The Tuesday Poem

Tuesday Poem today is edited by Helen Lowe who says of her choice:

The Morte D’Arthur, or Death Of Arthur, is probably the most well known in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, which draws on Sir Thomas Malory’s medieval work of the same name (Le Morte D’Arthur) as well as the Celtic Mabinogion. Because it was the first written of the Idylls poems and the last in chronological sequence, I have included the first, and also the final two stanzas today.

The  Morte D’Arthur is one of a long tradition of epic poems, from Homer’s Iliad, through the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and Middle English Sir Gawain & The Green Knight to later works such as Milton's Paradise Lost.  Like both Sir Gawain & The Green Knight, and Malory's earlier work, Tennyson's Morte D’Arthur draws on the Arthurian legend, which was also known as  ‘The Matter Of Britain’ in the Middle Ages because of it’s subject matter.

Like its predecessors, Tennyson’s poem demonstrates the enduring influence of these ancient stories and the way in which they continue to ‘speak’ to us afresh in each new generation.  
In Tennyson’s case the medium was poetry,  but I believe the influence is clearly discernible in contemporary literature, including Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, TH White's The Once and Future King, and Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising. 
As both a poet and and fantasy novelist I am honoured to be part of so grand a tradition.

The Tuesday Poem