Idylls of the King
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The Idylls of the King (1856 - 1885) are a cycle of poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that express the legend of King Arthur in terms of the psychology and concerns of nineteenth-century England. The twelve poems, progressing from spring to the new year, follow the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom and Arthur himself. Each of the sections relates a separate incident in Arthurian legend, with little transition from one to the next; all the stories are nevertheless linked by the central figure of Arthur. As a whole, the poem describes Arthur's attempt and failure to lift up mankind and create a perfect kingdom.
Tennyson based his retelling primarily on Malory and the Mabinogion, but with many expansions, additions, and several adaptions, a notable example of which is the fate of Guinevere. In Malory she is sentenced to be burnt at the stake but spirited away by Lancelot; in the Idylls, Guinevere flees to a convent, is forgiven by Arthur, repents, and serves in the convent until she dies.
The Idylls are written in blank verse, except for the last verse of the last idyll, which is an alexandrine. Tennyson amended the traditional spellings of several names to fit the meter.
The Idylls were dedicated to the late Prince Albert.
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[edit] Publishing Chronology
- 1859: The first set of Idylls, "Enid", "Vivien", "Elaine", and "Guinevere" is published. "Enid" was later divided into "The Marriage of Geraint" and "Geraint and Enid", and "Guinevere" was expanded.
- 1869: The Holy Grail and Other Poems
- 1871: "The Last Tournament" is published in Contemporary Review.
- 1872: "Gareth and Lynette" is published.
- 1885: The final idyll, "Balin and Balan", is published in Tiresias and Other Poems.
The Dedication was published in 1862, a year after the Prince Consort had died. The epilogue, "To the Queen," was published in 1873.
[edit] The Idylls
[edit] The Coming of Arthur
The first of the Idylls describes the period following Arthur's coronation, his ascension and marriage. The besieged Leodogran, King of Cameliard, appeals to Arthur for aid against the beasts and heathen hordes. Arthur vanquishes these and then the Barons who attack his legitimacy. Later he requests the hand of Leodogran's daughter, Guinevere, with whom he has fallen in love. Leodogran, grateful but also uncertain of Arthur’s lineage, questions his chamberlain, Arthur’s emissaries, and Arthur’s half sister Bellicent, receiving a different account from each. At last he is persuaded by a dream of Arthur crowned in heaven. Lancelot is sent to bring Guinevere, and she and Arthur wed in May. At the wedding feast, Arthur refuses to pay tribute to the Lords from Rome, declaring, “The old order changeth, yielding place to new.”
[edit] Gareth and Lynette
Of all the Idylls, “Gareth and Lynette” is the sweetest and most innocent. Gareth, Bellicent and Lot’s last son, dreams of knighthood but is frustrated by his mother. After lengthy argument she clinches the matter, or so she thinks, by ordering him to serve as an anonymous scullion in Arthur’s kitchens for a year and a day. To her chagrin, he agrees. Upon his arrival at Camelot, disguised, a disguised Merlin greets him and tells him the city is never built at all, and therefore built forever, and warns him that Arthur will bind him by vows no man can keep. Gareth is angered by what seems mockery to him, but is himself rebuked for going in guise to the truthful Arthur.
Arthur consents to the boy’s request for kitchen-vassalage, remarking that a better boon is deserved. After Gareth has served nobly and well for a month, Bellicent repents and frees him from his vow. Gareth is secretly knighted by Arthur, who orders Lancelot to keep a discreet eye on him. Gareth’s first quest comes in the form of the cantankerous Lynette, who begs Arthur for Lancelot’s help in freeing her sister Lyonors. Rather than Lancelot, she is given Gareth, still a kitchen servant. Indignant, she flees, and when Gareth catches up, abuses him sorely. On their journey he proves himself again and again, and still she calls him knave and scullion. Gareth remains courteous and gentle throughout. At the Castle Perilous, he overthrows the soi-disant knight of the Morning Star, knight of the Noonday Sun, knight of the Evening Star, and at last the most terrible knight of Death, who is revealed as a boy coerced by his brothers. Tennyson concludes: “And he [Malory] that told the tale in older times / Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, / But he, that told it later [Tennyson], says Lynette.”
