The Fall of Camelot

Far from being an escapist medieval charade, Rosenberg shows, the "Idylls" offers an apocalyptic prevision of the nightmare of modern history. Concealed under the exquisitely romantic surface of the verse is a world of obsessive sensuality and collapsing values that culminates in the "last dim weird battle the West." Perhaps the subtlest anatomy of the failure of ideality in our literature, the "Idylls" is not only about hazards of mistaking illusion for reality; it dramatically enacts those dangers, ensnaring the reader in the same delusions that maim and destroy the characters.