The Tennyson Society

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is perhaps today the best-known poet of the Victorian Age. Born in Lincolnshire in 1809, he became Poet Laureate in 1850 and is famous world-wide for such poems as ‘The Lady of Shalott’, ‘Ulysses’ and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. He is quoted frequently today – such lines as ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw’ or ‘Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever’ have become part of our language, while the last line of ‘Ulysses’ – ‘To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield’ – was inscribed on the wall of the Athletes’ Village at the 2012 London Olympics. The unsurpassable beauty and musicality of Tennyson’s poetry continues to inspire readers and writers and he is a powerful presence in school and university syllabuses across the globe. His views on politics and culture range from liberal and radical to reactionary and conservative and are essential reading as we seek to evaluate the relationship between our own values and the beliefs and assumptions of the Victorian Age.