Tennyson became Poet Laureate within a year of “red in tooth and claw.”
The position is generally regarded as an indicator that one is politically correct and technically polished.
Not generally open to radicals and innovators.
Totally tendentious = totally politically correct = hipper than most. Also literary technique must match the era, which then was production oriented, totally polished. Poet Laureate is open to only the most innovative and radical, riding the crest of the power curve (another mass production allusion).