#tennyson

i have reached the stage of researching Arthurian literature where i needed an entire shelf.

what began as:

“i should probably read a few source texts”

has somehow evolved into:

* medieval Welsh material

* Marie de France

* Chrétien de Troyes

* Malory

* Tennyson

* Tolkien

* approximately seventeen different versions of the same story told by increasingly dramatic people over the course of a thousand years

every time i think i understand something i discover another knight, another manuscript, another cursed family tree, another prophecy, another Morgan, another Gawain, and at least three more people claiming descent from Troy.

the funniest part is that i started this because i wanted background information for a story.

the story has not become less complicated.

i have simply become better informed about exactly how complicated it is.

anyway the Arthuriana shelf now lives above where my desk is soon to go so i can look up while writing and be judged simultaneously by medieval poets, Victorian poets, Tolkien, and Sir Thomas Malory.

today’s book haul looks less like casual reading and more like i’m preparing to disappear into a misty british forest for six months and return speaking exclusively in prophecy.

picked up:

• Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (first Tennyson i’ve owned)

• Chrétien de Troyes because apparently i decided modern comprehension was getting too easy

• Marie de France

• enough Arthurian material to develop a morally complicated relationship with fate itself

also acquired:

• a sword-and-serpent bookmark which feels EXTREMELY “you will fulfill the prophecy but at devastating emotional cost”

• shiny green Celtic knot bookmark because the medievalists got to me. they got me good.

Something a bit different for me today: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892 Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt…

The May Queen and other poems / Alfred Lord Tennyson ; designed, written out and illuminated by Alberto Sangorski. Rubricated and illuminated. 1912

luke tennyson ° tennysonmusic