Tennyson’s Layered Vision of Earth in “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After”

Alfred Tennyson, renowned as “the poet of science,” has been extensively studied for his engagement with contemporary scientific ideas. Scholars often highlighted how his radical embrace of new scientific discoveries led him to reinterpret them in ways that reconciled with his religious beliefs. This essay examines how Tennyson’s interaction with geology in “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,” a sequel to “Locksley Hall,” reflects this pattern of doubt and consolation—but with a twist of the poet’s more resigned adherence to scientific principles by the end of the nineteenth century. Compared to the optimistic imperialist vision of “Locksley Hall,” the speaker in the later work grapples with the disillusionment of aging and the decline of empire. Rather than seeking spiritual transcendence, the poem presents the speaker