In Memoriam A.H.H.

Bust of Arthur Henry Hallam by Francis Leggatt Chantrey

"In Memoriam A.H.H." is a poem by the British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, completed in 1849. It is a requiem for the poet's beloved Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna in 1833. It contains some of Tennyson's most accomplished lyrical work, and is an unusually sustained exercise in lyric verse. It is widely considered to be one of the great poems of the 19th century.^[1]

The original title of the poem was 'The Way of the Soul', and this might give an idea of how the poem is an account of all Tennyson's thoughts and emotions as he grieves over the death of a close friend. He views the cruelty of nature and mortality in light of materialist science and faith. Owing to its length and its arguable breadth of focus, the poem might not be thought an elegy or a dirge in the strictest formal sense.

Form

The poem is not arranged exactly in the order in which it was written. The prologue, for example, is thought to have been one of the last things written. The earliest material is thought to be that which begins "Fair ship, that from the Italian shore | Saileth the placid ocean-plains" and imagines the return of Hallam's body from Italy. Critics believe, however, that the poem as a whole is meant to be chronological in terms of the progression of Tennyson's grief. The passage of time is marked by the three descriptions of Christmas at different points in the poem, and the poem ends with a description of the marriage of Tennyson's sister.

"In Memoriam" is written in four-line ABBA stanzas of iambic tetrameter, and such stanzas are now called In Memoriam Stanzas. Though not metrically unusual, given the length of the work, the metre creates a tonal effect which often divides readers – is it the natural sound of mourning and grief, or merely monotonous? The poem is divided into 133 cantos (including the prologue and epilogue), and in contrast to its constant and regulated metrical form, encompasses many different subjects: profound spiritual experiences, nostalgic reminiscence, philosophical speculation, Romantic fantasizing and even occasional verse. The death of Hallam, and Tennyson's attempts to cope with this, remain the strand that ties all these together.

Quotation

The most frequently quoted lines in the poem are perhaps

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

This stanza is to be found in Canto 27. The last two lines are usually taken as offering a meditation on the dissolution of a romantic relationship. However, the lines originally referred to the death of the poet's beloved friend. They are reminiscent of a line from William Congreve's popular 1700 play, The Way of the World: "'tis better to be left than never to have been loved."

Another much-quoted phrase from the poem is "nature, red in tooth and claw," found in Canto 56, referring to humanity:

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation's final law

Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Also, the following are found in Canto 54

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night

An infant crying for the light

And with no language but a cry.

Nature, red in tooth and claw

In writing the poem, Tennyson was influenced by the evolutionary ideas of transmutation of species presented in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation which had been published in 1844, and had caused a storm of controversy about the theological implications of impersonal nature functioning without direct divine intervention. An Evangelical focus on unquestioning belief in revealed truth taken from a literal interpretation of the Bible was already coming into conflict with emerging findings of science. Tennyson expressed the difficulties evolution raised for faith in "the truths that never can be proved", while still believing the older idea that reason would eventually harmonise science and religion, as there could be no real contradiction.^[2]

Are God and Nature then at strife,

That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds,

And finding that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares

Upon the great world's altar-stairs

That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

Although this phrase is commonly ascribed to Tennyson, it already was in use. For example, The Hagerstown Mail in March 1837: "Hereupon, the beasts, enraged at the humbug, fell upon him tooth and claw."^[3]

This poem was published before Charles Darwin made his theory public in 1859. However, the phrase "Nature, red in tooth and claw" in canto 56 quickly was adopted by others as a phrase that evokes the process of natural selection. It was and is used by both those opposed to and in favour of the theory of evolution.^[4][5][6][7]

However, at the end of the poem, Tennyson emerges with his Christian faith reaffirmed, progressing from doubt and despair to faith and hope, a dominant theme also seen in his poem "Ulysses".^[8]

If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,

I hear a voice 'believe no more'

And heard an ever-breaking shore

That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warmth within the breast would melt

The freezing reason's colder part,

And like a man in wrath the heart

Stood up and answer'd 'I have felt.'

No, like a child in doubt and fear:

But that blind clamour made me wise;

Then was I as a child that cries,

But, crying knows his father near;

Queen Victoria and "In Memoriam"

The poem was a great favourite of Queen Victoria, who after the death of Prince Albert wrote that she was "soothed & pleased" by it.^[9] In 1862 Victoria requested a meeting with Tennyson because she was so impressed by the poem, and when she met him again in 1883 she told him what a comfort it had been.^[10]

Other themes

The British literary scholar Christopher Ricks relates the following lines to Tennyson's childhood home at Somersby Rectory in Somersby, Lincolnshire, particularly the poet's departure after the death of his father.^[11]

References

Further reading

• A. C. Bradley, A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam. London, Macmillan and Co. 1901.

External links

• In Memoriam A.H.H. public domain audiobook at LibriVox