Maud: A Definitive Edition

by Alfred Tennyson (Editor)

Excerpt from Illustrated by Margaret Helen Maitland Armstrong
I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death."
For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found,
His who had given me life - O father! O God! was it well? -

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Victorian, 19th Century, Fiction, British Literature, Romance

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1855

About the author

Works, including In Memoriam in 1850 and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1854, of Alfred Tennyson, first baron, known as lord, appointed British poet laureate in 1850, reflect Victorian sentiments and aesthetics.

Elizabeth Tennyson, wife, bore Alfred Tennyson, the fourth of twelve children, to George Tennyson, clergyman; he inevitably wrote his books. In 1816, parents sent Tennyson was sent to grammar school of Louth.

Alfred Tennyson disliked school so intensely that from 1820, home educated him. At the age of 18 years in 1827, Alfred joined his two brothers at Trinity College, Cambridge and with Charles Tennyson, his brother, published Poems by Two Brothers , his book, in the same year.

Alfred Tennyson published Poems Chiefly Lyrical , his second book, in 1830. In 1833, Arthur Henry Hallam, best friend of Tennyson, engaged to wed his sister, died, and thus inspired some best Ulysses and the Passing of Arthur .

Following William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson in 1850 married Emily Sellwood Tenyson, his childhood friend. She bore Hallam Tennyson in 1852 and Lionel Tennyson in 1854, two years later.

Alfred Tennyson continued throughout his life and in the 1870s also to write a number of plays.

In 1884, the queen raised Alfred Tennyson, a great favorite of Albert, prince, thereafter to the peerage of Aldworth. She granted such a high rank for solely literary distinction to this only Englishman.

Alfred Tennyson died at the age of 83 years, and people buried his body in abbey of Westminster.

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review here

[Laurel Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

The multifaceted ravings of a man in love. There is a duel.

[Anna-Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️
Honestly really liked this. I’m doing a close reading of it for my essay. It was beautiful, despite being disturbing. Definitely reminded me of other Romanticism poets

[Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be honest I don’t really like poetry and this was a long poem. Some bits were good but a lot of the time I didn’t know what was going on.

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry is far from my area of expertise. I love to read a good poem, but I read poetry so rarely that I can hardly call myself an expert. With Tennyson, I find I have a bit of a mixed relationship with his work. Some I really enjoy, whereas others I don’t care much for. Thus, I’m going to refrain from writing a full review about the individual pieces. Just know, some are better than others, and my ratings of the individual poems work to reflect that.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars.

[Freddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take notes, E.B.B. - this is how to write a long poem.

“I will cry to the steps above my head / And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come / To bury me, bury me / Deeper, ever so little deeper.”

Had chills constantly throughout reading this; love, parental loss, grief, madness, death - what more could you ask for? A perfect poem.

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was recently talking with somebody about poetry and they said that this was their favorite poem. Out of curiosity, I checked it out. Normally I wouldn't log something like this but due to the length of the poem I figured why not. I really enjoyed this poem, I found it a little hard to follow some times on my first pass through but after looking back at some sections I found it really enjoyable. Tennyson has a really unique way of writing poetry that was really engaging to me and that I think really stood out most in the pastoral scenes of the poem. I think the obvious highlight of this poem is the scene of the narrator and Maud in the garden. This poem reminded me a lot of Wuthering Heights and Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. I really liked both of those novels and I felt that the haunting atmosphere and natural focus of both of those books are reflected in this poem

[Emma Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't intending on including this, but I am behind on my reading challenge so I am counting this. This was another text that I studied as part of one of my modules at university, and is also something that I came across as part of my A-Level course work. I do actually really love Tennyson as a poet, The Lady of Shalott is a poem that has stuck with me ever since I was a child, and, although I would not count him among the likes of Yeats or TS Elliot, there is something so appealing about his poetry. Studying this now for an assignment, I think that I can pin down what I like about this poem, and Tennyson's work as a whole: the sonic quality of his writing- it simply reads well, and comes across as quite melodic.
Generally, I enjoy the topics Tennyson picks up on- he is very much of his era and so has an ear towards the dramatic and is perhaps less subtle and abstract than say Elliot or Hughes, but I share his interest in myths and legends (hence why I love Ulysses and the Lady of Shalott so much) and have a fondness for Victorian medievalism and the way we have inherited a lot of their readings in the present day. Maud is a poem that Tennyson personally loved, while everyone else remained quite meh about it, and, in all honesty, I have to agree with the critics on this. At times, this felt cumbersomely long and disjointed- although structurally this mirrors the mentality of the speaker, it made for a peculiar reading experience.
The story itself reads like a perverted fairy tale and, to be honest, is not that far removed from other poems that Tennyson wrote, such as Mariana. As a poem that silences the female characters, as is Tennyson's wont, and renders her an object, you never leave feeling exactly empowered as a woman. Along with most of Tennyson's work, this makes for a rich study in gender and the construction of masculinity, and, whilst a controversial and incongruous ending, the concluding part set in the Crimean War is thought-provoking and provocative. I think that I can label this as something I enjoyed studying and picking apart rather than reading essentially!

