Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (6 August 1809 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of the United

d Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, "In the valley of Cauteretz", "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears" and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a cerebral hemorrhage before they were married. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, Ulysses, and Tithonus. During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success. Tennyson wrote a number of phrases that have become commonplaces of the English language, including: "Nature, red in tooth and claw", "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure", "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare [1] and others.

Contents
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1 Early life 2 Education and first publication 3 Return to Lincolnshire and second publication 4 Third publication 5 The Poet Laureate 6 The art of Tennyson's poetry 7 Partial list of works 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Early life

Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, a rector's son and fourth of 12 children.[2] He derived from a middle-class line of Tennysons, but also had noble and royal ancestry.[3] His father, George Clayton Tennyson (17781831), was a rector for Somersby (18071831), also rector of Benniworth and Bag Enderby, and vicar of Grimsby (1815). The rector was the elder of two sons, but was disinherited at an early age by his father, the landowner George Tennyson (17501835) (owner of Bayons Manor and Usselby Hall), in favour of his younger brother Charles, who later took the name Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson

raised a large family and "was a man of superior abilities and varied attainments, who tried his hand with fair success in architecture, painting, music, and poetry. " He was "comfortably well off for a country clergyman and his shrewd money management enabled the family to spend summers at Mablethorpe and Skegness, on the eastern coast of England." Alfred Tennyson's mother, Elizabeth Fytche (17811865), was the daughter of Stephen Fytche (17341799), vicar of St. James Church, Louth (1764) and rector of Withcall (1780), a small village between Horncastle and Louth. Tennyson's father "carefully attended to the education and training of his children." Tennyson and two of his elder brothers were writing poetry in their teens, and a collection of poems by all three were published locally when Alfred was only 17. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred's future wife; the other poet brother was Frederick Tennyson. One of Tennyson's other brothers, Edward Tennyson, was institutionalized at a private asylum, where he died.

Education and first publication

Tennyson was first a student of Louth Grammar School for four years (18161820)[3] and then attended Scaitcliffe School, Englefield Green and King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827,[4] where he joined a secret society called the Cambridge Apostles. At Cambridge Tennyson met Arthur Henry Hallam, who became his closest friend. His first publication was a collection of "his boyish rhymes and those of his elder brother Charles" entitled Poems by Two Brothers published in 1827.[3] In 1829 he was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his first pieces, "Timbuctoo".[5][6] Reportedly, "it was thought to be no slight honour for a young man of twenty to win the chancellor's gold medal."[3] He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which later took their place among Tennyson's most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although decried by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

[edit] Return to Lincolnshire and second publication

Tennyson with his wife Emily (1813-1896) and his sons Hallam (1852-1928) and Lionel (18541886). In the spring of 1831, Tennyson's father died, requiring him to leave Cambridge before taking his degree. He returned to the rectory, where he was permitted to live for another six years, and shared responsibility for his widowed mother and the family. Arthur Hallam came to stay with his family during the summer and became engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emilia Tennyson. In 1833, Tennyson published his second book of poetry, which included his well-known poem, The Lady of Shalott. The volume met heavy criticism, which so discouraged Tennyson that he did not publish again for 10 more years, although he continued to write. That same year, Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage while on vacation in Vienna.[7] Hallam's sudden and unexpected death in 1833 had a profound impact on Tennyson, and inspired several masterpieces, including "In the Valley of Cauteretz" and In Memoriam A.H.H., a long poem detailing the 'Way of the Soul'.[7] Tennyson and his family were allowed to stay in the rectory for some time, but later moved to High Beach, Essex in 1837. An unwise investment in an ecclesiastical wood-carving enterprise soon led to the loss of much of the family fortune. He then moved to London, and resided for a time at Chapel House, Twickenham.

[edit] Third publication

In 1842, while living modestly in London, Tennyson published two volumes of Poems, the first of which included works already published and the second of which was made up almost entirely of new poems. They met with immediate success. Poems from this collection, such as Locksley Hall, "Tithonus", and "Ulysses" have met enduring fame. The Princess: A Medley, a satire of women's education, which came out in 1847, was also popular for its lyrics. W. S. Gilbert later adapted and parodied the piece twice: in The Princess (1870) and in Princess Ida (1884).

