Alfred, Lord Tennyson

*Includes pictures

*Includes excerpts of Tennyson's work

*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading

"Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within." "Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott." "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." "Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die."

These are just a few of the many great quotes bequeathed to the world by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, but as their tones suggest, they were products of a difficult and often tragic life. Born to a father plagued by bouts of drinking and depression, and surrounded by siblings with similar ailments, Tennyson grew up believing that he must be a victim of hereditary illness, to the point that he believed he must never marry or father children less he perpetuate the suffering on future generations. With these thoughts always in his head, he turned his mind towards a near worship of romantic love, while at the same time repeatedly painting a tragic ending for his most cherished characters, many of whom seemed to die of a broken heart or some illness or accident related to it.

While in college, Tennyson made new friends, young men who might have shown him the lighter side of life, but he became extremely close to one, only to see his friend die a sudden and tragic death much too young. Out of this suffering came the work that would bring Tennyson the most fame and fortune during his lifetime, but it also brought years of grappling with misery as he attempted to carve out some sense of reason in a world devoid of his close companion.

By the time Tennyson began to prosper, he was so accustomed to sorrow that he felt compelled to seek it out, focusing his attention in his middle years not on the comfortable home and growing family he had been blessed with, but instead on the tragic losses experienced by his country during the Crimean War. As Queen Victoria's poet laureate, Tennyson soon found a comfortable niche in a court accustomed to mourning, and in his final decades, the poet wrote one acclaimed piece after another that was perfectly attuned to the fatalistic Victorian aristocracy.

It is only slightly ironic, then, that it was his focus on death that gave him immortality, for through the romantic eyes of young Anne Shirley, of Anne of Green Gables fame, that people today learn of the Lady of Shallot. Likewise, few English speakers make it through the pains of adolescence without being told it is better to have loved and lost, and even fewer make it to adulthood without learning that sometimes ours is not to reason why. Thus, in death, Tennyson found, at least in literary terms, eternal life.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Life and Legacy of Great Britain's Most Famous Poet Laureate chronicles the life and work that made Tennyson one of history's most famous poets. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Tennyson like never before.