The Epic [Morte d'Arthur]

Published 1842; among ‘English Idyls’. Written after 1835 (FitzGerald), probably 1837–8, judging by the references to skating and geology (Mem. i 150, 162 — noted by W. C. De Vane). The draft in H.Lpr 53 is watermarked 1838. This frame for Morte d’Arthur (both introduction and conclusion — see p. 163) did not accompany the poem in T.’s trial-edition of 1842 (T.J. Wise, Bibliography of Tennyson, i 77). For Leigh Hunt’s strictures on T.’s framing, see Godiva (II 171). FitzGerald says that it was added to Morte d’Arthur ‘to anticipate or excuse the “faint Homeric echoes”’, and ‘to give a reason for telling an old-world [Fairy-] tale’; he compares the framework of The Day-Dream (p. 168). It hints at T.’s ambitions for an epic on Arthur, though the Morte was to be the last, not the penultimate, book (l. 41). The germ of such an introduction was probably Morte d’Arthur 225, Fitzwilliam MS (p. 161): ‘Before the eyes of ladies thrice as fair/ As those that win the love of modern men.’ T. says: ‘Mrs Browning wanted me to continue this: she has put my answer in Aurora Leigh.