by Mike Ashley
Prince Arthur (London, 1695) and King Arthur (London, 1697), Richard Blackmore. Two heroic verse poems intended to produce a national epic and written to celebrate William of Orange’s victory over the Catholic James II in 1689. The first part draws parallels between William (Arthur) and James II (the Saxon Octa). As in Dryden’s opera, they fight for the hand of the Princess Ethelina (Queen Mary, a symbol of England). The second book equates Arthur’s battle against King Clotar with the British rivalry with Louis XIV. Blackmore, who was a moderately better doctor than a poet, received a knighthood for his efforts, but his works, considered too long-winded by most, faded into obscurity. Prince Arthur was reprinted by Scolar Press, 1971. Both poems are on the internet at < www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/blakpa1.htm > and < www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/blakka1.htm >
Merlin, or The Devil of Stonehenge, Lewis Theobald (London, 1734). A comic operetta with music by John Galliard. The first Arthurian Christmas pantomime, full of effects and melodrama and depicting Merlin as the villain.
Merlin in Love, Aaron Hill (London, 1760). Scarcely Arthurian, but an interesting depiction of Merlin as an old wizard with a long beard, dressed in a robe and wielding a magic wand, perhaps the earliest portrayal of what became a standard image. Apart from Merlin it has no Arthurian connections. Merlin tries to steal Columbine from Harlequin, and is turned into an ass. Described as a “pantomime opera”, it was probably written as early as 1740, as Hill died in 1750.
Arthur, or the Northern Enchantment, Richard Hole (London, 1789). A verse romance which takes many liberties with Geoffrey’s History. It follows the conflict between Arthur and Hengist, and is influenced by Dryden’s play. The same applies to the gothic play The Fairy of the Lake, by John Thelwall (London, 1801).
Vortigern, William Henry Ireland (London, 1795). Passed off by Ireland as a newly discovered play by Shakespeare. It follows Vortigern’s life as described by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It was staged at Drury Lane on 2 April 1796, but had such a foul reception that it closed after one performance. The play may be found on the website < www.vortigernstudies.org.uk >
2. Dawn of the Romantics
After Malory’s Morte Darthur, the best-known Arthurian work is Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, which catapulted the Arthurian story back into public consciousness and inspired the Victorian romantic fascination with the subject.
There were signs of a revival before Tennyson, the interest growing out of the late eighteenth century gothic revival from Germany. Tales by authors such as Ludwig Tieck and Baron de la Motte Fouqué, about brooding haunted castles and doomed knights, became all the rage. These works were not Arthurian, although it would not have taken much to make them so; a good example is Fouqué’s long supernatural fantasy of the Crusades, Der Zauberring (“The Magic Ring”, 1813). Their predecessor Christoph Wieland had started this movement, and amongst his works are Merlin der Zauberer (“Merlin the Magician”, 1777) and Geron der Adelige (“The Noble Geron”, 1777), the latter a blank verse adaptation of Guiron le Courtois (see Palamedes, page 377–8).
Walter Scott was fascinated by German romanticism, and mimicked it so well that some of his anonymously published works were believed to be translations from the German. He spent time editing a new edition of Sir Tristrem (Edinburgh, 1804), based on a thirteenth century work attributed to Thomas of Ercildoune. He incorporated an Arthurian story, “Lyulph’s Tale”, into his episodic verse romance The Bridal of Triermain (Edinburgh, 1813), which tells of Arthur’s seduction by the witch Guendolen, who swears revenge when Arthur leaves her. Years later their daughter Gyneth arrives at Camelot, and reminds Arthur of his pledge that, should he have a daughter, she would marry the bravest of the Round Table knights. A tournament is declared which Gyneth turns into a bloodbath, until Merlin stops it and places Gyneth in a deep slumber in an enchanted castle. The next tale, “Sir Roland de Vaux”, is set in the twelfth century with the eponymous knight in search of the enchanted castle. He wakes Gyneth, à la Sleeping Beauty. The story is available on several websites including < www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/trierma.htm >
Scott wrote no more Arthurian tales, although Ivanhoe (1820) and his Crusader novels The Betrothed, The Talisman (both 1825) and Count Robert of Paris (1832) all evoke the atmosphere of the medieval romances.
