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The Poetry of Tennyson 9 Idylls of the King

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This is the complete 'Idylls of the King' narrated by Charlton Griffin. He is a better prose reader (especially of the Roman historians) than he is a verse reader but listeners will enjoy his strong narrative style. I add Basil Rathbone's 'The Passing of Arthur', Benedict Flynn's Naxos retelling of the legend and sundry poems by Tennyson. Note the useful 'Synopsis and Analysis' and the Wikipedia 'Idylls of the King.htm'-both outline the plot of each of the twelve stories.

The consensus about the Idylls is that while the poem does not achieve the heights of In Memoriam or the great early lyrics it nonetheless contains some of Tennyson's best poetry. (the reference to its poetic highlights as 'lollipops' is a backhanded compliment to Tennyson's achievement) The narrative style is always lively and entertaining, a medieval tapestry full of attractive pre-raphaelite colouring,and despite its reputation having a sort of Victorian mustiness attached to it (The 'Morte d'Albert') neither is it 'suitable reading for a girls' school'-the suggestions of hothouse Victorian eroticism are only too apparent (as the schoolboy wrote 'there is some pretty hot-necking in Lord Tennyson but they never make it')

Tennyson was not one of the great 19C seers like Dostoyevsky or Nietzsche but neither was he 'an infant crying in the night'. Ultimately he put his faith in things of the spirit. ('follow the gleam') Materialism, naturalism and secularism lead only to despair and destruction.

There is a pervasive fatedness and eerie pessimism spun out in a resonant and idiosyncratic style conscious of its own untimely exhortations.The posture is 'backwards looking and forwards boding'-the plight of individual consciousness in a setting of sexual neurosis, religious craving and utilitarian rationalism. A gradual loss of innocence, virtue and energy ends in a death white mist of confusion, moral uncertainty and earthly disorder.

This is the final upload of 'The Poetry of Tennyson. Fellow completists will have noted there is one significant item of the Tennyson discography missing, the Argo vinyl disc 'Poems by Tennyson' Can someone upload it please?


Tennyson 8-2nd Miscellany
Tennyson 7-TennysonSociety
Tennyson 6-Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson
Tennyson 5-Sea Poems-BBC
Tennyson 4-1st Miscellany
Tennyson 3-Enoch Arden
Tennyson 2-Caedmon-Lancelot and Elaine
Tennyson 1-Penguin Audiobook

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