Life Lived Quickly: Tennyson’s Friend Arthur Hallam & His Legend

Arthur Hallam’s early death was the subject of Tennyson’s celebrated poem In Memoriam. As a result of its popularity, Hallam became a legendary figure, very much accepted on Tennyson’s terms as being almost divinely gifted and of immense promise. While this representation of Hallam has remained generally accepted, A Life Lived Quickly’ seeks both to supplement and challenge it, offering a more detailed and objective portrait of the man. That Hallam has a difficult relationship with his father (himself a famous literary figure), suffered a mental breakdown during his first year at Cambridge, and pursued an extremely fraught love affair with Tennyson’s sister in the face of opposition from both families, are important but largely unknown aspects of his life. The author also repudiates the often-made suggestion that Hallam and Tennyson may have had a homosexual relationship. As well as examining Hallam’s published writings, the book makes liberal use of his letters, of which a collected edition has been in existence since 1981, and includes treatments of hitherto unpublished poems and more recently discovered letters. Apart from presenting Arthur Hallam as a complex and interesting character in his own right, the book offers insight into the literary culture of early nineteenth-century England. In devoting attention to Hallam’s time at Eton and Cambridge, the book also deals in detail with the experience of being educated in those unreformed institutions.