Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Tennyson described 'In Memoriam' as ‘rather the cry of the whole human race than mine’, and the poem achieved widespread acclaim as soon as it was published in 1850, cited by Queen Victoria as her habitual reading after the death of Prince Albert. Its subject is the death in 1833 of Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam at the age of 22, and in its 131 sections it explores the possibilities of elegy more extensively than any English poem before it, not least in its innovative, incantatory rhyme scheme, intended to numb the pain of grief. From its repeated dramatisations of the experience of private loss, 'In Memoriam' opens out to reflect on the intellectual turmoil running through Victorian society amid monumental advances in scientific thought. In this episode, Seamus and Mark discuss the unique emotional power of Tennyson’s style, and why his great elegy came to represent what mourning, and poetry, should be in the public imagination of his time.
This is an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: lrb.me/applecryt
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsyt
ABOUT CLOSE READINGS
Close Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books which looks at different periods and themes in literature through selections of key texts, covering poetry, fiction, history and philosophy from Ancient Greece to the present day.
Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0K
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
lrb.me/audiobookscip
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
Tennyson described 'In Memoriam' as ‘rather the cry of the whole human race than mine’, and the poem achieved widespread acclaim as soon as it was published in 1850, cited by Queen Victoria as her habitual reading after the death of Prince Albert. Its subject is the death in 1833 of Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam at the age of 22, and in its 131 sections it explores the possibilities of elegy more extensively than any English poem before it, not least in its innovative, incantatory rhyme scheme, intended to numb the pain of grief. From its repeated dramatisations of the experience of private loss, 'In Memoriam' opens out to reflect on the intellectual turmoil running through Victorian society amid monumental advances in scientific thought. In this episode, Seamus and Mark discuss the unique emotional power of Tennyson’s style, and why his great elegy came to represent what mourning, and poetry, should be in the public imagination of his time.
This is an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: lrb.me/applecryt
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsyt
ABOUT CLOSE READINGS
Close Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books which looks at different periods and themes in literature through selections of key texts, covering poetry, fiction, history and philosophy from Ancient Greece to the present day.
Find more episodes here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT6dL0t3N1uwntdebUCvXl_JD7K9J8B0K
LRB AUDIOBOOKS
Discover audiobooks from the LRB, including Jonathan Rée's Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre:
lrb.me/audiobookscip
ABOUT THE LRB
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance.
As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.
