Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism | Idylls of the King Alfred, Lord Tennyson - John R. Reed (essay date 1969)

John R. Reed (essay date 1969)

SOURCE: "Idylls of the King: Themes," in Perception and Design in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," Ohio University Press, 1969, pp. 139-237.

[In the following chapter from Perception and Design in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," Reed contends that Arthur enacts an idealistic transformation "through emancipating the imagination."]

Introduction

"To live in the Idea," said Goethe, "means treating the impossible as though it were possible."¹ This is both a justification and an explanation of Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Arthur's vows, we are told early in the poem, are not such as men can keep, yet any man should be ashamed not to take them. In short, man's way should be to commit himself to ideals that are unattainable. There is more here than an echo of Browning's "A man's reach should exceed his grasp / Or what's a heaven for?"² It is an idea which...

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