Tennyson Shook Faith Before Darwin

Richard Holmes's biography and The Age of Wonder argue that Alfred Lord Tennyson and other Romantic/Victorian poets were actively engaged with contemporary science, and their poetry helped translate discoveries (deep time, fossils, telescopic cosmology) into cultural doubt about literal religious accounts before Darwin's publications. This cultural transmission made secularizing ideas more visible and emotionally potent for Victorian audiences. — Recognizing poets as early mediators of scientific doubt reframes how cultural elites, not just scientists, accelerate societal shifts in belief and trust toward science.