Essays On Lord Tennyson's Idylls Of The King (1893)

LOED TENNYSONS IDYLLS OF THE KING BY HAKOLD.. LITTLEDALE, M. A. SENIOR MODERATOR, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, FELLOW OP THE UNIVERSITY OP BOMBAY, VICE-PRINCIPAL AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE, BARODA COLLEGE, INDIA Honfcon MACMILLAN AND 00. AND NEW YORK 1893 All rights reset led PKEFACE THE extent of Tennysons fame may be illustrated by the fact that these Essays on his Idylls were written as the basis of a course of lectures to an audience composed of undergraduates in an Indian college. In issuing these notes for the use of English and American no less than Asiatic students of our great poet, a number of merely verbal and grammatical annotations have been omitted, and some alterations have been made to adapt the work for general use. The object of this volume is to present a con venient summary of much information that is dispersed through too many books to be accessible at first hand in the case of the general reader. The sources of the various Idylls have been very closely traced, yet in such a manner that the more earnest student will be tempted to carry his studies further. At the end of each study on the sources some notes on the text have been added. vi IDYLLS OF THE KING The purpose of the frequent citations of parallel passages in these notes would be greatly misunderstood if it were thought that they implied any disbelief in the poets originality in passages thus illustrated. Not the least of the many charms of Tennysons poetry is the seeming combination of originality and allusiveness in a profusion of passages that mingle their own fresh music with dim unconscious echoes of poets dead and gone. To indicate such echoes, and not in any way to suggest that thelate Laureate imitated his pre decessors, has been the writers object in noting so many parallelisms. If Tennysons mind was saturated with ancient and modern literatures as it seemed to be, it was saturated even more deeply with the spirit of nature and of truth to nature. All poets thus minded must look over the limited field of human experience from somewhat similar points of view. For their scholarly advice on many points tho writers best thanks are due to his friends Messrs. F. A. H. Elliot, OLE. L. Ferrar J. J. Heatou and J. L. Jenkins, all of the Civil Service of India and the Rev. J. M. Hamilton, S. J., of St. Xavievs College, Bombay. Especial thanks are also due to Mr. Bernard Quaritch for his kindness in permitting large extracts from the MaUnogion to be given. The labour of writing these Essays was lightened by PREFACE vii the hopes that they might be dedicated to the writers father, and that Lord Tennyson might be pleased to accept a copy of them. Neither of these hopes was destined to be realised. The little book can now only be offered as a lowly tribxite of love and reverence on two graves. H. L. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND . . 1 CHAPTER II FROM MALORY TO TENNYSON . . .14 CHAPTER III SOME ARTHURIAN CHARACTERS AND LOCALITIES . 28 CHAPTER IV THE PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE ... .51 CHAPTER V THE COMING OF ARTHUR ....,59 CHAPTER VI GARETH AND LYNETTE . . . . . . 80 CHAPTEE VII THE MARRIAGE OF GEHAINT . 113 IDYLLS OV T1JK CHAPTER VIII PAIIH GERAINE AND ENID . . . . . . .130 CHAPTER IX BALIN AND BALAN . . . . . . .153 CHAPTER X MERLIN AND VIVIEN . . . . . .371 CHAPTER XI LANCELOT AND ELAINE . . . . . .102 CHAPTER XII THE HOLY GRAIL . . . . . . .217 CHAPTER XIIIPELLEAS AND ETTARRE . . .244 CHAPTER XIV THE LAST TOURNAMENT . . . .254 CHAPTER XV GUINEVERE ........ 273 CHAPTER XVI THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 288 CHAPTEE I THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND WHETHER such, a person as King Arthur ever existed lias been questioned from the time when Caxton stated, in his preface to the Morte Darthur, that divers men hold opinion that there was no such Arthur, and that all such books as been made of him be but feigned and fables...