Avalon High...More Than Just Fluff

Book Grub, the library's high school book discussion group, is reading Avalon High by Meg Cabot for their meeting on Friday. I was preparing for that meeting this morning, and I ended up giving myself an English lesson! In Avalon High, all of the main characters have names that correspond to people in the Arthurian legends, but Elaine was one I was not familiar with. Apparently, Elaine had a relationship with Lancelot, although he was in love with Guinevere.

Every chapter of Avalon High opens with a related quote from The Lady of Shalott, a narrative poem about Elaine by Alfred Tennyson first published in 1832. Tennyson also wrote a 12-poem cycle later in his life about events at Camelot called The Idylls of the King. It includes a different story about Elaine in a poem called Lancelot and Elaine. If you want to read these poems, you can use LitFinder from the Access PA POWER Library. If you are at home, you will need to enter your library card number to do this. You could also look for the poems using a search engine.