With the impetus from Scott and growing interest from poets like William Wordsworth, and a new edition of Malory’s Morte Darthur by Robert Southey in 1817, the Arthurian revival gathered pace. The first all-new Arthurian novel, and still one of the most original, was The Misfortunes of Elphin by Thomas Love Peacock (1829). Through his Welsh wife, Peacock had access to various Welsh texts long unknown to English readers. Uninfluenced by subsequent translations, he gave free rein to a very individualistic novel. Taliesin is the main character at Arthur’s court in Caerleon, and the story includes the abduction of Gwenhyvar and the flooding of Gwaelod through Seithenyn’s neglect. The story can be found at several websites, including < www.thomaslovepeacock.net >
3. Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites
Southey’s edition of Morte Darthur, entitled The Byrth, Lyf and Actes of King Arthur, was the first new edition since 1634, and it proved very influential. It inspired not only Tennyson but, in time, William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Tennyson encountered it while still a child and the effect stayed with him. From 1830, when he started “Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere”, to 1889 with “Merlin and the Gleam”, Tennyson spent a lifetime exploring, experimenting with and recreating a romantic but challenging view of the Arthurian world. Whilst idealising the imagery of Arthur, Guenevere and Lancelot, he also questioned it, forcing us to look again at what was happening. “The Lady of Shalott” (1832), his first published Arthurian poem, did that right from the start, telling of the final days and death of Elaine of Astolat, shunned by Lancelot and dying of a broken heart. Tennyson succeeds in depicting the beautiful world of “many tower’d Camelot”, whilst thrusting into the forefront the image of betrayal and death.
Tennyson continued to explore Malory, creating a growing corpus of work. “Sir Galahad” contrasts the chastity and virtue of Galahad as a knight with his arrogance and compulsiveness as a man. “Morte d’Arthur” is an intensely moving account of Arthur’s last hours, and includes Tennyson’s version of the one image we all know from the Arthurian legend, that of Bedivere casting Excalibur back into the lake and the arm clad in white samite grasping the sword, brandishing it three times and withdrawing with it under the waters.
These poems, with others, including a revised version of “The Lady of Shalott”, appeared in the two-volume Poems in 1842, which not only re-established Tennyson’s flagging career but provided the final impetus for the Arthurian revival.
It was another ten years before Tennyson returned to the Arthurian world, this time with a group of four poems. The first two, “Vivien” and “Enid” (published together as Enid and Nimuë, 1857), contrasted two female perspectives. “Vivien” is a disturbing study of the seduction and betrayal of Merlin, showing the corruption that would destroy Camelot. “Enid”, on the other hand, shows the devotion, fidelity and bravery of Gereint’s wife in comparison to his own jealousy and cruelty. To these two Tennyson added “Guinevere”, which portrays the queen’s inevitably destructive turmoil caused by her dedication to duty and passion for Lancelot, and “Elaine”, a different outlook on “The Lady of Shalott”. These four, which showed the importance of the female influence on the world of chivalry, were issued in 1859 as Idylls of the King, a volume to which Tennyson would continue to add over the next thirty years. He was going to call the collection The True and the False, a description which more accurately reflects the contrasting female values, but which fails to convey the dream-like melancholia of Idylls.
The next edition of Idylls in 1870 contained four poems that Tennyson had issued in 1869 as The Holy Grail and Other Poems. In addition to “The Holy Grail” itself, a powerful study of individuals striving for perfection within a sinful w
orld, the other three are “Pelleas and Ettarre”, depicting a decaying post-Grail Camelot, “The Coming of Arthur”, which explores attitudes towards Arthur’s origin, and “The Passing of Arthur”, a rewrite of the earlier “Morte d’Arthur”. Writing “The Holy Grail” freed Tennyson’s imagination. He had feared he might never achieve a successful version of the story that was both acceptable to Victorian values, and faithful to his concept of an Arthurian world riven by sin. Tennyson viewed the unceasing desire for perfection as ultimately self-destructive, which was the only way in which he could reconcile his Arthurian vision with the developing Victorian world. This balanced dichotomy influenced the remaining poems he would produce.
“The Last Tournament” (1871) shows the continued decay of Camelot and of the knights, including the downfall of Sir Tristram. In contrast, “Gareth and Lynette” shows the power and virtue of the ideal Camelot. Some years later came “Balin and Balan” (1885) which, in Tennyson’s version, is not the precursor to the Grail Quest but the start of Camelot’s decline, emphasising the belief that self-denial and ignorance lead to destruction.
