| Tristram and Iseult | |
|---|---|
| by Matthew Arnold | |
 The poem's first page in the 1852 edition of Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems | |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Tristram and Iseult |
| Publication date | 1852 |
Tristram and Iseult, published in 1852 by Matthew Arnold, is a narrative poem containing strong romantic and tragic themes. This poem draws upon the Tristan and Iseult legends which were popular with contemporary readers.
Arnold wrote Tristram and Iseult after reading "Les Poems gallois et les Romans de la Table-Ronde", an article written by the Breton philologist Théodore Claude Henri, vicomte Hersart de la Villemarqué, and published in Revue de Paris in 1841. [1] In a November 1852 letter, he explained: [2]
I read the story of Tristram and Iseult some years ago at Thun in an article in a French Review on the Romance Literature: I had never met with it before, and it fastened upon me: when I got back to England I looked at the Morte d'Arthur and took what I could, but the poem was in the main formed, and I could not well disturb it. If I had read the story first in the Morte d'Arthur I should have managed it differently.
Upon his deathbed, Tristram feverishly yearns for his former lover, Iseult. [4] The poem's narrator recalls Tristram's past as a Cornish knight, telling of his mission to escort Iseult, an Irish princess, for marriage to King Marc. [1] On the journey back to Cornwall, they unwittingly consume a love potion which brings about the adulterous relationship. [5] After Marc learns of the affair, Tristram flees to Brittany and meets a maiden who is also named Iseult. [6] They later marry and have two children, though the love potion still exerts its effects. [7] Tristram embarks on adventures with King Arthur and his knights, becomes wounded in their war against the Romans, and hallucinates the face of Iseult of Ireland in the water as he takes refuge in a forest. [8]
As Tristram recounts his life, he begins to doubt that Iseult of Ireland will arrive in time to see him, despite the assurances of his messenger from Cornwall. His loyal wife remains by his side, though she is wistfully aware that he still loves the other Iseult.
Iseult of Ireland finally arrives in Brittany, weary from her travels. She explains to Tristram how unhappy she has been since their separation; her repressed life in the palace has "consumed her beauty". They reaffirm their love for each other and share one last kiss before Tristram dies. Iseult vows to never leave him again and dies peacefully at his side. The narrator describes a tapestry in the room depicting a huntsman with his dogs. He imagines the huntsman looking down at the lovers' bodies and thinking that Tristram is merely sleeping as Iseult prays next to him. The narrator assures the huntsman that the scene will not be disturbed by his bugle or his dogs, for Tristram and Iseult are truly dead.
Tristram and Iseult of Ireland are buried in the chapel of Tyntagel Castle in Cornwall. Iseult of Brittany raises her children in isolation, accompanied only by her servants and Tristram's hound. Though she loves her children dearly, she is weak and languishing, and the narrator remarks that "joy has not found her yet, nor ever will".
One year after Tristram's death, Iseult takes her children out to play. She tells them a story that she heard as a child: the tale of the fateful encounter between the sorcerers Merlin and Vivian. As they ride into the forest of Broce-liande, Merlin lets down his guard around the beautiful Vivian. They arrive at a clearing and stop to rest. When Merlin falls asleep, Vivian waves her wimple nine times, casting an enchantment that traps Merlin indefinitely in a deep slumber.
Tristram and Iseult was first published in Arnold's second poetry collection, Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852). [9] He revised the poem the following year, possibly in response to a review by the English poet Arthur Hugh Clough published in North American Review . Clough disliked the abrupt shifts between Tristram's and the narrator's points of view, and felt that the passage about the tapestry of the huntsman was difficult to understand. [10] Arnold's revisions included the addition of asterisks to separate the passages of Tristram and the narrator, and a rewrite of the tapestry scene. [11] It was published in Arnold's third collection, Poems. [10]
Part I ("Tristram") is 373 lines and resembles a ballad. [12] The narrator's passages are written mostly in trochaic tetrameter and have an archaic and lyrical quality, [12] similar to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Christabel . [13] [14] Tristram's interspersed musings are presented as iambic pentameter couplets which are more comparable to natural speech rhythms. [12] [15] Part II ("Iseult of Ireland") is 193 lines and is mostly a stichomythia-like duet between Tristram and Iseult of Ireland. [12] It features quatrains of trochaic pentameter, alternating between masculine and feminine endings. Arnold frequently used this structure for dramatic or passionate exchanges, and it was likely inspired by the works of Lord Byron. [16] Part III ("Iseult of Brittany") is 224 lines of heroic couplets, resembling works by John Keats and William Cowper. [12] [17] The rhymed iambic pentameter gives the section a quieter and more dignified quality, strongly contrasting with the first two sections, and likely reflects Arnold's favorable view of Iseult of Brittany. [17]
In early versions of Tristram and Iseult, Arnold misaccentuated the name of King Marc's castle, Tyntagel, by placing the stress on the first and third syllables (e.g., "At Tyntagil, in King Marc's chapel old"). [18] In later editions, he corrected each instance by rearranging the line to stress the second syllable (e.g., "In King Marc's chapel, in Tyntagel old"). [19] Arnold's initial misaccentuation suggests his previous unfamiliarity with the Tristram and Iseult legend. [18]
"[C]ritics have convincingly argued that the whole of the poem really belongs to Iseult of Brittany." [20] Arnold changed Iseult of the White Hands from a woman in an unconsummated marriage to a devoted mother. Tristan's obsession with the long-awaited Iseult blinds him to a recognition of "the redemptive power of home" so prized by Victorian domestic ideology. "The castle has warmth and love, but Tristram cannot avail himself of its gifts." [21] Yet Arnold treats this with some ambiguity. Iseult of Brittany's commitment to her role as a dutiful wife and mother can neither save her husband nor bring her happiness. "Arnold both acknowledges the appeal of the domestic feminine ideal and seriously questions the capacity of that model of femininity to sustain either a marriage or an entirely vital human self." [22]
Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He was also an inspector of schools for thirty-five years, and supported the concept of state-regulated secondary education.
