The Beast with the Broken Lance: Humanism and Posthumanism in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King

Abstract

And in the lowest beasts are slaying men, And in the second men are slaying beasts, And on the third are warriors, perfect men, And on the fourth are men with growing wings, And over all one statue in the mould Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown, And peak'd wings pointed to the Northern Star.