Critique

Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 92

To some modern readers the language of ENOCH ARDEN may seem stilted and the story of his unselfish love mawkishly romantic, but we must remember that it was written during a period when unrequited love and unselfish devotion to one’s family were favorite subjects of the reading public of England and America. Tennyson has one virtue not shared by all of his contemporaries; his poems are easily read and understood. He expressed better than any other poet of his time the essential character of the English people of the nineteenth century.