[Konstantin R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

[rating = B (for effort), D+ (for execution)]
What can I say...not a fan. This is a very very very long poem (of course not as long as Paradise Lost, but longer than Goblin Market) and it has wonderful descriptions at times, but seems that this "little Hamlet" got a bit ornery. About a, supposedly, madman's ravings about his love for a lady (who finds him, understandably, weird and creepy) and his hatred of his father and...well for other men in particular. These is much flower-symbolism and much questioning of Identity and much much much. I admire Tennyson for his tenacity and his changing of styles through this epic (not Epic) poem. Yet I will read this again, do not want to read it again, and, thankfully, will not have to read it again.

[Sarrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not at all like the title poem, though I am impressed by Tennyson's ability to convey an entire story primarily through emotion. However, "The Brook" and "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" were both exactly what I wanted, rich and fast-moving.

[Tee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The speaker is a little whiny but it's a good text to study.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent. Misogynistic references are in it, though, and that's disgusting.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maud, a Monodrama is a heartrending story related by a lover in the first person.

The poem is a remonstration against the worldliness over riding love in men and nations and a complaint of the misery and degradation resulting therefrom.

The Greek tragic element is present in Maud. The love that is so sweet to the hero, though it is his moral salvation, leads him on to murder and madness. The sense of an overmastering Destiny, of an ancestral curse, "the household Fury sprinkled with blood", broods over the action and events of the poem and its personages seem to be driven as victims to their fate.

The poem was Tennyson's favourite and among his friends he read aloud from it more than any other poem. The sub-title, "A Monodrama", evidently shows that Tennyson is not speaking in his own person, but under the semblance of the character that he is portraying which is that of a man of intense and subtle sensibilities, given to morose introspection and self-analysis, with his earliest views of life darkened and distorted by a grave personal catastrophe.

Then comes a great love, and the man is taken out of himself, and from being astringent and disdainful he becomes amiable and optimistic. His thought-centre is shifted from himself to Maud, and the result is a moral alteration.

A great happiness heals his wounded spirit, and Nature and man appear to him in a new light. Nay, when this short-lived happiness is dashed to the ground and succeeded by desolation and insanity, the old state of things does not return.

Roused and strengthened by the love that saved him at the first, he retains his hold upon a vigorous life and sympathy with his kind, in the healing calm that comes from a patriotic unity with his countrymen in a great and unselfish purpose.

Maud was first published in 1855, shortly after the outbreak of the Crimean War. It was met by strong condemnation from the critics, who called it a melodramatic story of suicide, murder, and foolishness, dished up for popular applause with fervent diatribe on the vices of the English nation, and hogwash appeals to the war-feeling of the day.

But in reality Maud is Tennyson's greatest and most indisputable production of any length.

[Imogen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn’t know what was happening here. There was so much going on and it was all quite random that I just couldn’t figure out if it was happening or if it was a figment of the speaker’s imagination. I often read things over and over to try to work it out but alas, it couldn’t be done.

I think the overall writing style was very interesting, the change in formats was engaging and helped to switch up the pace. The main character’s descent into madness was also interestingly done, but again I wasn’t too sure if it was actually happening or not. Whilst I’m sure this was an artistic choice, it did make it really hard for me to be engaged within the story or care about any of the characters. This lack of logic and general confusion is why I disliked this piece, which is a shame because from what I could work out, it brought up some very important topics that I know I would have loved a conversation about.

[Clairewalks · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poems, especially part XXII. “There has fallen a splendid tear/ from the passion flower at the gate./ she is coming my dove, my dear;/ she is coming, my life, my fate…”
I have the red and white roses tattooed, one weeping, one not. I will forever turn to this poem when I need to feel something.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

the guilty pleasure of classics

[emilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark and delicious and just as deranged as Robert Browning but without being incomprehensible.

[Jessica Ecclestone · Rating 3 out of 5]

compelling story of obsession and self depreciation but it’s very hard to understand

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:
Joseph Millson reads Alfred, Lord Tennyson's 1855 dark and lyrical poem Maud to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the poet's birth.