Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Tennyson
sets up his story as an account of a conversation on the grounds outside a
monastery between a monk (confusingly named Ambrosius--but
with no relation to Ambrosius Aurelius) and the retired knight Sir
_________________. This knight has left the Round Table because his vision of
the _____________ has taught him the folly of rivalry for personal glory.
According to Percivale, the grail was brought to Glastonbury, England, by
___________ of ______________ after it was used by Jesus during the Last
___________, but it disappeared from the land when the times became evil. When
a young nun (____________'s sister) begins a program of earnest prayer and
fasting because of the adultery in Arthur's court, she sees the grail, colored
_____ - ____ "with beatings in it, as if alive," riding down a
"cold and __________ [color] beam" of light. Hearing of the nun's
vision, _________________ comes to meet her, is inspired by her vision, and
receives from her, as a token of their spiritual bond, a sword __________ made
of the nun's ___________. "My
knight, my love, my knight of heaven,/ O thou, my love, whose love is one with
mine,/ I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt."
Galahad
is able to sit in the _______
___________ without falling prey to the curse--"No man could sit but he should lose himself"--by
realizing "If I lose myself, I
_______ myself!" As soon as
he does this, the grail—covered--visits the assembled court at Camelot. Many
of Arthur's knights then vow to go in quest of it for a better view. When
Arthur, who was not present at the time, returns to court, his attitude toward
the grail quest is ___________ because
________________________________________________.
On
his quest for the grail, Percivale experiences such disillusionment about the
value of his life that "goodly apples," a kindly woman, and a golden
knight turn to ____________. A hermit explains to him that his problem is lack
of _____________. The shining example
of this virtue is ____________, who sees the uncovered grail and is led by it over a succession of vanishing
____________ up to heaven.
The
monk, Ambrosius, is skeptical about spiritual journeys which totally dissociate
the quester from other people and prompts Percivale to tell about any
relationships he had along the way. Percivale then tells the story of a
Princess who "gave herself and all her __________" to him until one
night his vow drove him away from her and back to his quest.
Percivale also tells about other questers: Bors was imprisoned by Druids in a _________, then released by the Grail _____________; Lancelot got so far as to open the door of a very hot room in which he saw the covered/uncovered? Grail; Gawain stopped looking for the grail and passed some time in a "silk pavilion" full of "merry ___________" until everything blew away. When the questers return to Camelot, Arthur again expresses his ____________ for the quest but comforts Lancelot, saying that the _________ which has wound itself around his nobility will not prevent his knighthood from bearing "its ___________."
Guinevere
Malory's
story of Guinevere's flight from Camelot is different from Malory's in
stipulating ___________ as the one who pushes the continuation of the
adulterous affair while ___________ worries about getting caught. Her fears are
especially aroused because _________ had been spying on her over the garden
wall like a "subtle __________," a phrase applied to _________ in the
King James Bible. Furthermore, Tennyson's Guinevere is not sent to the stake
after she and Lancelot are discovered together and is not taken by Lancelot to
_______ ________ as is the case in
Malory.
Entering
the convent of Almesbury without revealing her identity, Guinevere is driven to
pangs of conscience by the words of the ________ _________ concerning Arthur's"sinful Queen." After
losing her temper at the child and reminiscing about her first journey to
Camelot with ___________ as escort, she is surprised by a visit from
____________. The entire conversation takes place while she is on the
___________. Arthur firmly condemns her but confirms his continuing love and
hope that they will ___________________________________________. Guinevere's
attempt to get a last look at him out the window as he leaves is blocked by his
________. Years later, Guinevere is chosen _________.
The Passing of Arthur
The
final idyll is told by ____________. Arthur's disillusionment following his
betrayal by Guinevere and Lancelot is projected onto the expressionistic landscape
as dimness and mist, where Arthur feels he is "but King among the ___________." Following mortal combat with
__________, who Arthur insists is not his _________, Bedivere bears Arthur to a
__________ where he receives Arthur's
_____(#?) commands to throw ___________ into the lake. After Arthur is taken up
by the three queens, Bedivere, who earlier had tried to cheer Arthur's
despondency, laments the dissolution of the Round Table and the future in which
he, "the last" must "go forth ____________." (These
feelings indirectly express Tennyson's personal grief over the death of his
best friend, Arthur Hallam.)