:02.670 of the time and a friend of Tennyson, called 00:26:02.670 --> 00:26:06.730 Tennyson's editing process insane. Insane. He 00:26:06.730 --> 00:26:09.349 said it was a symptom of mental infirmity. That's 00:26:09.349 --> 00:26:12.309 harsh. You edit so much you must be crazy. But 00:26:12.309 --> 00:26:14.849 it goes back to the waking trance. Tennyson felt 00:26:14.849 --> 00:26:17.230 the rhythm physically. He wouldn't let a line 00:26:17.230 --> 00:26:19.450 go until the sound was perfect. He would read 00:26:19.450 --> 00:26:22.549 lines out loud thousands of times. Take break. 00:26:23.079 --> 00:26:25.779 break break that's the poem about the sea right 00:26:25.779 --> 00:26:28.140 it's about grief written for hallam but he uses 00:26:28.140 --> 00:26:31.220 the sea to show it the rhythm is break break 00:26:31.220 --> 00:26:35.240 break it's a hard insistent beat three stresses 00:26:35.240 --> 00:26:38.140 it mimics the waves crashing against the cold 00:26:38.140 --> 00:26:41.660 gray stones he's not telling you he's sad he's 00:26:41.660 --> 00:26:43.579 using the rhythm to make you feel the monotony 00:26:43.579 --> 00:26:45.420 and the physical weight of the sorrow it's like 00:26:45.420 --> 00:26:47.440 a heartbeat the sad one or take the princess 00:26:48.109 --> 00:26:50.170 There's a famous example of onomatopoeia words 00:26:50.170 --> 00:26:52.309 that sound like what they describe. The moan 00:26:52.309 --> 00:26:55.410 of doves in immemorial elms and murmuring of 00:26:55.410 --> 00:26:58.150 innumerable bees. Murmuring of innumerable bees. 00:26:58.250 --> 00:27:00.069 You can literally hear the buzzing, the M and 00:27:00.069 --> 00:27:03.289 Z sounds. That's onomatopoeia on steroids. He 00:27:03.289 --> 00:27:05.430 is painting with sound. He wants the listener 00:27:05.430 --> 00:27:07.750 to be immersed in the sensory experience. And 00:27:07.750 --> 00:27:09.869 the crazy thing is we can actually hear him doing 00:27:09.869 --> 00:27:11.910 it. The wax cylinders. This is the tech part 00:27:11.910 --> 00:27:15.109 of the story. Yes. Late in his life, around 1890, 00:27:15.569 --> 00:27:17.720 this guy, Colonel George Edward Gouraud, who 00:27:17.720 --> 00:27:20.480 was Thomas Edison's agent in Europe, showed up 00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:23.180 at Tennyson's house with a phonograph. We have 00:27:23.180 --> 00:27:26.299 audio of a guy born in 1809. We do. It's available 00:27:26.299 --> 00:27:28.440 online. It's incredibly scratchy. It sounds like 00:27:28.440 --> 00:27:30.579 a ghost shouting through a storm, but you can 00:27:30.579 --> 00:27:33.180 hear him grooming out the Charge of the Light 00:27:33.180 --> 00:27:35.039 Brigade. What does he sound like? Does he sound 00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:38.720 posh? He sounds ancient. He has this deep, resonant, 00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:40.920 almost chanting voice. He doesn't read it like 00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:43.940 a conversation. He chants it. It confirms everything 00:27:43.940 --> 00:27:46.000 we thought about his focus on rhythm. It's a 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.140 direct audio. link to the Victorian mindset. 00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:52.039 That is incredible. I love whom technology lets 00:27:52.039 --> 00:27:54.339 us touch the past like that. But let's look at 00:27:54.339 --> 00:27:57.259 his mind, not just his voice. Because the Victorian 00:27:57.259 --> 00:28:00.539 era was a time of massive change. Science is 00:28:00.539 --> 00:28:03.480 exploding. Geology is proving the earth is old. 00:28:03.700 --> 00:28:06.380 Darwin is publishing. The Bible is being questioned. 