It was in 1850 that Tennyson reached the pinnacle of his career, finally publishing his masterpiece, In Memoriam A.H.H., dedicated to Hallam. Later the same year he was appointed Poet Laureate in succession to William Wordsworth. In the same year (13 June), Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, whom he had known since childhood, in the village of Shiplake. They had two sons, Hallam Tennyson (b. 11 August 1852) named after his friend and Lionel (b. 16 March 1854).

Farringford - Lord Tennyson's residence on the Isle of Wight

[edit] The Poet Laureate

After William Wordsworth's death in 1850, and Samuel Rogers' refusal, Tennyson was appointed to the position of Poet Laureate, which he held until his own death in 1892, by far the longest tenure of any laureate before or since. He fulfilled the requirements of this position by turning out appropriate but often uninspired verse, such as a poem of greeting to Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the future King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of his best known works, "The Charge of the Light Brigade", a dramatic tribute to the British cavalrymen involved in an ill-advised charge on 25 October 1854, during the Crimean War. Other esteemed works written in the post of Poet Laureate include Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington and Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition.

Statue of Lord Tennyson in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Queen Victoria was an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, and in 1884 created him Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. Tennyson initially declined a baronetcy in 1865 and 1868 (when tendered by Disraeli), finally accepting a peerage in 1883 at Gladstone's earnest solicitation. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 11 March 1884.[3] Tennyson also wrote a substantial quantity of non-official political verse, from the bellicose "Form, Riflemen, Form", of the French crisis of 1859, to "Steersman, be not precipitate in thine act/of steering", deploring Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. Virginia Woolf wrote a play Freshwater, showing Tennyson as host to his friends Julia Margaret Cameron and G.F.Watts;[8] Tennyson was the first to be raised to a British Peerage for his writing. A passionate man with some peculiarities of nature, he was never particularly comfortable as a peer, and it is widely held that he took the peerage in order to secure a future for his son Hallam.[citation needed] Thomas Edison made sound recordings of Tennyson reading his own poetry, late in his life. They include recordings of The Charge of the Light Brigade, and excerpts from "The splendour falls" (from The Princess), "Come into the garden" (from Maud), "Ask me no more", "Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington", "Charge of the Heavy Brigade", and "Lancelot and Elaine"; the sound quality is as bad as wax cylinder recordings usually are.

Sketch of Alfred Tennyson published one year after his death in 1892, seated in his favourite arbour at his Farringford House home in the village of Freshwater, Isle of Wight. Towards the end of his life Tennyson revealed that his "religious beliefs also defied convention, leaning towards agnosticism and pandeism":[9] Famously, he wrote in In Memoriam: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." [The context directly contradicts the apparent meaning of this quote.] In Maud, 1855, he wrote: "The churches have killed their Christ." In "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," Tennyson wrote: "Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of heathen hate." In his play, Becket, he wrote: "We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites and private hates with our defence of Heaven." Tennyson recorded in his Diary (p. 127): "I believe in Pantheism of a sort." His son's biography confirms that Tennyson was not an orthodox Christian, noting that Tennyson praised Giordano Bruno and Spinoza on his deathbed, saying of Bruno, "His view of God is in some ways mine," in 1892.[10]

Tennyson continued writing into his eighties and died on 6 October 1892 at Aldworth aged 83. He was buried at Westminster Abbey. A memorial was erected in All Saints' Church, Freshwater. His last words were; "Oh that press will have me now!".[11] He was succeeded as 2nd Baron Tennyson by his son, Hallam, who produced an authorised biography of his father in 1897, and was later the second Governor-General of Australia.

