Lord Alfred Tennyson's Gout

Lord Alfred Tennyson was born August 5th 1809 and died October 6th 1892.

His most famous poem is The Charge of the Light Brigade (Into the valley of death ....)

Life and Works

Lord Alfred Tennyson is reported in several places to have died "probably of gout", but although this may have been a contributory factor, NNDB cites influenza.

They also note that "Late in 1888 he had a dangerous attack of rheumatic gout, from which it seemed in December that he could scarcely hope to rally, but his magnificent constitution pulled him through."

Tennyson mentions gout in a number of his works:

Lucretius

"ay, and gout and stone, 

 that break body towards death"

Amphion

'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,

    Such happy intonation, 

Wherever he sat down and sung

    He left a small plantation; 

Wherever in a lonely grove

    He set up his forlorn pipes, 

The gouty oak began to move,

    And flounder into hornpipes.

Columbus

"but you will tell the King, that I,

Rack’d as I am with gout, and wrench’d with pains

Gain’d in the service of His Highness, yet

Am ready to sail forth on one last voyager"

Break, Break, Break...

In Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, his son, Lord Hallam Tennyson, wrote

"When the volumes of 1842 were published, and the world read for the first time Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Day-Dream, The Two Voices, The Gardener’s Daughter, Sir Galahad, The Vision of Sin,and “Break, break, break,” — which Lord Tennyson tells us was made “between blossoming hedges in a Lincolnshire lane, at five o’olock in the morning,” — it was at once seen that a new poet had appeared."

The blossoming hedges of Lincolnshire contrast sharply with the tone of the poem, written in memory of the Lord Alfred Tennyson's friend, Arthur Hallam, who died in 1833.

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.


O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!

O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!


And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still!


Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

This poem inspired a GoutPal reader, JIM from London, to write the heartfelt Ache, Ache, Ache.

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