TENNYSON'S "Gareth and Lynette" AS MICROCOSMIC IDYLL

TENNYSON'S "Gareth and Lynette" AS MICROCOSMIC IDYLLAuthor(s): Jean WatsonSource: Interpretations, Vol. 14, No. 2 (SPRING 1983), pp. 20-27Published by: Scriptorium PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23241509 .

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TENNYSON'S Gareth and Lynette AS MICROCOSMIC IDYLL

Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette is a poem of youth and hope and

beginning. Arthur has triumphed over the beasts of the wilderness and

driven out the Romans to make his realm. The idyll portrays Camelot in its most perfect state, though even now the external order is not absolutely without danger, as the presence of Modred, Sir Kay, and King Mark indicates. Still, most of the knights share Arthur's vision; they are ordered within themselves; and, together with Arthur, they are bringing order and

freedom to the kingdom. Gareth and Lynette is the only idyll in which Arthur's ideals survive intact.

This idyll serves an essential function in both the narrative and the

thematic contexts of the longer poem. After an idyll depicting Arthur's

initial success in ordering the external kingdom and in bringing an

understanding of internal order to his knights of the Round Table, Gareth and Lynette shows the results of these successes.1 The idyll shows the

possibility and actuality of a world in which people fulfill their divine humanity; that is, by accepting and sustaining the freedom of spirit which

rightfully belongs to them, they allow the spirit to manifest itself in the

physical world. The idyll portrays concretely the abstract ideal of an ordered, free existence.

However, while this idyll is appropriate and even necessary to the whole

poem, it also presents certain problems. Gareth and Lynette must be a

beginning idyll. Because Arthur's kingdom and his Round Table exist in the material world, they will inevitably pass away, and each successive idyll shows this decaying process. An idyll as optimistic as Gareth and Lynette is

credible only before disintegration begins. Since it is an early idyll, Arthur is young, Gareth is young, and the setting is springtime. This state of affairs is necessary for the narrative continuity of Idylls of the King', nonetheless,

given the audience's foreknowledge of the outcome of the Idylls, Gareth and Lynette is likely to be viewed as an engaging but unrealistic picture. A reader might object that it would be nice if the world really could be ordered and people be free. He might object further that the world of Gareth and Lynette is, in fact, impossible and that only a youth could look at the world in the way that Gareth does. This conclusion, however, is

thematically inconsistent with the ultimate message of Idylls of the King: that individuals can recognize their own personal freedom; and, in addition, that it is possible, though often difficult, to maintain this freedom

throughout one's life. External circumstances will shift and change, but

inner, spiritual freedom can remain constant.

Resolution of the apparent inconsistency between the seeming naivete' of Gareth and Lynette and the thematic realities of Idylls of the King calls for an accommodation among several elements: first, the nature of Gareth



JEAN WATSON 21

and Lynette as an early idyll; second, the reader's knowledge of the

downfall of Camelot; and, third, the possibility of personal freedom

despite external restriction. In Gareth and Lynette, Tennyson manages this resolution brilliantly, showing that physical maturity—while it does eventually end in death—does not necessarily imply loss of personal freedom or disillusionment with spiritual ideals; it can instead consist of increased inner strength and wisdom.

The resolution is accomplished by the idyll's functioning simultaneously on two levels, the naturalistic and the allegorical, both of which are

apparent in Gareth's character development and in the narrative structure

operating in Gareth and Lynette. The naturalistic level meets the demands

imposed by this idyll's place and function in the larger poem; the

allegorical level allows the idyll to break out of this necessary poetic order and, in an anticipatory and microcosmic way, to convey the ultimate

significant message of Idylls of the King.2 On the naturalistic level, Gareth is a likeable young man who goes out

bravely on his first quest to prove his knighthood. He meets four primary antagonists, subdues them, accomplishes his mission, and is rewarded in the end with marriage. Gareth is an individual aware of spiritual truths and

cognizant of his proper role in the world. However, he also assumes

allegorical significance and becomes an exemplar of the person who

recognizes his or her divinely human nature. Gareth, the naive son of Lot

and Bellicent, is, at the same time, the young Christian knight who goes out to be tested and who, in the end, wins his manhood and proves his faith. He

experiences internal conflict, but it is of a very different nature from that of the later Lancelot, or even Balin or Sir Percivale. The reader does not

agonize with Gareth, nor would it be appropriate to do so. He is a comic

hero,3 the protagonist of a roman d'aventure, who confronts various

obstacles and whose success in surmounting these obstacles is never in

doubt.

