Poetic People (21): Tennyson

Yesterday, 5 August, marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred Lord Tennyson, one of our greatest poets and Poet Laureates. He was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire on August 6, 1809. He died on 6 October 1892 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where he has a memorial bust and gravestone in Poets' Corner.

Tennyson and his wife, Emily, spent part of their married life at Farringford on the Isle of Wight. Profits from the publication of his poem, Maud, enabled the poet to buy the house, which he had previously been renting.

• Tennyson, Life of the Day on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  
• Famous lines by Tennyson (from the BBC site). Which is your favourite and why? (a, b, c, d or e). The romantic in me veers towards c, but the realist in me finds it hard to resist d and e!
• Tennyson on the Poetry Archive: you can hear the poet's voice.
• Lincolnshire anniversary celebrations