The Deserted House

[3] Tennyson's use of allegory in "The Deserted House" established a method that he later developed into "parabolic drift", the term he used to describe his metaphoric style in Idylls of the King.

In Mariana, the landscape is isolated and brooding, which reflects on her solitude, but the noises of the scene fill it with the life that is lacking in "The Deserted House".

Every word tells; and the short whole is most pathetic in its completeness-let us say perfection-like some old Scottish air sung by maiden at her wheel-or shepherd in the wilderness.

"[7] Walt Whitman characterises Tennyson's works saying, "There is such a latent charm in mere words, cunning collocutions, and in the voice ringing them, which he has caught, and brought out beyond all others [...] evidenced in The Lady of Shalott, The Deserted House, and many other pieces.

"[8] In describing the poem, an anonymous review in the 1884 Sunday Magazine says "Beautiful it was in art, music, and imagination; but there was something more than a general expression of awe about it."

William Dawson, in his 1890 review of English poets, included "The Deserted House" in poems of Tennyson that represented his "fineness of workmanship and depth of feeling".