Beschreibung:

TENNYSON, Alfred, 1st Baron (1809-1892) -- MILTON, John (1608-1674). The Poetical Works , revised from the text of Thomas Newton. London: George Routledge, 1866. 8° (169 x 101mm). 8 wood-engraved plates. Original green cloth (inner hinges split), green cloth case. Provenance : Alfred Tennyson (with his annotations to Paradise Lost in ink, pencil and pencil over-written in ink, many passages and also individual phrases or words marked by underlining and scoring, further notes on front endpapers) -- Hallam Tennyson (ink signature on verso of front free endpaper and inscription in pencil: 'My father's favourite passages marked with remarks by him') -- purchased from William Robinson London, 9 December 1938, £5. TENNYSON'S ANNOTATED COPY OF MILTON'S EPIC POEM, ALSO NOTING HIS VIEW OF SHELLEY on front free endpaper. Hallam Tennyson records being given a 'talk' by his father on Paradise Lost when a schoolboy at Marlborough, the substance of which he records in the appendix to his biography (II, pp. 518-523). He left for his first term at Marlborough on 20 January 1866 which is, significantly, the year this edition was published. Some of the remarks which are recorded in Hallam's appendix correspond so exactly with his father's annotations to justify a description of the latter as an undisclosed aide-memoire . Though not all the recorded remarks appear as annotations, and equally Hallam has made omissions. Many passages are marked 'fine,' or scored with epithets such as 'lovely,' 'splendid,' 'mighty language.' In Bk I, against Heaven's plan to let Satan 'Heap on himself damnation,' Tennyson writes: 'I hope most of us have a higher idea in these modern times of the Almighty than this' (l. 215). The phrase 'Pendent by subtle magic' (l. 727) draws the comment, 'I always like this, it is so mystical.' Both reflections are recorded in Hallam Tennyson's appendix. But not the comment on ll. 162-165, where Satan vows to oppose God by bringing forth evil from good. Here Tennyson defines one source of social evil as: '(the charters coming from the wretched Angevin kings & the Georges).' His view that, in the closing lines of Book I, Milton's poem 'rises to heights of sublimity' is also omitted by Hallam. Above the line 'over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive (II, 409), describing Satan's journey, Tennyson writes: 'Arrive at last the blesséd goal In Memoriam 83,' perhaps a suggestion that a long journey's end is a common point of dramatic climax in the two poems. Hallam makes no mention of this nor of Tennyson's observation that Satan's abilities as a monarch (II, 467) show 'Milton a diplomatist.' But Tennyson's other notes on Bk II, ll. 129-145 ('enormous pauses'), 612-628 ('Milton's vague Hell much more awful than Dante's marked off Hell'), 635-643 (with their 'vast' simile), and 647-657 (Milton's picture of sin -- 'beautiful at first; hideous aftewards') are recorded. A number of obsolete or unfamiliar words in Bk III are explained. In Bk IV, Tennyson's observations on ll. 156-157 now being a commonplace of style are in the appendix, as is his dislike of Milton's lines about 'the spouse of Tobit's son' (169-170: 'Beastly! I hate this!).' The line 'At one slight bound high overleaped all bound' (181) is 'A poor pun.' The simile of Satan as the 'first grand thief' climbing 'into God's fold' (IV, ll. 189-192) is one which Tennyson says 'I do not object to as some do.' Both comments are unrecorded, as is Tennyson's pleasure in the four lines describing the 'youthful dalliance' of Adam and Eve (337-340): 'Beautiful picture,' he writes. The scored passage on the flowers of Paradise and 'Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm' (ll. 241-256) is one which Hallam recalls being quoted to him. While Tennyson's admiration for the lines 'in the ascending scale Of Heaven, the stars that usher evening rose' (354-355) is also noted in the appendix, it is evocative to see these lines inscribed in his hand on the front endpaper of this volume. T