Gareth is naive and immature, but not in an inconsequential way; within

the poem he takes on the role of an innocent, and he has the clear, unclouded perception of the innocent. The vision of Camelot is dulled; the

audience is skeptical because of the foreknowledge of coming events, but

Gareth forces readers for a time to see the world through his eyes as it can

be. Like Arthur, Gareth assumes that each person's task is to show forth

Christ, and he is incredulous that anyone could be so blind as not to see this. There is no hesitation of purpose when Gareth tells his mother:

Man am I grown, a man's work must I do.

Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King, Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King— Else, wherefore born?4

Likewise, Gareth has absolutely no difficulty in perceiving both the proper



22 GARETH AND L YNETTE

criterion for kingship and Arthur's right to be king:

Not proven, who swept the dust of ruined Rome

From off the threshold of the realm, and crushed

The Idolaters, and made the people free?

Who should be King save him who makes us free?

(Gareth and Lynette, 133-36)

The reader, in his sophistication, tends to dismiss all pure visions as "naive" or "youthful," as though his very condescension were the last

argument against them; Gareth's vision of the world sounds too simple and

unproved. And if this idyll functioned significantly only in its narrative realm, the objection would be legitimate. However, Gareth's role on the

allegorical level, in this the most overtly allegorical of all the idylls, shows that one's perception of the world may be too limited. The statement of

Gareth and Lynette is that if each person saw the world as Gareth does, the

world could be as Gareth sees it.

At the allegorical level Gareth does not remain the young man he is on

the naturalistic level; instead, as he battles with the Morning-Star, the

Noon-Sun, the Evening-Star, and Death on his way to Castle Perilous,

Gareth ages and passes through the stages of life—youth, middle age, old

age, and, finally, death. The allegorical nature of Gareth's quest validates

the lifelong truth of his vision; it is possible to keep one's spirit free from the mortality which would ensnare it. Neither Morning-Star, nor Noon-Sun,

nor Evening-Star can bind Gareth; rather, he, the Christian knight, defeats

them and thus remains free. Finally, Gareth confronts Death; but because

he has successfully maintained his vision of freedom, he finds that Death, the most dreaded opponent, is actually nothing to fear. The Christlike

person conquers mortality (time) through the spirit; therefore, death has

no importance, and, in fact, issues again in life. Gareth's role as exemplar of the person who actively recognizes his

divine humanity is substantiated by the relationship established between Gareth and King Arthur.5 Gareth is a youthful double of the king, who is himself a young man in this idyll. Both are aware of the spirit which manifests itself in their lives, and both function as bringers of freedom. Arthur

drave

The heathen; after, slew the beast, and fell'd The forest, letting in the sun, and made Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight. (Coming of Arthur, 58-61)

Gareth wants to be "A knight of Arthur, working out his will, / To cleanse the world "(Gareth and Lynette, 24-25). He answers Bellicent's reservations about Arthur's kingship by replying, "Who should be king save him who makes us free?" (Gareth and Lynette, 136), and he acknowledges the same



JEAN WATSON 23

mission for himself. Neither Gareth nor Arthur is overly concerned with external appearance: Arthur rides "a simple knight among his knights, / And many of these in richer arms than he" (Coming of Arthur, 51 -52); and Gareth declares, "The thrall in person may be free in soul" (Gareth and Lynette, line 162). Guinevere fails to recognize Arthur without the external

signs of kingship, and Lynette stubbornly continues to smell the odor of the kitchen on Gareth. Through their symbolic roles Arthur and Gareth— as the actions of each give an individual example and, more especially, as one reinforces the other—show that personal spiritual freedom is

universally possible. In addition, Gareth's affinity with Arthur allows his allegorical quest to

foreshadow the inevitable decay and fall of Camelot as well as Arthur's

ultimate triumph of spirit. In Gareth and Lynette Arthur and his Round Table, like Gareth himself, are in the springtime of their existence. In the course of Idylls of the King Camelot flourishes, disintegrates, and finally passes away; Arthur matures and, in the last idyll, meets death. The

physical existence of any order or person must ultimately cease, since that

which is material is not eternal. However, the spiritual element which

manifests itself in the material is eternal. Gareth triumphs over Death and

shows him to be a mere boy—a youth, a new beginning. In the same way, "The old order changeth, yielding place to new" (Passing of Arthur, 408), and Arthur vanishes "into light" (Passing of Arthur, 468). The truth which Gareth and Lynette conveys through symbol and allegory is the same truth

which Idylls of the King as a whole demonstrates: spirit can overcome the

mortality which surrounds it. That the spirit achieves its freedom through vigilant and constant action

is a truth of which Arthur and Gareth are both aware. Everyone's soul is

continually engaged in the struggle with time that is depicted in the allegory on the cave wall. However, it is interesting to note the discrepancy between the allegory as it is carved in stone and the allegory as it is acted

out by Gareth:

