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Alfred Lord Tennyson

Comments & Themes

 

    • After having read "The Lady of Shalott", or of having read "The Idylls of the King", would you consider Tennyson to be a poet of the past? If so, why?

 

    • Do you think that Tennyson was familiar with the scientific advances of his day? How did he respond to them?

 

    • Tennyson was a Victorian poet. However, Victorian poetry is largely indebted to Romanticism. In what ways was Tennyson an heir to the Romantic generation? In what ways did he differ from his predecessors?

 

    • In what way did the death of Arthur Henry Hallam have an impact Tennyson's poetry?

 

    • Do you think that "The Lady of Shalott" may be interpreted as a poem about the relationship between art and life? Do you find this is a compelling interpretation?

 

    • In what way do "Ulysses" and "The Lotos- Eaters" present conclusions thematically antithetical to one another? Would you say that these poems speak to one another?

 

    • What is the use of mythology in Tennyson's poems? Does he resort to a pagan or a Christian mythology?