Tennyson and the Doom of Romanticism

From Library JournalTucker calls his book a "literary biography," by which he appears to mean a study of the continuity ("life") of Tennyson's poetical canon through mid-career, ending with the writing of Maud (1855). The book is a series of exegetical excursions into virtually all the early poetry, then into In Memoriam and Maud . Tucker is at times overly fond of multisyllables and sludgy diction, but the readings are informed, informative, and precise, and the dynamic between Romantic and Victorian in Tennyson is worth pursuit. This exceeds Daniel Albright's Tennyson ( LJ 7/86) for treatment of the early works, but Albright's view is broader. Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse,Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.