Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 23347

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
From F. T. Palgrave's 'Personal Recollections' of Tennyson: 'I had put the scheme of my Golden Treasury before him during a walk near to Land's End in the late summer of 1860 [...] at the Christmas-tide following, the gathered materials [...] were laid before Tennyson for final judgement [...] With most by far of the pieces submitted he was already acquainted: but I seem to remember more of less special praise of Lodge's "Rosaline," of "My Love in her attire...": and the "Emigrant's Song" by Marvell. For some poems by that writer then with difficulty accessible, he had a special admiration: delighting to read, with a voice hardly yet to me silent, and dwelling more than once, on the magnificent hyperbole, the powerful union of pathos and humour in the lines "To his coy Mistress" [...] 'After reading Cowper's "Poplar Field": "People nowadays, I believe, hold this style and metre light; I wish there were any who could put words together with such exquisite flow and evenness." Presently we reached the same poet's stanzas to Mary Unwin. He read them, yet could barely read them, so deeply was he touched by their tender, their almost agonising pathos [...] Petrarch [...] furnished a not dissimilar instance, in the ethereally-beautiful lines on the death of Laura ("Trionfa della Morte," Cap.1) [quotes six lines] [...] I remember still the tenderness with which he dwelt on the words, the sigh of delight -- almost, perhaps, the tears -- that came naturally to the sensitive soul, as he ended'
Century: 1850-1899
Date: Between 1 Jan 1860 and 31 Dec 1891
Country: n/a
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Alfred Tennyson
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 6 Aug 1809
Socio-economic group: Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation: Writer
Religion: n/a
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: n/a
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
Francis Turner Palgrave
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Petrarch
Title: "Trionfo della Morte"
Genre: Poetry
Form of Text: Unknown
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 23347  
Source - Print  
  Author: Hallam Tennyson
  Editor: n/a
  Title: Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1897
  Vol: 2
  Page: 500-502; 501-502
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son (London, 1897), 2, p. 500-502; 501-502, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=23347, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)