Audiobook · read by volunteers
In Memoriam A.H.H.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
Read by Elizabeth Klett · 8 chapters · 2 h 29
About the book
When the young poet Arthur Henry Hallam died suddenly in 1833, at the age of twenty-two, his close friend Alfred Tennyson was left with a grief that took years to absorb. In Memoriam A.H.H. is the long poem he wrote over seventeen years in response, a series of short, linked lyrics that follow the slow movement from despair towards acceptance. Doubt, faith, memory and nature all pass through its pages, and the changing seasons mark the passage of time. It was one of the most popular poems of the Victorian age, and even Queen Victoria found comfort in it after the death of her husband. Elizabeth Klett reads the full text in eight sections, including the introduction, over about two and a half hours. It is a deeply human work, and hearing it aloud lets its patient, wave-like music take hold.
Introduction
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was the leading English poet of the Victorian era and became Poet Laureate in the middle of the century. In Memoriam A.H.H. is generally counted among his finest achievements. It was written in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, a close friend who died in 1833 at the age of twenty-two, and Tennyson worked on it for about seventeen years, composing the sections gradually as a chronicle of his own mourning.
The poem is made up of a prologue, an epilogue and a great number of short lyrics, all in the same stanza form, in which the second and third lines are enclosed by rhymes in the first and fourth. Its subject is bereavement, but it widens out to consider the larger questions that grief provokes: what survives death, how faith holds up under doubt, and what the scientific discoveries of the age might mean for human hope. Tennyson was aware of recent work on geology and the history of life, and some of the best-known passages in the poem respond to it. Its lines about having loved and lost became part of the common stock of English quotation.
The poem became a favourite of Queen Victoria when she was grieving for her husband and was one of the most popular and artistically influential works of the period. This LibriVox recording is read by Elizabeth Klett. It lasts about two and a half hours and is divided into eight files: an introduction and groups of verses, such as sections 1 to 20 and 21 to 40. Heard aloud, the poem's steady rhythm gives it a quality close to prayer or music. It rewards patient listening, and it remains a profound companion for anyone who has known loss.
Public domain
Alfred, Lord Tennyson died in 1892: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text