Note 47 to the Chapter 8 of the author's Tennyson's Major Poems, which Yale University Press published in 1975. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author, who of course retains copyright.
See, in order, Ryal, pp. 135 - 38; Wilkenfeld, pp. 287 - 91; Shaw, p. 181; Lawrence
Poston III, p. 203; F. E. L. Priestley, p. 48; Reed, p. 106. Among Pelleas's few defenders is William Brashear, who claims that the knight is totally innocent; there simply "is no atmosphere in which the spirit of youth can prosper" (p. 145). This, it seems to me, is the more fruitful and accurate reading.
Last modified: 28 March 2001