Comparing Tennyson's Chivalry And The Victorian Age

King Arthur and chivalry—two ideas that are inextricably linked. Chivalry and the Victorian Age—two ideas that are inherently linked in Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. The Idylls are a work that many literary critics and scholars have long studied and researched. They provide insight into the historical context and meanings of Tennyson’s work. The characters, especially the women, in the Idylls are particularly interesting to study for their impact to the overall theme of the work. Thesis: Tennyson uses the four main women in Idylls of the King—Enid, Elaine, Vivien, and Guinevere—to comment on the Victorian ideal of women, femininity, and domesticity of his era, and how dangerous that ideal is, not only to men and women but …show more content…
Ingrid Ranum explores the “falseness” of both Vivien and Guinevere in her article, “Tennyson's False Women: Vivien, Guinevere, and the Challenge to Victorian Domestic Ideology.” However, Ranum is very clear that Vivien possesses a pure “falseness” as opposed to Guinevere’s “falseness” that is more complex. Tennyson’s characterization of Vivien as evil is obvious early in her idyll (Ranum, “False Women” 42). As Ranum points out, “In the text of her idyll, Tennyson dehumanizes her with snake imagery… In Tennyson’s version of the fall of man, Vivien is not even allowed to play Eve, the antetype of seductive bad girls. Rather, she becomes the serpent in Arthur’s garden” (Ranum, “False Women” 42). This biblical allusion literally paints Vivien as Satan—a harsh and direct message from Tennyson. However, he does not leave Vivien as simply evil. He explains why she is evil in the same context of her failure to conform to Victorian ideals—she was raised without a mother, the person who was supposed to teach her how to be a moral and good Victorian woman (Ranum, “False Women” …show more content…
In his article, “Elaine the Unfair, Elaine the Unlovable: The Socially Destructive Artist/Woman In ‘Idylls of the King,’” Arthur Simpson argues that Elaine is an essentially negative character, not the positive beacon of purity many literary critics have painted her as. Simpson argues, “Elaine is a young lady with a very good chance of growing up morally to be, if not a Vivien, then certainly a Guinevere—not an Enid” (341). This implies a level of complexity and ambiguity behind Elaine’s character which Simpson describes as a negative egotism—manipulative and ultimately