The Literature Network - The once and future sword: Excalibur and the poetics of imperial heroism in Idylls of the King.

The once and future sword: Excalibur and the poetics of imperial heroism in Idylls of the King.

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From: Victorian Poetry
Date: 20080622
Author:Jackson, Jeffrey E.

In a letter to Hallam Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray reflects on first reading Idylls of the King and concluding that

 
   neither the awful truth from science, nor the melodies and raptures 
   and roses of Swinburne, nor the vivisoulections of Contemporaries 
   and Fortnightly Reviews need put away the clear clanging of King 
   Arthur's sword ... and those Excaliburs, I thank God our fathers 
   have always held. (1)

It is a piquant moment: the author of a Novel Without a Hero wants a hero--when, as Lord Byron once observed, every year and month sends forth a new ...

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