The Princess (Tennyson poem)

Tennyson planned the poem in the late 1830s after discussing the idea with Emily Sellwood, whom he later married in 1850. It seems to have been a response to criticism that he was not writing about serious issues. It was also a response, in part, to the founding of Queen's College, London, Britain's first college for women, in 1847.[1][lower-alpha 2] Two of Tennyson's friends were part-time professors there.[1] Other critics speculate that the poem was partly inspired by the opening of Love's Labour's Lost and other literary works.[2][3] Janet Ross, the daughter of Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon recalled that "[Tennyson] told my mother that he had her in mind when he wrote The Princess. I don't think she was as much flattered as many of his admirers would have been".[4]

Tennyson is reported as saying, in the 1840s, that "the two great social questions impending in England were 'the education of the poor man before making him our master, and the higher education of women'."[5] The women's rights movement, including the right to higher education, was still at an early stage in 1847.[6] In Britain, the first university-level women's school, Girton College, Cambridge, was not opened until 1869,[7] more than two decades after Tennyson wrote The Princess.[lower-alpha 3] In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), however, Mary Wollstonecraft had been an early advocate of the equality of men and women,[6] and writers such as John Stuart Mill had argued for female emancipation.[7] Nevertheless, "Tennyson was in the vanguard in writing of the subject[lower-alpha 4] and although critics have rightly complained about the conservative ending of his poem, he must be credited with broaching the topic and voicing some of the injustices women suffered."[2][6] In The Princess, "Tennyson describes with such clarity the principal problems of feminism".[8]

As in the case of many other Tennyson poems, The Princess is framed by a prologue and a conclusion outside of the main narrative.[6] The description of a summer fête that opens the poem is based on a feast of the Mechanics' Institute at a country house, Park House, near Maidstone, in 1842. The narrative device is a tale of fancy composed in turn by some university undergraduates, based on an old chronicle.[9] Though the poem was moderately successful, Tennyson wrote to a friend, saying "I hate it and so will you". He revised the work after its first publication. Some of the best-known lyrics, including "The splendour falls on castle walls" were added for the third edition (1850).[9]

As with many of Tennyson's works, The Princess has an outer setting to the main narrative, consisting of a Prologue and a Conclusion that take place at a Victorian-era summer fête. The characters in the Prologue agree to participate in a storytelling game about a heroic princess in days of old, based on an ancient family chronicle. The main narrative follows, given in seven lengthy "Cantos", with the prince as narrator.

The prince seeks Princess Ida

"O marvellously modest maiden, you" – 1890 illustration

In the main narrative, a prince has been betrothed since infancy to a princess, Ida, from a neighbouring land. The princess has grown to become beautiful and accomplished and has founded a university of maidens in a remote retreat. Her father, King Gama, explains that she refuses to have anything to do with the world of men and is influenced by other women, Lady Blanche and Lady Psyche, who have all resolved never to wed a man. The prince and two friends, Cyril and Florian, decide to infiltrate the university to try to win the princess's return. They disguise themselves as women and ride into the university asking to enroll as students. Florian is Lady Psyche's brother and hopes to influence her.

The "new students" are taken to see the princess, who tells them that they must "cast and fling the tricks, which make us toys of men", so that they may become equal with men. The men are impressed by the princess and debate the merits of women's equality. They move around the university, listening and learning. Their tutors, Lady Psyche and Lady Blanche, discover the men's subterfuge, but hide their knowledge for reasons of their own. Blanche and Psyche are intellectual and political rivals at the university, and Blanche vows to force Psyche out.