00:28:06.660 --> 00:28:09.160 Where did Tennyson stand on all this? Was he 00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:11.460 a religious conservative? This is why he's still 00:28:11.460 --> 00:28:14.000 relevant today. He wasn't a dogmatic conservative, 00:28:14.299 --> 00:28:17.640 but he wasn't an atheist either. He lived in 00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:20.259 the tension. He practiced what he called honest 00:28:20.259 --> 00:28:22.559 doubt. There lives more faith in honest doubt, 00:28:22.700 --> 00:28:25.619 believe me, than in half the creeds. That's the 00:28:25.619 --> 00:28:28.480 line. He's saying that questioning the universe, 00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:30.980 wrestling with God, is actually more holy than 00:28:30.980 --> 00:28:33.220 just blindly following rules because you're told 00:28:33.220 --> 00:28:36.059 to. He looked at the fossil record, he read books 00:28:36.059 --> 00:28:38.880 by Charles Lyell on geology, and he saw extinction. 00:28:39.549 --> 00:28:42.170 He saw that nature wipes out entire species. 00:28:42.450 --> 00:28:44.769 And that scared him. It terrified him. He asked, 00:28:44.829 --> 00:28:47.529 if nature is this brutal, if species just die 00:28:47.529 --> 00:28:49.630 out and turn to rock, does God actually care 00:28:49.630 --> 00:28:52.049 about us, or are we just next on the list? That's 00:28:52.049 --> 00:28:55.289 the red in tooth and claw idea. Right. He stared 00:28:55.289 --> 00:28:57.690 into the abyss of a godless, violent universe, 00:28:57.789 --> 00:28:59.990 and he tried to build a bridge of faith across 00:28:59.990 --> 00:29:02.759 it. He didn't deny the science. He tried to integrate 00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:05.140 it. By the end of his life, his beliefs were 00:29:05.140 --> 00:29:09.059 very unique. He leaned toward agnosticism and 00:29:09.059 --> 00:29:12.059 pandeism. Pandeism. Break that down for me. It's 00:29:12.059 --> 00:29:14.859 the idea that God became the universe, that the 00:29:14.859 --> 00:29:17.220 divine and the physical are one and the same. 00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:21.740 On his deathbed, he was quoting Spinoza and Giordano 00:29:21.740 --> 00:29:24.420 Bruno philosophers who were considered heretics 00:29:24.420 --> 00:29:26.880 by the mainstream church. So the pillar of the 00:29:26.880 --> 00:29:29.460 establishment, the queen's favorite poet, was 00:29:29.460 --> 00:29:32.859 basically a mystic heretic in private. He was 00:29:32.859 --> 00:29:34.920 a seeker. He never stopped wrestling with the 00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:37.519 big questions. He refused to give easy answers. 00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:40.140 We should briefly touch on his politics, because 00:29:40.140 --> 00:29:42.400 for a guy who was so open -minded about the universe. 00:29:42.579 --> 00:29:44.799 He was kind of elitist about voting, wasn't he? 00:29:44.859 --> 00:29:47.180 He was a man of his time and his class. He was 00:29:47.180 --> 00:29:50.259 a Whig by tradition. He believed in gradual and 00:29:50.259 --> 00:29:52.839 steady reform, not revolution. He looked at the 00:29:52.839 --> 00:29:55.099 French Revolution and saw chaos. He didn't want 00:29:55.099 --> 00:29:56.960 that for England. So he didn't want everyone 00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:00.059 to vote. He was wary of the mob. He thought people 00:30:00.059 --> 00:30:02.039 should only get the vote once they were educated 00:30:02.039 --> 00:30:04.400 enough to use it responsibly. He wanted evolution. 00:30:05.230 --> 00:30:07.910 not revolution gradual reform it sounds very 00:30:07.910 --> 00:30:10.470 safe very establishment but he did have his moments 00:30:10.470 --> 00:30:13.089 of enthusiasm there's a great story that when 00:30:13.089 --> 00:30:16.750 the reform act of 1832 passed which was the first 00:30:16.750 --> 00:30:19.890 big step in giving more people the vote a young 00:30:19.890 --> 00:30:22.049 tennyson and his brothers broke into a local 00:30:22.049 --> 00:30:25.150 church at night just to ring the bells in celebration. 