Written, amended, and successively published across a period of more than twenty years, Tennyson’s Arthurian poetry takes shape in a series of stories, or idylls, as he called them, each following a specific event or character in the memory of Camelot. But it is in the glory of Idylls of the King that Tennyson’s majestic voice strikes its deepest notes, incorporating themes of Christian beauty and chivalry from a host of age-old sources, in a manner which would distinctly mark the Gothic Revival in nineteenth-century Europe.
Crafted by the creative genius of Alfred, Lord Tennyson-a man who thrived in the models of classical poetry, and could be named in the venerable company of masters like Virgil and Dante-this celebrated work has been consistently known to readers in every corner of the English-speaking world as Idylls of the King.īorn in 1809, Tennyson was to become one of Victorian Britain’s finest Poet Laureates, recognized even today for popular verses from such works as Ulysses, In Memoriam, and The Charge of the Light Brigade. Yet there is, I think, a version of the Arthurian legends which pales all modern variations on the theme of Camelot, and at times exceeds even the marvelous imagination of Malory himself. I hardly presume to disagree with the wisdom of such sentiments. It is thought that earlier medieval writers, both nameless and named-men like Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chrétien de Troyes, Layamon and Wolfram von Eschenbach-offered worthy contributions in their own way but none may be said to compare with the comprehensive treatment that Malory, an English knight, accorded to one of the greatest popular tales in the history of Western Civilization. For many, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur forms the quintessential retelling of the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
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