Bonus Episode: The Fall of Arthur with Malcolm Guite
episodePreviously titled “Bonus Episode: The Fall of Arthur” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 21, 2026
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What is the purpose of discussing Tolkien’s unfinished poem *The Fall of Arthur*?
Welcome to The Classical Mind, a podcast about the great books in the Western canon. We're your hosts. I'm Father Wesley Walker.
And I'm Dr. Junius Johnson. And we've got quite the cool treat for you this time. This is a bonus episode on Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur. And to join us to talk about The Fall of Arthur, we have the inimitable Malcolm Gite, who needs no introduction. But I will say about Father Dr. Reverend Gite, sir, he He does it all. I remember the first time I met him, we were at a conference together in Amherst, Massachusetts with the C.S. Lewis Foundation, and I heard stories of him riding his motorcycle down to the local pub with a guitar strapped to his back and a priest collar on to rock out at the local pub and then talk with the fellows there about Jesus into the long hours of the night. And of course, he is a scholar, a literary scholar, and most importantly, he is a poet.
I don't know if he's the most important poet of our time. I don't think that's for our time to judge,
but I can say
very confidently that he is my favorite poet of our time. And a great part of the reason that is, is because of his dedication to form and to the old forms. Poetry flows through his veins. You can't talk to him for very long without experiencing poems tumbling out of him as like fire shut up in the bones. And it's delightful. And it's something that we don't have a lot in our society today. He has the great distinction of making poetry popular, again, as evidenced by the fact that his Galahad and the Grail became the top selling book on Amazon. And I think that is, regardless of the merits of the poem, and they are many, to have brought long-form poetry back to the public imagination and the public awareness in that way is definitely something well worth having spent the time on.
So Malcolm, thank you for your work and welcome. Thanks for joining us here on The Classical Mind.
Thank you. That's a very kind introduction. I don't know if I live up to it. But of course, fortunately, we're talking about a far greater writer today. That's right. We're talking about... The more I read Tolkien and actually rereading this, there's such great poetry in The Fall of I. But the more I read of anything by Tolkien, the greater my admiration and the stronger my awe that one mind date all this yeah
yeah i read this poem first a few months ago and of course you know i've been hanging out in the arthurian realms myself as i've been teaching about arthur last year and this year and all that sort of a thing and i read it for the first time and i think i was maybe four or five lines into it and i thought oh my gosh this is delicious it's such good poetry and
so
very quickly my mind when i encountered great poetry i started thinking who can i share it with I
mean, like the set PC battle. And I think that is astonishing. The sheer sound of it. Yeah. And the kind of brooding thoughts of Lancelot wavering which way to go. But I mean, I just in terms of sheer depiction of evil, the the kind of insights into the mind of Mordred lusting after Guinevere. on the kind of turns of the stair and offering this choice of bond or bride. I mean, it's unbelievably, I mean, it's not, you know, one of the things that, the Inklings get accused of quite entirely falsely is because in the end they have hope and hope is the thing they have to offer. And certainly, eucatastrophe in talking sense. It's assumed that somehow they're naive about sorrow. Well, partly because he's channeling all his old Anglo-Saxon poets and we Anglo-Saxons, I have to say the old English poetic mode, as they would call it, alpha mode, is we do bleak really well.
There's nothing that the English love better than an elegy. And, you know, the first great battle poem, which, of course, Torquay knows back to front and kind of riffs on here, the Battle of Malden. The point about the Battle of Malden is that we lost to the Vikings and wrote a great poem about it, you know, and it's like our big heroic moment. One of our big heroic moments of the First World War is Dunkirk.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of discussing Tolkien’s unfinished poem *The Fall of Arthur*?
0:03–8:43
2
Why does Malcolm Guite consider the poem a scandalous yet essential choice of meter?
8:43–19:36
3
How does the poem’s alliterative Anglo‑Saxon form affect its sound and meaning?
19:36–30:15
4
What roles do Guinevere and Mordred play in Tolkien’s reinterpretation of the legend?
30:15–40:30
5
How does the discussion link the poem’s tragedy to ideas of hope, eucatastrophe, and Christian forgiveness?
40:30–50:09
6
Why is the contrast between Gawain and Lancelot important for understanding the poem’s moral conflict?
50:09–1:00:49
7
What connections are drawn between the poem’s themes and the rise of fascism and modern world affairs?
1:00:49–1:11:59
8
Which further readings and resources are recommended for listeners who want to explore Tolkien’s Arthurian material?
1:11:59–1:23:28