Excerpt from Tennyson's "in Memoriam", Its Purpose and Its Structure: A Dissertation Presented to the Philosophical Faculty of the University of LeipzigThe Sonnets of Shakespeare are among the most vexed phenomena of the dramatist's career. This-is not the place to discuss the ever-open question who is their hero and how far they are autobiographical: their ground of comparison with In Memoriam lies in the fact that they portray a very re markable love of their author for some male friend, a love which seems to take deep hold of the poet's life, and whose expression in ever-varied forms of thought and imagery calls forth all the resources of his art.That Tennyson had himself during the experience which In Memoriam records compared his love for Arthur Hallam with Shakespeare's love for his unknown friend is, as seems to me, evident from the remarkable allusion to Shakespeare, In Memoriam LXI. 3.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.