Titles such as “The Lady of Shalott,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Ulysses,” and “In Memoriam A.H.H.” gild the pages of countless poetry anthologies. These poems have helped engrave Tennyson’s name among those of our greatest poets. These and other classic poems have earned him laurels as England’s national poet during his lifetime as well as an undying literary legacy since.
But this poet—who lived to be 83 and wrote during most of his long life—has a large body of work that extends much further than these oft-repeated poems. Tennyson’s complete works reveal a world full of unsounded depths and untapped riches. His work glimmers with life and variety—from fantastical fairy-tale ballads to quiet pastorals to reflections on the emergent modern world to deeply personal remembrances of failed loves and lost faces.