Tennyson produced one final Arthurian poem, not included in Idylls, which serves as a coda not just to that work but to most of his output. “Merlin and the Gleam” (1889) is a mixture of youthful ambition and the realism of old age, reflecting the need to pursue a dream whilst recognising a reality. That was Tennyson’s view of Camelot. It was a Victorian ideal, which one should pursue but with caution, recognising that it contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Tennyson had placed much of the blame for Camelot’s decay on the impossible demands made of men and women in an idealized society (the character of Guenevere suffers particularly badly). The fiery dynamo William Morris did not entirely agree.
Morris had discovered Tennyson’s Arthurian world when he read “The Lady of Shalott” while studying at Oxford from 1853 to 1855. He was further inspired by Southey’s edition of Morte Darthur, a copy of which he drew to the attention of his fellow student, Edward Burne-Jones, in 1855. Morris was still developing his concept of an idealized pre-industrial England, but whilst he delighted in Tennyson’s work, he did not entirely agree with his portrayal of Guenevere. Morris began experimenting with several Arthurian poems, resulting in the publication of The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858). The title poem has Guenevere pleading with Gawain from the stake at which she is about to be burned, only to be rescued at the last moment by Lancelot. The passion with which Guenevere admits her adultery, revealing the tortured soul within, causes Gawain to turn away in pain. The anguish of unrequited love is further explored in “King Arthur’s Tomb”, in which Lancelot and Guenevere meet again after Arthur’s death, filled with torment and guilt.
Like Tennyson, Morris portrays the difficulty of attaining the ideal, but whereas Tennyson explores it as a dream, Morris depicts it as a reality. He has no desire to provide excuses for not achieving a better world but instead recognises the problems and looks for solutions. “Sir Galahad” shows the immensity of the demands upon the knight to achieve the quest, and though others have failed, Galahad is able to succeed with the support of those others who were victorious – Bors, Perceval and Perceval’s sister. This was Morris’s depiction of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had Sir Galahad as their figurehead. The Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti amongst others, and though they had more or less disbanded by 1855, their spell lingered upon their disciples Morris, Burne-Jones, Arthur Hughes and Algernon Swinburne.
In 1857 Rossetti hired Morris and Burne-Jones to paint a series of murals from the Morte Darthur on the walls of the Oxford Union, an ill-fated project that shone briefly like a “highly-illuminated manuscript”, according to Coventry Patmore. At the same time Rossetti, Millais and Hunt provided several Arthurian illustrations for the 1857 edition of Tennyson’s Poems.
It was the dawn of the golden age of Arthurian art and poetry. The period from 1850 to 1910 would see some of the most beautiful and creative pictorial interpretations of Arthurian scenes. Following is a brief list of the major Arthurian artists and their key works. All are English unless stated otherwise.
Abbey, Edwin Austin (American; 1852–1911), Holy Grail murals for Boston Public Library, Boston, Mass. (1890–1901)
Anderson, Sophie (French; 1823–1903), Elaine, or the Lily Maid of Astolat (1870)
Archer, James (Scottish; 1823–1904). Queen Guinevere (1860), La Mort D’Arthur (1860), King Arthur Obtains the Mystic Sword Excalibur (1862), Sir Lancelot Looks on Queen Guinevere (1863), The Parting of Arthur and Guinevere (1865), How Sir Lancelot and His Eight Fellows of the Round Table Carried Queen Guinevere from Amesbury to Glastonbury (1869), The Death of Arthur (1872), The Dying King Arthur on the Island of Avalon has a Vision of the San Grail (1880), King Arthur in the Quest of His Mystic Sword Excalibur (1880), La Mort D’Arthur (1897)
Boughton, G.H. (1834–1905), The Road to Camelot (1898)
Burne-Jones, (Sir) Edward (1833–1898). The Death of Merlin (1857) for the Oxford Union murals; paintings, Sir Galahad (1858), The Beguiling of Merlin (1874) and the Stanmore Hall tapestries (1891–94), depicting the Grail quest. He designed the scenery and costumes for J. Comyns Carr’s stage production of King Arthur (1895) and provided a frontispiece for the Everyman edition of The High History of the Holy Grail (Dent, 1898 – not in the later printings). At his death he left incomplete the painting Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon.