The Princess has divided opinion about where Tennyson's sympathies lay. The poet's son Hallam wrote that his father held that "the sooner woman finds out, before the great educational movement begins, that 'woman is not undevelopt man, but diverse', the better it will be for the progress of the world."[10] The cool reception of the piece "seems to have led Tennyson to revise the poem after publication more extensively than any of his others".[6] The early view that Tennyson was sympathetic to a progressive view of women's education but found it expedient to subordinate it to the dictates of Victorian society[11] led the poet to rebalance The Princess by adding the interlude songs in his 1850 revision: "I thought that the poem would explain itself, but the public did not see the drift."[12]

The songs, which relate to the contemporary world of Tennyson's time, are in contrast to the main narrative, which is male-oriented, with a mock-mediaeval setting. Thus, it can be argued, Tennyson balanced the anti-feminist message of the men's narrative with the practical progressiveness displayed in the women's songs.[13] Other critics conclude that the final message of the narrative is plain and anti-feminist.[14]

W. S. Gilbert, perhaps attracted by Tennyson's serio-comic treatment of the subject of women's education,[15] adapted and parodied the poem twice. First, in 1870, he produced a musical farce called The Princess.[16] Later, in 1884, he adapted his farce into a comic opera with composer Arthur Sullivan entitled Princess Ida, which is still performed regularly today.

Other musical works inspired by the poem include a setting of "As Through the Land" composed by the poet Edward Lear in his lesser-known capacity as a composer.[17] Both Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frank Bridge composed settings for the "Tears, Idle Tears" section of The Princess.[lower-alpha 5] Gustav Holst set "Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead."[18] In addition, Holst wrote a set of five songs for female voices based on Tennyson's work including "Sweet and Low", "The Splendour Falls", "Tears, Idle Tears", "O Swallow, Swallow" and "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" while he was teaching at a girls' school in South London.[19] Among later musical works inspired by The Princess are Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, which includes a setting of "The splendour falls",[20] and a setting of "Ask me no more" by Ned Rorem.[21]

John Melhuish Strudwick's painting Oh Swallow, Swallow is based on this poem.

Single LOST by ASC feat. Tom Hiddleston released April 17, 2019, East Records.[22]

• Clapp-Itnyre, Alisa (Summer 2000). "Marginalized Musical Interludes: Tennyson's Critique of Conventionality in The Princess". Victorian Poetry. West Virginia University Press. 38 (2): 227–48. doi:10.1353/vp.2000.0013. S2CID 162274506.
• Cockburn, J.S.; King, H.P.F.; McDonnell, K.G.T, eds. (1969). "Schools: Queen's College, Harley Street". A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1, Physique, Archaeology, Domesday, Ecclesiastical Organization, the Jews, Religious Houses, Education of Working Classes To 1870, Private Education From Sixteenth Century. London: Victoria County History.
• Drabble, Margaret, ed. (2000). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press.
• Howarth, Paul, ed. (19 November 2009). "The Princess by W.S. Gilbert". The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. Archived from the original on 19 September 2011.
• Lang, Andrew (1904). "Chapter IV – 1842–1848 — The Princess". Alfred Tennyson. W. Blackwood and sons.
• Lear, Edward (1859). Poems and Songs by Alfred Tennyson, set to music and inscribed to Mrs Alfred Tennyson. London: Cramer, Beale & Company.
• Lefkowitz, Mary R. (2007). Women in Greek Myth. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-8650-8.
• Mack, Beverly B.; Strobel, Heidi A. (2008). "Scholars and Scholarship". In Smith, Bonnie G. (ed.). Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History'. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514890-9.
• McCann, Bill (24 November 1997). "Introduction to Tennyson's The Princess". The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. Archived from the original on 8 June 2011.
• Ross, Janet (1912). The fourth generation; reminiscences by Janet Ross (4th impression ed.). London: Constable and company.
• Scott, Patrick (September–November 1992). Island 2: Tennyson, Interpreter of Mid-Victorian Britain. Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina — exhibit on Tennyson's works including The Princess.
• Shaw, Marion (6 June 2003). "The Princess". The Literary Encyclopedia. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
• Tennyson, Hallam, ed. (2005). Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son. Kessinger Publishing.
• Tucker, Herbert F. (ed. and foreword) (Spring 2009). "Tennyson at Two Hundred". Victorian Poetry. West Virginia University Press.
• Zimmerman, Virginia (2008). Excavating Victorians. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791479230.

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Princess (poem).

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The Princess (Tennyson)

• Comparison of Tennyson's poem, The Princess, with Princess Ida
• The Princess public domain audiobook at LibriVox