Matthew Arnold Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Barbara Fass Leavy

Critical Essay by Barbara Fass Leavy

SOURCE: “Iseult of Brittany: A New Interpretation of Matthew Arnold's Tristram and Iseult,” in Arthurian Women: A Casebook, edited by Thelma S. Fisher, Garland Publishing, 1996, pp. 205-28.

In the following essay, originally published in 1980, Leavy argues that Arnold's sympathetic portrayal of Iseult, especially the fantasy world she has created for herself to help cope with the monotony of her existence, is an astute example of “female fantasy in nineteenth-century literature.”

Matthew Arnold was pleased with his version of the Tristram and Iseult legend. He was especially proud of having gotten to the story before Richard Wagner popularized it, and Arnold thought that he himself had done the better job. An audience unfamiliar with Wagner, however, did not find Tristram and Iseult easy to read. Such narrative details as the drinking of the love potion are only alluded to, and the story, told in flashbacks from the deathbed of...
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