Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism | Idylls of the King Alfred, Lord Tennyson - David Staines (essay date 1982)

David Staines (essay date 1982)

SOURCE: "1869: The Holy Grail: The Coming of Arthur,' 'The Holy Grail,' 'Pelleas and Ettarre,' 'The Passing of Arthur'," in Tennyson's Camelot: The Idylls of the King and Its Medieval Sources, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1982, pp. 64-97.

[In the following essay, Staines discusses Tennyson's struggle with the story of the Holy Grail and how it shapes the theme of the Idylls.]

As to Macaulay's suggestion of the Sangreal, I doubt whether such a subject could be handled in these days, without incurring a charge of irreverence. It would be too much like playing with sacred things. The old writers believed in the Sangreal.¹

Even before the publication of the 1859 volume, Tennyson was studying other stories in Malory as possible episodes for his Arthurian poem.² A full decade passed, however, before he began another idyll. His hesitation was...

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