Edward Bulwer-Lytton and his son, Robert Bulwer-Lytton (under the pseudonym Owen Meredith), each contributed poetry to the Arthurian canon. They have rather complicated names and titles - here is the first paragraph of his current entry in the online Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, in full Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton of Knebworth . . . British politician, poet, and critic, chiefly remembered, however, as a prolific novelist. His books, though dated, remain immensely readable, and his experiences lend his work an unusual historical interest.
When Edward Bulwer was 4, his father died. A few years later, his mother moved him and his sister to her family’s estate, Knebworth. Edward became Baron of Knebworth in 1838, and, when his mother died in 1843, he fulfulled the stipulation of her will to add “Lytton” to his name. In the 1875 edition of King Arthur that we use here, the author is "The Right Hon. Lord Lytton."
Contemporaries universally considered Bulwer-Lytton a dandy, which is verified in his future wife's description of him at their first meeting in 1825: "His cobweb cambric shirt-front was a triumph of lace and embroidery, a combination never seen in this country till six or seven years later, except on babies' frocks. ... His hair, which was really golden, glitteringly golden, and abundant, he wore literally in long ringlets, that almost reached his shoulders" (quoted in Cobbold, 149). They had two children, a daughter who died of typhoid at age 19 and a son (see above). Their family life was chaotic and the marriage did not last.
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Edward Bulwer-Lytton and his son, Robert Bulwer-Lytton (under the pseudonym Owen Meredith), each contributed poetry to the Arthurian canon. They have rather complicated names and titles - here is the first paragraph of his current entry in the online Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, in full Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton of Knebworth . . . British politician, poet, and critic, chiefly remembered, however, as a prolific novelist. His books, though dated, remain immensely readable, and his experiences lend his work an unusual historical interest.
When Edward Bulwer was 4, his father died. A few years later, his mother moved him and his sister to her family’s estate, Knebworth. Edward became Baron of Knebworth in 1838, and, when his mother died in 1843, he fulfulled the stipulation of her will to add “Lytton” to his name. In the 1875 edition of King Arthur that we use here, the author is "The Right Hon. Lord Lytton."
Contemporaries universally considered Bulwer-Lytton a dandy, which is verified in his future wife's description of him at their first meeting in 1825: "His cobweb cambric shirt-front was a triumph of lace and embroidery, a combination never seen in this country till six or seven years later, except on babies' frocks. ... His hair, which was really golden, glitteringly golden, and abundant, he wore literally in long ringlets, that almost reached his shoulders" (quoted in Cobbold, 149). They had two children, a daughter who died of typhoid at age 19 and a son (see above). Their family life was chaotic and the marriage did not last.
In his time, Bulwer-Lytton was a popular and prolific novelist. His work introduced metaphysical elements into stories set in fashionable current society, of which he was a prominent member. Unlike his cohorts Tennyson, Dickens and Thackery, few of his novels stood the test of time. His writing was very contemporary: "[w]ith his ornately rhetorical style and lofty moralizing manner, Bulwer was pre-eminently a writer for his own time, and as that time passed so did his special attraction" (Brown 35). But besides being a very successful author, Bulwer-Lytton studied the art of writing, and came "to be significant not only as a novelist but also as the chief theorist among the Victorian practitioners of fiction" (Christensen 75).
Poetry came later in his literary career, and King Arthur is his longest work. Bulwer-Lytton states in his Preface to the 1870 edition that he had been considering an arthurian topic since his "earliest youth." Rather defensively (because Tennyson's Idylls was published at about the same time), he says
[I] could not have even guessed that the same subject would occur to a Poet somewhat younger than myself, and then unknown to the Public; and though, when my work was first printed in 1848, Mr. Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur" had appeared, I was not aware of any intention of his part to connect it with other poems illustrating selected fables of the legendary King. Fortunately for me, the point of view from which the subject had already presented itself to my imagination, and the design and plan I had proposed to myself in the treatment of it, were so remote from the domains of romance to which the genius of Mr. Tennyson has resorted . . . (Lytton xv)
King Arthur is epic in its proportion: twelve "books" with over one hundred stanzas in each. Contemporary reviews say it is "fine, though not faultless" and "amongst our national masterpieces." Another review states that while "we confidently pronounce it to be the most vigorous and original poem that has lately appeared among us ... a valuable addition to the poetical treasures of our language, ... [o]ccasionally the meaning is not a little obscure." (Edinburgh)
It is not based on Malory; instead he focused on the folk traditions of The North. As Alan Lupack summarizes it
King Arthur … incorporates most of the expected epic devices into its twelve episodic books. Arthur, a Welsh king who would rather die than surrender his freedom, symbolizes the love of freedom of the British people. While this theme is worthy of epic treatment, the vagaries of the plot and the sometimes bizarre details undermine its seriousness. For example, Arthur is lead on his journey for the sword and shield needed to defend his throne by a dove which, from time to time, perches on his helmet and even brings Arthur, as he journeys through the Arctic regions, a plant which cures scurvy. The plot, which owes little to Malory or any other Arthurian work, is replete with elements that seem closer to some of the absurdities of Gothic novels than to the true sprirt of either epic or romance. Arthur fights with walruses as well as Saxons, and Gawain is threatened with being burned by Vikings as a human sacrifice. (Lupack 157)
After some controversy (see www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/edward-bulwer-lytton), Bulwer-Lytton was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The Bulwer-Lytton name lives on in infamy, as an amusing contest for extravagantly writen opening lines (www.bulwer-lytton.com/). The ignominy is his because because his 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. (from the contest website)
Biography written by: Rosemary Paprocki
bibliography
Brown, Andrew. "Bulwer's Reputation." IN Christensen, Allan Conrad. The Subverting Vision of Bulwer Lytton: Bicentenary Reflections. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004.
Chesterton, G. K. The Victorian Age in Literature. New York: H. Holt and Co., 1913.
Christensen, Allan C. "Edward Bulwer-Lytton." Victorian Novelists Before Eds. Ira B. Nadel and William E. Fredeman. Vol. 21. Detroit: Gale, 1983. Dictionary of Literary Biography 73-87.
Cobbold, Lord. "Rosina Bulwer Lytton: Irish Beauty, Satirist, Tormented Victorian Wife, 1802-1882." IN Christensen, Allan Conrad. The Subverting Vision of Bulwer Lytton: Bicentenary Reflections. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004.
"Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Britannica Academic. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 06 Jul. 2015.
Edinburgh Review. Rev. of "King Arthur." Vol. XC, No. CLXXXI, July 1849, pp. 173-212. Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Laurie Lanzen Harris. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1981. Vol. 1, pp. 143-4.
Lupack, Alan. The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
"Lytton." "Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 186 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica."
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/LUP_MAL/LYTTON_EDWARD_GEORGE_EARLE_LYTT.html
Lytton, Lord. King Arthur: An Epic Poem. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875.
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