00:30:25.650 --> 00:30:28.369 Breaking and entering for democracy. I like it. 00:30:28.390 --> 00:30:30.670 It shows he had a pulse. But eventually he became 00:30:30.670 --> 00:30:33.289 part of the system. He became a lord. A reluctant 00:30:33.289 --> 00:30:36.269 lord. Very reluctant. Benjamin Disraeli, the 00:30:36.269 --> 00:30:38.710 prime minister, offered him a baronetcy twice 00:30:38.710 --> 00:30:42.950 in 1865 and 1868. Tennyson said no both times. 00:30:43.109 --> 00:30:44.869 Why? Did he think he was too cool for it? He 00:30:44.869 --> 00:30:46.490 just wasn't interested in the pomp. He just wanted 00:30:46.490 --> 00:30:49.910 to write. But finally in 1883, William Gladstone, 00:30:50.130 --> 00:30:52.130 another prime minister and a friend, convinced 00:30:52.130 --> 00:30:55.430 him to accept a priest. peerage. In 1884, Queen 00:30:55.430 --> 00:30:58.309 Victoria created him Baron Tennyson of Aldworth 00:30:58.309 --> 00:31:00.829 and Freshwater. He took his seat in the House 00:31:00.829 --> 00:31:03.009 of Lords. The first poet to be raised to the 00:31:03.009 --> 00:31:06.150 peerage just for being a poet. Correct. Not because 00:31:06.150 --> 00:31:08.470 he was a soldier or politician, but because he 00:31:08.470 --> 00:31:11.450 wrote poems. It showed just how high his status 00:31:11.450 --> 00:31:14.190 had risen. He was a national institution. He 00:31:14.190 --> 00:31:16.890 was the voice of England. So we've tracked him 00:31:16.890 --> 00:31:19.650 from the bitter childhood to the wood carving 00:31:19.650 --> 00:31:22.490 disaster to the House of Lords. Let's wrap this 00:31:22.490 --> 00:31:24.190 up with his legacy. We talked about the quotes, 00:31:24.309 --> 00:31:28.609 but visually he changed things too. Huge influence 00:31:28.609 --> 00:31:31.069 on the Pre -Raphaelite Brotherhood. You know 00:31:31.069 --> 00:31:33.430 those famous Victorian paintings? The beautiful 00:31:33.430 --> 00:31:35.950 women with red hair, medieval dresses, looking 00:31:35.950 --> 00:31:39.009 very tragic in boats or towers. The Lady of Shalott 00:31:39.009 --> 00:31:40.930 vibe. Looking like they're floating in water 00:31:40.930 --> 00:31:43.690 with flowers. That is pure Tennyson. Painters 00:31:43.690 --> 00:31:46.210 like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, 00:31:46.390 --> 00:31:48.549 and John William Waterhouse were obsessed with 00:31:48.549 --> 00:31:51.309 his imagery. He created the visual language of 00:31:51.309 --> 00:31:53.759 fantasy. the Arthurian legend, the knights, the 00:31:53.759 --> 00:31:56.740 damsels, that we still recognize today. If you 00:31:56.740 --> 00:31:58.799 like fantasy art, you owe a debt to Tennyson. 00:31:59.099 --> 00:32:01.460 And we mentioned James Bond earlier. I want to 00:32:01.460 --> 00:32:03.180 circle back to that because it's such a perfect 00:32:03.180 --> 00:32:06.160 example of his staying power. Skyfall, 2012. 00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:10.160 It's the perfect modern usage. You have M, played 00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:12.779 by Judi Dench, standing in a courtroom. She's 00:32:12.779 --> 00:32:15.200 being accused of being outdated, of being a relic 00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:17.579 of the Cold War. She's defending her relevance 00:32:17.579 --> 00:32:19.519 and the relevance of human intelligence over 00:32:19.519 --> 00:32:22.420 computers. And what does she quote? She quotes 00:32:22.420 --> 00:32:26.019 Ulysses. We are not now that strength which in 00:32:26.019 --> 00:32:28.759 old days moved earth and heaven. That which we 00:32:28.759 --> 00:32:32.500 are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, 00:32:32.660 --> 00:32:35.420 made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 00:32:35.420 --> 00:32:38.880 to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 00:32:39.309 --> 00:32:41.690 It connects that Victorian resolve to the modern 00:32:41.690 --> 00:32:44.009 world. It shows that the struggle to keep going 00:32:44.009 --> 00:32:45.670 when you're old, when you're