http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/experiments-in-quantity-manuscript-poems-by-lord-alfred-tennyson

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'Experiments in Quantity', manuscript poems by Lord Alfred Tennyson

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The manuscript poems shown here, written in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s hand, are examples of Tennyson experimenting with classical forms of poetry.

The poem headed ‘Milton: Alcaics’ was written on the 16th November 1863 and published in the Cornhill Magazine in December. Alcaics were a form of verse invented in around 600 BC by the Greek lyric poet Alcaeus, with a distinctive prosody and stanza form, both of which Tennyson accurately mimics here. Unlike English poetry which is metrical (i.e. based on the patterning of stressed and unstressed syllables) Greek and Latin verse was quantitative (i.e. based not on stress, but rather based on the patterning of short and long vowels – for example the word ‘pain’ includes a long vowel while ‘pan’ has a short one). Tennyson experimented with different verse forms throughout his life – the Lincolnshire dialect poems ‘Northern Farmer: Old Style’ and ‘Northern Farmer: New Style’ being further examples of his experimentation in language, rhyme and format. 

‘Hendecasyllabics’ was written in the autumn of 1863 and is another example of such experimentation with form. Hendecasyllabics are verses in which the lines contain eleven syllables. The Greek lyric poet Sappho (630–612BC) and the Roman poet Catullus (84–54 BC) are particularly associated with hendecasyllabics. 

All of the poems shown here were published, with alterations, in the volume Enoch Arden, etc.in 1864.

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                                      Milton

                                           -

                                      Alcaics

                                           -

O mighty-mouth’d inventor of harmonies,

Equal ^ O skill’d  to sing of Time or Eternity,

            God-gifted organ-voice of England,

                        Milton, a name to resound for ages,

Whose Titan Angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,

Start^r’d  from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries,

            Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan

                        Rings to the roar of an angel onset -

Me rather all that bowery loneliness,

Those brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,

            And bloom profuse & cedar arches

                        Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,

Where some refulgent sunset of India

Streams Dims Dies ^ Streams  o’er a rich ambrosial * ocean isle,

            And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods

                        Whisper in odorous heights of Eden:  ^ even.

* Not to be read as a dactyl, but as a trochee &

long syllable, for the line is meant to be read

slowly.

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