Question

How does Tennyson's I sometimes hold it half a sin deal with sense of personal loss?

Answer 1

In a letter to another of his friends, William Ewart Gladstone, Hallam wrote: ‘I consider Tennyson as promising fair to be the greatest poet of our generation, perhaps of our century’ (letter 14 Sept 1829). He praised his first volume of poetry in a critical essay, ‘On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson’ (published in the Englishman's Magazine, August 1831). One of Tennyson’s early works was Supposed Confessions of a Second-Rate Sensitive Mind Not in Unity with Itself, in which the poet revealed a sense of inner division. Hallam’s enthusiastic support and faith in his writing gave him the resolve to persevere.