Alfred Tennyson, Enoch Arden Etc

Marion Shaw (University of Loughborough)
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Tennyson originally gave the title of

Idylls of the Hearth

to the volume he published in August 1864 as

Enoch Arden etc.

By this time he was famous:

In Memoriam

(1850) had brought him critical and popular acclaim and the laureateship;

Maud

(1855), though more equivocally received, had also sold well, and the first four books of what would become

Idylls of the King

were resoundingly successful when they were published in 1859. But the success of

Enoch Arden etc

was phenomenal: seventeen thousand copies were sold on the day of publication and sixty thousand by the end of the year. There were some objections to the subject matter and the style of some of the poems but overall it captured the mood of the age.

Tennyson’s first title, Idylls of the Hearth, expressed an intention of portraying

2500 words

Citation: Shaw, Marion. "Enoch Arden Etc". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5354, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5354 Enoch Arden Etc 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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