tired, when the 00:32:45.670 --> 00:32:48.049 world has changed around you is timeless. Whether 00:32:48.049 --> 00:32:50.009 you are a Greek hero, a Victorian poet, or the 00:32:50.009 --> 00:32:52.369 head of MI6, that sentiment lands. The soundtrack 00:32:52.369 --> 00:32:55.029 even has a track titled Tennyson. That is how 00:32:55.029 --> 00:32:56.910 crucial that moment was. And then, of course, 00:32:56.950 --> 00:32:59.069 there is his death. He died at his home, Aldworth, 00:32:59.250 --> 00:33:02.910 on October 6, 1892. He was 83 years old. A good 00:33:02.910 --> 00:33:05.529 run, especially for a guy who was frail and depressed 00:33:05.529 --> 00:33:08.450 in his 30s. A very good run. He was buried at 00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:10.769 Westminster Abbey in Poets' Corner, which is 00:33:10.769 --> 00:33:14.490 fitting, and his last words were very writerly. 00:33:14.589 --> 00:33:17.029 Oh, that press will have me now. Imagine that, 00:33:17.130 --> 00:33:18.869 on your deathbed, thinking about the newspaper 00:33:18.869 --> 00:33:21.250 reviews. Or perhaps he meant the printing press, 00:33:21.470 --> 00:33:23.869 that he was becoming text, becoming history. 00:33:24.309 --> 00:33:27.529 And his son... Hallam, named after his dead friend, 00:33:27.710 --> 00:33:30.589 succeeded him and even became the second governor 00:33:30.589 --> 00:33:32.589 general of Australia. So the legacy continued. 00:33:32.890 --> 00:33:35.549 Indeed. So let's wrap this up. We've gone from 00:33:35.549 --> 00:33:38.809 the bitter childhood to the trance, the grief, 00:33:38.910 --> 00:33:41.990 the woodcarving disaster, and finally the House 00:33:41.990 --> 00:33:44.769 of Lords. What is the big takeaway here? How 00:33:44.769 --> 00:33:47.579 should we think of Tennyson? For me, it is the 00:33:47.579 --> 00:33:50.220 contradiction. T .S. Eliot called Tennyson the 00:33:50.220 --> 00:33:52.680 saddest of all English poets, and W .H. Auden 00:33:52.680 --> 00:33:54.660 called him the stupidest, which I think is incredibly 00:33:54.660 --> 00:33:57.059 unfair. But he meant that Tennyson was all feeling 00:33:57.059 --> 00:34:00.019 and little intellectual rigor. Ouch. Auden coming 00:34:00.019 --> 00:34:02.660 in with a steel chair. Right. But I think the 00:34:02.660 --> 00:34:18.179 truth is in the middle. Tennyson wrote, It is 00:34:18.179 --> 00:34:20.800 that faith in honest doubt thing again. Exactly. 00:34:21.469 --> 00:34:24.050 We live in a world where everyone seems so certain. 00:34:24.130 --> 00:34:26.289 Everyone is shouting their opinions online. Everyone 00:34:26.289 --> 00:34:28.969 knows exactly what is right and wrong. Tennyson 00:34:28.969 --> 00:34:31.130 reminds us that there is dignity in the struggle. 00:34:31.429 --> 00:34:34.710 There is dignity in not knowing, in grieving, 00:34:34.929 --> 00:34:37.750 and in just trying to keep moving forward. And 00:34:37.750 --> 00:34:40.130 that resilience isn't about winning. It's about 00:34:40.130 --> 00:34:43.650 refusing to stop. To strive, to seek, to find, 00:34:43.670 --> 00:34:46.030 and not to yield. I think that's the note to 00:34:46.030 --> 00:34:47.940 leave it on. Next time you feel like the world 00:34:47.940 --> 00:34:49.920 is too much or you're stuck in the past or you 00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:52.619 just took a massive loss, don't just read Ulysses 00:34:52.619 --> 00:34:54.920 as a classic poem. Read it as an instruction 00:34:54.920 --> 00:34:57.320 manual. Read it as a permission slip to keep 00:34:57.320 --> 00:34:59.900 going, even when the odds are against you. And 00:34:59.900 --> 00:35:02.460 maybe, just maybe, try repeating your own name 00:35:02.460 --> 00:35:05.019 until the walls of reality dissolve. You never 00:35:05.019 --> 00:35:07.639 know what you might find. Proceed with caution 00:35:07.639 --> 00:35:10.659 on that one. Thanks for diving deep with us. 00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:11.760 We'll see you on the next one.