Like Milton, Tennyson received much of his inspiration from books, especially from the classical writers; but this characteristic was more than counterbalanced by his acute observation and responsiveness to the thought of the age. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After shows that he was keenly alive to the social movements of the time.
Tennyson said that the scenes in his poems were so vividly conceived that he could have drawn them if he had been an artist. A twentieth century critic[16] says that Tennyson is almost the inventor of such pictorial lyrics as A Dream of Fair Women and The Palace of Art.
The artistic finish of Tennyson's verse is one of its great charms. He said to a friend: "It matters little what we say; it is how we say it—though the fools don't knew it." His poetry has, however, often been criticized for lack of depth. The variety in his subject matter, mode of expression, and rhythm renders his verse far more enjoyable than that of the formal age of Pope.
Tennyson's extraordinary popularity in his own time was largely due to the fact that he voiced so clearly and attractively the thought of the age. As another epoch ushers in different interests, they will naturally be uppermost in the mind of the new generation. We no longer feel the intense interest of the Victorians in the supposed conflict between science and religion. Their theory of evolution has been modified and has lost the force of novelty. Theories of government and social ideals have also undergone a gradual change. For these reasons much of Tennyson's verse has ceased to have its former wide appeal.
Tennyson has, however, left sufficient work of abiding value, both for its exquisite form and for its thought, to entitle him to be ranked as a great poet. We cannot imagine a time when Crossing the Bar, The Passing of Arthur, and the central thought of In Memoriam—
"'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all,"
will no longer interest readers. To Tennyson belong—
"Jewels five words long
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time
Sparkle forever."
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1837-1909
[Illustration: ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, 1837-1909. From the painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.]