Alfred Tennyson
1809–1892
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Alfred Tennyson was the defining poet of the Victorian era, appointed Poet Laureate in 1850 after the death of Wordsworth. He held the post for 42 years, longer than any poet before or since, becoming the age's unofficial spokesman in verse.
His breakthrough came with In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), an elegy for his closest friend Arthur Hallam that wrestled with grief, faith and evolution. He went on to write "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854), inspired by the Crimean War, and the Arthurian epic Idylls of the King.
Queen Victoria found comfort in his poetry after Albert's death, and in 1884 he accepted a peerage, becoming Baron Tennyson. Lines like "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all" are still quoted today — often by people who have never read the poem.
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