During the present century Tennyson's poetic reputation has passed through a whole revolution of criticism and taste. When a general reaction against Victorianism set in, it was Tennyson's very domination of his age and his power to express its values which caused a revulsion against his poetry and his style. More recently there has been a revival of critical and scholarly interest in his work and an appreciation of qualities in it besides those which most appealed to his contemporaries. Mr Southam's essay discusses this critical revaluation, relates the poems to Tennyson's long career and pays particular attention to his development of the dramatic narrative or monologue.

This essay replaces Number 83 by F. L. Lucas. The author, formerly a Lecturer in English at the University of London, is Editorial Director of Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd; he has written books and articles on Shakespeare, Milton, Gibbon, Keats, Jane Austen and T. S. Eliot.