Arthur Hallam

Arthur Henry Hallam (1 February 1811 – 15 September 1833) was an English poet, best known as the subject of a major work, In Memoriam, by his close friend and fellow poet Alfred Tennyson. Hallam has been described as the jeune homme fatal (French for "deadly [seductive] young man") of his generation.

Early life and education Hallam was born in London, the son of the historian Henry Hallam. He attended school at Eton, where he met the future prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. Hallam was an important influence on Gladstone, introducing him to Whiggish ideas and people. Other friends included James Milnes Gaskell.

After leaving Eton in 1827 Hallam travelled on the continent with his family, and in Italy, he became inspired by its culture and fell in love with an English beauty, Anna Mildred Wintour, who inspired eleven of his poems.

In October 1828, Hallam went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he met and befriended Tennyson. As Christopher Ricks observes, "The friendship of Hallam and Tennyson was swift and deep".

Friendship with Tennyson Hallam and Tennyson became friends in April 1829. They both entered the Chancellor's Prize Poem Competition (which Tennyson won). Both joined the Cambridge Apostles (a private debating society), which met every Saturday night during term to discuss, over coffee and sardines on toast ("whales"), serious questions of religion, literature and society. (Hallam read a paper on "whether the poems of Shelley have an immoral tendency"; Tennyson was to speak on "Ghosts", but was, according to his son's Memoir, "too shy to deliver it" – only the Preface to the essay survives). Meetings of the Apostles were not always so intimidating: Desmond MacCarthy gave an account of Hallam and Tennyson at one meeting lying on the ground in order to laugh less painfully, when James Spedding imitated the sun going behind a cloud and coming out again.

During the Christmas holidays, Hallam visited Tennyson's home in Somersby, Lincolnshire; on 20 December he met and fell in love with Tennyson's eighteen-year-old sister, Emilia, who was seven months younger than Hallam.

Hallam spent the 1830 Easter holidays with Tennyson in Somersby and declared his love for Emilia. Hallam and Tennyson planned to publish a book of poems together: Hallam told Mrs Tennyson that he saw this "as a sort of seal of our friendship". In July Tennyson and Hallam travelled to the Rhine. In October Hallam entered the office of a conveyancer, Mr Walters, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. In December, thanks largely to Hallam's support and practical help, Tennyson's second volume of poetry was published.

Tennyson said: "He would have been known, if he had lived, as a great man but not as a great poet; he was as near perfection as mortal man could be."

Gladstone hoped "that some part of what Hallam has written may be[...] put into a more durable form[...] his letters I think are worthy of permanent preservation". Hallam's father collected together many of his son's writings – excluding his letters and poems he thought unsuitable – and published them privately: Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam (1834). On being asked by Henry Hallam to contribute to an introduction, Tennyson replied: "I attempted to draw a memoir of his life and character, but I failed to do him justice. I failed even to please myself. I could scarcely have pleased you."

Hallam is buried at St Andrew's Church, Clevedon, Somerset.

In Memoriam That Hallam's death was a significant influence on Tennyson's poetry is clear. Tennyson dedicated one of his most popular poems to Hallam (In Memoriam), and stated that the dramatic monologue Ulysses was "more written with the feeling of his [Hallam's] loss upon me than many poems in [the publication] In Memoriam". Tennyson named his elder son after his late friend. Emilia Tennyson also named her elder son, Arthur Henry Hallam, in his honour. Francis Turner Palgrave dedicated to Tennyson his Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics (MacMillan 1861), declaring in the Preface that "It would have been hence a peculiar pleasure and pride to dedicate what I have endeavoured to make a true national Anthology of three centuries to Henry Hallam". It can be argued that some of Tennyson's other works are linked to Hallam, for example, Break, Break, Break, Mariana, and The Lady of Shalott.