Butler, Charles Ernest (1864–1933), King Arthur (1903)
Calderon, William (1865–1943), Lancelot Discovered Sleeping (1908)
Carrick, John Mulcaster (d.1878), Le Morte D’Arthur (1862)
Collier, John (1850–1934), Guinevere a-Maying (1897)
Corbould, Edward Henry (1815–1905), Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat (1861), Morte d’Arthur (1864)
Cowper, Frank Cadogan (1877–1958), La Belle Dame sans Merci (1926), Nimue Damosel of the Lake (1924), Lancelot Slays Sir Turquine, Legend of Sir Perceval (1953), Four Queens find Lancelot Sleeping (1954)
Darvall, Henry (fl1848–1889), Lady of Shalott (1855), Elaine (1861)
Delville, Jean (Belgian; 1867–1953), Tristan and Yseult (1887), Parsifal (1890)
Dicksee, Frank (1853–1928), The Passing of Arthur (1889), Chivalry (1885), La Belle Dame sans merci (1902), End of the Quest (1921), Yseult (1901)
Draper, Herbert (1864–1920), Lancelot and Guinevere (1894), Tristram and Iseult (1901)
Duncan, John (1866–1945), Tristram and Isolde (1912)
Dyce, William (Scottish, 1806–1864), Frescoes for the Queen’s Robing Room at the Palace of Westminster, including The Vision of Sir Galahad (1851), King Arthur Unhorsed (1852), Sir Tristram Harping to La Belle Isolde (1852), Sir Gawain Swearing to be Merciful (1854) and The Admission of Sir Tristram to the Fellowship of the Round Table (1864). His first design, Knights Departing on the Grail Quest (1849), was rejected.
Egley, William Maw (1826–1916), Lady of Shalott (1858)
Frampton, Edward Reginald (1870–1923), Elaine (1921)
Fripp, Charles Edwin (1854–1906), Elaine (1885)
Gilbert, John (1817–1897), Sir Lancelot du Lake (1886)
Gow, Mary L. (1851–1929), Elaine (1876)
Grimshaw, John Atkinson (1836–1893), Elaine (1877), The Lady of Shalott (1878)
Hacker, Arthur (1858–1919), The Temptation of Sir Perceval (1894)
Hughes, Arthur (1830–1915). The Death of Arthur (1857) for the Oxford Union murals; The Birth of Tristram (1862) for the Harden Grange stained glass windows; The Brave Geraint (1862), La Belle Dame sans Merci (1863), Sir Galahad (1870 and 1894), The Lady of Shalott (1873), Gareth Overthrows the Red Knight (1908)
Hunt, Holman (1827–1910), The Lady of Shalott (1850), and his drawings for the Moxon edition of Tennyson’s poems (1857)
Leighton, Edmund Blair (1853–1923), Tristan and Isolde (1902)
MacNab, Peter (d.1900), The Lady of Shalot
t (1887)
Meteyard, Sidney (1868–1947), “I’m Half Sick of Shadows” said the Lady of Shalott (1913), Tristan and Isolde
Millais, William Henry (1828–1899), Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat (1862)
Morris, William (1834–1896). Sir Palomides’ jealousy of Sir Tristram (1857) for the Oxford Union murals. Paintings, Queen Guenevere (1858) also called La Belle Iseult; The Recognition of Tristram by La Belle Isoude (1862) for the Harden Grange stained glass windows; tapestry Vision of the Grail (1891–94)
Paget, Henry Marriott (1856–1936), Lady of Shalott (1881)
Paton, Joseph Noel (Scottish; 1821–1902), Sir Lancelot of the Lake (1860), Death Barge of King Arthur (1865), Sir Galahad’s Vision of the Sangreal (1880), Sir Galahad and his Angel (1884)
Pollen, J. Hungerford (1820–1902) King Arthur obtaining the sword Excalibur (1857) for the Oxford Union murals
Prinsep, Valentine Cameron (1838–1904), Sir Pelleas Leaving the Lady Ettarde (1857) for the Oxford Union murals
Riviere, Briton (1840–1920), Elaine Floats Down to Camelot (1860/3)
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828–1882), Sir Lancelot prevented by his sin from entering the Chapel of the San Graal (1857) for the Oxford Union murals. Paintings, Arthur’s Tomb (1854), How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival were Fed with the Grael (1864), Tristram and Isolde Drinking the Love Potion (1867); engraving, Lady of Shallott (1857). Drawings, King Arthur and the Weeping Queens (1857), Queen Genever (1858)
