TEXT AS PROCESS

can be found in DC MS 70. ThU that notebook, for book R ^here these lines are not in-originaily found in Home ^ Excurston corporated into MS poem, with a declaration of which was to be the philosop ic originally the need for h"" it can be compared to the written for an entirely ''fof the wandering Minstrel is opening ofbook 2, in which .__Lbook9 in which the Wanderer s lifted from DC MS 48. and the P^o book

speech "^55 m. In each case, the piece of earlier writ-rn~ proS- from which fresh composition (at a key pomt

within the later Wordsworth's "compositional contra-Is there a sense, then, m wmc composition as some

dictions" lead him to want to structure? Certainly it does look kind of "spontaneously sdf^g J Excursion by as though Ae concept of The Rec fo, providing an mtertext ^ large central mass of un-

iuaTedmUial, can be

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o>i4, yioce^^o

He spoke of the diseased craving to have all the trifles of a man of genius preserved, and of the positive crime of publishing what a poet

had himself deliberately suppressed. If all the contents of a poet's waste-basket were taken out and printed, and issued in a volume, one result would be that the things which he had disowned would be read by many to whom the great things he had written would be unknown:

William Knight, "A Reminiscence of Tennyson"

As with the chapter on Wordsworth, this chapter is concerned with applying theoretical ideas discussed earlier to the materials of process and thus with using Tennyson, in part, as a second "case study." However, it also hopes to offer a full critical exploration of the Tennysonian process. The first half of this chapter will therefore coilsider the different ways in which Tennyson "self-translates" as an essential part of his compositional practice, exploring his process in terms of a going out from the self and a return to it mediated by different forms of self-translation, as seen in Idylls qf the King. The second half moves on to a consideration of the complex hermeneuti-cal structure created by Tennyson's long-term composition of the Idylls. It is still necessary to begin, as we did with Wordsworth, by-considering the state of contemporary access to Tennyson's manuscript materials.

Policies of compositional protection, initiated by Tennyson and Hallam Tennyson, have partly retarded Tennyson scholarship. Tennyson deeply resented the treatment of the poet as a literary celebrity, complaining in his own lifetime about the intrusions created by unwanted visitors and autograph hunters. In anticipation of Wimsatt and 'Beardsley, he seems ^X) have viewed the study of draft materials as an extension of misplaced

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biographical interest and was explicit about his aversion to variant editions: '"I don't care a bit for various [variant] readings from the poets,' he said, 'although I have changed my own text a good deal. I like to enjoy the book I am reading, and footnotes distract me. I like to read, and I just read straight on.'"^ A curious model of textual self-protection emerges from Tennyson's attitude toward his own creative material, as expressed in his lifetime and as understood by his descendants, a model that at every level contains a tension between the desire to preserve and to destroy variant material, to allow, but to control, access.

Tennyson's own physically destructive actions are described in Edward FitzGerald's account of the treatment of the poet's manuscripts for Poems (1842): "These pages of MS from the Butcher's Book were one by one torn out for the printer, and, when returned with the proofs, were put in the fire. I reserved two or three of the leaves; and gave them to the library of Trinity College (Cambridge)."^ FitzGerald's account draws a portrait of Tennyson as careless of draft material, choosing to tear pages out rather than make a fresh copy for the printers and then to burn such material once it had been reproduced in a public form.^ In the same account, FitzGerald describes a practice of "the unoccupied edges and corners being often stript down for pipe-lights, taking care to save the MS, as A.T. once seriously observed."^ As FitzGerald's use of the word "seriously" implies, the poet's actions are contradictory here since he is concerned with destroying and preserving different parts of the same sheet of paper. At the same time, however, such actions are far from being a systematic principle of obliteration, since what is actually being destroyed is a final fair copy for the printer, and earlier versions of the work in manuscript are retained.

As concerns draft material, Tennyson and, later, Hallam Tennyson are not able to bring themselves to destroy it altogether, but they do not want to allow free access to those materials, either. Contradictory positions thus inform the terms of the Tennyson bequest made by Hallam Tennyson to Trinity College, and the two statements of his wishes written in 1897 and 1924 which state that nothing that-had not previously been published should be allowed to be so.^ As a result, the manuscripts held by Trinity College were not allowed to be reproduced in any form until 1969.

This has undoubtedly had a negative effect on explorations of Tennyson's process, in spite of Christopher Ricks's excellent editorial and critical work in this area. There is still no full scholarly edition for all the works at the specialist level of the Cornell Series for Wordsworth.^ The major manuscript resource is The Tennyson Archive in 30 volumes, edited by Christopher Ricks and Aidan Day, which presents photographic reproductions of

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all of the manuscripts of Tennyson's work but without transcriptions. The usefulness of the Archive can immediately be felt in the way that it alleviates the physical and practical difficulties of working on a poet whose manuscript materials-unlike those of Wordsworth-have been quite widely dispersed. The Tennyson Archive thus makes the study of Tennyson's compositional activity more accessible than it has ever previously been and considerably aided the work undertaken here. But at the same time, its limitations must also be considered.

"tte main difliculties that the Archive presents to scholars come from the decision to present manuscript notebooks only in the form of photographs of each page, without transcriptions and without any kind of detailed scholarly framework for individual notebooks. All of this means that the critic working with the Archive has to undertake quite a wide range of editorial activities to make full use of the materials. Its archival value is diminished by the fact that while it appears at first sight to be a full photographic record of all of Tennyson's manuscripts, it is not. It does not reproduce a page unless there is written poetic material on it, so pages that contain images may or may not be represented (sometimes they are and sometimes not), and the Archive makes no distinction between the omis-sion of blank pages and the omission of pages with material on them. The Archive does not reproduce any dramatic material and, occasionally poetic manuscript material is not included for reasons of access.^ The problems that such omissions cause could have been overcome by the inclusion of a typed list of contents for each page of each notebook, including stubs, blank pages, and material not reproduced. Without this information, there are dangers in using the Archive on its own, unless the manuscript is open alongside the facsimile; this immediately restricts its use.

Because the Archive is organized simply in terms of collection, no ver-swn of a text is privileged over any other. It therefore provides no compositional order over time for any poem and no indication of the relative status of any version of a text. The index volume orders each poem in terms of its appearance within volumes, but not in any other way This is invaluable m itself-without the index volume, the usefulness of the material in all the other volumes would be significantly reduced-but it might be argued that the index volume could have included an alternative order of composition or at least a brief summary of the state of the text in each case As a result. The Tennyson Archive is both invaluably useful and limited in its usefulness The study of Tennyson's process thus suffers in comparison with Wordsworth's, since the critic must undertake a greater number of text-critical activities before engaging with the material.

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WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON, AND NONAUTHORIAL INFLUENCES

This book provides the opportunity to make implicit and explicit comparisons between writers, in this case between two major figures in nineteenth-century poetry. In considering Wordsworth's compositional habits in the previous chapter, I made use of Klaus Hurlebusch's "Understanding the Author's Compositional Method" and his (flexible) distinction between the "constructive" and the "reproductive" writer. Wordsworth, it will be remembered, had characteristics of both categories but corresponded more strongly to the "process-based" (constructive) type. Tennyson, in contrast to this, does seem to fall quite clearly into the "programmatic" (receptivity-dominant/reproductive) category. As well as using scenarios and plans and relying on prewritten (mental) compositionso that he often writes down later what has previously been "written" in the headhis use of the visual (in the form of illustrations within and around process) aligns him with Hurlebusch's definition of the "reproductive" writer for whom the writing process stimulates "the author-writer's imagination retroactively . . . through written (or pictorial) visualization of both the contents of thought and of ideas."

In terms of each poet's attitude toward the act of composition in a larger sense, Wordsworth is, as we have seen, very anxious about first composition and made unwell by the demands of writing; he physically internalizes his anxieties. Tennyson, by contrast, seems to externalize his anxiety through early and continual exposure of his work to others (although this causes him anxiety of a different kind in terms of controlling his shared material). Hurlebusch describes the reproductive writer's mode as: "the purposeful reproduction of an intellectual content, the translation of something previously thought into writing. The creative process is from the very beginning directed outward from the writer's subjective precommunicative interior sphere into intersubjective communication."'

