Skip to main content

Making One Music With the King: The Platypus Reads Part LIX



Tennyson composed the idylls over a long period of time and it seems that he did not have a clear idea of the overall structure when he started, though he does seem to have toyed with the idea of having twelve from the beginning. Still, it seems that their final arrangement has some sort of logic to it and I suggest what follows as one possible scheme.

Parallels are important in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." As well as parallels between various characters, the overall structure of the work seems parallel with "The Coming of Arthur" and "The Passing of Arthur" as bookends and "The Holy grail" as the centerpoint (though with 12, not 13, idylls it does not fall at the exact center) around which the other idylls pivot. That leaves nine idylls left. However, following Tennyson's original ordering, we can condense "The Marriage of Geraint" and "Geraint and Enid" into one idyll. That leaves us with eight that fall into four sets of parallel Idylls. "Gareth and Lynette" matches "Pelleas and Ettarre," "Geraint and Enid" matches with "The Last Tournament," "Merlin and Vivian" with "Guinevere." That leaves us with "Balan and Balin" and "Lancelot and Elaine." Both idylls occur prior to "The Holy Grail," posing a problem for the idea of parallel structure. Both, however, share the common theme of innocents being hurt by the protagonist's inability to moderate their passions. We might accept "Lancelot and Elaine" as the pivot point to obviate this problem, but then there is the question of what to match with "The Holy Grail."

Parallels are so important to the individual poems that form "Idylls of the King" that it is tempting to try and find a parallel structure to the work. The nice bookends provided by "The Coming of Arthur" and "The Passing of Arthur" further support this expectation. Delving in to the other ten idylls, however, it is difficult to see a clear set of matches. This may due to the sporadic composition of the work. Though that may be the case, I'm not willing to give up yet. Above all else, Tennyson is a poet of style, and I don't believe that the poems of his masterwork were just "flung together."

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

California's Gods: Strange Platypus(es)

We've noticed lately a strange Californian dialectical twist: there, freeways take the definite article.  In other parts of the country one speaks of I 91 or 45 North.  In California, there's The 5, The 405, The 10.  Each of these freeways has its own quirks, a personality of sorts.  They aren't just stretches of pavement but presences, creatures that necessitate the definite article by their very individuality and uniqueness.  They are the angry gods to be worked, placated, feared, for without them life in California as we know it would cease.  Perhaps that's fitting for a land whose cities are named for saints and angels.  Mary may preside over the new pueblo of our lady of the angels, but the freeways slither like gigantic serpents through the waste places, malevolent spirits not yet trampled under foot.
9 comments
Read more

Seeing Beowulf Through Tolkien: The Platypus Reads Part CXCIX

After spending a few weeks wrestling with Tolkien's interpretation of Beowulf , I found myself sitting down and reading Seamus Heaney's translation of the text during a spare moment.  I came to the place where Beowulf presents Hrothgar with the hilt of the ancient sword that slew Grendel's mother.  Hrothgar looks down at the hilt with its ancient runes and carvings depicting the war between the giants and God and meditates on the fortunes of men.  In a flash of insight, I thought: this is the whole poem! Let me explain.  Tolkien believed that the genuine contribution of the Northern peoples to European culture was the theory of courage.  The Northern heroes, at their best, were men who fought for order against chaos -a battle they knew they were doomed to lose.  If they were true heroes, their souls would join the gods and aid them in the final battle against darkness and its monsters and again go down fighting, spitting in the face of the meaninglessness...
3 comments
Read more