Product Description

Tennyson had a life-long interest in the legend of King Arthur and after the huge success of his poem ‘Morte d’Arthur’ he built on the theme with this series of twelve poems, written in two periods of intense creativity over nearly twenty years. Idylls of the King traces the story of Arthur’s rule, from his first encounter with Guinevere and the quest for the Holy Grail to the adultery of his Queen with Launcelot and the King’s death in a final battle that spells the ruin of his kingdom. Told with lyrical and dreamlike eloquence, Tennyson’s depiction of the Round Table reflects a longing for a past age of valour and chivalry. And in his depiction of King Arthur he created a hero imbued with the values of the Victorian age – one who embodies the highest ideals of manhood and kingship.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118338 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 371 pages

Customer Reviews

Books like this are the reason we learn to read
This is the story about Arthur and the tales of Camelot. Obviously. But for those of you who don't know more than what you've seen on TV or the movies, read this book. Read about Balin and Balan, read about Elaine, read about Guenivere. It's so much more fulfilling to search them out and to find them, than to have someone splash their character on a screen for you. My favorite stanza in the entire book is when Arthur talks about commitment. Commitment to his cause, to life, to God, to everything: "Arthur sat Crown'd on the dais, and his warriors cried, 'Be thou the king, and we will work thy will Who love thee.' Then the King in low deep tones, And simple words of great authority, Bound them by so strait vows to his own self That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some Were pale as at the passing of a ghost, Some flushe'd, and others dazed, as one who wakes Half--blinded at the coming of a light."

Awesome isn't it?

King Arthur in The Victorian Age
This hugely impressive work of poetry, although based on Malory's epic "Morte d'Arthur" and other early books, does not, in truth shed much light on the "Arthurian" Age, but it is immensely revealing about the Victorian era.

In these poems, Arthur is an English gentleman rather than a Dark Age Celtic warlord, or even a medieval ruler. But this approach serves to illuminate what was best about the Victorians, decency, courage, self belief. It is fashionable to knock the society of England in the Nineteenth Century as being repressive, dictatorial, even hypocritical. Tennyson's poetry, along with the work of authors like Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson show, largely, a positive side to the time.

My only regret with "The Idylls" is that the shorter poem by Tennyson on the subject of Arthurian romance, the cracking "Lady of Shallot" is not included in this book.