One major similarity between Wordsworth and Tennyson lies in their reliance on domestic production and on the presence of an immediately sympathetic female reader at home, as well as an extended sympathetic readership. For Wordsworth, intimate support exists in the form of Dorothy (and later Mary), and then the larger intimacy of Coleridge, John Wordsworth, Sara Hutchinson, and others. For Tennyson, it exists in the form of Emily Tennyson, and then other key readers and supporters (such as Hallam or Spedding) as well as a larger social group interested in his work.

A brief comparison of the Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth and Emily

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Tennyson clearly reveals the value of both women as first audience for the text during the process of writing for these two poets. Both Journals provide an excellent perspective on composition within the domestic context and over time. The extracts that follow describe Dorothy's involvement in the writing of "The Pedlar":

Mon. 21st Dec. 1801. Wm sate beside me & read the Pedlar, he was in good spirits & full of hope of what he should do with it.

Tues. 22nd Dec. Wm & I went to Rydale for letters, the road was covered with dirty snow, rough & rather slippery ... We walked home almost without speakingWm composed a few lines of the Pedlar.

Mon. Feb. 1st 1802. William worked hard at the Pedlar & tired himselfhe walked up with me towards Mr Simpsons.

Tues 2nd Feb. After dinner Wm worked at The Pedlar. After tea I read aloud the 11th Book of Paradise Lost we were much impressed & also melted into tears.

Thursday 4th Feb. Fletcher's boy did not come. I worked at Montagu's shirts. William thought a little about the Pedlar.

Friday 5th Feb. William not wellsate up late at the pedlar.

Sunday 7th Feb. William had had a bad night & was working at his poem. We sate by the fire & did not walk, but read the pedlar thinking it done but lo, though Wm could find fault with no one part of itit was uninteresting & must be altered. Poor William!'"

Although Dorothy's position,is a passive one, observing and recording, the extent to which her presence participates in the act of composition is striking. That is, Wordsworth does not merely read completed parts of a work ^ to her but frequently works in her company both within doors and outside so that she is often part of the context for composition and feeds into it in psychological ways as well as more explicit ones. We can compare this with Emily Tennyson's account of the development of "Enid," the third Arthurian idyll to be written. Emily charts her receptive involvement:

4th April, 1856. He takes me out in the garden a little & reads "Merlin". I read "Enid & Geraint" to myself before. 4th JuneA. read me some of "Enid".

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15th JuneA. reads "Griselda" to me, a favourite with me, and "Enid" as far as it is done & we weed the garden. 29th Sept.We make out a little of "Enid" in Welsh & in the evening I play some Welsh airs & A. reads as much of his "Enid" as is sufficiently finished. 13th/14th Oct.A bit of "Enid" these two evenings. 18th Oct."Enid" in the evening. The Pat;nores delighted. 21st Oct."Merlin". The Patmores think it still grander. 5th Nov.A. has put down all "Enid" to read to me & reads it this evening. 6th Nov.A. very good to me. He reads me the alterations in "Enid". 11th Nov."Enid". 12th Nov."Merlin". 17th Nov."Enid" to-night after a day of talking. 15th Dec.Sir John Simeon comes to lunch & to hear "Enid"."

In the Memoir, Hallam Tennyson states of his mother, "It was she who became my father's adviser in literary matters; 'I am proud of her intellect,' he wrote. With her he always discussed what he was working at; she transcribed his poems; to her and to no one else he referred for a final criticism before publishing."'^ In these extracts, Emily's active involvement with the emerging text is strongly felt in such lines as "A. has put down all 'Enid' to read to me," which suggest that she is providing a direct and immediate motivation for writing.'^ Emily also engages with Tennyson's creative work in terms of intertextual preparation, reading source material (Chaucer) as well as Tennyson's own previous writing, to herself and to him, to help the poet prepare to write his own version. In both cases, then, the female figure provides both psychological and practical support, as well as functioning as amanuensis, physically taking over reproduction of the text at a later stage.

Another way of thinking about the "nonauthorial influence" or "in-tersubjectivity" under consideration here would be to view it in socialized terms. In "The Monks and the Giants," Jerome McGann outlines the full stages of a social-historical textual criticism, the first of which"The Orig-inary Textual Moment"relates to textual process:'^

The originary textual moment comprises the following:

1. Author 2. Other persons or groups involved in the initial process of production

(e.g., collaborators, persons who may have commissioned the work, editors or amanuenses, etc.)

3. Phases or stages in the initial productive process (e.g., distinctive

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personal, textual, or social states along with their defining causes, functions and characteristic's)

4. Materials, means, and modes of the initial productive process (physical, psychological, ideological).'^

Unsurprisingly, McGann seeks as early as possible to place the process of composition within a social nexus. One key issue, however, is the relative

W f ag^nt moves om to 2 and then on into a fully socialized textual model. In the case of

the two poets considered here, the initial act of socialization is, as Dorothy s and Emilys journals reveal, quite similar. Beyond this, however. Tennyson s intersubjective' tendencies extend further than Wordsworth's His writing also seems to be more integrated with its anticipated audience from an early stage (supporting the distinction made by Hurlebusch dis-cussed earlier). It is notable that Tennyson is willing to read material aloud

thers even when a-poem is only partially written, so that both the Pat-mores and Sir John Simeon hear "Enid" before he has completed it.' To read a piece aloud while it is still in progress represents a risk for the writer since even unintentionally adverse comments can affect the author's state o mind and thus destabilize the creative process. The fact that Tennyson displays no anxiety over this suggests either that he Was very confident and calm when within the active compositional process or that he was confident that his audience would only ever provide positive feedback. Emily's entri^ suggest the latter position, so that nonauthorial influence is beiL used here primarily as a supportive device to reinforce authorial intention ather than to question it. We could, then, map onto McGann's social out

sell in ^ widening audience for the work in a state of process. That audience isjiecessarily carefully selected and

nnhr f!?' 'u ^ true for the published work) can have a direct efl^fect on the still-developing text.

n the whole, though, there are more difl^-erences than similarities between the working habits of Wordsworth and Tennyson, largely because of Tennyson s tendency to externalize process and work in a receptivity-dommated way I want to focus on three distinctively "intersubjective" acts in the first half of this chapter. The first of these acts may be partly

c^seThafw publishing world, but it remains the case that Wordsworth does not attempt to control the publishing process, while Tennyson manipulates it to allow "trial printing" of works as part of the compositional process. He thus creates a kind of suspended circle of reception outside the immediate positive one, about which he is extremely anxious. A second intersubjective act concerns the use of the visual within

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draft material: Tennyson frequently draws illustrations or doodles within the manuscript, something Wordsworth never does. Finally, this sense of going out from the self in order to return (moving from visual to verbal and back again) also informs process in another way: through Tennyson's self-translation from prose into poetry and his use of prose plans for the Idylls, a practice Wordsworth very rarely undertakes.'^

SELF-TRANSLATION Tennyson's Trial Books

Tennyson's prepublication "trial books" create a space in which unfixed authorial intention is made open to the trusted intentions of others, as the poet deliberately tries to distance himself from himself In Tennyson's production of trial books for many of his poems, he makes a distinction between "printing" (a private decision to reproduce handwritten text in type) and "publication" (the public presentation of text to a wider audience).' Philip Home describes such printing by Tennyson as "partly-a pre-emptive manoeuvre. . . . Critical friends can have their say and perhaps save the poet from unfrien'dly critics whose judgements may be fiercer.""

In the Memoir Hallam states of his father's way of working that "he always liked to see his poems in print some months and sometimes some years before publication, 'for,' as he said, 'poetry looks better, more convincing, in print.'"^ The transformation of the written word into a "more convincing" print form creates a level of objectivity toward the meaning of the words because of their visual distance (i.e., they are not written in the poet's own familiar hand). The distancing effect is used by Tennyson to form part of the compositional act by enhancing creative judgment and allowing for a further level of revision and creative rewriting to take place. Such actions are again characteristic of the reproductive writer. Hurlebusch states: "The reader-writer responds to the textual syntagma in the manner of a reader. . . . The more homogenous its linearityin the form of fair copies and the final typography of printthe more readable, graphically rounded in itself, and autonomous the text in question becomes."^'

In the first half of the nineteenth century, type was expensive (because handmade), so a work was unlikely to be printed in its entirety. Instead, pages of proof would be sent back to the author to be corrected and then returned and printed before the next part of a work. Tennyson manipulates this process. Allan Dooley states of Tennyson's 1832 Poems that "his desire to see and reconsider the volume as a whole was so strong that he ceased sending back the revises, forcing the printers to let their type stand. He

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were sent piecemeal. In his use of trial books and prepublication printing, Tennyson resists one kind of nonauthorial influence on his work-that imposed by the limits of the publishing process-to create space for another (controlled responses from the chosen few).

