Alfred Lord Tennyson was an extremely influential man of literature during the Victorian Era between 1809-1892. He was the fourth child out of twelve siblings, and due to different life circumstances he worried about money and mental illnesses all throughout his life. He went to Trinity College at Cambridge and developed great friendships that had definite influences on him. He wrote incredible pieces of poetry such as “The Battle of Brunanburh”, “Crossing the Bar”, “The Lady of Shalott”, “The Lotus Eaters”, and finally one of the best poems written by him – “The Woman’s Cause is Man’s”.
This poem is about the relationship between men and women, and specifically what true marriage really is. He argues for the fact that men and women are very different individuals, but this doesn’t make them unequal. However, it doesn’t necessarily make them equal either, because they do in fact have different gender roles regardless of differing opinions. Men and women make each other better, due to their incredible differences. They fulfill the defects in each other because their differences complement one another. This poem is a gem amongst literature that discusses men and women.
Tennyson’s poems slowly grew more and more popular, causing him to become a popular poet of the Victorian Age. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were among the people who admired him greatly, which shows how incredible his work truly was. Some other pieces of poetry he wrote were “The Palace of Art”, “Mariana”, “St. Simeon Stylites”, “Tithonus”, and “Ulysses”. His topics varied but he generally wrote using genre, symbolism, imagery, style, motifs, etc.
Tennyson was shortsighted, which caused some difficulty for him when it came to reading and writing. Eventually Tennyson passed away, as all people do, leaving his mark on literature for many years to come.