Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Biography

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) was the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland for over forty years, one of the most popular and influential poets of the Victorian era. Born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, he published his first poems as a teenager. His major works include In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), a long elegy for his friend Arthur Hallam that became one of the era’s most important poems; Idylls of the King, his Arthurian epic; and beloved shorter poems like "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Ulysses." Tennyson’s mastery of sound, rhythm, and imagery made him the defining voice of Victorian poetry.