Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood....
but there was also room in his scheme of things for the specific distinction that saved
O true and tender! O my liege and king!
O selfless man and stainless gentleman....
from being merely tautological. And if it comes to that, Tennyson here was nearer than some of his critics to the spirit of Malory. It is well enough to be of our time in matters of social faith and use the world as we find it. To be doctrinaire in politics is mostly to be futile, but habits of expediency which are bred by trying to make the best of social schemes at the moment should be dropped when we turn to the criticism of poetry.
If we dismiss these petty difficulties of manner, we shall find that in their main construction the Idylls present a life which is very unlike that which is suggested by their detractors. The anæmic and Gilbertian curates and schoolmarms who are supposed to people the poems in a pleasant Sunday afternoon atmosphere have no being at all when we come to examine the poems themselves. Taking Tennyson by himself, without reference to Malory or any other source, we may surmise that the men of the poems, the very Galahad and Lancelot and Bedivere and Geraint of Tennyson’s creation, that is to say, would have displayed a decision of character and a strength of arm that would shake some of the long-eared critics out of their complacency and perhaps afford them a little wholesome exercise. And if any one thinks that he could behave by any but the strict rules of chivalry in the presence of Tennyson’s Guinevere there is something amiss with his schooling. If no better evidence can be advanced for Victorian effeminacy and prudery and coxcombry than the Idylls of the King the charge must go by the board. Finally, in this respect we need hardly defend Tennyson because he sometimes chooses to point a moral as well as to adorn a tale, as when in the middle of the Enid story he breaks off with
O purblind race of miserable men,
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,