Not my favorite or my style, of them all I liked The Charge Of The Light Brigade the best. ( )

In the two other books I've read in this Selected Poems series by Phoenix – Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Burns – I enjoyed the poems but thought the selection was a bit lacking. This was especially true of the Burns one, which omitted a number of the Scot's more famous poems. Happily, no one had blunder'd in this Tennyson selection, which includes 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and an abridged form of 'In Memoriam A. H. H.' (which gave us the phrases Ring out the old, ring in the new" and "'Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all.", among others).

That said, it was the poems that I was less familiar with which enchanted me the most. 'Break, Break, Break' was a touching short poem about longing for days past, whilst 'Locksley Hall' was a long magisterial piece covering everything from lost love to encroaching death, the torture of memory and the progress of mankind. 'Morte d'Arthur' was a beautifully romantic and chivalric telling of the death of King Arthur and the return of Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake, and 'Come Down, O Maid' was a sweet metaphorical poem encouraging women to stop being so distant and to choose happy love. There was also 'The Lotos-Eaters', in which Odysseus' crew grow tired of adventure and strife ("Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,/Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.") and decide that, although their home remains "far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

But the best by far is the remarkable 'Ulysses', which again takes the Odyssey as its inspiration and delivers a stirring cry for adventure and aspiration. (Tennyson's poem put me in mind of one of my favourite poems, 'Ithaca' by C. P. Cavafy. What is it about Greek mythology that makes for such great poetry?) Just when you think you've found the poem's best line, an even finer one follows. That, in fact, could be said for the entire collection, which does justice to Tennyson's considerable talent." ( )

Tennyson has some classic poems, but most of his stuff is a bit ponderous and loaded with hyperbole. ( )

The poetry is great. Easy to use format. The Notes are helpful. Table of Contents is broken down into the works the poems were originally printed in which is nice. Also has a title index and first line index ( )

Tennyson is one of the poets I endlessly return to over the years. One of my favorites. ( )