In relation to the Idylls, Tennyson published trial books for five publications, covering nine books.- The nature of a trial book varies but L genera it consists of a pamphlet printing of individual poems with no

y hin the book: correction of errors in printing, localized changes to

with T"' the order of words hin a line additional lines and passages, and structural reorganization

passages. Tennyson would print off a small number of trial books (Pal-grav? tells us there were six Copies of "Enid and Nimue," for example) and woi^ then make handwritten changes on the printed pages

Ue difference between a "trial book" and a "proof" lies in the wav in which the author chooses to use the printed text. In the copy of "The Last T^ourpament which is thought to be a proof, Tennyson's ink addit^L are

m^ ab 7K ^ presentation of the text-with marks above and below a letter where it is seen to be out of line on the page for example, and an authorial focus on errors in printing. By contrast in the tr^l books It is dear that the poet is choosing to read Ihe S In print not merely to prepare the published text but as an active part of the creanve process, and this is what makes them so interesting. ^

U ^ o p e n t o c h a n g e i s SUD crTatfd slat'S Tennyson in relation to this self-created stage of the process. The sudden appearance of such anxietv is sur S?aw Tennyson is relaxed and unpossessive about giving away earlymanuscriptmateriaUndaboutpostpublicationinterpre-

Sreffhrrt'' nor intellectually pos-sessive of his materials; however, at this stage of creativity he is emphatically both. In a leer of August 1858, Thomas Woolner writes: "Pray Ml no onl

commenr^ ' ' K u' ^ his poems get commented on before they are published: and as he reads them to very few persons he can generally tell where the report sprang from when Sear!

hig ven't to ^ h!^' ^ of wrath against Monckton Milnes for giv-

toF T P!) Liexnrif W 7"" Tennyson di^ rec ly expresses such feelings. He begins: "You distress me when you tell me

that, without leave given by me, you showed my poem to Max Miiller- not hat care about Max Miiller's seeing it, but I do care for your not consider-

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TEXT AS PROCESS

ing it a sacred deposit. Pray do so in future; otherwise'! shall see some boy in some Magazine making a lame imitation of it."^^ In spite of the attempt at a self-deprecating tone, the force of angry expression to a trusted friend is undeniable and fully supports Woolner's account of a similar incident ten years earlier. In this letter, Tennyson gives a practical reason for his "state of wrath"fear of pirate copiesbut this does not fully explain it. Tennyson appears to believe that he as well as his text are most vulnerable in the intersubjective state between "printing" and "publication" that he has created.

The Verbal and The Visual

With Wordsworth, shared domestic circumstances are often felt in the material nature of the notebooksin the range of hands and the sharing of writing or dictation by Mary or Dorothy and then in correction of those words by the hand of the poet. The notebooks themselves contain sewn-in additions, or pages made by the folding of paper. At times there are penciled marks on pages, or front and back inside covers, made by children writing their names or scrawling clumsily. The juxtaposition of these very first attempts at writing at all with the high literary content of the notebook is both poignant and pleasing, and the handmade nature of creative pro-

I duction in the early nineteenth century is strongly felt. In visual terms, acts ; of revision on the page sometimes result in aesthetic images. The example

given here occurs on a page of Ruined Cottage material, from the early j Christabel Notebook (DC MS 15) (see fig. 5).^ The account of the Pedlar's ' return to Margaret's cottage is written out in fair copy in Wordsworth's

hand, but these lines are partly obscured by a large spiky mess where it I looks as though someone is trying to make a pen work by pulling ink out

from large blots in different directions. The visual appearance of the manuscript is enhanced by a literal, physical sense of domestic production and an ironic juxtaposition between the inky frenzy of the material object and the calm of the lines it half-obliterates ("Yet I saw the idle loom/Still in its place ... his very staff/ Stood undisturbed behind the door"). For the most part, however, as this example suggests, the study of the material and visual in Wordsworth's manuscripts is concerned-with functional acts that accidentally bring about visual effects.

In contrast to this, Tennyson's manuscripts contain strongly graphic, illustrative elements of representation. Early draft material in particular is frequently interspersed with images and sketches by the poet (as in the frontispiece to this book). Such images raise a number of questions concerning the relationship between word and image for the creative process. Robert Pickering, in an article concerned with the relationship between

126

on a page of draft for The Ruined Cottage. DC MS 15 {Christabel SmbrkJ ' ^ by permission of the Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage.

TEXT AS PROCESS

verbal and visual representation in the notebooks of Paul Valery, considers possible reasons for the appearance of a visual image between passages of written text. For Valery he lists "a momentary drop in the intensity of intellectual production, intrusion of the unconscious, sheer fascination with certain recurring figurative motifs, elements of irony or caricature."^' Images in the manuscript might be considered as "doodles," taking place while the poet thinks things through and possibly having an unconscious significance, or as illustrations representing a pleasing digression from the act of writing while remaining loosely connected with it, or, possibly, as an integral part of the creative process. I want to explore such ideas further in relation to a particular Tennyson manuscript: Trinity Notebook 17.^

Throughout, the notebook is characterized by a need on the part of the poet to draw in ink and pencil on the blank pages, a habit that also occurs in other Tennyson notebooks but is particularly well represented here. Drawings occur largely on the verso pages and are mainly of male and female faces in profile, heads, feet, and hands, sometimes seeming to have no real relation to the material written opposite them and sometimes being directly related to it. I want to look at the relevance of pictorial representation to the entries for the "Morte d'Arthur" in this notebook.

On 9"^ of the notebook the first of two versions of "Morte d'Arthur" begins, and this is the earliest surviving version of the poem. The text runs continuously over recto and verso pages. One small visual point concerns the title at the top of the page. Tennyson writes "Morte d'Arthur" for both versions in his own hand, but in a stylized way perhaps intended to look like printed lettering (see first page of fig. 6)?^ Again, this is highly characteristic of his externalizing tendencies.

Two pictorial images occur together in the first version of the "Morte d'Arthur" on W and are of some interest within the context of Tennysonian first draft (see third page of figure 6). The images occur at a point in the narrative when Sir Bedivere has returned to Arthur for the first time after having been asked to throw Excalibur into the lake (and not having done so). Within this early draft, the images occur between rewritings of a particular section, beginning "So saying from the ruined shrine he stept."'" The section is written out three times: once on 10', a second time at some length from W to 10^ with the images at the end of the passage, and a third time commencing on IF (not reproduced here), from which point the poem runs on. The ink on the earlier pages and for the illustrations is darker than that on IF and strongly suggests a break in composition between the two entries. This might suggest that the images are merely illustrative; the poet pauses at this point in composition and decides to make a sketch. But at the same time, images are positioned in such a way that they

128

Fig. 6^ First draft sequence for "Morte d'Arthur" in Trinity Notebook 0.15.17, 10', CambrWg) permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College,'

'Ml*# ' ^

if 'i&fe#*; =i'^ * ^,4lS

TEXT AS PROCESS

seem to be embedded in the process, with the text stopping and restarting around them. Clearly, they do not act to initiate composition, but they may provide a point of temporary closure and of recommencement within the creative process, or of a different kind of recommencement from that provided by merely rereading the words.

The first image on 10" seems to represent King Arthur at a point near death and to resemble a death mask. It also perhaps bears some comparison with Joseph Severn's sketch of Keats on his deathbed (January 28,1821) and, if this is allowed, consciously or otherwise, it makes a visual connection between the deaths of two promising young poets (through the identification of Arthur Hallam with King Arthur). Also on the page is an image I interpret as that of a rock, or small hillock, with a rounded head peeking out from behind it on the edge of the "shining levels of the lake."'' This, in the context of the draft lines around it, Intake to be Sir Bedivere, shirking his task.'^ However, the image does not straightforwardly correspond to the written text. In the poem, Sir Bedivere goes down to the lake, pulls out Excalibur, leaves it concealed among the reeds at the water's edge, and returns to Arthur. He "hides" only at a metaphorical level in attempting to conceal his actions. In the illustration, he physically hides himself from the viewer, the lake, and the deed he should perform.