"Dover Beach" is a lyric poem by the English poet Matthew Arnold. It was first published in 1867 in the collection New Poems; however, surviving notes indicate its composition may have begun as early as 1849. The most likely date is 1851.
Tristan, also known as Tristram, Tristyn or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed Tristan's uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion during the journey and fall in love, beginning an adulterous relationship that eventually leads to Tristan's banishment and death. The character's first recorded appearance is in retellings of British mythology from the 12th century by Thomas of Britain and Gottfried von Strassburg, and later in the Prose Tristan. He is featured in Arthurian legends, including the seminal text Le Morte d'Arthur, as a skilled knight and a friend of Lancelot.
"Ulysses" is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is a popular example of the dramatic monologue. Facing old age, mythical hero Ulysses describes his discontent and restlessness upon returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, after his far-ranging travels. Despite his reunion with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, Ulysses yearns to explore again.
Iseult, alternatively Isolde and other spellings, is the name of several characters in the legend of Tristan and Iseult. The most prominent is Iseult of Ireland, the wife of Mark of Cornwall and the lover of Tristan. Her mother, the queen of Ireland, is also named Iseult. The third is Iseult of the White Hands, the daughter of Hoel of Brittany and the sister of Kahedin.
Kenneth Cyril Bruce Allott was an Anglo-Irish poet and academic, and authority on Matthew Arnold.
Mark of Cornwall was a sixth-century King of Kernow (Cornwall), possibly identical with King Conomor. He is best known for his appearance in Arthurian legend as the uncle of Tristan and the husband of Iseult who engages with Tristan in a secret liaison, giving Mark the epithet "Cuckold King".
Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval chivalric romance told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Based on a Celtic legend and possibly other sources, the tale is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult. It depicts Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. On the journey, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, instigating a forbidden love affair between them.
King Hoel, also known as Sir Howel, Saint Hywel and Hywel the Great, was a late 5th- and early 6th-century member of the ruling dynasty of Cornouaille. He may have ruled Cornouaille jointly after the restoration of his father, Budic II of Brittany, but he seems to have predeceased his father and left his young son, Tewdwr, as Budic's heir.
"Andrea del Sarto" is a poem by Robert Browning (1812–1889) published in his 1855 poetry collection, Men and Women. It is a dramatic monologue, a form of poetry for which he is famous, about the Italian painter Andrea del Sarto.
The Prose Tristan is an adaptation of the Tristan and Iseult story into a long prose romance, and the first to tie the subject entirely into the arc of the Arthurian legend. It was also the first major Arthurian prose cycle commenced after the widely popular Lancelot-Grail, which influenced especially the later portions of the Prose Tristan.
Sir Kahedin is brother to Iseult of Brittany and the son of King Hoel of Brittany in Arthurian legend. The story of his affair with Brangaine, the handmaiden of Iseult of Ireland is significantly mentioned in the Tristan and Iseult legend.
Brangaine is the handmaid and confidante of Iseult of Ireland in the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Iseult. She appears in most versions of the story.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
"The Wild Swans at Coole" is a lyric poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). Written between 1916 and early 1917, the poem was first published in the June 1917 issue of the Little Review, and became the title poem in the Yeats's 1917 and 1919 collections The Wild Swans at Coole.
The Testament of Cresseid is a narrative poem of 616 lines in Middle Scots, written by the 15th-century Scottish makar Robert Henryson. It is his best known poem. It imagines a tragic fate for Cressida in the medieval story of Troilus and Criseyde which was left untold in Geoffrey Chaucer's version. Henryson's cogent psychological drama, in which he consciously resists and confronts the routine depiction of Cressida (Cresseid) as simply 'false', is one of the features that has given the poem enduring interest for modern readers and it is one of the most admired works of northern renaissance literature. A modern English translation by Seamus Heaney, which also included seven of Henryson's fables from The Morall Fabillis, was published in 2009.
Tristram of Lyonesse is a long epic poem written by the British poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, that recounts in grand fashion the famous medieval story of the ill-fated lovers Tristan and Isolde. It was first published in 1882 by Chatto and Windus, in a volume entitled Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems. Swinburne himself considered Tristram of Lyonesse to be the crowning achievement of his poetic career. William Morris commented that Swinburne's work 'always seemed to me to be founded on literature, not on nature'.
"The Scholar-Gipsy" (1853) is a poem by Matthew Arnold, based on a 17th-century Oxford story found in Joseph Glanvill's The Vanity of Dogmatizing. It has often been called one of the best and most popular of Arnold's poems, and is also familiar to music-lovers through Ralph Vaughan Williams' choral work An Oxford Elegy, which sets lines from this poem and from its companion-piece, "Thyrsis".
"After Apple-Picking" is a poem by American poet Robert Frost. It was published in 1914 in North of Boston, Frost's second poetry collection. The poem, 42 lines in length, does not strictly follow a particular form, nor does it follow a standard rhyme scheme.
"Tommy" is an 1890 poem by Rudyard Kipling, reprinted in his 1892 Barrack-Room Ballads. The poem addresses the ordinary British soldier of Kipling's time in a sympathetic manner. It is written from the point of view of such a soldier, and contrasts the treatment they receive from the general public during peace and during war.
| Prose |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Poetry |
| |
| Family |
| |