[edit] The art of Tennyson's poetry

Alfred Tennyson, portrait by P.Krmer-Friedrich Bruckmann Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter, ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature, as source material for his poetry. The influence of John Keats and other Romantic poets published before and during his childhood is evident from the richness of his imagery and descriptive writing. He also handled rhythm masterfully. The insistent beat of Break, Break, Break emphasizes the relentless sadness of the subject matter. Tennyson's use of the musical qualities of words to emphasize his rhythms and meanings is sensitive. The language of "I come from haunts of coot and hern" lilts and ripples like the brook in the poem and the last two lines of "Come down O maid from yonder mountain height" illustrate his telling combination of onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance:

The moan of doves in immemorial elms And murmuring of innumerable bees. Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively. Few poets have used such a variety of styles with such an exact understanding of metre; like many Victorian poets, he experimented in adapting the quantitative metres of Greek and Latin poetry to English. He reflects the Victorian period of his maturity in his feeling for order and his

tendency towards moralizing and self-indulgent melancholy. He also reflects a concern common among Victorian writers in being troubled by the conflict between religious faith and expanding scientific knowledge. Like many writers who write a great deal over a long time, he can be pompous or banal, but his personality rings throughout all his workswork that reflects a grand and special variability in its quality. Tennyson possessed the strongest poetic power; he put great length into many works, most famous of which are Maud and Idylls of the King, the latter one of literature's treatments of the legend of King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table.[citation
needed]

[edit] Partial list of works

From Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830): o The Dying Swan o The Kraken o Mariana Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832) From Poems (1833): o The Lotos-Eaters o The Lady of Shalott (1832, 1842) - three versions painted by J.W. Waterhouse (1888, 1894 and 1916). Also put to music by Loreena McKennitt on her album The Visit (1991). St. Simeon Stylites (1833) From Poems (1842): o Locksley Hall o Tithonus o Vision of Sin o The Two Voices (1834) o "Ulysses" (1833) From The Princess; A Medley (1847) o "The Princess" o Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal - it later appeared as a song in the film Vanity Fair, with musical arrangement by Mychael Danna o "Tears, Idle Tears" In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849) Ring Out, Wild Bells (1850) The Eagle (1851) The Sister's Shame[12] From Maud; A Monodrama (1855/1856) o Maud o The Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) - an early recording exists of Tennyson reading this. From Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1862/1864) o Enoch Arden o The Brook - contains the line "For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever" which inspired the naming of a men's club in New York City.

Flower in the crannied wall (1869) The Window - Song cycle with Arthur Sullivan. (1871) Harold (1876) - began a revival of interest in King Harold Idylls of the King (composed 1833-1874) Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886) Crossing the Bar (1889) The Foresters - a play with incidental music by Arthur Sullivan (1891) Kapiolani (published after his death by Hallam Tennyson)[13] The Right Honourable

The Lord Tennyson

FRS

1869 Carbon print by Julia Margaret Cameron Born 6 August 1809 Somersby, Lincolnshire, England United Kingdom 6 October 1892 (aged 83) Haslemere, Surrey, England United Kingdom Poet laureate

Died Occupation

Influences

The Kraken
From Wikisource Jump to: navigation, search The Kraken by Alfred Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep, Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides; above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumber'd and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages, and will lie Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. The lady of shallot

POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS, 1826 (with his brothers Frederick and Charles) POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL, 1830 (including Mariana) IN MEMORIAM, 1833 MORTE D'ARTHUR, DORA, AND OTHER IDYLS, 1842 - films: Dora, 1912, dir. by Frank
Powell, starring Florence Barker as Dora; Dora, 1915, dir. by Travers Vale

POEMS, 1842 (2 vols., including Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Lady of Shalott) - film: The
Lady of Shalott, 1915, dir. by C.J. Williams, starring Constance Talmadge

THE PRINCESS, 1847 IN MEMORIAM, 1850 MAUD AND OTHER POEMS, 1855 (including The Charge of the Light Brigade) 'Kevyen prikaatin hykkys' (suom. Yrj Jylh) - films: Maud, 1911, dir. by Wilfred Noy; Naked
Hearts, 1916, dir. by Rupert Julian (based on Maud); Balaclava, 1928, dir. by Maurice Elvey, Milton Rosmer,starring Cyril McLaglen, Benita Hume, Miles Mander, Alf Goddard (the story of the charge of the Light Brigade); The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1936, screenplay by Michael Jacoby, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia De Haviland, Patric Knowles. Remade in 1968, dir. by Tony Richardson, starring Trevor Howard, John Gielgud, David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave

