The growth of the Idylls of the King

Preface

When our poet, holding in his hand a flower plucked from the crannied wall, cries, if he could understand it " root and all" he would then know what God and man is, he is affirming poetically that the process and the law of the mystery of growth is the key to the secret of the universe. He said well, therefore, who said that only when we understand the conditions under which a truth or a poem arose, or a political or philosophical system came to he, do we in reality understand what that is which has come to be. Or, as Professor Kuno Fischer has said, "To understand this poem ['Faust'] we must first of all understand its origin."

The subject-matter of the " Idylls of the King" grew and the poem itself grew, — the subject-matter during many hundred years, the poem during a halfcentury. This volume is a discussion of the growth of Lord Tennyson's version of the Arthur legend, — a version which may prove to be the classic English version of poetic material which has entered so largely into the 4iterature of all European nations.

The effect of reflection upon the extent of this poetic material, these wide-spread legends, this stream of international poetry, is a disregard of the criticism that Lord Tennyson's ideal knight and

6 PREFACE.

blameless king is not the Arthur whom we knew through Malory. In chapter i., section 4, there is an attempt to show that Tennyson's obligations to Malory have been overestimated, especially in the case of his Yivien, who can hardly be derived from Malory's lady of the lake, Nimue. The basis of chapter ii. is some early proof-sheets in the South Kensington Museum, and a printed copy, believed to be the only copy in existence, in the British Museum. The variations in these early texts, including also the MS. revisions not adopted, have a value to those who would therefrom discover the method of workmanship of this master of English metre, who is ranked in this respect among the greatest of English poets. In chapter iii. there is demonstration that the plan of the poem grew as the poet wrought. Finally, by determining the date of the various parts of the poem, we learn the poet's final view of life as expressed in this poem, and understand now why, notwithstanding the lines (written in early manhood) celebrating the power of prayer, the " Idylls of the King" closes with the darkness of that battle in the west where all of high and holy dies away.

I desire to express my obligations for many favors to Professors Ehys and Napier of the University of Oxford, to Professor Bulbring of the University of Groningen, and to Dr. Garnett of the British

Museum.

Eichard Jones.

Swarthmore College, December, 1894.

Contents

CHAPTEE I.

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THE IDYLLS OF THE KING.

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