Charles Tennyson Turner

Rev. Charles Tennyson Turner (July 4, 1808 - April 25, 1879) was an English poet and cleric.

Charles Tennyson Turner (1808-1879)

Life

Overview

Tennyson Turner, elder brother of Alfred Tennyson, was educated at Cambridge, entered the Church, and became vicar of Grasby, Lincolnshire. The name of Turner he assumed in conformity with the will of a relation. He contributed to Poems by Two Brothers, and was the author of 340 sonnets, which were greatly admired by such critics as Coleridge, Palgrave, and his brother Alfred.

Youth and education

Turner was born Charles Tennyson at Somersby, Lincolnshire, the 2nd son of Elizabeth (Fytche) and Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, the rector of Somersby. He was the younger brother of Frederick Tennyson (also a poet), and an elder brother of the future Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He was educated at the grammar school of Louth, and afterwards at home under his father's tuition.

He gave proof of the poetic faculty he shared with so many of his family by joint authorship with his brother Alfred of the Poems by Two Brothers, published anonymously by them in 1827.

He matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, on the same day as his brother Alfred, 20 February 1828. There he won the ‘Bell scholarship’ (open to the sons of clergymen) in 1829. He earned a B.A. in 1832.

Career

He changed his surname to "Turner" on succeeding to a small property by the death of a great-uncle, Samuel Turner of Caistor.

He was ordained in 1835 to the curacy of Tealby, Lincolnshire, and after about 2 years was appointed vicar of Grasby, Lincolnshire. In 1836 he married Louisa Sellwood, the youngest sister of the lady who later became the wife of his brother Alfred. They had no children.

His nephew Hallam (the 2nd Lord Tennyson), writing of his uncle after his death, tells of the charm of his personality, his fondness for flowers and for dogs and horses, and all living things, and his sweetness and gentleness of character.

In later life his health compelled the resignation of his living, and he died at Cheltenham on 25 April 1879. His wife survived him less than a month.

Writing

As early as 1830 Turner had published a small volume of some 50 sonnets, which attracted the attention of the discerning few – among them, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who made some extant notes and criticisms upon them, showing a genuine appreciation. The poet did not again appeal to the public until 1864, when a further collection of nearly 100 sonnets was published, dedicated to his brother Alfred. Subsequent volumes appeared in 1868 and 1873.

In 1880, after his death, the whole of the foregoing were reissued in a single volume, with additions, under the title of Collected Sonnets: Old and new, with a brief biographical sketch by his nephew Hallam, a prefatory poem by his brother Alfred, and a critical introduction by James Spedding. This volume contains in all nearly 350 sonnets, and half a dozen short lyrics in other forms.

Like the only other master of the sonnet with whom he can be compared, Wordsworth, he wrote, or rather printed, too many for his fame. Some are on topics such as the questions at issue between orthodoxy and scepticism, which are wholly unfitted for declamatory treatment in the sonnet form, while others are of inadequate interest or workmanship. But when all deductions are made there remains a considerable body of sonnets of rare distinction for delicate and spiritual beauty, combined with real imagination. Alfred Tennyson reckoned some among the finest in the language, and the judgment of the best critics will coincide.

Evaluation of Charles Turner's poetry inevitably invites comparison to his more famous brother, Alfred. Says the Dictionary of Literary Biography: "Their upbringing was the same; both were serious writers. Charles concentrated on one genre and earned the admiration of a few, while Alfred explored all sorts of poetic forms and became the most famous writer of the Victorian age."

Recognition

His sonnet "Letty's Globe" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems by Two Brothers (with Alfred Tennyson). London, W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1827; London & New York: Macmillan, 1893.
• Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces (as "Charles Tennyson"). Cambridge, UK: B. Bridges, 1830.
• Sonnets (as "Charles Turner"). London & Cambridge, UK: Macmillan, 1864.
• Small Tableaux (as "Charles Turner"). London: Macmillan, 1868.
• Sonnets, Lyrics, and Translations (as "Charles Turner"). London: Henry S. King, 1873.
• Collected Sonnets: Old and new (edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson). London: C. Kegan Paul, 1880; Westmead, UK: Gregg International, 1971.
• Charles Tennyson Turner. London: Ernest Benn (Augustan Poets' Series), 1931.
• A Hundred Sonnets (edited by Charles Betjeman). London: London Hart-Davis, 1960.
• Collected Sonnets (edited by Marjorie Pinion & F.B. Pinion). New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.

Non-fiction

• Cambridge From Within (as "Charles Tennyson"). Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs, 1913.
• Alfred Tennyson: An annotated biography (edited by Christine Fell). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1967.

To the Gossamer Light by Charles Tennyson Turner

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets
• Timeline of British poetry

References

•  Ainger, Alfred (1899) "Turner, Charles Tennyson" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 57 London: Smith, Elder, p. 332  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 6, 2017.

External links

Poems

• "The First Week in October"
• "Letty's Globe"
• Charles Tennyson Turner at PoemHunter (4 poems)
• Tennyson Turner in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "A Lion's Skeleton," "The Vacant Cage," "The Lachrymatory," "The Buoy-Bell," "The Forest Glade," "The Lattice at Sunrise," "The Rookery," "Orion," "To the Gossamer-Light," "Letty's Globe," "Her First-Born"
• Charles Tennyson Turner (1808-1879) at Sonnet Central
• Charles Tennyson Turner at AllPoetry (11 poems)
• Turner, Charles (Tennyson) (1808-1879) (16 poems) at Representative Poetry Online
• Charles Tennyson Turner at Poetry Nook (318 poems)

Books

• Charles Tennyson Turner at Internet Archive
• Charles Tennyson Turner at Amazon.com

About

• Charles Tennyson in the Cambridge History of English and American Literature
• Tennyson and his brothers, Frederick and Charles

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: Turner, Charles Tennyson