Alfred Tennyson's thoughts on Idylls of the King and Tintagel

TOUR IN CORNWALL AND THE SCILLY ISLES  1860

 

“So great had been the success of the first four “Idylls of the King” that my father’s friends begged him to “continue the epic.” He received a letter from the Duke of Argyll again urging him to take up as his next subject the Holy Grail, but he said he shunned handling the subject, for fear that it might seem to some almost profane.” Hallam Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson writes to the Duke of Argyll, “As to the Sangreal, as I gave up the subject so many long years ago I do not think that I shall resume it”. 

Excerpts from Alfred Tennyson’s letter-diary. Tour in Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. 1860:

August 21^st.  Bideford. We came here last night at 7 o’clock. I and Woolner are going down the coast to Tintagel, where we shall stop till the others join us. 

August 23^rd. Bude. Fine sea here, smart rain alternating with weak sunshine. Woolner is very kindly. We go off to-day to Boscastle which is three miles from Tintagel. 

August 23^rd. Arrived at Tintagel, grand coast, furious rain. Mr. Poelaur would be a good name to direct to me by. 

August. 25^th. Tintagel. Black cliffs and caves and storm and wind, but I weather it out and take my ten miles a day walks in my weather-proofs. Palgrave arrived to-day. 

A very sweet letter that Tennyson wrote to his first born son, aged eight years old at the time. His brother Lionel was six years old: 

To Hallam.

 TINTAGEL,

Aug. 25^th, 1860

My Dear Hallam,

I was very glad to receive your little letter.

Mind that you and Lionel do not quarrel and vex poor

 mamma who has lots of work to do; and learn your

 lessons regularly; for gentlemen and ladies will not take

 you for a gentleman when you grow up if you are

 ignorant. Here are great black cliffs of slate-rock, and

 deep, black caves, and the ruined castle of King Arthur,

 and I wish that you and Lionel and mamma were here

 to see them. Give my love to grandpapa and to Lionel,

and work well at your lessons. I shall be glad to find

you know more and more every day.

Your loving papa,  A. TENNYSON.

August 28^th. Tintagel. We believe that we are going to-morrow to Penzance or in that direction. We have had two fine days and some exceedingly grand coast views. He is an artist, a friend of woolner’s (Inchbold), sketching now in this room. I am very tired of walking against wind and rain. 

 

 Say what you like but for me this is Alfred Tennyson as captured during that Cornwall

trip by John William Inchbold himself!  

Tintagel by John William Inchbold, 1861, Graphite, watercolour and goache on paper, Tate Gallery

The image is painted in watercolour with detail in gouache applied over a pencil underdrawing on blue wove paper. It has been lined onto a one-ply board, which has been inscribed by the artist (I'm telling you, just as Tennyson described).

{Mr. Palgrave writes: following the publicationof the first four “Idylls of the King” in 1859, when he was intending to write further Idylls, this was, perhaps, specially entitled to be named Tennyson’s Arthurian journey.

At a sea inlet of wonderful picturesqueness, so grandly modeled are the rocks which wall it, so translucently purple the waves that are its pavement, waves whence the “naked babe” Arthur came ashore in flame, stand the time-eaten ruins of unknown date which bear the name Tintagel. To these of course we climbed, descending from “the castle gateway by the chasm,” and at a turn in the rocks meeting that ever graceful, ill-appreciated landscapist, Inchbold: whose cry of delighted wonder at sight of Tennyson still sounds in the sole survivor’s ear. Thence, after some delightful wandering walks, by a dreary road (for such is often the character of central Cornwall), we moved to Camelford on the greatly-winding stream which the name indicates. Near the little town, on the edge of the river, is shown a large block of stone upon which legend places Arthur, hiding or meditating, after his last fatal battle. It lay below the bank; and in his eagerness to reach it and sit down (as he sat in 1851 on that other, the Sasso di Dante by Sta. Maria del Fiore), Arthur’s poet slipped right into the sea, and returned laughing to Camelford. 

The next halting-halting place I remember was Penzance; whence, by Marazion, we crossed to and saw our English smaller but yet impressive and beautiful St. Michael’s Mount}.  Excerpts from Alfred Lord Tennyson A Memoir by Hallam Tennyson, pgs. 460-464, The Macmillan Company, London, 1897, Volume 1

NOTE:  When I read the name Inchbold in Tennyson's entry, I googled it, not recognizing it and discovered it was nineteenth century painter, John William Inchbold (1830–1888).  

Artist biography

English painter. He exhibited watercolours at the Society of British Artists in 1849 and 1850 and at the Royal Academy in 1851. At this period his work has a fluidity and a freedom of handling that is closer to Richard Parkes Bonington than to the prevailing style of Victorian watercolours. Around 1852 he came under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and radically altered his style.

It is not known how Inchbold met the Pre-Raphaelites, but the Rossettis knew him well, and he became a close friend of Algernon Charles Swinburne. John Everett Millais admired his work. Inchbold's pictures soon attracted the attention of John Ruskin, and in 1858 he visited Switzerland to paint alpine subjects under Ruskin's supervision. From this point onwards Inchbold's painting changed direction, possibly as a reaction against the bullying he had received from Ruskin. Visits to Venice in 1862 and the following years resulted in a series of ethereal pictures painted with the freedom of his early works and entirely lacking the highly finished technique of his Pre-Raphaelite pictures.

Inchbold never married and seems to have had a rather melancholy life. Dante Gabriel Rossetti complained that he was a bore, and Swinburne wrote, ‘He had not many friends, being very shy and rather brusque in manner, so that people were apt to think him odd.' Overshadowed by the leading figures of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood his work sank into obscurity after his death.  Source:  Tate Gallery

To my absolute joy, three paintings are housed at Tate Gallery, London, UK, all entitled, Tintagel from 1861.  Remember Tennyson's trip was the year before where he noted Inchbold drawing. It makes sense to me that upon their return to England, Inchbold painted his watercolours finished a year later in 1861.  I am thrilled at this connection. The timing makes sense to me. Although, the name Inchbold may be known to others I am sure. Still, made me smile at the discovery. This is partly why I never tire of researching Alfred Tennyson. There is always something new to find, a connection to be made. 

I focussed briefly on Idylls of the King and Tintagel because I read Malory's Morte de Arthur while in college, twenty years ago now, and have always loved the myth of the Arthurian legend.  For me, it never gets old! 

Tintagel by John William Inchbold, 1861, Graphite, watercolour and goache on paper, Tate Gallery

Inchbold's Tintagel below as he drew it in 1861 and to the right as it stands on the spot in Cornwall, today.