Part 9 (1/2)
The first four Idylls of the King were prepared for publication in the spring of 1859; while Tennyson was at work also on Pelleas and Ettarre, and the Tristram cycle In auturave and Mr Craufurd Grove Returning, he fell eagerly to reading an early copy of Darwin's Origin of Species, the crown of his own early speculations on the theory of evolution
”Your theory does not ainst Christianity?” he asked Darwin later (1868), who replied, ”No, certainly not” But Darwin has stated the waverings of his own , and only to be approached, if at all, on the strength of the scientific lects, or denies, or ”explains away,” rather than explains
The Idylls, unlike Maud, ell received by the press, better by the public, and best of all by friends like Thackeray, the Duke of Argyll, the Master of Balliol, and Clough, while Ruskin showed some reserve The letter fro froratitude,” but posted some six weeks later:-
FOLKESTONE, September
36 ONSLOW SQUARE, October
My Dear Old Alfred,--I owe you a letter of happiness and thanks
Sir, about three weeks ago, when I was ill in bed, I read the Idylls of the King, and I thought, ”Oh, I ht, this splendour of happiness which I have been enjoying” But I should have blotted the sheets, 'tis ill writing on one's back The letter full of gratitude never went as far as the post-office, and how comes it now?
D'abord, a bottle of claret (The landlord of the hotel askedhere, an old azine, 1850, and I come on a poem out of The Princess which says, ”I hear the horns of Elfland blowing, blowing,”--no, it's ”the horns of Elfland faintly blowing” (I have been into my bedroo the lines, which only one ht about the other horns of Elfland blowing in full strength, and Arthur in gold arhts and heroes and beauties and purple landscapes and ray lakes in which you have made me live They seeo (three weeks or a month was it?) when I read the book It is on the table yonder, and I don't like, soratitude! You have hts,--every step I have walked in Elfland has been a sort of Paradise to ave TWO bottles of his claret and I think I drank theback in the chair and thinking of those delightful Idylls, rateful to that surprising genius which has made me so happy? Do you understand that what Iopposite with a pipe in your lory and love and honour, and if you haven't given ratitude? But I have had out of that dear book the greatest delight that has ever co , and this I suppose is what I'ht the ”Grands as well as at 35?
October 16th--(I should think six weeks after the writing of the above)
The rhapsody of gratitude was never sent, and for a peculiar reason: just about the tieazine, and to have a contribution frohest ambition But to ask a man for a favour, and to praise and bon before hie, seemed to be so like hypocrisy, that I held my hand, and left this note ina little French- Italian-Swiss tour which
Meanwhile S E & Co have beentheir own proposals to you, and you have replied not favourably, I am sorry to hear; but now there is no reason why you should not have es, and I am just as thankful for the Idylls, and love and adan to write in that ardour of claret and gratitude If you can't write for us you can't If you can by chance some day, and help an old friend, how pleased and happy I shall be! This however ive up hope, but accept the good fortune if it comes I see one, two, three quarterlies advertised to-day, as all bringing laurels to laureatus He will not refuse the private tribute of an old friend, will he? You don't kno pleased the girls were at Kensington t'other day to hear you quote their father's little verses, and he too I daresay was not disgusted He sends you and yours his very best regards in this most heartfelt and artless
(note of admiration)!
