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or startling sight or sound, breaking the flow of the narrative:

his arms

Clash'd and the sound was good to Gareth's ear

(Gareth and Lynette) Charm'd, till Sir Kay, the seneschal, would come Shock, that a man might well perceive

(Ib.)

(Lancelot and Elaine)

Flash'd, and he call'd, 'I fight upon thy side'

(Pelleas and Etarre)

Back, as a hand that pushes thro' the leaf
Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave
Drops flat

(16.)

(The Last Tournament).

Occasionally the whole first foot is thus cut off:

made his horse

Caracole then bowed his homage, bluntly saying

(The Last Tournament)

Who stood a moment, ere his horse was brought,
Glorying and in the stream beneath him shone—

(Gareth and Lynette).

(B) Action rapidly repeated is represented by an unusual number of unaccented syllables in one line. Thus we almost hear the rush of waters in such lines as

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn (The Princess) Of some precipitous rivulet to the sea (Enoch Arden) while the rapid warble of song-birds sounds through Melody on branch and melody in mid-air

(Gareth and Lynette). (7) Contrast with the above the majestic effect produced by the sustained rhythm and the broad vowel sounds in

By the long wash of Australasian seas
The league-long roller thundering on the reef

(The Brook)

(Enoch Arden).

His melody

of diction.

(8) Variations from the usual iambic regularity of blank verse, attained by placing the accent on the first instead of the second half-foot, are introduced, often to represent intermittent action, as in

Dówn the long tower-stairs hésitating

(Lancelot and Elaine).

Tennyson's sense of music is equally conspicuous in the melody of his diction. The mere sound of his words and phrases lingers in the brain, apart from any meaning, as the echoes of a musical cadence linger along a vaulted roof. This is in the main due to his selection of melodious vowels and liquid consonants, and also to his skilful use of alliteration. Examples are everywhere: The moan of doves in immemorial elms And murmuring of innumerable bees As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale

(The Princess)

The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated

(The Vision of Sin)

The long low dune and lazy plunging sea

(The Last Tournament)

Breast high in that bright line of bracken stood

(Pelleas and Etarre)

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone
Through every hollow cave and alley lone

(The Lotus Eaters).

In double words initial alliteration is conspicuous :
"breaker-beaten," "flesh-fall'n," "gloomy-gladed," "lady-
laden," "mock-meek," "point-painted," "rain-rotten,"
"storm-strengthen'd," "tongue-torn," "work-wan." We
also find "slowly-mellowing," "hollower-bellowing,"
'ever-veering," "heavy-shotted hammock-shroud." In
no English poet, perhaps only in Homer and Vergil, is

66

this kinship of poetry and music so evident as in

Tennyson.

Such is Tennyson, and such his lyric and his narrative Conclusion. poetry. In these lies his strength. His three historical dramas, Harold, Becket, and Queen Mary, are full of deep research and vivid character-painting. Queen Mary, The Cup, The Falcon, and The Promise of May have been placed on the stage.* His lyrical poems, his In Memoriam, and his Idylls, have become an integral part of the literature of the world and will remain so long as purity and loftiness of thought expressed in perfect form have power to charm, a possession for

ever.

*The Cup and The Falcon were each played for a London season to full houses. G. H. Lewes often said that Tennyson's plays would be, if arranged, preeminently fitted for the stage; and that he was sure the public in the future would not be slow to recognize the many magnificent situations, which occur throughout the Dramatic Works. It is interesting to remember that Robert Browning used to point out the scene of the oath over the saint's bones in Harold, as a marvellously actable scene, and that he expressed his admiration of the dramatic qualities of Queen Mary.

INTRODUCTION TO IDYLLS OF THE KING.

Cycles of Romance-King Arthur in History-Arthurian Cycle in English
Literature-Arthurian Cycle in Tennyson's Poems-The title "Idylls "-
Spiritual significance of the Idylls of the King-The Idylls not a mere
Allegory—Anachronism—The ideal Arthur-The Idylls completed—Unity
of design-Significance of individual Idylls.

Two great kings, Arthur of England and Charlemagne Arthurian and Carlovingian of France, were made in the middle ages the centres of Cycles of Romance. two great cycles or systems of Romance. Each cycle presented its king as the visible head of Christendom, and arrayed around him a fellowship of knights. The chief of these knights was in each cycle distinguished above his fellows, and made the type of manly valour and chivalric virtue, Lancelot, 'the flower of chivalry' of Arthur's Round Table, corresponding to Orlando (or Roland), the chief of Charlemagne's Paladins: so also Guinevere, the pearl of beauty' in Arthur's court, has her counterpart in her whom Milton (Par. Reg. iii. 341) calls

The fairest of her sex, Angelica,

...

saught by many prowest knights, Both Paynim and the peers of Charlemain.

Common to both cycles are the ideas of far-spreading conquest and of unity of empire under a single head,

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