ABSTRACT
Two quests for knowledge constitute the central movement in the tale of The Princess: Princess Ida's goal of creating a female university where women may get learning, and the unnamed Prince's amorous quest to get Ida for himself. Both characters seek the forbidden, and of course their two goals are mutually incompatible; thus, the tale's main conflict. Though many late twentiethcentury readers understandably chafe at the poem's resolution where the Prince gets the girl1-the seduction of Ida looks more like her reduction-things are not precisely as they seem. It is not simply, to borrow a phrase from Charles Kingsley's review of the poem (Fraser's Magazine, September 1850), that Ida's "naughtiness is ... kissed ... not whipped out of her" (quoted in Rolfe 146). Tennyson's poem, while far from being revolutionary regarding sexuality or gender issues, suggests some compelling insights about equality and inclusiveness, and does so through a vision of a poetry that necessitates the creative presence of multiple readers.
