Point of View

The stories are all narrated from the third-person perspective. Usually, this perspective does not display omniscience. For example, in the opening chapter, "The Coming of Arthur," the narrator does not settle the controversy over Arthur's birth. However, the perspective is also not generally constrained to a single character. Thus, in "Geraint and Enid," the reader has access to the thoughts and anxieties of both of the eponymous characters. Such a shared perspective fits Tennyson's affected penchant for irony, as it allows him to easily juxtapose how two characters, each laboring under a different belief, understands a situation, thereby emphasizing the mistake of the one with the false belief.

That said, some of the stories do certainly follow different characters, and a protagonist, or pair of protagonists, could easily be named for each of the stories. Thus, while Arthur might be named the main character of the...