200th birthday of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

For all my literary readers in NYC, check out this performance, Thurs. Aug. 6. Details at http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com/home.asp

ENOCH ARDEN; A CELEBRATION OF THE 200TH BIRTHDAY OF ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Audrey St. Gil, pianist ; Paul Hecht, actor
Enoch Arden with text by Tennyson and score for piano by Richard Strauss.

We have reason to believe this is the only celebration on this side of the pond of Alfred Lord Tennyson's 200th birthday.

"Enoch Arden" is a poem published in 1864 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, during his tenure as England's Poet Laureate.

The hero of the poem, fisherman turned merchant sailor Enoch Arden, leaves his wife Annie and three children to go to sea with his old captain, who is offering him work.

He finds upon his return from the sea that, after his long absence, his wife, who believed him dead, is married happily to another man, his childhood friend Philip, and has a child by him.

The story could be considered a variation on and antithesis to the Classical myth of Odysseus, who after an absence of twenty years at sea found a faithful wife who had been loyally waiting for him.