Tennyson, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, Alfred Lord (1809–92),English poet, central figure in the Arthurian revival, who drew from classical myth and Celtic legend to write allegorical stories about the ideals and failings of his society. He was particularly influenced by Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485), an important source for his Arthurian idylls. In his first fully Arthurian poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ (1833), the lady, whose fairy nature is only referred to in passing, is drawn out of her island‐world by the sight of Lancelot on his way to Camelot, and dies. In 1842, Tennyson published three Arthurian poems, ‘Morte d'Arthur’, ‘Sir Galahad’, and ‘Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere’, which would later be incorporated into Idylls of the King (1859). While Tennyson's poems can be read as socio‐political or religious allegories, they are also reflections on art and the artist: in ‘Merlin and the Gleam’ (1889), Merlin the...
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