IDYLLS OF THE KING

IN TWELVE BOOKS

'Flos Regum Arthurus.- JOSEPH OF EXETER

The poet became interested in the Arthurian story long before the first series of the 'Idylls' was published. The Lady of Shalott,' which appeared in 1832, is founded upon the legend which was later made the subject of Lancelot and Elaine.' The Palace of Art' in the same volume contained an allusion to 'that deep-wounded child of Pendragon,' or 'mythic Uther's deeply wounded son,' as it now reads. 'Sir Galahad' and 'Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere ' were printed in 1842, when the 'Morte d'Arthur' was also given to the world. This latter poem, afterwards incorporated in 'The Passing of Arthur,' must have been written as early as 1835, when Fitzgerald heard it read from manuscript (Memoir,' vol. i. p. 194). Landor also writes under date of December 9, 1837: 'Yesterday a Mr. Moreton, a young man of rare judgment, read to me a manuscript by Mr. Tennyson, very different in style from his printed poems. The subject is the death of Arthur. It is more Homeric than any poem of our time, and rivals some of the noblest parts of the Odyssea' (Forster's 'Life of Landor,' ii. 323).

In 1857 the poet printed 'six trial-copies' of 'Enid and Nimuë: the True and the False,' containing the stories of 'Enid' and 'Vivien,' afterwards revised for the edition of 1859. The copy of this book in the library of the British Museum is believed to be the 'sole survivor' of the six. There is a still earlier form of 'Enid' in the Forster Bequest Library of the South Kensington Museum, London, which appears to be a first proof of the poem as printed in the 1857 volume. In the same collection there is a volume of proof-sheets, the title-page of which reads: The True and the False. Four Idylls of the King,' with the date 1859. It contains the four Idylls which, after further revision, were published the same year with the simpler title of ' Idylls of the King.'

This first instalment of the 'Idylls' as finally published in July, 1859, included ‘Enid,' 'Vivien,' 'Elaine,' and 'Guinevere,' as they were then entitled. Ten thousand copies were sold in about six weeks, and the critics were almost unanimous in their praise of the book. Among its warmest admirers was Prince Albert, who sent his copy to the poet, asking him to write his name in it. The note continued:

'You would thus add a peculiar interest to the book containing those beautiful songs, from the perusal of which I derived the greatest enjoyment. They quite rekindle the feeling with which the legends of King Arthur must have inspired the chivalry of old, whilst the graceful form in which they are presented blends those feelings with the softer tone of our present age.' In 1862, a new edition of the 'Idylls' appeared, with the dedication to the memory of the Prince, who died in December, 1861.

In 1869, four more Idylls were brought out,

'The Coming of Arthur,' 'The Holy Grail,' 'Pelleas and Ettarre,' and The Passing of Arthur,' in which, as already mentioned, the Morte d'Arthur' of 1842 is incorporated.

In 1872,The Last Tournament' (contributed to the 1871) and Gareth and Lynette' appeared; and in 1885 was included in Tiresias and Other Poems.'

Contemporary Review' for December,
Balin and Balan,' the last of the series,

In 1884, Enid,' already entitled 'Geraint and Enid,' was divided into two parts (numbered 1. and II.), and in 1888 these parts received their present titles. The poems were now described as twelve books,' and arranged in the order in which the author intended they should be read. In the order of publication the last Idyll (or the portion of it included in the Morte d'Arthur' of 1842) was the first, followed successively by the third, fourth (these two, as just explained, being originally one), sixth, seventh, eleventh (as the five were arranged in 1859), first, eighth, ninth, twelfth) as arranged in 1869, the twelfth being the amplification of the 'Morte d'Arthur'), second, tenth, and fifth. 'Nave and transept, aisle after aisle, the Gothic minster has extended, until, with the addition of a cloister here and a chapel yonder, the structure stands complete.' Stedman, from whose 'Victorian Poets' we quote this, adds:

It has grown insensibly, under the hands of one man who has given it the best years of his life, but somewhat as Wolf conceived the Homeric poems to have grown, chant by chant, until the time came for the whole to be welded together in heroic form. . It is the epic of chivalry, the Christian ideal of chivalry which we have deduced from a barbaric source,

our conception of what knighthood should be, rather than what it really was; but so skilfully wrought of high imaginings, faery spells, fantastic legends, and mediæval splendors, that the whole work, suffused with the Tennysonian glamor of golden mist, seems like a chronicle illuminated by saintly hands, and often blazes with light like that which flashed from the holy wizard's book when the covers were unclasped. And, indeed, if this be not the greatest narrative poem since "Paradise Lost," what other English production are you to name in its place? Never so lofty as the grander portions of Milton's epic, it is more evenly sustained and has no long prosaic passages; while "Paradise Lost" is justly declared to be a work of superhuman genius impoverished by dreary wastes of theology.'

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For the origin and development of the story of the 'Idylls,' see 'Studies in the Arthurian Legend,' by John Rhys, M. Á. (Oxford, 1891), 'Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian Story from the 16th Century,' by M. W. Maccallum, M. A. (London, 1894), ‘Essays on Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King,' by Harold Littledale, M. A. (London, 1893), The Growth of the Idylls of the King,' by Richard Jones, Ph. D. ( Philadelphia, 1895), King Arthur and the Table Round,' by W. W. Newell (Boston, 1897), etc. For the allegory in the poems, see 'Studies in the Idylls,' by Henry Elsdale (London, 1878), and the articles in the Contemporary Review' for January, 1870 (by Dean Alford), and May, 1873 (by the editor), both of which were based on the poet's own explanations. For general criticism, see particularly Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life,' by Rev. Stopford A. Brooke (London and New York, 1894), in which pp. 255391 are devoted to the 'Idylls,' and The Poetry of Tennyson,' by Rev. Dr. Henry van Dyke (3d ed., New York, 1892, pp. 133-196). For bibliographical and miscellaneous information, see the 'Handbook to the Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson,' by Morton Luce (London, 1895), A Tennyson Primer,' by William M. Dixon, Litt. D. (London and New York, 1896), and Nicoll and Wise's Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century,' vol. ii. (London, 1896). The 'Bibliography of Tennyson,' by the author of Tennysoniana ' (R. H. Shepherd), published by subscription (London, 1896), though the most complete up to the present time (1898), is sometimes inaccurate. Malory's 'Morte Darthur,' from which the poet drew much of his material, is accessible in the 'Globe' edition (London and New York, revised ed. 1893), and in the 'Temple Classics' edition (London, 1897).

DEDICATION