Alfred Tennyson and His Work Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6th, 1809, at Somersby, Lincolnshire, fourth of twelve children of George and Elizabeth Tennyson. Tennyson, said to be the best poet of the Victorian era and his poetry will be discussed in this essay. Tennyson had a lifelong fear of mental illness, because several men in his family had a mild form of epilepsy, which then was thought of as a shameful disease. His father and brother Arthur made their epilepsy worse by excessive drinking. His brother Edward had to be put in a mental institution after 1833, and he spent a few weeks himself under doctor's care in 1843. In the late