of allegory this story was set out it is hard to
say--Tennyson himself could not in later years be induced to define his
purpose--but it seems certain that many of the characters are intended
to symbolize higher and lower qualities. According to some
interpretations King Arthur stands for the power of conscience and Queen
Guinevere for the heart. Galahad represents purity, Bors rough honesty,
Percivale humility, and Merlin the power of the intellect, which is too
easily beguiled by treachery. So the whole story is moralized by the
entrance, through Guinevere and Lancelot, of sin; by the gradual fading,
through the lightness of one or the treachery of another, of the
brightness of chivalry; and by the final ruin which shatters the fair
ideal.

But there is no need to darken counsel by questions about history or
allegory, if we wish, first and last, to enjoy poetry, for its own sake.
Here, as in Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, forth go noble knights with
gentle maidens through the enchanted scenes of fairyland; for their
order and its vows they are ready to dare all. Lawlessness is tamed and
cruelty is punished, and no perilous quest presents itself but there is
a champion ready to follow it to the end. And if severe critics tell us
that they find no true gift of story-telling here, let us go for a
verdict to the young. They may not be good judges of style, or safe
interpreters of shades of thought, but they know when a story carries
them away; and the _Idylls of the King_, like the Waverley Novels, have
captured the heart of many a lover of literature who has not yet learnt
to question his instinct or to weigh his treasures in the scales of
criticism. And older readers may find themselves kindled to enthusiasm
by reflective passages rich in high aspiration, or charmed by
descriptions of nature as beautiful as anything which Tennyson wrote.

In the historical plays, which occupied a large part of his attention
between 1874 and 1879, Tennyson undertook a yet harder task. He chose
periods when national issues of high importance were at stake, such as
the conflict between the Church and the Crown, between the domination of
the priest and the claim of the individual to freedom of belief. He put
aside all exuberance of fancy and diction as unsuited to tragedy; he
handled his theme with dignity and at times with force, and attained a
literary success to which Browning and other good judges bore testimony.
Of Becket in particular he