T. S. Eliot, retrieveing Tennyson from years of prejudice and neglect, described him as "the most instinctive rebel against the society in which he was the most perfect conformist".

          Before he threw away his genius by attempting to conform to the Victorian idea of a Poet Laureate, Tennyson wrote some of the most beautiful lyrics in the language. His best poetry is personal, non-moral, exotic and sublimely resistant to literary criticism or psycho-analysis. As In Memoriam A. H. H. or the songs from The Princess confirm, Tennyson’s greatness consists in a natural ability to express loss, desolation, despair and other irreducibly sad emotions.