IDYLLS OF THE KING, 1859 SEA DREAMS, 1860 ENOCH ARDEN, 1864 - Enoch Arden (suom. Jussi Trnwall, Pekka Laiho) - films: After
Many Years, 1908, dir. by D.W. Griffith; Enoch Arden, dir by D.W. Griffith; Enoch Arden, 1914, dir. by Percy Nash, Enoch Arden / As Fate Ordained / The Fatal Marriage, 1915, dir. by Christy Cabanne, featuring Alfred Paget, Lillian Gish, Wallace Reid; My Favorite Wife, 1940, written by Bella Spewack, Sam Spewack, Leo McCarey, dir. by Garson Kanin, starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott

THE HOLY GRAIL AND OTHER POEMS, 1869 GARETH AND LYNETTE, 1872 QUEEN MARY, 1875 (drama) HAROLD, 1876 (drama) BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS, 1880 THE PROMISE OF MAY, 1882 (drama) THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE, 1882 BECKET, 1884 (drama) - film 1923, dir. by George Ridgwell, featuring Frank R. Benson, A.V.
Bramble

THE FALCON, 1884 (drama) THE CUP, 1884 (drama) THE ANCIENT SAGE, 1885 RIZPAH; TIRESIAS AND OTHER POEMS, 1885 LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER, 1886 CROSSING THE BAR, 1889 DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS, 1889 THE DEATH OF OENONE, AKBAR'S DREAM, AND OTHER POEMS, 1892 THE FORESTERS: ROBIN HOOD AND MARIAN, 1892 (a play) THE EARLY POEMS, 1900 THE SUPPRESSED POEMS, 1904 COLLECTED WORKS, 1907- (9 vols.) UNPUBLISHED EARLY POEMS, 1931 THE POETICAL WORKS, INCLUDING THE PLAYS, 1953 THE POEMS OF TENNYSON, 1969 THE LETTERS OF EMILY, 1974 THE LETTERS OF ALFRED TENNYSON, 1981 LADY TENNYSON'S JOURNAL, 1981

Childhood

In the same year Alfred Tennyson wrote his first Arthurian poem "Morte d'Arthur" (1833), Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed "as to Arthur, you could not by any means make a poem national to Englishmen. What have we to do with him?" (qtd. in Rosenberg "Tennyson"). This implication that Arthurian literature is escapist and irrelevant is a familiar criticism. In contrast and perhaps response, Tennyson called the Arthurian legend "the greatest of all poetical subjects," which partly explains why this tradition so heavily influenced his writing. With varying degrees of intensity, Tennyson drafted and revised his Arthurian epic -- Idylls of the King -- from his early twenties until a few months before his death, popularizing what became an avid Victorian interest in Arthuriana.

