Heaven’s Elegist
By Kathryn Hughes••The New York Review of Books
Alfred Tennyson's poetry addressed the central anxiety of his day: how to live in a world where scientific discoveries were slowly replacing religious faith.
In 1816 the seven-year-old Alfred Tennyson wrote his name on the inside page of his schoolbook: “A. Tennyson, Somersby, in Lincoln, in England, in the World, in the Air, in Space.” It is the sort of …