Lord Tennyson and King Arthur
Lord Tennyson and King ArthurLORD TENNYSON and KING ARTHUR
Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, August 6, 1809. He was the fourth of twelve children to George and Elizabeth (Fytche) Tennyson. Alfred Tennyson had a lifelong fear of mental illness. Several men in his family had a mild form of epilepsy, which in Tennyson’s time was thought to be a shameful disease. His father George and brother Arthur made their cases worse by excessive drinking. Tennyson’s brother Edward had to be confined in a mental institution after 1833 and Tennyson himself spent a few weeks under doctors’ care in 1843. In the late twenties his father’s physical and mental condition worsened, and he became paranoid, abusive, and violent.
In 1827 Tennyson escaped the troubled atmosphere of his home when he followed his two older brothers to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutor was William Whewell. Because they had published Poems by Two Brothers in 1827 and each won university prizes for poetry (Alfred winning the Chancellor’s Gold Medal in 1828 for “Timbuctoo”) the Tennyson brothers became well known at Cambridge. In 1829 The Apostles, and undergraduate club, whose members remained Tennyson’s friends all his life, invited him to join. The group, which met to discuss major philosophical and other issues, included Arthur Henry Hallam, James Spedding, Edward Lushington, and Richard Monckton Milnes.
Arthur Hallam was the most important and influential friend that Tennyson had. Hallam and Tennyson knew each other only four years, but their intense friendship had a major influence on the poet. On a visit to Somersby, Hallam met and later became engaged to Emily Tennyson, and the two friends looked forward to a life-long companionship. Hallam’s death from illness in 1833 (he was only 22) shocked Tennyson profoundly, and his grief lead to most of his best poetry, including In Memoriam, “The Passing of Arthur”, and “Ulysses”.
After Hallam’s death Tennyson published a series of 12 connected poems called “Idylls of the King”. “Idylls of the King” was a project that preoccupied Tennyson over many years, during which he studied Malory, The Mabinogion, Layamon, and other sources of Arthurian legend. In 1855-6 he began writing the first Idyll, which was to become “Merlin and Vivien”, which he followed with “Enid” later divided into “The Marriage of Geraint” and “Geraint and Enid”. The first four were published in 1859 as “Enid”, “Vivien”, “Elaine”, and “Guinevere” and constituted, roughly half of the final version. They were extremely successful, selling 10,000 copies in six weeks. In 1869 followed “The Coming of Arthur”, “The Holy Grail”, “Pelleas and Ettarre”, and “The Passing of Arthur”. “The Last Tournament” was published in the Contemporary Review in 1871, then, with “Gareth and Lynette”, in 1872. “Balin and Balan”, written in 1872-4, did not appear until 1885. The sequence as now printed first appeared in 1891.
The poems present...
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