Enoch Arden

Enoch Arden, poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published in 1864. In the poem, Enoch Arden is a happily married fisherman who suffers financial problems and becomes a merchant seaman. He is shipwrecked, and, after 10 years on a desert island, he returns home to discover that his beloved wife, believing him dead, has remarried and has a new child. Not wishing to spoil his wife’s happiness, he never lets her know that he is alive.