Arthur Hallam

Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-1833). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Arthur Henry Hallam (1 February 1811 - 15 September 1833) was an English poet, best known as the subject of a major long poem, In Memoriam A.H.H., by his best friend, poet Alfred Tennyson. Hallam has been described as the jeune homme fatal ("fatal young man") of his generation.

Life

Youth and education

Hallam was the only son of Julia Elton, daughter of Sir Abraham Elton and sister of Sir Charles Abraham Elton, and historian Henry Hallam John Hallam, canon of Windsor (1775–1812) and dean of Bristol (1781–1800). The son was born in Bedford Place, London, on 1 February 1811.

He showed a sweet disposition, a marked thoughtfulness, and a great power of learning from his earliest years. In a visit to Germany and Switzerland in 1818 he mastered French and forgot Latin. A year later he was able to read Latin easily, took to dramatic literature, and wrote infantile tragedies.

He was placed under Rev. W. Carmalt at Putney, and after 2 years became a pupil of E.C. Hawtrey, then assistant-master at Eton. Though fairly successful in his school tasks, he devoted himself chiefly to more congenial studies, becoming thoroughly familiar with the early English dramatists and poets. He wrote essays for the school debating societies, showing an increasing interest in philosophical and political questions. He contributed some papers to the Eton Miscellany in the early part of 1827.

In the following summer of 1828 he left Eton, and passed 8 months with his parents in Italy. He became so good an Italian scholar as to write sonnets in the language, warmly praised by Panizzi as superior to anything which could have been expected from a foreigner. He was much interested in art, and especially loved the early Italian and German schools.

Returning to England in June 1828, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pupil of Whewell in the following October. He disliked mathematics, and had not received the exact training necessary for success in classical examination. His memory for dates, facts, and even poetry was not strong. He won the 1st declamation prize at his college in 1831 for an essay upon the conduct of the Independent party during the civil war, and in the following Christmas delivered the customary oration, his subject being the influence of Italian upon English literature. He had won another prize for an essay upon the philosophical writings of Cicero. (The last two appear in his ‘Remains.’) At Cambridge he formed the friendship with Tennyson made memorable by the In Memoriam (issued in 1850). He left Cambridge after graduating in 1832,

In 1832 he entered the Inner Temple, living in his father's house. He took an interest in legal studies, and entered the chambers of a conveyancer, Mr. Walters of Lincoln's Inn. His health had improved, after some symptoms of deranged circulation. In 1833 he travelled with his father to Germany. While staying at Vienna he died instantaneously on 15 September 1833, from a rush of blood to the head, due to a weakness of the heart and the cerebral vessels.

He was buried on 3 January 1834, in the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, belonging to his maternal grandfather.

Writing

A touching memoir written by his father was privately printed in 1834, with a collection of remains. They go far to justify the anticipations cherished by his illustrious friends. After a schoolboy admiration for Byron, he had become a disciple of Keats, of Shelley, whose influence is very marked, and finally of Wordsworth, whom he might have rivalled as a philosophical poet.

He was, however, diverging from poetry to metaphysics, and looking up to Coleridge as a master. His powers of thought are shown in the essay upon Cicero, while his remarkable knowledge of Dante is displayed in an able criticism of Professor Rossetti's Disquisizione sullo spirito antipapale, chiefly intended as a protest against the hidden meaning found in Dante's writings by Rossetti. Hallam had begun to translate the Vita Nuova. A criticism (originally published in the Englishman's Magazine, 1831) of Tennyson's debut poems is also noteworthy for its sound judgment and exposition of critical principles.

Tennyson said: "He would have been known, if he had lived, as a great man but not as a great poet; he was as near perfection as mortal man could be.".

Gladstone hoped "that some part of what Hallam has written may be [...] put into a more durable form [...] his letters I think are worthy of permanent preservation." Hallam’s father collected together many of his son’s writings - excluding his letters and poems he thought unsuitable - and published them privately: Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam (1834). On being asked by Henry Hallam to contribute to an introduction, Tennyson replied: "I attempted to draw a memoir of his life and character, but I failed to do him justice. I failed even to please myself. I could scarcely have pleased you.

Recognition

Tennyson named his elder son "Hallam Tennyson" after his late friend. Emilia Tennyson also named her elder son " Arthur Henry Hallam".

That Hallam's death was a significant influence on Tennyson's poetry is clear. Tennyson dedicated 1 of his greatest poems to Hallam (In Memoriam A.H.H.), and stated that the dramatic monologue Ulysses was "more written with the feeling of his [Hallam's] loss upon me than many poems in [the publication] In Memoriam". Francis Palgrave dedicated to Tennyson his Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics (1861), declaring in the Preface that "It would have been hence a peculiar pleasure and pride to dedicate what I have endeavored to make a true national Anthology of three centuries to Henry Hallam". It can be argued that some of Tennyson's other works are linked to Hallam, for example "Mariana" and "The Lady of Shallot."

Publications

• The Poems of Arthur Henry Hallam: Together with his essay on the lyrical poems of Alfred Tennyson (edited by Richard Le Gallienne). London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane / London & New York: Macmillan, 1893.

See also

• List of British poets

References

• Blocksidge, Martin, A life lived quickly: Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam and his legend , Sussex Academic Press, 2010 ISBN 978-1-84519-418-5
• Jenkins, R. (1995). Gladstone. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-66209-1.  pp. 16-18.
• Kolb, J. The Letters of Arthur Henry Hallam. Ohio State University Press, 1981.
• Lang, C.Y. and Shannon Jr. The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson 1982 Clarendon Press Oxford
• Martin, R.B. Tennyson; The Unquiet Heart 1983 Clarendon Press Oxford 0571118429
• Ricks, C. Tennyson, Macmillan, London, 1972 0333486552
•  Stephen, Leslie (1890) "Hallam, Henry" in Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 24 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 96-99  Wikisource, Web, June 6, 2020.

External links

Poems

• "Written in Edinburgh" in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895
• Arthur Henry Hallam at PoemHunter ("O Poetry, O Rarest Spirit of All")

Books

• Arthur Henry Hallam at Amazon.com

About

• Arthur Henry Hallam at My Poetic Side
• Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-1833) at the Victorian Web
• Arthur Hallam at Find a Grave

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Hallam, Henry