Where Tennyson Improves on the Original

Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Answering the question, "How good is this?" I might give a 4 or 5. Tennyson wrote some amazing poetry. More on that later.

But answering the question, "How much did you enjoy this?" a 3 is about right, if maybe a slight exaggeration. Not Tennyson's fault. I just don't like most of the stories here.

After reading Mallory's Morte d' Arthur, which I actually didn't like, I decided to read Tennyson's reboot, see if the stories read any better this way. And they definitely do. This is the way to deliver the King Arthur stories to your veins, if you need that fix. But only if you already like them.

Turns out, I don't like the Camelot/round table/Arthur stories very much. They don't go anywhere, IMO. They don't achieve anything. You can impose something on it, some meaning, some deeper significance, (which Tennyson does, IMO), giving meaning where meaning seems elusive, but I don't think you find it in the originals. I don't want to become the main character on the internet today, so I have to temper that a little. Sure, there are themes in the stories that seem significant: we learn, to our sorrow, that imperfect humans can't make anything perfect; we see that righteous authority, even when it is temporarily established, is undermined by unjust power; humans, we are reminded, are fallible, and heroes are human; the powerful should defend the weak, but may fail even when they try to do it; and so on. That and more is in the text, if you're looking.

But those judgments all seem to come from outside the system, looking at it from a modern perspective, asking what we learn by reading the stories. The action all takes within a terrible social milieu, where the poor, the aged, the common, and the powerless are ruthlessly mocked and ridiculed by those entrusted with their protection, the privileged nobles. The most treasured values are noble ancestry, skill with weapons, great strength, attractive physical appearance, and the kind of bravery indistinguishable from foolhardiness, to the point that participating in senseless violence is much less damning than avoiding it, even if you end up killing your brother or friend. Oops. Everyone lacking these attributes is like dirt beneath their feet, barely tolerated, and only defended (when they aren't being taken advantage of) in an accidental and condescending way. We see this, and judge it, and we tell ourselves that the stories demonstrate this deep truth--but I don't think it's in the text.

The original stories seem much more interested in telling about great people and their drama, their ups and downs, and just marveling at it or enjoying their tragedy than in making meaning from it all. These are action-filled romances, not fables, and definitely not parables. At least, that's how I think Mallory saw it.

Tennyson, to his credit, does take a wider (meaning modern, with the benefit of hindsight) view, imposing some meaning on the text, recognizing the imperfect message of the original. He asks the queen, to whom he is dedicating his work, to

...accept this old imperfect tale,
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul,
Ideal manhood closed in real man,
Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost,
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him
Of Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s, one
Touched by the adulterous finger of a time
That hovered between war and wantonness,
And crownings and dethronements...

It's the mixed messages in it that make me feel that the messages I do find are all mine, invented by the pattern-finding part of my brain.

TL; DR: Most of the stories in the King Arthur cycle are about short-tempered bullies and tyrants who I just can't care about very much.

However, I can somewhat appreciate the language. That isn't my norm; I seldom to never read something for the words, for the language. That's not my thing. If it's yours, good news: Tennyson has some beautiful passages. Here's the description of the beach where Arthur fought and killed Modred (that's how he spelled it), receiving his own death wound at the same time:

Last, as by some one deathbed after wail
Of suffering, silence follows, or through death
Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore,
Save for some whisper of the seething seas,
A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came
A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew
The mist aside, and with that wind the tide
Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field
Of battle: but no man was moving there;
Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon,
Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave
Brake in among dead faces, to and fro
Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down
Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen,
And shivered brands that once had fought with Rome,
And rolling far along the gloomy shores
The voice of days of old and days to be.

That's some pretty awesome imagery, some impressive poetic language. I like it. And there's lots throughout.

You know, probably the best way for me to enjoy this book is not to read it through, but to open it at a random page and just admire 20-30 lines. Then close it back up.

I may give that a shot.

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