Quotations and Literature Forum

Please help!! I've been searching for an hour... "Its better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all"? I need author, date and work if applicable...I'm writing a paper for a college course..YIKES!

Nostromo's sure to give you the definitive answer on this, but it's gotta be Shakespeare .... I'm curious myself!

It's from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam A.H. H.. Arthur Henry Hallam was a 23 year old friend of the poet. When Hallam died, Tennyson was devastated and wrote the poem for him. Tennyson worked on the poem for at least 15 years.

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

It's a long poem and can be found here:
http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poem ... son01.html

Thank you, Thank you Phaedrus.... I rewrote the essay without it...due to time constraints...but I have bookmarked for future use!
Thank you!

Yes, the poem is long. It is over 131 verses long, and fills a Word document to over 100 pages (depending on the font).
Tennyson's poem was labored on and more material added over a period of 17 years after Arthur Hallam died in 1833. The poem was not completed until it was published in 1850, when Tennyson was named poet laureate of England.

To save some time looking, the phrase in question actually appears twice in the poem:

~From Verse 27:
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

~And From Verse 85:
This truth came borne with bier and pall,
I felt it, when I sorrow'd most,
'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all ?
http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poem ... yson01.htm