Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Queen Victoria was a huge fan of In Memoriam (and Tennyson in general). She went so far as to have a meaningfully-marked-up version of the poem, and professed that it helped soothe her grief after her husband, Prince Albert, died.
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Arthur Henry Hallam was not only Tennyson's dear friend, but also a fellow poet. He was supposed to marry Tennyson's sister, Emily.
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Tennyson was a true poetry prodigy. He started writing when he was only 8, and by the time he was 12 he was plodding away on a 6,000-line epic poem. Even as a child he was warming up for the behemoth In Memoriam.
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