The photographs:
Idylls and Fancy Subjects
Julia Margaret CAMERON
British, 1815–79
King Arthur, 1874
From Idylls of the King and Other Poems, volume I, plate XII
albumen silver photograph
25.7 x 35.3 cm
The Wilson Centre for Photography
95:5330
The text that accompanies this photograph is from The Passing of Arthur
published in 1869. It is the twelfth book of Tennyson's Idylls of the King.
"Thus spake the King: My house hath been my doom
But call not thou this traitor of my house
... King Am I, whatsoever be their cry;
and one last act of King-hood shall thou see
yet ere I pass! ..."
King Arthur is the central
figure in Idylls of the King. According to Hallam Tennyson (Alfred's son and
biographer), intended to depict the King of Camelot as a kind of 'every-man'
figure. Thus, Arthur and his experiences symbolically represent all the
virtues and vices of humankind. The model for Cameron's King Arthur is
William Warder, a local porter at the Yarmouth ferry pier.
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