Introduction to King Arthur

King Arthur

The Victorians were fascinated with all things medieval. In their formal, refined society of rules, the medieval age represented something wild and exciting. As a focus for that fascination, Tennyson drew the attention of his readership to King Arthur, who had become a figure of legend and pseudo-historical fiction. Arthur was the perfect blend of Victorian virtues and vices: the nobility of knighthood and chivalry combined with the wildness and drama of castles and battles. Tennyson’s treatment of the Arthur character was heavily influenced by the values and fashions of Victorian society. Arthur had become a symbol of human virtue and everything that the Victorians valued about chivalry and being inherently noble. But under the parade of manners that was Victorian England there was still human frailty, which is also a part of the Arthur character, as we know that eventually Arthur does fall because of his own weakness. To enhance these qualities was the sense of adventure and freedom that Arthur represents. The people were weighed down with endless etiquette and found escape through the wild adventures of Arthur and his Knights. Because Arthur was reinvented for the Victorians, he was made in their image. The difference in Mallory’s Arthur and Tennyson’s Arthur are a reflection of Victorian ideals. While vaguely rooted in history, the Arthur legend has grown and evolved far beyond its origins. And yet, a large part of the appeal is the hope or the whisper or the thought that Arthur and his knights COULD have been real.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The legend of King Arthur has passed in and out of popularity several times over the centuries. Whether he was a real man or just a sort of “coat rack” for Welsh folk stories from the 5^th century is still a subject of some debate. As one archaeologist puts it, “no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time" (Myres 16). For archaeologists that may be, but from a literary viewpoint it no longer matters that the stories only have a toehold in reality because King Arthur has become a symbol of high ideals on the surface of human frailty. When we think of Arthur, we think of him as the young and strong King, not the old and frail one who is also a part of the stories. In many stories surrounding him, such as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and even The Lady of Shallot he is in the background for the bulk of the narrative, but the mere presence of his influence (he is not even a character is “Shallot,” but his fabled city is mentioned several times) gives dimension and quality to the rest of the tale. Essentially, without King Arthur no one would care about Sir Gawain or Lancelot.