As already mentioned, on the page preceding the illustrations, and on the page that contains them in the first version of "Morte d'Arthur," the passage that follows Arthur's instructions to Bedivere is written out three times over. At the line "So saying from the ruined shrine he stept" on W, Tennyson s first version runs on for five lines and then begins again immediately below it with "So saying from the ruined shrine he went." The text runs on until it breaks again above the image of Arthur's head on 10" and then recommences for the third time at the same line on IF. The sequence tells us quite a lot about how Tennyson seems to have composed at an early stage. If the act of writing were fluid and continuous, he would surely not want to hold it up in this way. Rather than leave an unsatisfactory passage for reworking, or crossing out and rewriting on the page, he starts again immediately within the flow of text. It suggests that Tennyson worked the poem out in blocks within his head, trying to have each section right before it was written down." This sense of "blocks" of composition is also supported by indented paragraph lines and changes of ink in the manuscript. So, on the first page of the "Morte d'Arthur," eleven lines are entered in one kind of ink, which ends on 9" at the hne, "Then spoke King Arthur to Sir Bedivere" (see first page of fig. 6). The first block is one of description. The next entry, in terms of indentations, contains Arthur's speech, with further indentation at Bedivere's response on W. The repeated passages

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then occur after this point. The nature of text on the page suggests a kind H)f staggered, forward progress.

Exactly the same structure of immediate rewriting on the manuscript page at a more localized level occurs on IF. The transcribed passage reads as follows:

It is-a^ameful thing for m^jHo lie For he betray^is natjH'e'^is Lord. But now, I char^c

TEXT AS PROCESS

material. Comparison with Wordsworth is interesting here too, since the nature of Wordsworth's revisionary activity is emphatically not one of clean rewriting (although his personal myth of oral production suggests that he wants to believe it is).

The second version of "Morte d'Arthur" in the notebook begins immediately after the first, on 13"^, with one torn out page between them. Unlike the first version, itis written only on the recto pages, with the versos left blank in case of revision. There are images in pencil and ink on all of the surviving full verso pages from 13 to 20. The images strongly raise the question of whether there is an intended connection between them and the text opposite them. Sketches on these pages do not seem to be connected to each other, or to be very fully elaborated, so that it looks as though they are entered when the text is being written and in loose relation to it, rather than in relation to each other. Since the written text is largely an expanded copy of the version that precedes it, it seems possible that Tennyson might have paused during copying to sketch while he reconsidered a line or section, or before he continued writing a new paragraph. These may just be general studies, therefore, and not directly relevant to any of the text.'^ As such, they perhaps correspond to Pickering's description of "certain recurring figurative motifs" and may inform the creative process in a generalized way rather than relating to specific passages.' The fact that this kind of entry is often in pencil rather than ink suggests a time of entry into the notebook not coterminous with the written text.

In the examples considered here, I have implicitly taken pictorial representation to be secondary to the written act, and so have privileged the written text over the drawn image.'' This seems to me justified by the way in which the nature of written draft in Tennyson's manuscripts directly affects the space allowed for the visual. In the first "Morte d'Arthur," the written text as early draft runs continuously over recto and verso pages so that any pictorial representation has to be embedded within the textual process. In the second written draft of "Morte d'Arthur," entered immediately afterward, the shape of written composition, with verso pages left blank for recopying and alterations, affects both the position and the nature of pictorial images. These now become more of a "visual commentary" on the text on the opposite page than a directly integrated part of the compositional process. In both cases, the existence, of pictures in the manuscript is directly related to the fact that the text is early draft material, since illustrative material is not present in later manuscript stages. This is also significant since it suggests that the pictorial element is contributing directly to active composition and helping to release imaginative and creative thought in some way.

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TENNYSON'S -PROCESS

Prose and Poetry

, I want to return more expHcitly now to Hurlebusch's description of the "reproductive author as someone concerned with "the translation of something previously thought into writing." The self-aware translation of prewritten (mental) composition into writing and of one text into another text seems to me to be fundamental to Tennysonian composition at a number ot levels.

As we have seen, Tennyson's creative personality is dependent on a certain kind of (controlled) openness. Imaginatively, he directs thought outward in order to return, and this relates to nonauthorial influences^o the visual, and to textual translation. For the Idylls, Tennyson's reliance on creative translation is felt again in'his willingness to work closely and directly from source material such as Malory and The Mahinogion}' For many of the post-1859'Idylls, Tennyson creates a process of double translation as he rewrites Malory's prose into his own prose and then writes a poetic account.

The issue bf Tennyson's adoption and handling of textual sources and Ideas from others in relation to the final, published text emerged in his own lifetime; he was particularly sensitive about it. John Churton Collins, in a series of articles for the Cornhill Magazine, considered Tennyson's use of earlier writers in a way the poet deeply resented, famously leading him to declare of Collins: "I think he is a louse upon the locks of literature."" In tact, Collms's position was underpinned by good scholarly aims. He pursued the study of analogy and imitation between Tennyson and his predecessors primarily to "illustrate the essential connection existing between the four leading and master literatures of the world, those namely of ancient Greece and Italy and of modern Italy and England."^" Collins was arguing for a more systematic and detailed critical study of national authors and hoping to provide -one method for doing this. He did, however, place Tennyson first in the second rank of poets" (along with Virgil) because of his assimilative skill."^'

Collins's approach was adopted and distorted by those hostile to Tennyson, as Charles Kegan Paul's Memories makes clear: "It would be an interesting study to any one to work steadily through Tennyson and trace how often and how constantly he has touched up the work of other men. The late Mr Woolner, the sculptor, told me both 'Enoch Arden' and 'Ayl-mers Field were originally stories told by him to Tennyson, who made

f length, and then broke up his narrative into blank verse. Kegan Paul's ungenerous account depicts a morally dubious and limited imaginative force, "breaking up" and "touching up" the ideas of

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Fig. 7. A spatial map for "The Holy Grail," Harvard Notebook, MS ENG 952, 38, showing prose/poetry entry into the notebook, order A-D.

TEXT AS PROCESS

he goes on to describe his encounter with Bors, and, finally, Lancelot's account of his adventures, when he returns to the court. The poem concludes with Arthur's dark reflections on the effects of the Grail quest.

As illustrated in figure 7, in the manuscript notebook Tennyson begins by entering a prose account at the front of the notebook approximating to lines 1-849 of the final poem, with the omission of lines 539-712 (the temptation of Percival and Bors's tale) and 850-916 (Arthur's final response to the returned knights). It consists of Percival's account of his own quest and t h a t o f G a l a h a d , a n d t h e n L a n c e l o t ' s a c c o u n t . P r o s e m a t e r i a l r u n s f r o m V -13' on the recto pages, occasionally moving into poetry and back to prose. Two blank pages at 13"-14' signal the end of this stage. On 14" and 15' of the notebook there are two short passages: a further prose account of Arthur's response to his returned knights followed by the final section of the poem now written as poetry with the omission of Percival's final line. This material was probably entered separately from the full prose narrative, hut definitely before the poetic account that follows it.^'

The next stage of writing occurred with the entry of the poetic text, in a fairly continuous and fluent form (with some poetic reworkings on opposite versos), beginning on 16' and ending at 36'.' Again, this account omits Percival's temptation and his account of Bors. At some pqint, then, Tennyson decided he needed expanded versions of the quest, and so he went back to the first prose text and added (on the opposing verso pages 9", 10", 15", 29", and 30") the account of Percival's temptation and of Bors's in prose and poetry. The notebook does not contain a continuous poetic version of this material.

In the case of this notebook, Tennyson's prose-poetic composition emerges as remarkably integrated. He does not simply enter a prose version and then start again with a poetic one but moves between the two in an active mode of self-translation. This works in at least three ways. First, there are the two major blocks of prose and poetry. Second, there are points within the major prose block where the prose breaks down into poetry and then returns to prose. Third, there are later additions in which prose prompts poetic composition directly. On 14" and 15', for example, the prose account ends with a line corresponding to line 898 of the final poem and on 15' (opposite), poetry begins at line 899. Tennyson looks to have moved directly from one form into the other here. It is interesting, too, that when Tennyson works on additional material after the main poetic block has been entered, he still maintains a practice of writing a short prose version and then a poetic one; he does not simply write directly in verse.

