page_title: The Princess (Tennyson poem)
section_title: The prince seeks Princess Ida
hierarchical_section_title: The Princess (Tennyson poem) / Synopsis / The prince seeks Princess Ida
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration from old book - The Princess 1890
context_page_description: The Princess is a serio-comic blank verse narrative poem, written by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1847. Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1850 to 1892 and remains one of the most popular English poets.
  The poem tells the story of a heroic princess who forswears the world of men and founds a women's university where men are forbidden to enter. The prince to whom she was betrothed in infancy enters the university with two friends, disguised as women students. They are discovered and flee, but eventually they fight a battle for the princess's hand. They lose and are wounded, but the women nurse the men back to health. Eventually the princess returns the prince's love.
  Several later works have been based upon the poem, including Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Princess Ida.
context_section_description: In the main narrative, a prince has been betrothed since infancy to a princess, Ida, from a neighbouring land. The princess has grown to become beautiful and accomplished and has founded a university of maidens in a remote retreat. Her father, King Gama, explains that she refuses to have anything to do with the world of men and is influenced by other women, Lady Blanche and Lady Psyche, who have all resolved never to wed a man. The prince and two friends, Cyril and Florian, decide to infiltrate the university to try to win the princess's return. They disguise themselves as women and ride into the university asking to enroll as students. Florian is Lady Psyche's brother and hopes to influence her.
  The "new students" are taken to see the princess, who tells them that they must "cast and fling the tricks, which make us toys of men", so that they may become equal with men. The men are impressed by the princess and debate the merits of women's equality. They move around the university, listening and learning. Their tutors, Lady Psyche and Lady Blanche, discover the men's subterfuge, but hide their knowledge for reasons of their own. Blanche and Psyche are intellectual and political rivals at the university, and Blanche vows to force Psyche out.
caption: "O marvellously modest maiden, you" – 1890 illustration
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