Record Number: 23348

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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 [...] 'And Petrarch's own contemporary English admirer [...] supplied Tennyson with another favourite passage; that in the "Knight's Tale," where Arcite, dying, commends his soul as a legacy to his love Emilie [quotes five lines] 'It is with a doubly pathetic echo that the tone, amorously lingering, which [sic] this dear friend always rendered Chaucer's last line ["Alone withouten any compagnie"] now returns to me.'

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

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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

Francis Turner Palgrave

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Geoffrey Chaucer

Title:

The Knight's Tale

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

In The Canterbury Tales

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

23348

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://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=23348, accessed: 22 November 2024

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Additional Comments:

None