The Arthurian Cycle
Merlin | Lancelot | Tristram
Edwin Arlington Robinson
During the era of the First World War, and in the decade thereafter, the American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson composed a cycle of epic narrative poems, written in blank verse, that were arguably modern in style but drew upon classic themes in substance. With the unfolding tragedy of a world at war top of mind, Robinson began what would become a trilogy based on the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
Merlin, the first work in Robinson’s Arthurian cycle, was published in 1917. Robinson’s Merlin is no magician, certainly not as modern audiences have come to know him. Rather, he is a mortal man grappling with human experiences; his love for the lady Vivian and the prospect of a world going mad. Lancelot followed in 1920. At their core, Merlin and Lancelot are both war poems, with the gathering storm of the former foreshadowing the chaos and destruction of the latter, depicted in the tragic outcome of the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere.
An interval of seven years would pass before the publication of Tristram, the third work in Robinson’s trilogy. During this interval, Edwin Arlington Robinson would win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry twice; first for his Collected Poems (published in 1921), and again for The Man Who Died Twice (published in 1924). With Tristram (published in 1927), Edwin Arlington Robinson would at last reap hard-won financial rewards for his work. Tristram also won Robinson his third Pulitzer Prize.
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Arthurian cycle reflects the poet’s most mature work. With Merlin and Lancelot, Robinson recounts the human cost of war as seen through the eyes of those characters in the Arthurian legends. Robinson’s Merlin, Lancelot, Guinevere, and King Arthur, as well as the supporting characters central to their portrayal, are all rendered in flesh and blood, their words and deeds rooted in the vicissitudes of mortal life. Where Merlin and Lancelot are war poems, Tristram is a poem about love. With Tristram, Robinson recounts the love story of Tristram, and his return, and of Isolt; ‘Isolt of the white hands, in Brittany.’ Theirs is a love as doomed in life as the inevitability of death.
About the author
The American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson was born in 1869 in the Maine village of Head Tide and spent his school days in nearby Gardiner. Robinson developed a love of poetry in his youth, a love that endured until his death in New York in 1935. Robinson attended Harvard during 1891-1893 and published some of his early poetry in The Harvard Advocate. Although committed to becoming a writer, his path would not be an easy one. Income from Robinson’s chosen pursuit was insufficient to maintain his modest lifestyle, much less meet his various responsibilities, and he worked at times as a secretary, a time-keeper, and a customs clerk, all the while continuing to write. After years of relative obscurity, he secured some incremental recognition with the publication of his poetry collections The Children of the Night, The Town Down the River, and The Man Against the Sky. During the First World War and in the decade that followed, Robinson composed a cycle of epic narrative poems, written in blank verse, that were modern in style but drew upon classic themes in substance. Against the unfolding tragedy of a world at war, Robinson composed a trilogy based on the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The trilogy included Merlin (1917), Lancelot (1920), and Tristram (1927). During the same period, Edwin Arlington Robinson would win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry twice; first for his Collected Poems (published in 1921), and again for The Man Who Died Twice (published in 1924). With Tristram, he would at last reap hard-won financial rewards for his literary labors. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s Arthurian cycle reflects the poet’s most mature work.
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