Joyous Gard

Joyous Gard by A.C. Benson (1913)

A. C. Benson opens by explaining the meaning of his title: in the Morte D'Arthur, Joyous Gard was Lancelot's own castle, a place of victual and mirth from which he rode out to rescue the oppressed; it became Dolorous Gard when he misused it and was cast out, then recovered its old name when his body was brought there after death, and the Bishop who had attended him found himself strangely merry, having seen Lancelot depart amid more angels than ever he had seen men in one day. Benson takes this as his governing image: each person can win a fortress of beauty and joy through their own effort, provided it is not used for idle, selfish seclusion but as an interlude to toil, from which one must always be ready to sally out at the call for help. He proceeds to a sustained meditation on poetry and the sense of beauty as the animating force of such a stronghold. He examines Mr. Mackail's claim that poetry consoles and inspires all noble effort, and Coleridge's distinction that poetry's opposite is science, not prose. Benson defines poetry as the discernment of beauty and the rapturous emotion it evokes, tracing how this feeling enters life through love, music, art, and verse, and recounts his own years spent writing poetry, the craft and discipline it taught him, and why he abandoned it as his taste broadened with age. He discusses Keats's letters, Shelley's Defence of Poetry, Rossetti's House of Life, and the nature of poetic inspiration as something that cannot be summoned by will. He then turns to the relation between art and morality, citing Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare, and argues that the true teacher and true poet inspire rather than instruct, making noble things seem desirable. He laments the aridity of contemporary English education, contrasting dry grammatical drilling with the kind of learning that kindles genuine curiosity, and cites Professor Ker, Dr. Johnson, and anecdotes of American tourists in Florence to illustrate the difference between knowing facts and being interested in life itself. Benson then elaborates practically on how one builds one's own Joyous Gard: through resolute daily choice, moral effort, and delight rather than duty, cultivating openness to fresh ideas and resisting the entrenchment of age and habit. He discusses memory, recounting a visit to Lincoln, where his father had been Canon and Chancellor, and reflects that happy memory should not breed regret but gratitude and forward-looking courage. He explores humour and laughter as essential furnishings of the castle, illustrated by an anecdote of two quarrelling tramps, and argues that healthy amusement is compatible with earnestness. He discusses formidableness versus accessibility in character, urging openness and warmth over aloof dignity, and warns against imposing one's own tastes or beliefs coercively on others, citing Ruskin's fault of intolerance and his own correspondence over his book The Child of the Dawn. He reflects on Carlyle's tragic inability to combine love with reform. Benson then addresses Christianity directly, arguing it is not doctrine or institution but an atmosphere of joyful, self-forgetting love, contrasting Nietzsche's cult of strength with the true renunciation taught in the Gospel, and insisting that self-denial should be vigorous and joyful rather than dour. He closes this stretch of reflection by discussing the disciplined, patient cultivation of the sense of beauty—arguing it must not be pursued only in melodramatic or exotic scenes but nurtured in familiar landscapes (his own Cambridge and Sussex countryside), used generously rather than sensually or with sterile connoisseurship, and treated as a permanent, sustaining principle rather than a fragile mood dependent on circumstance. He turns finally to Robert Browning as an exemplar of an artist profoundly interested in personality, beginning an extended discussion of Browning's poetic method of entering fully into the perspective of each of his characters.

By A.C. Benson · First published 1913 · Genre: Non-fiction, Essays, Philosophy · 27 chapters · 51,684 words

First lines

The Castle of _Joyous Gard_ in the _Morte D'Arthur_ was Sir Lancelot's own castle, that he had won with his own hands. It was full of victual, and all manner of mirth and disport. It was hither that the wounded knight rode as fast as his horse might run, to tell Sir Lancelot of the misuse and capture of Sir Palamedes; and hence Lancelot often issued forth, to rescue those that were oppressed, and to do knightly deeds.

What this Textopian page supports

Joyous Gard is listed on Textopian as a novel by A.C. Benson, dated 1913 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Good citation fit

Similar titles

Genres

Tags

beautiful · beauty · cannot · could · essays · even · find · great · life · like · little · love

Contents

More by A.C. Benson