Tennyson, Alfred - pensiero e opere

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

Alfred Tennyson, whose poetry is inspired from some of the greatest Romantics, such as Keats and Byron, is however a Victorian poet. His work is strongly connected to the social and cultural aspects of the Industrial revolution, and the many changes that affected England during his time. His man is lost in the enormous Universe where he finds himself, trying to understand his aim.
Works:
• The Lady of Shalott, and The Lotus Eaters: are both poems of the same collection, which was published in 1832.
• Poems, Chiefly Lyrical: it’s a collection of poems, where we can notice the typical Victorian passion for the Medieval poet of the poet.
• Locksley Hall: this agonizing poem, published in 1842, is the result of the rejection of a woman Tennyson loved deeply.
• Ulysses: a dramatic monologue published in 1842
• Tithonus: dramatic monologue (1842)
• Morte d’Arthur: dramatic monologue (1842)
• In Memoriam: this poem was published in 1850, and was Tennyson’s response to the death of his dear friend Hallam.
• The Charge of the Light Brigade: (1854) a poem that the poet wrote, with the ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington (1852), when he was made Poet Laureate.
• Maud: appeared in 1855, it is a poem about passionate love.
• Idylls of the King: (1859) is an epic based on Malory’s life of King Arthur, which included at the end also the earlier Morte d’Arthur.
• Locksley Hall Sixty Years After: in 1850 Tennyson began to concentrate more on political matters, and in his last years he started condemning modernity and new developments. In this poem, he rejected his previous faith in progress, taking in consideration the modern decadence.
• Crossing the Bar: one of his last poems, written in 1889, which was one of his few later works that was not considered inferior.