I want to focus on examples of self-translation at a localized level where prose accounts break into verse. Early examples (on 4', 5', 8', and 9') seem

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TENNYSON'S PROCESS

to be related to contained speech within the narrative so that a direct address creates the stimulus for a change of form. When the Grail appears at court, Arthur is away and returning to Camelot. On 4', the account of Arthurs distant witnessing of the Grail storm, in prose, breaks into verse to give a description of his hall, and then returns to prose. The point at which the change of form occurs (a movement into and out of poetrv) is transcribed here;

for the roofs of the Hall seemed to smoke 8c the Hall was dear to him seeing it is the costliest in the world.

O brother had you known our mighty hall Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago. For four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt '

[5 lines here] And on the top a statue in the mould Of Arthur, made by Merlin with a crown And peakd wings pointed to the Northern Star.

& the statue faces the East & the crown & the wings are golden 8c shine far over the land at sunrise.^'

At the point where Percival directly addresses the listening monk Tennyson shifts into poetry At the end of the passage, however, with a return to the ampersand, he moves back into prose, perhaps because something more than description is needed at this point in the poem, but he isn't yet sure what. In the published poem, the end of the section reads:

And peaked wings pointed to the Northern Star. And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown And both the wings are made of gold, and flame At sunrise till the people in far fields, Wasted so often by the heathen hordes. Behold it, crying, "We have still a King."'^

In the final poem, the passage is pleasingly rounded off by a mirrored change of perspective. Where the description of the Arthurian hall was mtroduced by Arthur's distant sight of the smoking-roof, it is now closed with a sense of gradually pulling away from the great hall and from great men and women out into the fields again. Their hopeful cry also reads as one of ironic anticipation in that the appearance of the Grail, which intro-

139

TEXT AS PROCESS

duced the description, in fact means that before long they will no longer "have still a King." It is also worth noting of this section that when Tennyson writes out the poetic version of the poem later in the notebook and reaches the point at which the poetic lines occur here, he leaves a gap on the page at 23' rather than writing out the lines again. Once more, this suggests a highly integrated model of prose-poetic composition in which Tennyson is constantly referring back to, and highly aware of, the earlier version.

There is a similar model of creative prose-poetic integration at a localized level in the account of Lancelot's experience on 12'-13' where Tennyson again moves freely between the two forms. It looks as though expression sometimes emerges directly in poetry and sometimes not, but creative momentum means that he keeps writing in and out of poetic form;

& the land was flat & barren & nothing grew on the banks of the sea but a little coarse grass but a blast blew along the sea & the shore.

& heap'd in mounds & ridges all the sea Drove like a cataract & all the sand Swept like a river & the cloudy sun Was shaken with the motion & the sound

& was a little boat tossing, brimful of seafoam, anchored with chain; & I said to myself in my madness I will embark & wash aWay my sin in the great sea Seven days I drove along the dreary deep And with me drove the moon & all the stars

[26 lines of poetry here] / Then in my madness I essay'd the door

& it yielded, & there came out a light 7 times more clear & therewithal a heat w'" blasted my eyesight^'

At such moments Tennyson appears to be writing fluidly and continuously. In the light of what we know about his compositional habits and his dependence on prior mental composition, this is significant. It should remind us that Tennyson's writing of prose is not perhaps subject to the same controls and inner mental perfecting as his writing of poetry. Where Tennyson's standard poetic practice seems to be to enter work in blocks, perfecting each section mentally before starting the next, here it looks as though a relaxed attitude to writing down prose creates direct written composition for poetry too, which he does not otherwise achieve (or want to achieve). Perhaps, then, the key point to realize about Tennyson's use of prose is that

140

TENNYSON'S PROCESS

it represents immediate, written expression of ideas in a way that his poetry generally does not.

For the Idylls, compositional self-translation is also to do with the subject matter and the way in which any teller of the Arthurian tale must be in part a mediator. One crucial aspect of Malory's role, after all, was to bring together previously disparate Arthurian narratives. Tennyson makes such mediation an explicit part of his process. But is the nature of the creative act fundamentally different (lesser?) when the poet chooses to create a process-within-a-process in the form of "self-translation" across forms, or is it the case that in fact all poetic creativity involves such acts, but that their nature is partly disguised? At first glance, Tennyson's activity suggests a very different way of working from that of a poet such as Wordsworth, who is rarely willing to mediate poetic utterance through any expression of ideas in prose. However, Wordsworth does undertake "creative translation"it is just that he does so in relation -to his own already-written poetry, repeatedly incorporating earlier writings into later pieces. Indeed, Wordsworth's extended work for "The Peasant's Life," which he removed from The Excursion before publication, could be seen as comparable to the kind of detailed psychological writing that Tennyson undertakes in prose, for some characters, but does not allow into the final poetic text. One way or another, translational activity is a fundamental part of the creative act.

RECOMBINATION: PART AND WHOLE IN THE "IDYLLS"

In the second half of this chapter I want to move away from Tennyson's personal habits to explore the broader compositional structure of the Idylls of the King as a whole long poem thaf draws attention to its construction out of many parts, and to consider issues of interpretation across textual process and the published text that result from such a structure. My aim here is to present an integrated text-critical and literary-critical model of analysis moving across and between text as process and the published text for a fuller understanding of both.

Discussion of the overall development of the Idylls may be more clearly understood with the help of the compositional map (see fig. 8). This should clarify the complex relationship that exists between individual compositional order, first published book order, and final published book order for this worka relationship that has long been of interest to critics.'^ Two excellent works consider this issue by looking at the Idylls of the King as. a "serial poem." The first is Kathleen Tillotson's well-known essay of 1965, and the second is a more recent consideration of the structure of the Idylls

141

Poem in Composition i Morte d'Arthur i (Nov1833-Sept30 1834)

Merlin/ Nimiie and Merlin (Feb 4-April 10 1856) Enid/ Geraint and Enid (April 4-Dec 22 1856)

The Maid of Astolat (May 25 1858-March 19 1859)

Dedication by Jan. 1862. (Death of Prince Albert Dec 14 1861)

The Birth of Arthur (Feb13-May18 1869)

Sir Pelleas (May 19 1869-Nov.1869)

Trial Book Published Book

Arthur and Guinevere/ Guinevere (July 9 1857-March 15 1858)

The San Graal/ The Holy Grail (Early Sept-Oct 21 1868)

The Death of Arthur (Morte d'Arthur reworked, early 1869)

1842 {Morte D'Arthur; Dora and Other Idylls)

Morte d'Arthur The Morte Epic d'Arthur

May 1857 (Enid and Nimue: the True and the False)

Enid Nimue

1859 The True and the False: Idylls of the King |

I

1858/59 Maid of Guinevere Astolat

1862 Pamphlet Dedication

Issued and withdrawn?) Enid Nimiie Elaine Guinevere

1859 Idylls of the King: first published text

Enid Vivien Elaine Guinevere

1862 Idylls of the King: 4th ed.

Dedication Enid Vivien Elaine Guinevere

Nov 1869 The Birth The Holy Sir The Death of Arthur Grail Pelleas of Arthur

1870 Hssue d Dec 18( >91 The Ho fv Grail and Other Poems The Coming of Arthur

The Holy Grail

Pelleas and Ettarre

The Passing of Arthur

Miscellaneous Poems

The Last Tournament/Tristram (Nov 8-May 21 or May 24 1871)

Beaumains/Sir Gareth/Gareth (started Oct 7 1869, completed July 9 1872)

Revisions to The Coming of Arthur; "The Song of the Knights" added (Nov7-Nov15 1872)

Epilogue (written by Pec 181872)

Balin and Balan (Probably started 1872 Probably finished 1874)

Oct 1871 Trial Book/Proof Copy (no title page)

The Last Tournament

Pamphlet: Private Circulation 1873

To the Queen

Pub. in Contemporary Review Dec 1871 The Last Tournament

1872 Gareth and Lynette, etc.

Gareth and The Last Lynette Tournament

1873 Epilogue first published in library edition (See collected editions map)

To the Queen

Lines 188-94 added to Merlin and Vivien (lines 6-146 added in cabinet edition)

1885 First published in Tiresias and Other Poems

Balin and Balan

Pig. 8. A compositional map showing the writing and publication of Idylls of the King over time.