[edit] The Marriage of Geraint
Rumors of Guinevere’s treacherous love have reached Sir Geraint, whose wife, Enid, is too closely associated with the Queen for his comfort. Geraint and Enid return to his princedom. There, forgetting his duties and reputation, he lavishes love on his wife. Enid hears the accusations of uxoriousness and is saddened. One summer morning, she mourns quietly that she is the cause of Geraint’s tarnishing name, and drops tears that wake Geraint in time to hear, “O me, I fear that I am no true wife.” He immediately suspects her of infidelity, summons their horses, refuses to answer her questions, and orders her to wear her meanest dress. As she takes it out she remembers their marriage, and the Idyll lapses into a flashback:
While Geraint and the Queen wait for the hunt, a knight, lady, and dwarf ride by. The dwarf whips one of the Queen’s maidens and then strikes Geraint, who promises to revenge the insult to the Queen. He comes to a town preparing for a tourney and is offered shelter in Earl Yniol’s decayed castle, where the Earl and his daughter Enid reside. The Earl explains that the dwarf’s master is his nephew Edyrn, the “sparrow-hawk,” the host of the tourney and Enid’s suitor, who has usurped his earldom. Geraint jousts in the tourney, overthrows the sparrow-hawk, and wins Enid. He orders Edyrn to return to Camelot and ask the Queen’s forgiveness; there, Edyrn repents and rises. Enid’s mother prepares a rich dress for her, but Geraint orders her to wear her meanest, in which he first saw her, so that the Queen herself might dress her. This is supposedly a test, which Enid passes, and the two are wed.
[edit] Geraint and Enid
Geraint and Enid have set out on their horses, she in her ancient dress and riding before him. He has ordered her to keep her silence. Several times she disobeys, warning him of ambushes ahead. He answers her angrily and fights through all of them and has Enid drive a growing herd of the bandits’ horses. At last they come to the castle of Earl Limours, a former suitor of Enid, where they are entertained. Limours appeals to Enid for her love, but she deceives him, remaining faithful to her sullen husband, and manages their escape. Limours rides after them, and Geraint knocks him from his saddle, but sustains a serious wound. A little later, he faints. The Earl Doorm comes across the two and has Geraint carried to his castle, a place more of beast than man. Doorm offers to marry Enid and strikes her when she refuses. Her cry rouses Geraint, who kills Doorm. Finally Geraint is convinced and apologizes for doubting her.
[edit] Balin and Balan
The brothers Balin “the Savage” and Balan return to Arthur’s hall from Balin’s three years of exile, and are welcomed back warmly. When Arthur’s envoys return, they report the death one of Arthur’s knights by, according to a woodsman, a demon in the woods. Balan offers to hunt the demon, and before he departs warns Balin against his terrible rages, which were the cause of their exile. Balin tries to learn courtesy and gentleness from Lancelot, but despairs and concludes that Lancelot’s courtesy is beyond his reach. Instead, he takes the Queen’s crown for his shield, and several times it reminds him to restrain his temper.
Then one summer morning Balin beholds an ambiguous exchange between Lancelot and the Queen that fills him with confusion. He leaves Camelot and eventually comes upon the castle of Pellam and Garlon. When Garlon casts aspersions on the Queen, Balin kills him and flees. Ashamed, he hangs his crowned shield in a tree, where Vivien and her squire find it, and then Balin himself. She spins lies to Balin that confirm his suspicions about Guinevere. He shrieks, tears down his shield, and tramples it. In that same wood, Balan hears the cry and believes he has found his demon. The brothers clash and only too late recognize each other. Dying, Balan assures Balin that their Queen is pure and good.
