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A Note on Tennyson's Ode on the
Death of the Duke of Wellington.
by
Christopher Ricks
The 'Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington' has been the subject of the most scrupulous textual study yet devoted to a poem by Tennyson: 'The History of a Poem', by Mr Edgar F. Shannon, Jr., in Studies in Bibliography (1960), volume XIII. It therefore seems worth offering a few corrections to Mr Shannon's invaluable account of the text. He wrote:
Since it has not been feasible to examine all the numerous editions
between 1856 and 1872 that printed the Ode on the Death of the
Duke
of Wellington, I cannot say incontrovertibly that the five changes
apparent in 1865 and the one in 1872 first entered the text on those dates;
but the likelihood is strong that they did. (p.171)
But this is not so with four of the five changes apparent in 1865 (that is,
A Selection from the Works of Alfred Tennyson). In line 56,
the final reading 'its' for 'his' is to be found before 1865, in Maud,
and Other Poems, 'A New Editon', 1859. Three further final
readings are to be found before 1865, in Maud, and
Other
Poems, 'A New Edition', 1864: in line 113, 'Beyond' for 'Past'; in
line 155, 'Briton' for 'Saxon'; and in line 278, 'Speak' for 'But speak'. Yet
let me follow Mr Shannon's wise example, and make no claim to have
examined all the printings of the 'Ode'.
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