Always yours, ave Tennyson more pleasure than all the converted critics with their favourable reviews The Duke of Argyll announced the conversion of Macaulay The Master found Elaine ”the fairest, sweetest, purest love poeory in the distance GREATLY STRENGTHENS, ALSO ELEVATES, THE MEANING OF THE POEM”
Ruskin, like some other critics, felt ”the art and finish in these poems a little more than I like to feel it” Yet Guinevere and Elaine had been rapidly written and little corrected I confess to the opinion that what a man does most easily is, as a rule, what he does best We know that the ”art and finish” of Shakespeare were spontaneous, and so were those of Tennyson Perfection in art is so preparation for it,--that unseen geret”
But he wisely kept his pieces by hi them with a fresh eye The ”unreality” of the subject also failed to please Ruskin, as it is a stu present,” a theil, or the Greek dra plays) in the Persae of AEschylus The poet who can transfigure the hot present is fortunate, but reatest, have visited the cool quiet purlieus of the past
CHAPTER VII--THE IDYLLS OF THE KING
The Idylls may probably be best considered in their final shape: they are not an epic, but a series of heroic idyllia of the sa after the natural age of national epic, the age of Hoonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, a poem with many beauties, if rather an archaistic and elaborate revival as a whole The tiht, was past, and he only ventured on the heroic idyllia of Heracles, and certain adventures of the Argonauts Tennyson, too, froht to be short
Therefore, though he had a conception of his work as a whole, a conception long hts, he produced no epic, only a series of epic idyllia He had a spiritual conception, ”an allegory in the distance,” an allegory not to be insisted upon, though its presence was to be felt No longer, as in youth, did Tennyson intend Merlin to sy” (as if one were to ”break into blank the gospel of”
Herr Kant), or poor Guinevere to stand for the Blessed Reformation, or the Table Round for Liberal Institutions Mercifully Tennyson never actually allegorised Arthur in that fashi+on Later he thought of a musical masque of Arthur, and sketched a scenario Finally Tennyson dropped both the allegory of Liberal principles and the musical masque in favour of the series of heroic idylls There was only a ”parabolic drift” in the intention ”There is no single fact or incident in the Idylls, however seely mystical, which cannot be explained without any ht to be read (and the right readers never drea else) as ro's Childe Roland, in which the wrong readers (the ht for mystic mountains and marvels Yet Tennyson had his own interpretation, ”a drea into practical life and ruined by one sin” That was his ”interpretation,” or ”allegory in the distance”
People estion of any spiritual interpretation of the Arthur legends, and even to the existence of elehts and ladies There seehter,” as Roger Ascham said, are the staple of Tennyson's sources, whether in the mediaeval French, the Welsh, or in Malory's compilation, chiefly fro” these, and of introducing gentleness, courtesy, and conscience into a literature where such qualities were unknown I norant of any early and popular, or ”primitive” literature, in which human virtues, and the human conscience, do not play their part Those who object to Tennyson's handling of the great Arthurian cycle, on the ground that he is too refined and too otten even Malory's romance Thus we read, in a recent novel, that Lancelot was an homme aux bonnes fortunes, whereas Lancelot was theother critics, Mr Harrison has objected that the Arthurian world of Tennyson ”is not quite an ideal world Therein lies the difficulty The scene, though not of course historic, has certain historic suggestions and characters” It is not apparent who the historic characters are, for the real Arthur is but a historic phantashts, from Arthur doards, talk and act in hich we are faical novels, but which are as ier or a Polar bear would be in a drawing-room” I confess to little acquaintance with hts, and still hts of mediaeval romance, were capable of very ethical actions To halt an arhly ethical action Perhaps Sir Redvers Buller would do it: Bruce did Mr Harrison accuses the ladies of the Idylls of soul-bewildering casuistry, like that of women in Middlemarch or Helbeck of Bannisdale Now I am not reminded by Guinevere, and Elaine, and Enid, of ladies in these ethical novels
But the woinals fro if not casuists ”Spiritual delicacy” (as they understood it) was their delight
Mr Harrison even argues that Malory's men lived hot-blooded lives in fierce ti conscience,' 'leading sweet lives,'” and so on But he admits that they had ”fantastic ideals of 'honour' and 'love'” As to ”fantastic,” that is a matter of opinion, but to have ideals and to live in accordance with them is to ”reverence conscience”, which the heroes of the romances are said by Mr Harrison never to have had an idea of doing They are denied even ”amiable words and courtliness”
Need one say that courtliness is the dohts, in history as in romance? With discourtesy Froissart would ”head the count of crilish would thank each other for a good fight, ”not like the Germans” ”And now, I dare say,” said Malory's Sir Ector, ”thou, Sir Lancelot, wast the curtiest knight that ever bare shi+eld,and thou wast theladies” Observe Sir Lancelot in the difficult pass where the Lily Maid offers her love: ”Jesu defend me, for then I rewarded your father and your brother full evil for their great goodness