Note 3 — Introduction

Tennyson’s blank verse in the Idylls of the King (excepting in the Morte d’Arthur and in the grander passages), is obviously modelled in rhythm on that of Shakespeare’s earlier style seen to perfection in King John. Compare the following lines with the rhythm say of Elaine or Guinevere;— But now will canker sorrow eat my bud, And chase the native beauty from his cheek, And he will look as hollow as a ghost; As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit: And so he’ll die; and, rising so again, When I shall meet him in the court of heaven I shall not know him: therefore never, never Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. —King John, III., iv.