Perhaps you still remember the thundering rhythms of the 'Charge of the Light Brigade', written in 1854? Tennyson had become Poet Laureate, published his long poem 'In Memoriam', had happily married, and had just started growing his formidable Victorian Beard (which incidentally his wife Emily hated).

Richard Holmes wants to take you further back through Tennyson’s first forty years, full of so many surprises and revelations, including the disturbing influence of his drunken violent father; his childhood days spent alone on the wild Lincolnshire sea coast dreaming of monsters; and his formative time at Cambridge, where he gained a lifetime's fascination with the beauties and terrors of science.

Richard will also look at the astonishing originality of the early poetry, not merely the hypnotic ballad 'The Lady of Shalott' but also 'The Princess', an entire poem dedicated to the controversial idea of a university exclusively for women, and many more.

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