TEXT AS PROCESS

in The Victorian Serial by Linda K. Hughes and Michael Lund (1991). Both these pieces have to acknowledge that the poem does not really conform to the serial structure of their titles:

The process may fairly be called serial publication, though of an uncommon kind.

Yet as a serial poem Idylls of the King represents a special case: of the serial works we discuss, only Tennyson's Arthuriad was published out of the sequence of the completed work.^

Tennyson's Arthurian idylls may be published in cumulative units, over an extended time period, but they do not appear in the final published whole poem in the same order as that of first publication, and the significance of this is explored by both critics in different ways. Tillotson focuses on the growing shape of the whole poem through its separate published volumes and charts the changing responses of critical reception over time. Hughes and Lund build on this approach to connect the poem's structural "slow process of growth" to the growth of empire during Tennyson's lifetime.'^ Both responses focus primarily on the poem's structure from the perspective of first publication and first reception (centered on the key years of 1842,1859,1869, and 1872), although Hughes and Lund also make good use of comparison between first and final published order: "The Idylls publication order instead counterbalanced the linear progression toward the kingdom's downfall in the finished poem with an emphasis on cyclic recurrence."' The cyclical modd of a repeated return, experienced by the reader of separate volumes of first publication (and suggested by Tillotson's comment that "each Idyll seemed a fresh start"), is seen to be far more positive than the steady movement toward decline and collapse of Arthurian ideals that is created by the final linear form.''

Unlike these two critical accounts, the present work describes the development of the Idylls as a process of accumulation and recombination rather than a "serial" process, because material written later is resituated into the larger scheme anew, with significant implications for overall shape and meaning. I want to consider the implications of such recombination, partly by comparing first published and final published forms, but also by shifting the focus back, to look at the relationship at work between compositional order and first published order, and compositional and final published order for the Idylls. I am interested in the way in which a changing context for meaning affects interpretation of both published and draft materials.

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TENNYSON'S PROCESS

The first point to make is that there is a strong relationship between compositional and first published order, and this structure is essential for the coming-into-being of the entirety of the Idylls over time. The lack of any overall vision for the Idylls of the King in the early stages of composition clearly caused Tennyson some anxiety On April 19,1856, Emily Tennyson notes that "Merlin is all written down, quite finished I think, but not much else done. He troubles himself that the Idylls do not form themselves into a whole in his mind and moreover that the subject has not reality enough."o Tennyson's chosen generic form is relevant here in terms of the lack of "a whole in his mind." In terms of long poetic form, the choice of "idyll" itself suggests a model of potential recombination of parts into different kinds of whole. The idyll is defined in the OED as:

1. A short poem, descriptive of some picturesque scene or incident, chiefly in rustic life.

2. An episode or series of events or circumstances of pastoral or rural simplicity, and suitable for an idyll.

Anna Rist, in her introduction to The Poems of Theocritus, states of the Theocritan final product that it is not "an ethical disquisition with the illustrative details subordinated to a grand design, but a significant arrangement of related vignettesmore like a Roman mosaic than a Persian carpet."" Reviewers from the time of the first four-book publication of the Idylls of the King onward continually return to the issue of the poem's episodic structure, with changing attitudes, as Tennyson's work moves in and out of fashion:

An Idyll is, to the common understanding, the name of a Pastoral, not of a tale of kings and warriors.... We were not to expect a long poem, presenting Arthur and his exploits as a whole.

The sequence of these poems is [also] regulated by carefully studied contrasts, whereby the idylls become mutually illustrative as much and evidently as if they were separate books of a single poem.

A poem; ahhough it may be produced by instalments, ought to be regarded as a whole.'^

The question of whether Tennyson's poem is really "epic" and "unified," whether it fails to achieve a "whole" or whether it is deliberately "idyllic" and thus fragmented, continues to be an ongoing element in critical debate on the Idylls of the King.^^ We know, though, that Tennyson had considered

145

TEXT AS PROCESS

and rejected two other forms for his work, the epic and the drama, and taken time to decide on the idyll, so whatever difficulties are created by the form, it was certainly chosen with deliberation by the poet. It is also always worth keeping in mind the title of the work when looking at the larger structure. As Jerome Buckley reminds us, "Tennyson was far too familiar with the traditional genres ever to confuse the idyll and the epic; and he must in any case have expected his title Idyllsin the pluralto designate not a single unified narrative but a group of chivalric tableaux."^

The issue of epic or non-epic definitions of the poem also emphasizes the ways in which the nature of programmatic intention is bound up with the writer's choice of generic form. To write an epic structure, the poet needs to have an overall vision from the outset before he can undertake any part of the enterprise. If the form of idyll is chosen instead, then he will be thinking about the work differently, and a model of staggered programmatic intention, open to change and able to be affected by context, can come into play. In this case, however, it is hard to know which came first: did Tennyson realize he could not write a traditional epic because he had no overall sense of the work, or did the decision to adopt the idyll form mean that he did not need to think in that way? At the time he produced "Merlin" (the first Arthurian idyll written with the certain intention of there being a future sequence), it seems to me that the poet had no clear framework and could not be sure that the structure would be capable of producing a work of length or cohesion. As a result, at a compositional level, the issue of "significant arrangement" of individual books becomes highly important for the poet as he composes, because he does not have a clear model for future development.' Instead, he must rely on localized relations between books. The grouping of certain books together is an essential part of process, and these groupings are reflected for the Idylls at the level of first publication.

The first publication structuring of the Idylls reflects a series of compositional groupings that allow the overall poem to come into being without there being a rigid overall plan. Such a structure is highly appropriate to the idyll forma structure of "constant rearrangement and fresh patterning of elements drawn from a repertoire which seems familiar, but is in fact being newly created before our eyes."^ It also replicates, at the level of the wider structure, a localized model of composition in which blocks of a book are written separately and then rearranged to construct a longer piece.

At this point, it may be helpful to compare directly the original order of writing with the 1886 final published order of the poem. I have used the published titles of books for both to ease direct comparison. The original order of writing is on the left; the final published order of the poem is on the right.

146

TENNYSON'S PROCESS

1. Morte d'Arthur 6. Dedication 2. Merlin and Vivien 8. The Coming of Arthur

3. 12. Gareth and Lynette

3. Marriage of Geraint/ 3. Marriage of Geraint/ Geraint and Enid Geraint and Enid

4. Guinevere 14. Balin and Balan 5. Lancelot and Elaine 2. Merlin and Vivien 6. Dedication 5. Lancelot and Elaine 7. The Holy Grail 7 The Holy Grail 8. The Coming of Arthur 10. Pelleas and Ettarre 9. The Passing of Arthur 11. The Last Tournament 10. Pelleas and Ettarre 4. Guinevere 11. The Last Tournament 1/9. The Passing of Arthur 12. Gareth and Lynette 13. Epilogue 13. Epilogue

Epilogue

14. Balin and Balan

Such a comparison shows very clearly that the final sense of a "whole" does not correspond to the "parts" it contains, either in terms of overall order or of runs within that order. The constant recontextualizing of meaning in relation to what precedes and comes after an individual idyll is perpetrated further in the shifting groupings of the collected editions (see fig. 9). Books are grouped in different ways for different editions and altered to incorporate later parts within the overall structure. The "seriality" that existed in different groupings at the level of the first published volumes is broken apart to create the final poem.

Such restructuring of the whole by the reordering of its parts has important implications for meaning and interpretation. At a local, individual-book level, meaning is of course partly self-contained, but it is also developed in relation to certain other individual books, with that compositional context then "fixed" by the first published groupings. However, at a wider "whole-poem" level of final publication, a different understanding of the content of an individual book is created by the placement of it in a new context. From a compositional perspective the choice of a connected but fragmentary form for the final poem means that the nature of the textual product does not so much stand in contrast to the textual process through which it came into being as it seems to reproduce and represent the uncertainties of such a process, so that the concept of contingent completion, which so informs the writing of a long poetic work, becomes an intrinsic part of the published work.

The nature of the long poetic structure, particularly in a work for which parts are published separately over time, could be compared to the inter-

147

1870 (1871, reissued 1873,1877). The Works of Alfred Tennyson. 10 vols. Idylls in vols. 4-6 and 12; 1873 in vols. 4-7.