Tennyson was born on the fifth of August in 1809 and grew up in a small village of Somersby, Lincolnshire. Throughout his childhood his father, George Clayton Tennyson, suffered from deteriorating mental health, epileptic fits, and alcoholism. Tennyson's father went to Cambridge to study for the church, eventually becoming responsible for the Somersby Rectory. Alfred and his siblings were known to play in a brook at the bottom of the Rectory garden, and it was the scene of castle-building and mock-tournaments. Elizabeth Fytche Tennyson, Alfred's mother, loved poetry and often read aloud to her children James Beattie's Minstrel, James Thomson's The Seasons, or the work of Felicia Hemans. Alfred memorized much seventeenth- and eighteenth-century poetry, including the works of Milton, William Collins, and Thomson, from which he derived many of his early techniques in writing locodescriptive poetry. Elizabeth encouraged Alfred to write, while George viewed creative writing as a needless diversion from reading the classics. Alfred had a knack for story-telling. His sister Cecilia recalls that friends and family would listen "open-eared and open-mouthed to legends of knights and heroes" (qtd. in Ormond 8). Before the age of fourteen, Alfred had composed a six thousand line epic in the style of Walter Scott's Marmion and at least one blank verse drama entitled The Devil and the Lady. As early as the 1830s, he began to consider a serial Arthurian poem, and two different schemes developed: a twelve-book epic, for which he wrote a prose draft in 1833, and a muscial masque, for which he outlined a plot in five acts before 1840 (Eggers 5). Poems (1833), published when Tennyson was only twenty-three years old, includes two Arthurian references, a stanza in The Palace of Art describing Arthur in the Vale of Avalon, and "The Lady of Shallot." Four poems being developed as the early as the 1830s and published in 1842 -- "The Lady of Shallot" (a revised edition), "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere," "Sir Galahad," and "Morte d'Arthur" -- typify varied approaches to the Arthurian tradition. "Morte d'Arthur" represents one of his attempts to achieve some fidelity to Thomas Malory. Malory's Arthur is "a great warrior, a noble leader of men, an exemplary monarch," but most importantly a very human ruler (Staines 3). This poem is a careful expansion, and at times embellishment, of Malory's account of the conclusion of Arthur's life with the exception of a few references to Excalibur (17). During this time, Tennyson envisioned a series of allegorical poems with Arthur as religious faith, Merlin as science, Excalibur as war, Mordred as sceptical understanding, and the Round Table representing liberal institutions. He later claimed that he gave up this plan for an Arthurian epic because of hostile reviews of "Morte d'Arthur." (Ormond 142)

Beyond the profound influence of King Arthur, Tennyson's childhood friend Arthur Henry Hallam to whom Tennyson dedicated In Memoriam (1833-1849; 1850) also played an important role. Late in 1833, after the shock of Hallam's death at twenty-two from a cerebral hemorrhage, Tennyson drafted the "Morte d'Arthur." At the time of his death, Hallam was engaged to marry Tennyson's sister Emily whom he had met during their four-year friendship. As John Rosenberg notes, Hallam was "dead too young to have shaped a life in public" so he "lived posthumously as a prince of friends, a king of intellects." Interestingly, the draft of "Morte d'Arthur," which was later incorporated into "The Passing of Arthur," appears in the same notebook as In Memoriam. For Tennyson, Arthur had both personal and literary implications. ("Tennyson" 229) The other three poems from this early period -- "The Lady of Shallot," "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere," and "Galahad" -- introduce readers to more Arthurian subject matter based in varying degrees on medieval sources and signify some themes that would become more fully realized in Idylls. "The Lady of Shallot" is based on a thirteenth-century Italian novelette entitled Donna di Scalotta. Whereas the Italian version focuses on the lady's death and her reception at Camelot, Tennyson emphasizes her isolation in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two subjects not even mentioned in Donna di Scalotta. In "The Lady of Shallot," Arthuriana is "introduced as a valid setting for the study of the artist and the dangers of personal isolation" (Ormond 11). "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere" represents "an attempt to create a highly visualized story involving central figures of the Arthurian world" (Ormond 14). Like Malory's knight, Tennyson's Galahad is pure, honest, devout and sincere, "yet his introspection, his self-analysis, his exuberant joy bordering on arrogance, his ceaseless desire for activity and movement, these qualities make him a distinctly Victorian portrait of a medieval figure and a precursor of the Galahad of the Pre-Raphaelites" (16). In a more general sense, it is fair to say that the pre-Raphaelite fascination with Arthuriana is traceable to Tennyson's work. Despite references to a variety of medieval sources, it is clear that Tennyson intended Idylls to reflect his contemporary times and concerns. And, indeed, Arthurian legends seem to have had particular appeal to the Victorians. Matthew Arnold suggested with a hint of irony that "the peculiar charm" of Idylls is that it does not have the "aroma of the Middle Ages" (qtd. in Ricks 663). Tennyson's historical sources are diverse -- "Anglo-Saxon social customs, bardic ideals, classical myths, Welsh myths, Victorian ethics, renaissance imagery, and many Arthurian legends" (Eggers 7). Idylls is in part a hypothetical portrait of Victorian England with its high idealism, strict morality, and warring extremism. Hallam Tennyson wrote that his father hoped to combat "the cynical indifference, the intellectual selfishness, the sloth of will, the utilitarian materialism of a transition age" (qtd. in Eggers 20). Arthur's idealism reflects the need for a sustaining purpose in the Victorian era as well as the sometimes foolish utopian hopes associated with the time (Eggers 21). In many ways, Arthur can be read as representative of this tension as he embodies both admirably heroic qualities as well as impossible ideals. Guinevere offers the most thorough critique of Arthur's virtue -- "he is all fault who hath no fault at all" (Hill 498: 131) -- suggesting that Arthur lacks humanity and that strict morality and perfectionism are flawed principles by which to live. How to read Guinevere, of course, varies according to one's sympathies. She is among the false in The True and the False series (1859); still, she occupies a strong, central role in Idylls. Though the depth of that criticism is relative, her perspective articulates important critiques of idealism that is removed from everyday life.

