Idylls of the King Resources

This one's got it all: links to articles by literary scholars about the social and historical context of the Idylls, as well as interpretive essays, a Tennyson biography, and more.

A fun, accessible, and detailed Tennyson bio should do the trick if you're hungry for info.

Hungry to read it from cover to cover? You're in luck, as each and every one of the Idylls is available on Google Books.

This classic film is based on the 1960 musical of the same name. Shmoop promises: it's a delight.

This fairly straightforward retelling of the story is light on the detail, of course.

Richard Gere plays Lancelot to Sean Connery’s Arthur in this film, which focuses only on the love triangle aspect of the story. High on drama, low on historical accuracy.

This is a fairly recent version of the story of star-crossed lovers Tristan (a.k.a. Tristram) and Isolde (a.k.a. Isolt), starring James Franco. Need we say more?

Here’s an e-text of Sir Thomas Malory’s 15th-century Morte d’Arthur, the book upon which much of Tennyson Idylls is based.

More Morte? Shmoop's got you covered.

Here's another of Tennyson’s sources for the Idylls.

The 1859 edition features the first four Idylls to be published: Enid, Vivien, Guinevere, and Elaine.

A cast of British actors performed the entire Idylls for the BBC. The entire thing. Here's part one.

Tennyson’s fellow Victorian medievalist J.W. Waterhouse did a number of paintings based on the story of Elaine of Astolat and the Tennyson poem “The Lady of Shalott.”

Here's another by the late, great J.W. Waterhouse. This one's our fave.

The title says it all, no?

The hat is simply the icing on this Victorian cake.