Enoch Arden

DESCRIPTION: Enoch leaves his wife Annie to go to sea, but is shipwrecked for ten years. He returns home to find that Annie, who thinks him dead, has remarried happily. He does not reveal himself, but leaves them to live happily; he dies of loneliness and grief
AUTHOR: Original poem "Enoch Arden" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
EARLIEST DATE: 1866 Dime-Song-Book #17; the Tennyson poem was published 1864)
KEYWORDS: sailor husband wife separation reunion grief
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore5 684, "Enoch Arden" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, p, 84, "Goodbye, Annie Darling" (1 fragment, 1 tune, expanded with words from Tennyson's text; it it not really clear that the single verse comes from this song)
Dime-Song-Book #17, p. 26, "Farewell Song of Enoch Arden" (1 text)
Roud #17846
NOTES [52 words]: Although the handful of traditional versions of this seem to be based on the plot of the Tennyson poem, it appears to me that the song is not actually Tennyson's but a separate piece based on it; none of the versions start where Tennyson starts, and the lyrice I've checked are not part of the Tennyson poem. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: BrS5684

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