1873. The Works of Alfred Tennyson. 6 vols. /dy//s In vols. 5 and 6.

1874. The Works of Alfred Tennyson. 10 vols./dy//s in vols. 5-7.

1874. The Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson. 6 vols./dy//s In volume 3.

Dedication Tfie Coming of Arthur Garetti and Lynette Geraint and Enid Merlin and Vivien Lancelot and Elaine

The Holy Grail Pelleas and Ettare The Last Tournament Guinevere The Passing of Arthur To the Queen

.1886. The Poetical Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson. 10 vols. Idylls In vols. 7-9.

Dedication The Coming of Arthur Gareth and Lynette Marriage of Geraint Geraint and Enid

Balin and Balan Merlin and Vivien Lancelot and Elaine The Holy Grail

Pelleas and Ettarre The Last Tournament Guinevere The Passing of Arthur To The Queen

Fig. 9. Lifetime collected editions of Tennyson's Idylls of the King.

TENNYSON'S PROCESS

pretational structure of "the hermeneutic circle." Such a structure defines understanding as an endless movement between parts and whole The fa ther of modern hermeneutics. Friedrich Schleiermacher, states: knowledge always involves an apparent circle, [so that] each part can be

nderstood only out of the whole to which it belongs, and vice versa " A more recent definition is offered by Hans-Georg Gadamer-"Frndanien tally understanding is always a movement in this kind of circle which IS why the repeated return from the whole to the parts, and ve^ a t essential. Moreover, this circle is constantly expanding, since the concept

the whole IS relative, and being integrated in ever larger contexts always book ^ ad?'''r individual part."^" The final chapter of tWs

k wm address the question of whether a specialized hermeneutics is required for text as process. For the moment, we need to see that the model f understanding being achieved by a series of endless returns and revisit-ngs, a movement between part and whole, is important for interpreting

textual process because the structure and nature of the creative process if-

siStw T """ In the case of the Idylls of the King, the hermeneutic circle is relevant

to writerly interpretation of draft text, but it is also actively represented ? and structural organization of the "fixed" (published) work and thus to readerly interpretation as well Tennyson's

t^ strr ifT ^new seSsTcon-texts for the doubled context of interpretative understanding. At one level

s results in a constantly changing meaning for both part and whole At

We can begin to consider the effect of a changing context bv rh.rtin changes to individual idylls at two related levels: in terms of an idyll's ti

e and in terms of the place and function of that book within the wider hole. Almost every book undergoes some kind of title change We can

trace this through two examples in the "Morte d'Arthur" and "Merlin and Vivien, where the title changes read as follows: "Morte dArtl^Ir" Ue

viw "Nw "v?v-tte "Morte d'Arthur" was initially written as a discrete piece concern-

titl r of a" Originally the S t T - t h e p o e J a s a k W Ot set piece. The change of title to "The Death of Arthur" in 1869 was a d.c, response ,o the poem's new locate wi,hin a four-Jok sequ^ce

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where it acted as a partner piece to "The Birth of Arthur," with these two books forming a frame for the two central books of the volume. This structure within the four-book volume is clearly introduced with the idea of applying it to an ever-expanding wider sequence, as is made explicit by a note opposite the title page of the 1870 edition. Such a model, of two framing books around a central section, potentially allows for continual further expansion within "The Round Table," and this does indeed occur. The final change of title to "The Passing of Arthur" reflects the fact that Arthur is neither "born" nor "dies" within the narrative, and it also brings with it a sense of the whole collection of tales as taking place only in the space of an interlude somehow brought into being by the presence of this figure. It emphasizes the temporary achievement of the ideal state that the idyll as generic form embodies.

In relation to "Merlin and Vivien," changes to the title are again affected by context, but these changes now seem to suggest which of the two characters is the central figure of the book. "Merlin" is the second Arthurian idyll to be written after the "Morte dArthur." As with the first written idyll, the starting point for Tennyson is in fact an endpoint: the death of Arthur is followed by the entombment of Merlin. However, with composition of the third book ("Enid"), relations between individual books shift from an implied pairing of Arthur and Merlin to an explicit pairing of Enid and Nimue (or Vivien) in a trial book. "Merlin and Vivien" now forms part of a binary structure of two opposing female models {Enid and Nimue: The True and the False [1857]). The sense of its meaning within the wider structure is unaffected by further expansion into a four-book sequence published in 1859 {The True and the False: Idylls of the King), in which there are two "True" and two "False" women (Enid and Elaine; Vivien and Guinevere). The change to "Vivien" from Nimiie probably occurs as a result of Burne-Jones's criticism that "the poet in his Idyll had modernized and altered the character while preserving the ancient name," but this does not affect the book's meaning in the context of its first published grouping.^^ By 1870, however, with completion of "The Holy Grail" volume, the four-book grouping of two pairs of females has to be broken up and replaced by a different kind of context. The book is now one of a collection of tales from "The Round Table," most of which focus on paired relationships, and the change of title reflects this. The book is no longer about the end of the Arthurian legend, or about the deceptions of women, but one episode among many between the men and women whose strengths and weaknesses create and destroy the ideal.

The shifting title of individual idylls provides a straightforward means of tracing changes of meaning created by changes of context, but we can look at

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those changes in more detail with reference to the role of a particular book. One idyll strongly affected by the difference between first published and final published order is "Guinevere." There is clear evidence that Tennyson's readers, his wife and the poet himself, all valued this book very highly, which was much praised on its first appearance. As we have seen, in the context of its first publication, Guinevere" was placed last within the four-book structure originally entitled The True and the False: Idylls of the King (see fig. 8). Tillotson states th'at "the 'true and the false' remains as one of the large, simple antitheses that are among the 'vertebrae' of the whole poem. It is not a crude contrast, for it is crossed by the doubtful question of what is true and what is false. The critic's desire to make sense of first publication shapings within the final publication order is felt here, but the point she makes is also powerfully embodied in the figure of Guinevere. The queen has been "false" throughout in order to be "true" to her emotions and is only finally able to see the possibility of being "truly true" when it is too late (for the human relationship at least). Guinevere is emphatically the most significant female in relation to the wider resonance of this theme, and the placement of her book as last within the four-book sequence reinforces this.

It is clear that for some time Tennyson thought of this book as the end-mg of the whole work. In 1859, responding to a letter from the Duke of Argyll, he stated:

As to joining these [Idylls] with the Morte d'Arthur, there are two objections one that I could scarcely light upon a finer close than that ghostlike passing away of the King and the other that the Morte is older in style and suggestive of a less modern social stateI don't think they would fit together. As it is, I have thought about it for two years and arranged all the intervening Idylls but I dare not set to work for fear of a failure, and time lost.^^

The first comment here, about the "ghostlike passing," might at first glance appear to refer to the ending of the "Morte d'Arthur" but in fact refers to Arthur's departure for battle in "Guinevere":

The moony vapour rolling round the King, Who seemed the phantom of a Giant in it. Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray And grayer, till himself became as mist Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom.^'

Tennyson's comment is given as a response to the duke's original letter, with an enclosed letter from the Princess Royal, and Argyll's description

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of her as " 'very anxious' that Tennyson should 'make the "Morte d'Arthur" the ending of the Idylls, adding only something to connect it with the ending of "Guinevere." Is there any objection to this? None that I recollect. In the end of "Guinevere" the King is spoken as departing to the Great Battleand in the "Morte," we should have the worthy close.'Argyll thus suggests the possibility of a kind of doubled ending that might include both a "departure" and "the close."

The Princess Royal's opinion was shared (and no doubt influenced) by a number of reviewers of the 1859 volume who had also made a direct connection between the new works and the earlier "Morte d'Arthur." An article by John Walter in the Times states: "Mr. Tennyson tries his hand yet again, and>produces four idylls, which ... if they do not constitute an epic, may, together with our old favourite Morte d'Arthur for a fifth, be taken as fragments of a great whole."^' Taking this one stage further, Elizabeth J. Hassell, the reviewer for Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, suggested: "Those who are unacquainted with Tennyson's earlier writings, must feel, as they, finish Guinevere, that the end is wanting; while the majority of readers will hasten to refresh their recollections of "Morte d'Arthur" as its true conclusion: which exquisite poem, we here beg to suggest, should be printed as the fifth in the second edition of 'The Idylls.'"' Although Tennyson's letter of response to the Duke of Argyll at first resisted such a suggestion, he did go on to incorporate the earlier poem within the next four-book publication (another example of nonauthorial intentions shaping the developing work).

