In Memoriam A. H. H. is a long poem by Alfred Tennyson published in 1850. Written over seventeen years after the sudden death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833, it moves through grief, doubt and the search for meaning to a measure of hope. It is one of the great elegies in English.
A long elegy
The poem is made of 131 sections, with a prologue and an epilogue, written in four-line stanzas rhyming ABBA, now called the In Memoriam stanza.
Tennyson did not plan it as a single poem: he wrote separate lyrics over many years, then arranged them in order.
Grief and doubt
The poem follows the poet through three Christmases after Hallam's death, from despair to slow acceptance.
It also reflects the scientific debates of the time: the discoveries of geology seemed to show a nature indifferent to individual lives.
Success
Published anonymously in 1850, the poem was a great success. The same year Tennyson married and became Poet Laureate after Wordsworth.
Queen Victoria said that, after the death of Prince Albert, she found comfort in reading it.
Anecdotes
Arthur Hallam
Hallam, a brilliant student Tennyson had met at Cambridge, was engaged to Tennyson's sister Emily. He died of a brain haemorrhage in Vienna at twenty-two.
Before Darwin
The poem's lines on nature red in tooth and claw were written years before Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and are often quoted in debates about evolution.
Frequently asked questions
Who was A. H. H.?
Arthur Henry Hallam, Tennyson's close friend.
When was the poem published?
In 1850.
What is the In Memoriam stanza?
A four-line stanza rhyming ABBA.