Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Well, this is true ...

... Underrated — Alfred Lord Tennyson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Tennyson's greatness doesn't rest on some hidden "modernity" waiting to be discovered in his work. On the contrary: he is irreplaceable just because his sensibility is so utterly different from ours. To appreciate him demands audacity of imagination; it means viewing the world from unexpected, almost alien angles. When the Irish poet William Allingham first met Tennyson on June 28, 1851, he was startled by his "hollow cheeks and the dark pallor of his skin" which gave him "an unhealthy appearance". Allingham went on to remark that Tennyson "was a strange and almost spectral figure".

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