The Poetry of Tennyson Author:Henry Van Dyke General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1898 Original Publisher: C. Scribner's sons Subjects: Bible Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / Poetry Poetry / General Poetry / American / General Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and... more » white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: MILTON AND TENNYSON. Comparison has long been recognized as one of the fruitful methods of criticism. But in using this method one needs to remember that it is the least obvious comparison which is often the truest and the most suggestive. The relationship of poets does not lie upon the surface; they receive their spiritual inheritance from beyond the lines of direct descent. Thus a poet may be most closely connected with one whose name we never join with his, and we may find his deepest resemblance to a man not only of another age, but of another school. Tennyson has been compared most frequently with Keats ; sometimes, but falsely, with Shelley; and sometimes, more wisely, with Wordsworth. Our accomplished American critic, Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman, who touches nothing that he does not adorn, has a chapter in his Victorian Poets on Tennyson and Theocritus. But the best comparison, -- one which runs far below the outward appearance into the profound affinities of genius -- yet remains to be carefully traced. Among all poets, -- certainly among all English poets, -- it seems to me that Tennyson's next of kin is Milton. By this I do not mean to say that they are equally great or exactly alike. For so far as perfect likeness is concerned, there is no such thing among the sons of men. Every just comparison involves a contrast. And when we speak of greatness, Milton's...« less