Essays Literary, Critical and Historical

by Thomas O'Hagan

But like each other ev’n as those who love.

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;

Then reign the world’s great bridals, chaste and calm:

Then springs the crowning race of humankind.”

Then follows the epilogue or conclusion, whereby the reader is transferred from the fairy-land of imagination back to the festival crowd in the park, with which the poem commenced. There is not a jar in the transition, and the mind of the reader, translated from the stirring incidents of trumpet and tournament, finds repose in the idyllic beauty which reigns in the heart of English life and scenes.

Having traced the motive of the story and the unity of its conception throughout, let us now see whether the separate characters are congruous within themselves, and in what way they have a share in the development of the plot.

The Princess Ida is drawn as the prototype of “the miracle of women” who beat the king and his forces with slaughter from the walls. She possessed a noble enthusiasm, a quality which would have made her an ideal wife for Arthur. As a wife she would have sympathized with him in his lofty aims and purposes, and been willing to share with him in his failures and lost hopes:

“She sees herself in every woman else,

And so she wears her errors like a crown.”

With what a loving hand Tennyson does justice to her unselfish nature, even with the failure of her enterprise inevitable. Cold natures cannot understand her enthusiasm for the cause which she has espoused: