I am not surprised at your Delilah
beguiling the wise man; she is quite equal to it." The dramatic
versatility of Tennyson's genius, his power of creating the most
various characters, is nowhere better displayed than in the contrast
between the Vivien and the Elaine. Vivien is a type, her adventure
is of a nature, which he has not elsewhere handled. Thackeray, who
admired the Idylls so enthusiastically, might have recognised in
Vivien a character not unlike some of his own, as dark as Becky
Sharp, more terrible in her selfishness than that Beatrix Esmond who
is still a paragon, and, in her creator's despite, a queen of hearts.
In Elaine, on the other hand, Tennyson has drawn a girl so innocently
passionate, and told a tale of love that never found his earthly
close, so delicately beautiful, that we may perhaps place this Idyll
the highest of his poems on love, and reckon it the gem of the
Idylls, the central diamond in the diamond crown. Reading Elaine
once more, after an interval of years, one is captivated by its
grace, its pathos, its nobility. The poet had touched on some
unidentified form of the story, long before, in The Lady of Shalott.
That poem had the mystery of romance, but, in human interest, could
not compete with Elaine, if indeed any poem of Tennyson's can be
ranked with this matchless Idyll.
The mere invention, and, as we may say, charpentage, are of the first
order. The materials in Malory, though beautiful, are simple, and
left a field for the poet's invention.
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