# Tennysoniana/Chapter 4

IN MEMORIAM AND SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.
CHAPTER IV.
IN MEMORIAM AND SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.
It is a remarkable fact that throughout the poems of Tennyson, Shakespeare is mentioned no fewer than six times. First, he is placed among the "choice paintings of wise men" in "The Palace of Art," as—
"Shakespeare bland and mild."
Second, his epitaph is quoted as a motto to those stanzas, full of burning indignation, on the poet's fate, in which occur the lines—
Third, in the opening stanza of the lines entitled "The New Timon and the Poets"—
Fourth, in the Prologue to "The Princess"—
Fifth, in the Sonnet addressed to Macready on his retirement from the stage in 1851:
And sixth and last Shakespeare is mentioned in the ​stanza of "In Memoriam" quoted above, which leads me to the subject of the present paper.
"In Memoriam" has often been compared with Shakespeare's Sonnets and with "Lycidas;" but the lines that stand at the head of this paper always seemed to me to point to a closer relation with Shakespeare than has yet been noticed. The transcendent love for a beautiful soul, "passing the love of women," of which the soul of Shakespeare was capable, is hinted at, and the poet declares that even this love cannot surpass his for his friend. The allusion appeared to indicate a deep and probably recent study of the Sonnets of Shakespeare.
On examining these poems anew, which I did with great minuteness and attention, I found my supposition fully corroborated. I discovered a large number of coincidences of idea and even of expression not exactly to be called imitations, and still less plagiarisms, in the later, but which seemed to me to prove that his mind was at the time so imbued with the spirit of the elder poet as to render some unconscious echoes almost unavoidable.
The most important of these parallel passages I will ​now proceed to lay before the reader, leaving him to verify them and to draw his own conclusions on the matter.
Shakespeare.
Tennyson.
Compare this Sonnet with "In Memoriam" lxxv.-lxxvii.
Shakespeare.
TENNYSON.
Shakespeare.
Tennyson.
Shakespeare.
Tennyson.
Shakespeare.
Tennyson.
Compare this 87th Sonnet with "In Memoriam," LXII.
Shakespeare.
Tennyson.
Shakespeare.
Tennyson.
​And yet the resemblance lies more in the whole tenour and spirit of the poems than in any particular passages, and I recommend the reader to consider those I have here brought together with the two books open before him, and see if he cannot trace out other points of similarity for himself.
IN MEMORIAM.
Readings of the First Edition (1850).
The Section which now stands as xxxix. (" Old warder of these buried bones") was added in the pocket-volume edition.
The Section which now stands as lix. ("O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me?") was added in the fourth edition, 1851.
* ↑ Not counting the quotation from "Measure for Measure," prefixed to the poem of "Mariana," in the volume of 1830. Arthur Hallam speaks of this poem as "last, but, oh, not least—we swear by the memory of Shakespeare, to whom a monument of observant love has here been raised by simply expanding all the latent meanings and beauties contained in one stray thought of his genius."—Englishman's Magazine, ubi suprà.
* ↑ This third line, however, originally stood thus: "My curse upon the clown and knave."
* ↑ lxi. 3.
* ↑ It is remarkable that this section immediately follows the stanza quoted at the head of this chapter.
* ↑ "In Memoriam." London: Edward Moxon, 1850. The Introductory Stanzas are dated 1849. After which comes the following inscription: "In Memoriam A. H. H., Obiit MDCCCXXXIII."
* ↑ Probably a misprint. It is corrected in the second edition.
* ↑ This is presumably a misprint, and is corrected in the second edition to "bareness."
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