Arthurian Literature

 Introduction

Arthurian Literature has taken the ancient legends from the distant past and from the famous pens of Gildas, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Robert Wace, Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and Thomas Malory, and placed them in new stories and poems about King Arthur for a new audience.   For our purposes, we shall consider Arthurian Literature as starting with Sir Walter Scott; and shall go on to look at many writers' works inspired by the legends of King Arthur, from the beginning of the 19th Century to the present day.   Walter Scott became fascinated with Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and began making notes on the poem in earnest in 1792. Scott seems to have influenced many of his friends though his readings of Malory. In 1805, George Ellis, Scott's close literary friend, published modern versions of the romances of Merlin and  the Morte d'Arthur. Into the first canto of Marmion, published in 1808, Sir Walter Scott himself included references and allusions to Sire Lancelot and The Holy Grail. It is interesting that he supports his own work with long extracts from Malory.     By 1813, his other popular work The Bridal of Triermain, contains a piece called Lyulph's Tale. Here, in king Arthur's court, Galahad makes his gallant appearance. Malory himself was soon back in print. At least three new editions were available by 1816. In 1817 a particularly fine edition, incorporating a long introduction and laden with notes, was published by Robert Southey.   Alfred Tennyson resurrected Arthurian legends from several centuries of literary neglect, and placed the person of Arthur firmly in the imagination of the Victorians.   It was a vision of history, which inspired the present, that could be shared by all. The Arthurian revival infused a whole generation with inspiration. In this imaginary world of the past, those living in the present could be transformed by the glorious ideals of their forefathers. In their imagination, soldiers and empire-builders could become knights, women could aspire to be courtly ladies, and all humanly endeavours could be inspired by the code of chivalry. The past, and particularly the medieval, came to stand for everything that was good about the country and its people. It was an image of strength, fairness and honour.   The greatness of Tennyson was his ability to create a national hero at the center of a national epic. His son, Hallam Tennyson, said his father's literary intention was to infuse into his works 'a spirit of modern thought and an ethical significance' for his and future generations. Tennyson's own Arthurian legend was set in the past; but it inspired a taste for all things Arthurian in his contemporaries, and this has not left us today.   For many years, even from his boyhood, reading in the rectory library at Somersby, Tennyson had brooded on the subject of Arthur, and upon what he might make from it. 'The vision of an ideal Arthur as I have drawn him,' he wrote much later, 'had come upon me when, little more than a boy, I first lighted upon Malory.'   Composed by the poet in the 1830's and 1840's, his great works began in 1832 with The Lady of Shalott. His other poems followed in publication. Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, his own Morte d'Arthur, and Sir Galahad first appeared in print in 1842.  Finally, his great works ended with Idylls of the King, which he started in 1855, and published all four of them in 1859.   In spite of the quality of his verse, Tennyson's poetry was met with some scepticism. While medieval history was acceptable, Arthurian romances were not seen as serious literature. Tennyson realised that these was a problem with the credibility of his poems' subject matter, and this explains why some of his works are set as epic stories being told in the contemporary scene of a Victorian house on Christmas Eve. But, while many in the literary world questioned the seriousness of Tennyson subject matter, support was to come from the highest quarters in the land.   Queen Victoria herself was known to be enthusiastic. It is often said that Tennyson affectionately based his own Arthur upon a highly idealised version of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's Consort. In 1847, it was decided that the Queen's Robing Room in the Place of Westminster would be painted with Arthurian frescos by Dyce. With royal stamp of approval, Arthur was indeed back. Tennyson remained a hugely popular, if sometimes figure in the 19th Century, and his literary works upon the legends of king Arthur have stood the test of time.   The vividness of Alfred Tennyson's words, and the richness of his images, inspired many artists, painters and craftsmen and women. First among them was William Morris, Edward Byrne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais of the  Pre-Raphaelite Art Brotherhood were greatly influenced by Tennyson; as was the entire Victorian gothic revival. The influence found its way into architecture, religion, literature, interior design, jewellery, fashion, toys and furniture, to name but a few. The Arts and Crafts Movement attempted to bring the best design and construction of the past into the contemporary home.   Following Tennyson's lead, many more Arthurian inspired works followed. Between 1837/8 and 1849, Lady Charlotte Guest produced in seven editions a translation of the Mabinogion by herself from the old Welsh. Lord Lytton composed an almost farcical story of Arthur and his knights exploring in Switzerland, then meeting polar bears and Eskimos in the Arctic, called simply King Arthur in 1848. It was a laughed at, and bombed. Later, William Morris wrote a romantic poem The Defence of Guenevere, and Algernon Charles Swinburne composed Tristram of Lyonesse. In the 1850's many other works followed. Matthew Arnold's Tristram and Iseult was published in 1852, and republished in 1853.   Attitudes to Arthurian literature and art in the mid-nineteenth century can be divided into two groups. The first roughly drawn group wanted to emphasis the moral qualities of the Arthurian legends, and use them to instruct and improve contemporary people and the society they lived in.   The other group were those who were more interested in the romance of the legends. They, like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, feasted upon the sumptuous images and glorious visible experience of colours, textures and shades they could imagine in the stories. And, of course, many works of literature and art drew upon Arthurian sources in a mixed form. As the 19th Century came to a close, Arthurian legends were everywhere, and they had come to be central to the nation in its understanding of its past and of whom it was now. The religious message, in literature and in art, appealed deeply to a Christian nation.   Arthurian Adventure Online Store buy from thousands of Books music games jewellery collectables Gifts   At the beginning of the 20th Century images of Arthur abounded in popular culture, but a world wide tragedy brought a new mood to bare upon the legends. From the earliest legends, and especially from Malory, we sense that, beneath the story, runs a current of despair at the futility of life.   This was understood well by the soldiers and poets of the First World War. Wilfred Owen saw Arthur's knights falling all around him on the battlefields of the Western Front.   And that long lamentation made him wise How unto Avalon, in agony, Kings passed in the dark barge, which Merlin dreamed   These words were inspired by Tennyson's The Passing of Arthur:   . . . an agony Of Lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land   Tennyson's The Passing of Arthur came to address a new generation haunted by what they had seen. The desolate images of The Waste Land, which came originally from Malory, is picked up again by another poet, this time, from out of the carnage of the Great War and the desolation of the souls of the returning armies, by T.S. Eliot.   J.R.R. Tolkien brought about another Arthurian revival after the Second World War, with his monumental trilogy: The Lord of the Rings. The influence of Tolkien took a long time to be felt. But, here was a serious intellectual constructing serious literature in an Arthurian style.   Since the middle of the 1960's there as been a steady stream of Arthurian literature, like Excalibur by Sanders Anne Laubenthal in 1973, that has grown year on year. Why is this? I suspect that it is because people living today wish to enter an Arthurian world in which a single man brings order out of chaos, glory out of mediocrity, and nobility out of the ordinary. That might explain why Arthur spans everything from Hollywood blockbusters, to comic book hero, to the self-help and spiritual world that is now Glastonbury. Arthurian legends will continue to inspire our literature -and us- into the future. As Tolkien himself said: the road goes ever onward.