A digitization of a draft from the Wren Library (above) and amultispectral image processed by Michael Sullivan from raw imaging by Andrew Beeby (below) Master and Fellows of Trinity College, CambridgeLike most writers handwritten drafts, the papers of Alfred Tennysonthe 19th-century English poet known for nuggets such as, Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at allare littered with inkblots, crossed-out words and other markings.Researchers at the University of Oxford recently set out to read some of Tennysons indecipherable scribbles using advanced imaging techniques. According to a paper published in theReview of English Studies, their research has recovered previously unreadable variants in Tennysons work.Whether from environmental damage, redaction or authorial revision, many factors affect how much of modern literature survives for us to read today, lead authorMichael Sullivan, a literary scholar at Oxford, says in astatement from the university. Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) Julia Margaret Cameron via Wikimedia Commons under CC0 1.0In 2021, Sullivan founded Recovery of Literary Manuscripts in collaboration with chemistAndrew Beeby of Durham University. The project merges English literature withmultispectral imaging, a technology that analyzes an image at specific wavelengths.Our project is developing new digital techniques to restore lost literature that has remained beyond the reach of readers, Sullivan says.Tennyson served as the United Kingdoms poet laureate from 1850 to 1892, making him the official poetic spokesman for the reign of Victoria, according to thePoetry Foundation. He was also a prolific reviser, who frequently blotted out his words with ink, per the study. By digitally stripping away inkblots, his lost literary draft text may therefore be recovered, retrieving traces of the authors creative process.In addition to multispectral imaging, the researchers also used X-ray fluorescence, which surveys elemental composition, andfiber-optic reflectance spectroscopy, which analyzes pigments. They then digitally processed the imaging results, revealing words that had been lost. A processed multispectral image of a Tennyson notebook from the Wren Library, imaged by Andrew Beeby and processed by Roger Easton Jr. Master and Fellows of Trinity College, CambridgeOne of the manuscripts they studied contains Tennysons 1847 poem The Princess. A line from the published version reads, She said you had a heartI heard her say it / Our Ida has a heartjust ere she died. But in the newly imaged manuscript, the researchers saw the line, She said you had a heart , then, crossed out, Just ere she died. / Our Ida has a heartan hour before.Though he crossed it out in this manuscript, Just ere she died, was brought back before publication. According to the study, Tennysons deletion of the other words removed a heavier characterization of a mother judging her daughter.The notebook containing The Princess was also water damaged, reportsArtnets Min Chen. Through imaging, researchers were able to decipher parts of pages once made unreadable, discovering that Tennyson had changed us to me and our to my.Another notable revision was found in Tennysons 1859 poem Lancelot and Elaine, published inIdylls of the King, a 12-poem series inspired by the legend ofKing Arthur. According to the study, Tennyson originally wrote Till Arthur came before replacing the line with the King / Came girt with knights. Processed multispectral image of lines from "The Princess" Syndics of Cambridge University LibraryThe imaging also revealed several non-literary details, including ink bleeding through from the opposite side of a page, the indentation left by a pens tip and simple sketches. The drawings are material traces of [Tennysons] visual imagination, write the researchers.Tennysons revisions show recurrent patterns of thought that are important to modern scholars study of his work, per the study. As Sullivan says in the statement, Reading this recovered text helps us to illuminate the creative process behind works of art, but also to restore valuable parts of the worlds cultural heritage.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Art Meets Science, Arts, British Writers, Cool Finds, Literature, New Research, Poetry, Queen Victoria, Technology, Writers