Re-memoriam Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A literary and cultural analysis of Tennyson and his spectres

Lee, Morgan 2025. Re-memoriam Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A literary and cultural analysis of Tennyson and his spectres. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the famed Poet Laureate of the Victorian era, found himself haunted throughout his career. In the words of Cecil Y. Lang, ‘no great writer has been more fortunate in the death of others than Tennyson was’ and even Tennyson’s contemporaries described his verses as ‘haunting’. This assertion that Tennyson’s work is haunted or haunting is one that is often assumed by critics or readers, particularly surrounding In Memoriam A.H.H., but this thesis argues that the broader Tennysonian canon is occupied with spectres. I argue that Tennyson viewed himself as a kind of medium for the dead, enabling their voices to return through his allusions to both the literary and the literal past. Homer, William Shakespeare and Sir Thomas Malory’s voices re-appear through Tennyson’s engagements with their works, but Tennyson also seeks to communicate with and re-manifest the literal dead by invoking the return of his dear dead friend, Arthur Henry Hallam and his son, Lionel Tennyson. Using spectral theorists including Jacques Derrida, Maria del Pilar Blanco, Ester Peeren and Julian Wolfreys, I examine three dimensions of Tennyson’s poetry: the figure of the spectre; his intertextual dialogues with literary predecessors; and his own spectral legacy at the fin de siècle. The thesis analyses how Tennyson’s work is haunted by its intertextuality − and, secondarily, its intermediality − particularly in poems based on Shakespearean, Classical and Arthurian subjects. It examines how it is haunted not just by the past, but Tennyson’s own present, showing how the poet’s contemporary moment, and his own personal losses, re-appear as spectres within the language and subjects of his texts. The thesis concludes by examining Tennyson’s posthumous transformation into a cultural spectre, as evidenced both in Hallam Tennyson’s memoir of his father and visual representations of the Laureate’s death and funeral in illustrated newspapers.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	8 April 2026
Date of Acceptance:	September 2025
Last Modified:	08 Apr 2026 14:54
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186247

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