Have you ever heard someone say “Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”? This is a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson. Tennyson served as Queen Victoria’s Poet Laureate from 1850 until his death in 1892 (the longest tenure of any poet laureate). In fact, he was the first person ever to be elevated to the British peerage for accomplishments in writing. Some of his most popular works include “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, “The Lady of Shalott”, and “Mariana”. The work that has had the most impact on any Post-Victorian Era is “The Idylls of the King”, which chronicles the events of the infamous King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Published between 1856 and 1885, these poems replaced all previous versions of the story in popularity and became one of the quintessential works on the subject.
Tennyson’s work is the first to develop all the characters related to the story. He sought to create King Arthur as a gentleman that any Victorian man could strive to live up to. He included the Victorians’ renewed interest in courtly love or the idea of “pure” love, as well as his belief that it was difficult or near impossible to achieve. This he symbolized through the love of Arthur for Guinevere. Idylls shows the unconditional love that Arthur has for Guinevere. She is ultimately unable to return this type of love and flees to a convent after having an affair with Lancelot; though Arthur forgave her. Tennyson also goes on to develop poems dedicated to every knight that sits at the round table and how they came to be there. The amount of work Tennyson put into Idylls created an epic that authors of every age since have looked to as the source for their own version of these tales.
In the past 20 years alone, there have been multiple works of fiction along with movies and television shows that have used Tennyson as their starting point for King Arthur. Readers may enjoy Nancy McKenzie, Marion Zimmer Bradley Rosalind Miles or Stephen Lawhead. If you prefer films, there is First Knight; The Mists of Avalon; or Excalibur. Even Disney has done a few Arthurian movies. They have done The Sword in the Stone; A Kid in King Arthur’s Court; and Avalon High. Channel Stations have now started developing their own series. Starz has Camelot and BBC has Merlin.
On a side note: Archaeologists believe the man on whom the legends of King Arthur are based was a Briton/Roman general who lived in the 4th or 5th century. The general Artorius helped the Britons drive out the Saxons and served as a counselor to the kings, but never became king.
