Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations and Tables
- Dedication
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The early Tradition in england
- Part II Middle English Romance and Malory
- Part III Medieval Influence and Modern Arthuriana
- 10 Arthurian Exits: Alone, Together, or None of the Above
- 11 Woman as Agent of Death in Tennyson's Idylls of the King
- 12 Death as ‘Neglect of Duty’ in Howard Pyle's The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur
- 13 Death and the ‘grimly voice“ in David Jones's In Parenthesis
- 14 Roll the Final Credits: Some Notes on Cinematic Depictions of the Death of Arthur
- Index
- Arthurian Studies
11 - Woman as Agent of Death in Tennyson's Idylls of the King
from Part III - Medieval Influence and Modern Arthuriana
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations and Tables
- Dedication
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I The early Tradition in england
- Part II Middle English Romance and Malory
- Part III Medieval Influence and Modern Arthuriana
- 10 Arthurian Exits: Alone, Together, or None of the Above
- 11 Woman as Agent of Death in Tennyson's Idylls of the King
- 12 Death as ‘Neglect of Duty’ in Howard Pyle's The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur
- 13 Death and the ‘grimly voice“ in David Jones's In Parenthesis
- 14 Roll the Final Credits: Some Notes on Cinematic Depictions of the Death of Arthur
- Index
- Arthurian Studies
Summary
As circumlocutory as he can be, Tennyson wastes no time in alerting his readers to the role women are expected to play in his Arthuriad. Within the first hundred lines of the opening idyll, Arthur expresses his desire to marry Guinevere in terms that speak to his political ambitions and to Guinevere's role in seeing those ambitions realized:
for saving I be joined
To her that is the fairest under heaven,
I seem as nothing in the mighty world,
And cannot will my will, nor work my work
Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm
Victor and lord. But were I joined with her,
Then might we live together as one life,
And reigning with one will in everything
Have power on this dark land to lighten it,
And power on this dead world to make it live.
(The Coming of Arthur, hereafter cited as CA, lines 84–93)Although Margaret Linley has argued that Arthur perceives Guinevere as the ‘incarnation of a unifying love that will enable the king to “have power” through their “one life” together and their reign of “one will”’, the language employed in the passage resists any attempt to read the proposed marriage as a collaborative partnership. Alone, Arthur says, he seems ‘as nothing’ and fears that he will prove unable to ‘will my will, nor work my work/ Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm/ Victor and lord’ (CA, lines 86–9; my italics).
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Arthurian Way of DeathThe English Tradition, pp. 193 - 205Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009