In the 1850s, Tennyson's plans for a serial Arthurian poem were uncertain, but he already had an epic cycle in mind. Perhaps it was the success of his first long poem, The Princess (1847), that encouraged him to return to Arthurian subjects. In addition to reading Arthurian material extensively, he was at Glastonbury in August 1854, and in Wales for two months in 1856, visiting places associated with Arthur and his knights. Despite these signs of preparation, in December 1858 Tennyson wrote to an American publisher, "I wish that you would disabuse your own minds and those of others, as far as you can, of the fancy that I am about an Epic of King Arthur. I should be crazed to attempt such a thing in the nineteenth century" (Letters 2.212). Seven months later Tennyson published the first four books as Idylls: "Enid" was written between April and August 1856, "Guinevere" followed in July 1857, and then came "Elaine," begun at Little Holland House in July 1858, and all of these poems including "Vivien" were completed in February 1859 (Ricks 660). "Enid" was eventually divided into "The Marriage of Geraint" and "Geraint and Enid." The first title he intended to publish these poems under was The True and the False. This strict moral dichotomy defines each of the stories. Enid unquestioningly follows and serves her husband, although he humiliates her based on his groundless belief that she is unfaithful. Elaine, "the fair, Elaine the loveable," as she is referred to in the opening line, dies of grief because of her innocent but consuming love for Lancelot. In contrast, the snake-like Vivien seduces Merlin and the more ambiguous Guinevere betrays her husband and repents too late. Throughout the decade after the publication of the first volume of Idylls, Tennyson was personally encouraged by those as prestigious as Queen Victoria and Thomas Babington Macaulay to continue the series. Tennyson was apprehensive about interpreting the quest for the Holy Grail: "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 Sangraal" (Letters 2.244). Nevertheless, in 1869 he published another volume, adding to the collection: "The Holy Grail," "The Coming of Arthur," "Pelleas and Ettarre," and "The Passing of Arthur." Over the next decade, he would publish individually The Last Tournament (1871 in the Contemporary), Gareth and Lynette, and Other Poems (1872, including "The Last Tournament"), To the Queen (1873), Balin and Balan (1885), and Geraint and Enid (1888). Departing from earlier attention to the dynamics of true and false love, these texts depict the rise and fall of a society, perhaps suggesting an expansive allegory about Victorian culture. The Idylls were generally well-received and proved extremely popular. Tennyson then published "Merlin and the Gleam" in 1889, which was the first Arthurian poem written separately from the Idylls since the 1842 volume. Not only were Tennyson's Arthurian tales extremely popular, they also inspired an enormous quantity of popular imagery, including illustrations by Gustave Dor, a series of photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron, and a set of Minton tiles designed by John Moyr Smith. Other Arthurian-inspired works from the Victorian period include plates, paintings, tapestries, and sculpture (Ormond 172). Fortunately, Coleridge had not anticipated the national and cultural influence of Arthurian literature as Tennyson was able to revive this narrative to have relevance to the Victorians and later generations.