The Portrayal of Fairies in Victorian Poetry: A Sample of Sir Alfred Tennyson and William Allingham's Fairy Poetry and Its Connection to Victorian Folklore

This essay explores the ways in which Sir Alfred Tennyson and William Allingham portray fairies in their poetry and how their portrayal differs from the folkloric image of fairies in the Victorian era. It begins by establishing whether there is any difference in female and male authors’ use of fairies, and which authors were most likely to use fairies in their poems. From the resources on the topic of Victorian male and female authors and their use of fairies, it is clear that opinions are mixed on whether male authors were more likely to use fairies than female authors. For sake of clarity, the focus of this paper is on Sir Alfred Tennyson and William Allingham’s poetry. It proceeds to further examine the history of British folklore during the Victorian era, and how it infiltrated art, dance, and literature. Fairies had been a part of British folklore for generations, but they were suddenly given more attention during the Victorian era, becoming popular and thus seeping into the art and literature of the time. On this basis, this essay explores folkloric definitions of fairies through recorded accounts of fairy sightings and finds that the folkloric image of fairies differs slightly from the popular version, and it differs quite strongly from the poetic version. This essay analyzes the four chosen poems, two written by Sir Alfred Tennyson and two by William Allingham, and it compares their fairy characters to the folkloric fairy, finding both notable similarities and differences. Finally, it discusses how the poetic fairies from the sample differ from the folkloric image of fairies because of both writers’ wish to harness and use the darker side of our understanding of fairies in order to invoke a mysterious and frightening atmosphere and to create the idea of otherworldly evil