Volume 34, Number 16 · October 22, 1987
Passion and Humdrum
By Robert Bernard Martin
The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson: Volume II, 1851–1870
edited by Cecil Y. Lang, edited by Edgar F. Shannon Jr.
Harvard University Press (Belknap Press), 585 pp., $35.00
Tennyson: The Muses' Tug-of-War
by Daniel Albright
University Press of Virginia, 256 pp., $24.95
Tennyson was in some ways the most professional poet in English. Even as a small boy he knew what he intended to make of his life, and aside from an awkward step or two when his family tried to divert him into the Church, he never wandered off the path he saw stretching straight before him. He was prodigally endowed with talents, and critics often point out that he had a better natural ear for rhythm and sheer splendor of sound than any other English poet; because he knew his future so early, he quickly learned to practice conservation of his gifts, refusing to squander them elsewhere.
Review, 3563 words
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