Tennyson : Notebook 'XXXII'

Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892

Tennyson

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This notebook is identical to the notebook in which Tennyson composed Maud (T36). Sixteen leaves are all that remain after the excision of 146 leaves, and these sixteen leaves bear mostly early or heavily revised drafts of poems. 'Boadicea' appears here, perhaps in its earliest form, as does 'The Brook'. These and other drafts show Tennyson piecing poems together from disconnected fragments. An untitled fragment on folio 12 may he a draft of a passage that was discarded from 'Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington' (published 1852), and this, if true, would suggest a very early date for the composition of these poems—1851 or 1852 (see 'Boadicea', folios 3v-6, below).</p>