Anon they past a narrow comb wherein

Were slabs of rock with figures, knights on horse

Sculptured, and deckt in slowly-waning hues. "Sir knave, my knight, a hermit once was here, Whose holy hand hath fashioned on the rock The war of Time against the soul of man. And yon four fools have sucked their allegory From these damp walls, and taken but the form. Know ye not these?" and Gareth lookt and read—

In letters like to those the vexillary Hath left crag-carven o'er the streaming Gelt—

"PHOSPHORUS," then "MERIDIES,"—"HESPERUS"—



24 GA RETH AND L YNETTE

"NOX" —"MORS," beneath five figures, armed men, Slab after slab, their faces forward all, And running down the Soul, a Shape that fled With broken wings, torn raiment, and loose hair, or help and shelter to the hermit's cave.

(iGareth and Lynette, 1163-79)

The figures in the cave are immobile, carved in stone. The five figures representing Time are strong knights on horseback who are running down

the poor tattered and disheveled Soul. Since it is defenseless, the defeat of

the Soul in this "war" seems inevitable, and its last hope is to hide in the hermit's cave. This is a false hope, however, since the knights have already entered the hermit's cave in the form of sculptured figures. The hermit who

carved the allegory—as well as the "four fools [who] have sucked their

allegory / From these damp walls" (Gareth and Lynette, 1169-70)—was mistaken about where the safety of the Soul lies. Gareth reverses the

allegory and shows that the way for the soul to triumph over mortality is to

act: to recognize one's divine humanity and thus bring freedom to oneself

and others. Lancelot tells Gareth, "Well hast thou done; for all the stream

is freed" (Gareth and Lynette, 1235). Allegorically, the stream becomes the stream of life, and fulfillment of one's divine humanity frees both the soul

and this earthly life as well. As the idyll progresses and its message becomes clearer, Gareth's role on

the allegorical level assumes more significance than his role on the

naturalistic level. Some critics are bothered by the ending of Gareth and

Lynette, feeling that it is inconclusive6 and that the last three lines are

haphazardly "tacked on":

And he that told the tale in older times

Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, But he, that told it later, says Lynette.

(Gareth and Lynette, 1392-94)

However, there is no need for Gareth to reappear later in the Idylls to

satisfy our curiosity about whom he married. Gareth's role on the

allegorical level and the message which the idyll conveys through his actions on this level are the final significance. Gareth exists now as legend rather than as an individual young man; and, as such, he and his story transcend mortality and live forever. On both levels of narration the story

proper ends triumphantly: "So large mirth lived and Gareth won the

quest" (Gareth and Lynette, 1391). Those who win the quest live joyously, affirms the idyll—in their day-to-day existence and ultimately after death.

The naturalistic and allegorical levels of Gareth and Lynette are

apparent not only in the character of Gareth but also in the narrative

structure of the idyll. It is a common observation that Gareth and Lynette is the only idyll which has a straight-line, episodic narrative structure.7



JEAN WATSON 25

There are no digressions or flashbacks. Gareth moves unerringly from his

home with Lot and Bellicent to King Arthur's court to Castle Perilous. He

is confident; he knows where he is going; and the audience never doubts

that he will reach his destination. The story moves surely and deliberately. This straight-line narrative structure, which is deceptively simple, open, and uncomplicated, is used quite appropriately on the naturalistic level in an idyll depicting the early, ordered time of Camelot. Moreover, several factors inherent in this episodic form cause it to assume an additional—

allegorical—significance. Just as Gareth, at one level, is a roman d'aventure hero, the straight-line

narrative in which he functions is the traditional mode of this literary form, and the use of this traditional mode in itself tends to universalize the poem. In addition, the repetition of events only slightly varied—which is typical of the form—becomes, in Gareth and Lynette, thematically functional. As

Gareth clearly illustrates, the matter of acknowledging and sustaining one's inner freedom is an on-going process. Gareth moves from one

encounter to another, always actively seeking to affirm his own divine

freedom and, in doing so, helping bring freedom to others. Although in each encounter, or trial, Gareth must do battle against those who would

limit him, the episodes vary from one to the next in a progressive way. As a result, Gareth continually grows in spiritual maturity as he grows in

physical maturity.8 His vision of the world remains constant, since truth is

unchanging, but it also expands and matures. The pattern of stylized

progression is obvious again and again in Gareth and Lynette.

