Glossing Tennyson: The Platypus Reads Part LXXXIX

I've just wrapped up Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" with my seniors.  As I have quite number of thoughts to share, I thought I would try something rather ambitious.  I am going to attempt over the next few posts to gloss final poem in the series "The Passing of Arthur."  We'll see how it goes.

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
First made and latest left of all the knights,
Told, when the man was no more than a voice
In the white winter of his age, to those
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.

The opening of “The Passing of Arthur” stands in marked contrast with the previous idyll “Guinevere.”  In “Guinevere” we see both Arthur and the Queen passing into myth while the opening to “The Passing of Arthur” claims to be an eye-witness testimony.  In his role as the last eyewitness to great events that are rapidly passing into myth, Bedivere serves as a sort of John the Evangelist.  John sets down his account to save a historical Jesus from the myth-making of the Gnostic and pass on knowledge of the Christ to a generation of Christians who have no memory of the gospel events.  In the same way, Bedivere hopes to pass on an understanding of Arthur that can combat the saccharine fables of characters like the novice in “Guinevere.”  This desire will form the core of Bedivere’s Petrine temptation later in the poem when he must throw Excalibur back into the lake. 

   For on their march to westward, Bedivere,
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host,
Heard in his tent the moanings of the King:

Like Peter, James, and John, Bedivere as a member of Arthur’s “inner ring” is present at Arthur’s Gethsemane and so is able to record Arthur’s struggle with the destiny God has set before him.  Indeed, Bedivere takes on the role of all the Apostles, save Judas, throughout the poem.  Also worth noticing is that the army is moving westward.  “Going west” is a euphemism for death.

   'I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields,

Arthur opens his Gethsemane monologue with an affirmation of God’s presence in the heavens and on the earth.  We may think of the Doxology: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow/Praise Him ye creatures here below/Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts/Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”  We may see this as confessional, but there is also an apologetic argument in shorthand here.  Arthur sees Order, as represented by the stars, and Beauty, as represented by the flowers, as evidence of the existence of God.  The existence of God of a Beautiful and Orderly God, however, poses a problem for Arthur in his particular circumstances.

But in His ways with men I find Him not.

I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.

Arthur states his problem and it is the problem of Job.  Arthur has chosen to lend his powers to the side of God and the result of it has been the overthrow of everything he has worked for.  The question Arthur is asking is: “why am I suffering if I am righteous?”  This question has to find resolution before Arthur can “drink from the cup.”  Interestingly, Arthur refused the quest of the Grail knowing that God was calling him to remain at his post.  Now the Grail comes to Arthur again in a much less glorious fashion.  This time, however, Arthur will be called upon to drink from it.  In this way, Arthur is a clearer Christ-type than even Galahad.

O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it, and make it beautiful?

Given that Arthur is righteous and yet suffering, the temptation to form some sort of theodicy arises.  The first that presents itself to him, as Tennyson tells us in his own commentary, is that of Gnosticism.  By denying the omnipotence of the creating deity, Gnosticism tries to get god off the hook on the question of evil by positing that a weaker god made an imperfect world and so introduced evil that will in turn be “fixed” by the coming of a higher and more “spiritual” deity.  Given Arthur’s emphasis on the spiritual and cerebral, we can see why Gnosticism (or perhaps deism) would be a tempting alternative.   

Or else as if the world were wholly fair,
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim,
And have not power to see it as it is:
Perchance, because we see not to the close;--

The next theodicy that offers itself to Arthur is more subtle.  It is the Platonic option: that evil is merely a failure of human knowledge to apprehend the true Good.  This answer would flatter Arthur’s vanity by making his own knowledge of the Good the source of Camelot’s success and his followers’ lack of knowledge the source of its failure. 

For I, being simple, thought to work His will,
And have but stricken with the sword in vain;

And all whereon I leaned in wife and friend
Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm
Reels back into the beast, and is no more.

Arthur saves himself from both false theodicies through humility.  Quite simply, he asserts his own vanity and ignorance.  It is interesting that in the overthrow of his realm it is Arthur’s humility that saves him.  “Blessed are the humble for they shall inherit the earth.”  Though Camelot is overthrown, Arthur is the promised “once and future king.”  In the meantime, Arthur’s tentative answer to the problem of evil is the same as Job’s; he demurs in the face of a question too great for any mere creature to answer.  However, this answer fails to satisfy Arthur emotionally as his impassioned cry against the treason of Guinevere and Lancelot and the failure of his regime.  This reveals to us where Arthur’s real trouble with God lies: in the heart.  Arthur, as Camelot’s “head,” or reason, can handle merely intellectual problems.  Guinevere complains several times that Arthur is too cerebral and emotionally remote.  Cut off from Guinevere, Camelot’s “heart,” Arthur is laid bare to torments of the emotions.  Notice also the language Arthur uses to describe his overthrow: “all my realm/Reels back into the beast.”  This continues the evolution/devolution metaphor that begins in “The Coming of Arthur” where Arthur finds England perishing “between man and beast” and the beasts “rooting in the gardens of the king.”  For Tennyson, evolution transcends the merely biological and extends to the spiritual aspect of man as well (see Lewis use this idea in “Mere Christianity” in the chapters “Nice People or New Men” and “The New Men”).  The very fact that man is a spirit that can choose, however, means that moral devolution is as much a possibility as moral evolution.  This can be seen as an attempt on Tennyson’s part to critique the myth of Progress that was so prevalent in his day.  

My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death;
Nay--God my Christ--I pass but shall not die.'

In his anguish of spirit, Arthur echoes Jesus’ words on the cross.  Unlike Christ, however, Arthur as mere man cannot bear the weight of separation from God—but he does not need to.  Even as Arthur confesses his feeling of desertion he turns back to a reaffirmation of Christ.  This is the first time in this poem that Arthur invokes the second member of the Trinity.  The choice is significant.  Arthur does not have to bear the weight of a full separation from God because Christ has already born it for him.  Furthermore, Arthur is able to complete his theodicy in a way that galvanizes his emotions and allows him to accept the cup of suffering.  We may not be able to intellectually understand the problem of evil, but we can rest in the knowledge that God himself has experienced the full weight of evil and overcome it in the death and resurrection of Christ.  Even if the prophecies fail and Arthur goes to his death, he can still look forward to his own bodily resurrection.  Furthermore, his own prophetic words, spoken in a tripartite role as prophet-priest-king to Guinevere will be fulfilled on that day and a purified Guinevere will stand again at his side.  Camelot will also be fulfilled in the coming of the New Jerusalem.  Fortified with Faith and Hope, Arthur passes through his Gethsemane and goes on to face his crucifixion.