Idylls of the King
Idylls of the King,a series of 12 connected poems by Tennyson , of which ‘Morte d'Arthur’ , subsequently incorporated in ‘The Passing of Arthur’, was composed in 1833 after A. H. Hallam 's death and published in 1842 . It was a project that preoccupied Tennyson over many years, during which he studied Malory , The Mabinogion , Laзamon , 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, though with many revisions, 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...
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