Alfred Lord Tennyson, Julia Margaret Cameron, and the Arthurian Legends: Re-writing and Re-envisioning Women’s Roles in 19th Century England

<p>Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) the poet and Julia Margaret Cameron the photographer (1813-1879) worked collaboratively on the Idylls of the King; a work of epic poetry that Tennyson wrote about the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. His re-envisioned tales were cautionary and provided guidelines as to how women should behave or face the consequences of causing the downfall of society. Victorian society was in a precarious situation as women were expected to behave in certain ways, but at the same time they were finding their voices and beginning to speak out about patriarchal society and their own displeasure at how they had been treated. At the same time that Tennyson was writing about how women should behave and remain in their expected social roles, he chose a woman to photograph and illustrate his work. Although there is a certain irony in this collaboration given the times they lived in, things were changing and women were beginning to gain a voice.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Graduate Humanities

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Wagenhurst, Lisa

Contributors dc:contributor

• Leslie Ross, PhD
• Thomas Burke, MFA

• Tennyson
• King Arthur
• English Literature
• Literature in English, British Isles
• Photography
• Women's Studies

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.dominican.edu/masters-theses/273

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.dominican.edu:masters-theses-1283