Allegory For Victorian Society
Tennyson sought to encapsulate the past and the present in the Idylls. Arthur in the story is often seen as an embodiment of Victorian ideals; he is said to be "ideal manhood closed in real man" and the "stainless gentleman." Arthur often has unrealistic expectations for the knights of the round table and for Camelot itself, and despite his best efforts he is unable to uphold the Victorian ideal in his Camelot. Idylls also contains explicit references to Gothic interiors, Romantic appreciations of nature, and anxiety over gender role reversals all point to the work as a specifically Victorian one.
Tennyson tried to appeal to his Victorian audience by setting his female characters up as the opposite of what is good in the poem. In the Victorian age there was a renewed interest in the idea of courtly love, or the finding of spiritual fulfillment in the purest form of romantic love. This idea is embodied in the relationship between Guinevere and Arthur in the poem especially; the health of the state is blamed on Guinevere when she does not live up to the purity expected of her by Arthur as she does not sufficiently serve him spiritually. Tennyson's position as poet laureate during this time and the popularity of the Idylls served to further propagate this view of women in the Victorian age.
Read more about this topic: Idylls Of The King
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