Description:
Alfred Tennyson'S poetical career, extending over sixty-five years between first and last volumes—from Poems by Two Brothers in 1827 to his posthumous volume published three weeks after his death in 1892—is punctuated not only by recurrent themes but also by the reworking of old manuscripts and his well-known revision of published texts. His revision and expansion of 110 lines beginning “Oh! that ‘twere possible” published in The Tribute in 1837 resulted in 1855 in the much longer Maud, in which the earlier lyric, now beginning “O that ‘twere possible,” is Part II, Section iv. This lyric is interesting as the nucleus around which Maud developed and also because of its affinities with In Memoriam.