Gareth undertakes four trials in the course of the poem, and it is

characteristic of him that he actively undertakes the trials rather than

passively undergoing them. His first "adversary" is Bellicent; the second is

Arthur's court, in the persons of the kitchen boys and Sir Kay; the third is

Lynette and paralleling the trial with Lynette are Gareth's battle with the

knights on the way to Castle Perilous. Several general progressions,

involving both the naturalistic and the allegorical levels, should be noted.

The four encounters are all battles for freedom, but there is a movement

from a primary concern with external freedom to a primary concern with

internal freedom. And, again, this movement parallels the structural

movement of the entire Idylls. In his trial with Bellicent, Gareth expresses feelings of physical confinement; by the time he reaches Castle Perilous, he has matured so that he can be concerned about the physical confinement of

others. As Gareth's own sense of inner freedom develops, the emphasis in the poem shifts from his attempts to free himself to his attempts to free others. Becoming a bringer of freedom reaffirms his own freedom. The

gradual shift in emphasis from the external to the internal is paralleled and reinforced by an increasing use of allegory in the four sections. The

allegorical elements in the narrative focus on the thematic message of the

idyll and are present in one form or another from beginning to end.



26 GARETH AND L YNETTE

However, by the end of Gareth and Lynette, the allegory dominates:

Gareth uses small allegories as he argues with Bellicent; entering Camelot, he meets the old Seer, who tells him a riddle; Lynette's reiterated taunts and songs become a ritual; accompanied by Lynette, Gareth sees the

allegory in the cave and battles Morning-Star, Noon-Sun, Evening-Star, and Death.

In each of these four conflicts, Gareth acts and reacts within a personal

context; in addition, each of these personal relationships represents a

broader, social relationship. The first trial is within the social unit of the

family and involves the parent-child relationship. The second trial comes with Gareth's first venture into the world outside his family: he must deal both with his peers and with those in authority over him. The third trial involves a man-woman love relationship. And in the fourth trial Gareth is a representative of King Arthur's Round Table. It is significant that in each of these trials Gareth moves from the position of unproved "child" to

manhood. He is always growing and developing—becoming more mature. In addition to this growth, there is a progressive movement with respect to

the types of social relationships dealt with as he moves from one test to

another—a movement outward from the immediate egocentric parent child relationship on the first trial to an adult participation in society in the last.

Gareth and his allegorical quest present Tennyson's vision in microcosm. The poem reiterates again and again that Gareth's vision of the world is not

merely naive and "youthful;" rather, it is based upon a perception of his divine humanity—a perception which allows him to achieve continuing and fulfilling maturity.

Jean Watson

Southwestern College

Notes

'This point is also made by John R. Reed, Perception and Design in

Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1969), pp. 121-22.

JFor another discussion of the use of stylized traditional modes in Gareth and Lynette, see John D. Rosenberg, The Fall of Camelot: A Study of Tennyson's "Idylls of The King "(Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 104-07. Paull F. Baum,



JEAN WATSON 27

Tennyson Sixty Years After (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948), pp. 196-97, disparages the use of too much "overt allegory" in

Gareth and Lynette. 3James R. Kincaid, in "Tennyson's 'Gareth and Lynette,'

" Texas

Studies in Literature and Language, 13 (1972), 663-71, discusses Gareth as a comic hero.

*Gareth and Lynette, 11. 115-18, in The Poems of Tennyson, ed. Christopher Ricks (London and New York: Longman/Norton, 1969). Subsequent references to Idylls of the King will be to this edition, idylls and line numbers being cited parenthetically in the text.

5A discussion of character transformation and duplication is given by Rosenberg, pp. 137-40.

6See, for example, Clyde de L. Ryals, From the Great Deep (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1967), p. 138; and Reed, p. 126.

'Kincaid, pp. 663-71. 8Reed, pp. 128-29, notes Gareth's progressive growth.



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TENNYSON'S "Gareth and Lynette" AS MICROCOSMIC IDYLL