The decision to incorporate the "Morte d'Arthur" as the final book of the entire sequence has a direct effect on "Guinevere" at the level of the wider structure. As suggested earlier, two kinds of ending are now contained within the larger whole. The first of these concerns the personal and human pathos of separation, exemplified not so much in the description Tennyson refers to as in the physical last touch between Arthur and Guinevere:

She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck. And in the darkness o'er her fallen head, Perceived the waving of his hands that blest.''

The presence of a second "ghost-like passing away" of Arthur in the final book acts to shift the focus of the preceding book to the human relationship, while the final ending returns us to the realm of the mythic rather than the lived experience, for Arthur at least. In this way, the creation of a double conclusion (human and mythic) has its own effectiveness within

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the wider structure and echoes that same division repeated again within the final book in the different kinds of time represented by Arthur and Bedivere. Moreover, not only are there now two concluding books, but withm each of these, there are also multipleendings, which include Guinevere s partmg from Lancelot, her parting from Arthur and her withdrawal from the world, the final battle of Arthur, the giving up of Excalibur, the passmg away of Arthur, and, finally, the death of Bedivere as last living witness. The positioning of the two books one after the other creates a sense of repeated collapse and a mirrored withdrawal from the world by the key characters.

The relocation of "Guinevere" to a penultimate position allows the book to retain some of its initial concluding force, but the move also means a change in relation to what comes before it. Hughes and Lund point out: But now 'Lancelot and Elaine' did not lead directly to 'Guinevere : into the gap between Lancelot's remorse and Guinevere's repentance were inserted the stories of the Holy Grail and of Pelleas and Ettarre, providing a new 'late summer' before the fall."" Not only does "Guinevere" lose the context of double repentance by the two adulterers (which also makes the ending of "Lancelot and Elaine" fed slightly misplaced when this book comes earlier in the sequence), but that preceding context is replaced, in the final form of the poem, by the most disturbing of all the idylls. The Last Tournament." The end of the queen's relationship with Lancelot is thus placed in direct juxtaposition with its corrupted echo in that of Tristram and Isolde. Such changes may not affect our engagement with the particular scene of parting between Guinevere and Arthur or with Guinevere's repentance, but they do affect in a negative way our overall sense of her responsibility^for the collapse of the ideal. All of these examples show that at the level of different published orders, the recombination of parts within the whole significantly affects the meaning of both part and whole.

THE POWER OF PROLEPSIS

So far I have largely been considering the "recombination" of books within first published and later editions. I want now to pull back to look at the effect of Tennysonian recombination in terms of compositional versus final published order. The nature of the poem's compositional devdopment means that the beginning never exists in entire independence from the end, with one important consequence: Tennyson is working within a proleptic struc^re of writing. This can be seen, for example, in the first book"The Coming of Arthur"written surprisingly late in the sequence, of which

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Hughes and Lund state: '"The Coming of Arthur' extended the realm of Arthur backward in time and showed its genesis, one developed partly in terms bf expansion versus contraction and dispersal."'

The books written earliest are (with the exception of "Enid") those depicting the ending of Arthur's realm and the failure of his noble ambitions: "Morte d'Arthur," "Merlin and Vivien," and "Guinevere." In Tennyson's early, rejected "play scenario" in Trinity Notebook 26, it is notable that he places emphasis entirely on the last part of Arthur's reign and that the three narrative subjects, which figure prominently in the outline, correspond to these books. According to the synopsis given here, the first act was to focus on Mordred; the second on Arthur and the Lady of the Lake trying to persuade him to fight; the third on Merlin's entombment; the fourth on "Arthur & Guinevere's {PARTING/meeting"; and the fifth on "[t]he throwing away of Excalibur & departure of Arthur."^ It could be argued, therefore, that the heart of the poem is loss, exemplified in these three books in different, overlapping ways as loss of life (and power), loss of power (and life and love), and loss of love.

The effect of Tennyson's initial interest in the end of the legend, and his writing of such books first, clearly means that when he writes books that will appear earlier in the overall sequence at a later date, he can draw on outcomes even when depicting the very beginnings of things. This allows Tennyson to use controlled understatement in the early books to great effect. A good example of this occurs with the end of "The Coming of Arthur" and the arrival of the queen at the court. In the 1868 trial book, the poem originally ends with a purely factual account:

Then Arthur bad Sir Lancelot bring the Queen: To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint.'

At the end of the trial book on the bottom of the printed page, however, is a passage added by Tennyson in ink:

So Then Arthur bad Sir Lancelot, whom he loved And honour'd most, ride forth 8c bring the Queen. Then stood beside the gateway watching him And Lancelot past away among the flowers For it was latter April - 8c return'd

Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere.''

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This passage is incorporated directly, with some small changes, into the poem in the 1870 first published version ("The Coming of Arthur"):

Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved And honour'd most. Sir Lancelot, to ride forth And bring the Queen; - and watch'd him from the

gates: And Lancelot past away among the flowers, (For then was latter April) and return'd Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere. To whom arrived, by Dubric...

The passage is a key one in terms of the wider narrative, since it represents an unwitting misjudgment by Arthur that will, of course, have deep consequences for him personally, and for the whole of the Round Table. However, in the telhng of events at this crucial point, there is only the slightest hint of unease in the contrast between the active Lancelot, who returns surrounded by bridal flowers, and the passive Arthur who "watches" all this activity. Such a perspective is also characteristic of the idyll form and Its 'preoccupation with attitudes rather than events." The description tells us nothing of the feelings of any of the participants and allows "The Coming of Arthur as an early book in the final sequence to remain pure of any explicit hint of future corruption.

However, the underlying compositional order (and the first published order experienced by readers in Tennyson's own time) tells a different story. In Merlin and Vivien' (written first) this same scene is recalled by Merlin in response to Vivien's accusations:

Sir Lancelot went ambassador, at first. To fetch her, and she watched him from her walls. A rumour runs, she took him for the King. So fixt her fancy on him: let them be.'

A third version also exists within "Guinevere," where it occurs as a memory of the queen's:

And moving through the past unconsciously. Came to that point where first she saw the King Ride toward her from the city, sighed to find Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold,

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High, self-contained, and passionless, not like him, "Not like my Lancelot"

The reverie is experienced immediately before Arthur's final visit to Guinevere in the convent, so that its positioning seems to compress timethe first moment of glimpsing Arthur is juxtaposed with the last:

"Not like my Lancelot"while she brooded thus And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again, There rode an arm^d warrior to the doors. A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran. Then on a sudden a cry, "The King."'

In terms .of final published order, these three versions appear as: "The Coming of Arthur," "Merlin & Vivien," and "Guinevere." In terms of compositional and first published order, they appear as: "Merlin & Vivien," "Guinevere," and "The Coming of Arthur."

The triangular relationship that emerges at the heart of the Arthurian story is thus created here across three separate accounts of the event. The proleptic structure of composition means that even the very earliest, most optimistic moments of Arthur's reign are colored by its eventual collapse.'" For the original readers following the first published order, the recalled version is experienced first and followed by Guinevere's recollection of the event, which implicitly confirms the rumor. This order also places the reader in the uneasy position of knowing things indirectly, through rumor first, and being made to feel almost complicit with Vivien. The central narrative is never told directly. We can only choose between one account gathered on the ear, a second experienced almost voyeuristically through Arthur's gaze, and a third that exists in the queen's recollection of it. Not only are there three separate interpretations, but the shifting order in which we receive those separate interpretations changes the nature of our understanding of any single one.

In both critical considerations of Tennyson's "serial poem" discussed earlier, the critics made a strong case for the way in which their reading of the poem's structural development connected with the poem's content. So Tillotson concluded, "The pressure of time and change aflfected the poem, which is itself concerned with time and change," and Hughes and Lund connected the structure both to a resistance to collapse and to the role of Arthur: "Arthur's other great act was to take what had formerly been separate and haphazard and transform these into a larger whole."" My reading of the poem's structure can also b^ directly related to the poem's content in terms of

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a partly unresolved tension between parts and whole, through which interpretation itself is constantly being redefined and understanding enlarged.

One key eflfect of an alternative compositional order underlying the first and final published order is that it strongly reinforces the sense of inevitability that the myth of Arthur brings with it: all outcomes are already