[edit] Merlin and Vivien
Having boasted to King Mark that she will return with the hearts of Arthur’s knights in her hand, Vivien begs and receives shelter in Guinevere’s retinue. While in Camelot, she sows rumors of the Queen’s affair. She fails to seduce the King, and is mocked, and turns her attentions to Merlin. When he, troubled by visions of impending doom, wanders out of Arthur’s court, she follows. She intends to wheedle out of Merlin a spell that will trap him forever, supposing that his defeat would be her glory. She protests her love to Merlin, declaring he cannot love her if he doubts her. When he mentions that Arthur’s knights have been gossiping about her, she slanders every one of them, and every accusation is met by Merlin but one: that of Lancelot, which he admits to be true. Worn down, he allows himself to be seduced, tells Vivien the charm, and is imprisoned in the oak.
[edit] Lancelot and Elaine
Long ago, Arthur happened upon a skeleton wearing a crown of nine diamonds. At eight tourneys over eight years, Arthur has awarded the diamonds one by one to the Lancelot, who plans to give all nine to Guinevere. Guinevere decides to stay back from the ninth tournament, and Lancelot tells Arthur he will stay with her. Once the others have left, she berates him for making cause for slander. She says she cannot love the too-perfect Arthur. Lancelot decides to go disguised to the tournament. He borrows armor and arms from the Lord of Astolat, and as a finishing touch, agrees to wear his daughter Elaine’s favor, which he has never done for any woman. Elaine has fallen in love with him. Here the Idyll repeats Malory’s account of the tournament and its aftermath.
After Lancelot has taken leave of Elaine, and she has died, he returns to Camelot to present the nine diamonds to Guinevere. In a fit of jealous fury she hurls them out the window into the river, just as Elaine’s funeral barge passes below. Elaine’s body is brought into the hall and her letter read, at which the lords and ladies weep. Guinevere privately asks Lancelot’s forgiveness. The knight muses that Elaine loved him more than the Queen, wonders if the Queen’s love has all rotted to jealousy, and wishes he was never born.
[edit] The Holy Grail
This Idyll is told in flashback by Sir Percivale, now a monk, to his fellow monk Ambrosius. His pious sister had beheld the Grail and named Galahad her “knight of heaven,” declaring that he, too, would also see. When, one summer night that Arthur is absent, Galahad sits in the Siege Perilous, the hall is shaken with thunder and the covered Grail passes through the hall. Percivale swears that he will quest for it a year and a day, and all the knights echo his vow. Arthur returns and hears the news with horror. Galahad, he says, will see the Grail, and perhaps Percivale and Lancelot also, but the other knights are better in physical service than spiritual. The Round Table disperses. Percivale travels through a surreal, allegorical landscape until he meets Galahad in a hermitage. Together they continue until Percivale can no longer follow, and he watches Galahad depart to a heavenly city in a boat like a silver star. After the questing, only a remnant of the knights return to Camelot.
[edit] Pelleas and Ettare
In an ironic echo of “Gareth and Lynette”, the young, idealistic Pelleas meets and falls in love with the lady Ettare. She thinks he is a fool, but treats him well at first because she wishes to hear herself proclaimed the “Queen of Beauty” at the tournament. For the sake of the young knight, Arthur declares it a “Tournament of Youth”, barring his veteran warriors. Pelleas wins the title and circlet for Ettare, who immediately ends her kindness to him. He follows her to her castle, where for a sight of her he docilely allows himself to be bound and maltreated by her knights, although he can and does overthrow them all. Gawain observes this one day and is outraged. He offers to court Ettare for Pelleas, and borrows his arms and shield. When admitted to the castle, he announces that he has killed Pelleas. Three nights later, Pelleas enters the castle in search of Gawain and his news. He passes a pavilion of Ettare’s knights, asleep, and then a pavilion of her maidens, and then comes to a pavilion where he finds Ettare in Gawain’s arms. He leaves his sword across their throats. When Ettare wakes, she curses Gawain and turns her love to Pelleas and pines away. Pelleas, disillusioned with Arthur’s court, leaves Camelot to become the Red King in the North.
