In Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem Idylls of the
King, the section dealing with the holy grail deals with a number of
important themes. Some of these are suggested early in this segment of the
Idylls, when Percivale, a one-time knight of King Arthur’s
roundtable (although now a religious hermit) is asked by an elderly priest (Ambrosius)
why he left the round table:
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‘Tell me, what drove thee from the Table
Round,
My brother? was it earthly passion
crost?'
'Nay,' said the knight; 'for no such passion
mine.
But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail
Drove me from all
vainglories, rivalries,
And earthly heats that spring and sparkle
out
Among us in the jousts, while women watch
Who wins, who falls;
and waste the spiritual strength
Within us, better offered up to
Heaven.'
In this response,
Percivale suggests many of the themes of the section as a whole. These include the
following:
- the need to control earthly passions
if one hopes to be a worthy follower of Christ and if one hopes to lead a worthy earthly
life. - the need to fix one’s attention on Christ
(represented by the Holy Grail) if one hopes to be one of Christ’s worthy followers and
if one hopes to lead a life truly worth living. - the need
to fix one’s attention on lofty goals and elevated purposes if one hopes to achieve a
spiritually satisfying existence that will also be useful to
others. - the need to make sure that one’s ambitions and
goals are truly elevated and worthwhile and that they are not rooted in selfishness and
pride, the root of all sin. - the need for true humility if
one hopes to accomplish anything of genuine value and to be worthy of
Christ. - the real difficulty of attaining the spiritual
and practical goals already enumerated. - the alluring
attractiveness of earthly temptations, which can distract one from goals that are truly
worthwhile. - the need to resist sexual temptations in
particular, or at least the temptation to want to “show off” before members of the
opposite sex. - the need to employ wisely the spiritual
potential that God grants to all human beings and to use this gift to the glory of
God. - the need to focus, ultimately, on the afterlife
rather than on mere earthly existence. Everything we do on earth should be motivated by
sublime, lofty ideals.
Elsewhere in “The Holy
Grail” section of Idylls (particularly near the end), the point is
made that not all human beings can attain the kind of spiritual purity attained by
Galahad. Yet one can still live a life useful to others if one focuses on more limited
but still valuable goals.
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