Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) is often thought of as the quintessential Victorian poet: solemn, moral, deeply religious (or spiritually conflicted), and a poetic voice enshrined in the nation’s imagination.   But behind that public persona lies a more turbulent, restless, and fascinating inner life — one that has lately received renewed attention from biographers and literary historians. In 2025, Richard Holmes published The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief, which re-casts Tennyson’s early years through the lens of scientific upheaval, existential anxiety, and emotional intensity.  In doing so, Holmes teases out lesser-known details and contradictions that complicate the familiar myth…