[edit] The Last Tournament
Guinevere once fostered an infant that Arthur and Lancelot had found in an eagle’s nest, a ruby necklace wrapped around its neck. After the child died, Guinevere gave the jewels to Arthur to make a tournament prize. Before the tournament, however, a mutilated peasant stumbles into the hall. He has been mauled by the Red Knight in the North, who has set up his own Round Table with lawless knights and harlots. Arthur leaves Lancelot to oversee the tournament, taking a company to purge the evil. “The Tournament of the Dead Innocence” becomes a farce, discourtesies everywhere, rules broken, insults flung. Sir Tristram wins the rubies and, breaking tradition, declares to the ladies that the “Queen of Beauty” is not present. Arthur’s fool, Dagonet, mocks Tristram. In the north, meanwhile, Arthur’s knights, too full of rage and disgust to heed their King, trample the Red Knight and massacre his men and women and set his tower ablaze.
Tristram gives the rubies to Queen Isolt, Mark’s wife, who is furious that he has married Isolt of Brittany. They taunt each other, but at the last he puts the necklace about her neck and bends to kiss her. Mark rises up behind him and splits his skull.
[edit] Guinevere
Guinevere has fled to the convent at Almesbury. On the night that she and Lancelot had determined to part forever, Modred, tipped off by Vivien, watched and listened with witnesses to their farewells. Guinevere rejects Lancelot's offer of sanctuary in his castle overseas, rather riding and taking anonymous shelter in the convent. She takes a little novice for her friend. But when rumors of Modred's usurption and war between Arthur and Lancelot reach the convent, the novice's prattling pricks the Queen's conscience. She describes the glorious kingdom in her father's day, "before the coming of the sinful Queen," and hurts in trying to comfort.
The King comes. She hears his steps and falls on her face. He stands over her and mourns her, himself, and his kingdom, reproaches her, and forgives her. She watches him go and repents, hoping that they will be reunited in heaven. She serves in the abbey, is chosen Abbess, and dies three years later.
[edit] Overview
In twelve poems, the legend recounts how Arthur was born through the trickery of Merlin and how he meets his future wife Guinevere and becomes king. He creates Camelot, an ideal kingdom where he is loyally served by his knights of the Round Table. His best and most honored knight is Sir Lancelot, the epitome of courtesy, who turns traitor in his illicit love for the Queen. It is this affair that eventually splits the Round Table and brings about the disastrous last battle in which Arthur kills Modred and in turn receives a mortal wound. Sir Bedivere carries the King to a lake on the borders of Avalon where Arthur first received Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Arthur orders Bedivere to throw the sword into the lake in order to fulfill a prophecy written on the blade. Sir Bedivere resists twice, but on the third time obeys and is rewarded by the sight of a white arm rising from the water to catch the sword. The wounded Arthur is finally carried away on a magical ship with three queens and sails away to Avalon, with Sir Bedivere watching, as the new sun rises on a new year.
The Idylls are titled:
- The Coming of Arthur
- Gareth and Lynette
- The Marriage of Geraint
- Geraint and Enid
- Balin and Balan
- Merlin and Vivien
- Lancelot and Elaine
- The Holy Grail
- Pelleas and Ettarre
- The Last Tournament
- Guinevere
- The Passing of Arthur
The dramatic narratives are not an epic either in structure or tone, but derive elegaic sadness from the idylls of Theocritus.
Idylls of the King is often read as an allegory of the social conflicts and malaises of mid-Victorian era in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The work was in part written in the Hanbury Arms in Caerleon; a plaque commemorates the event.
[edit] Citations
Lord Tennyson, Alfred; edited by J.M. Gray (1983). Idylls of the King. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0140422536.
[edit] External links
