After reading Guinevere by Alfred Lord Tennyson, I cant help but feel moved. Unlike in the other depictions of this story, there is a lot of thought and emotion tied into the reading. At first it seems very simple, Queen Guinevere and Lancelot are frequently "MEETING" with one another and then they are found out but unlike in Mallory's version this is where the similarities end. Instead of making Lancelot out to be this great hero and single handily take out a dozen knights. He is depicted as a beast "aroused Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike leapt on him, and hurl'd him headlong" pg.271 line 103. For once Lancelot is shown to be the bad guy he really is. Also unlike in the previous version Queen Guinevere does not stay and wait her judgment rather she flees knowing full well the atrocities she has committed. She finds her self hiding out in a nunnery where she blatantly tells the nuns that she basically wants nothing to do with them. She tells them not to ask her what her names is or her purpose for coming. As she begins to wallow in her sorrows she takes please with a young maid living in the nunnery. However even this young girl offers her no comfort. Unwittingly this little girl tells Guinevere the story of her father, a once great knight of the round table, as well as how glorious everything was until the unfaithful Queen came and ruined everything. The Queen being the scornful women she is usually depicted to be lashes out at this young girl for telling her the truth which she was clearly unable accept. But it wasn't long before the queen began to show true signs of remorse and sorrow for the horrible things she has done. As she should. Then King Arthur comes in and basically gives her a verbal beat down. Which I honestly found amazing, because King Arthur finally shows some backbone. Within this tongue lashing we discover that Mordred is not King Arthur's son but instead he is the son of his sister. We also discover that King Arthur is not just fighting one war but TWO. One against Mordred and the Heathens, and the other against Lancelot and all his kin. This information makes Arthur seem all that more compelling to me. It showed me that even in the midst of total chaos King Arthur still goes out to find Guinevere, so he can basically say to her how horrible she is and how this is all her fault. But then he says to her "I forgive thee, as Eternal God Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest." After reading this I couldn't believe after all that talk of her wicked deeds he still forgives her, but then I realized of course he forgave her. He is King Arthur the most merciful man in all the land. Or so I though until I continued reading and King Arthur follows it up with "I loathe thee.", which show us the complexity of his emotional state. That in and of itself is a beautiful change of pace from the oblivious and simple man King Arthur usually is. After he leaves Guinevere after soaking in everything that was said to her loses it. She is hit with a big reality check, she finally stops pitting her self and instead directs it towards Arthur. After coming to terms with the fact that nothing she can do will ever make up for what she has done she decides to live out the rest of her life in this nunnery doing all the lowly tasks that need to be done, praying, and sharing in the sisters sorrow but not their joy. This to me is the first time I didn't hate Guinevere. She finally takes responsibility for what she has done and punishes her self for it.

Tennyson: Arthur's Speech to Guinevere

 Tennyson's interpretation of Guinevere was in some ways very similar to what we have read previously concerning the Queen. In some ways, however, it was entirely different. One of these differences which I found to be very interesting was the way that Tennyson portrays Arthur and Guinevere's last conversation.
 As we had discussed in class, Tennyson's version of Arthur seems to be much more in love with the Queen from the start. Arthur in this rendition falls in love with the Queen "at first sight," and thinks of marrying her before she is even fully aware of him. In this way, the relationship between Arthur and Guinevere seems much more important in Tennyson's rendition than it did in Malory's, because of Tennyson's focus on the romantic, and ideally supportive love between them--and, from what we have read so far, there seems to be much less of a focus on the brotherhood of the knights. In Malory, the brotherhood between King Arthur and all of his knights was of utmost importance. The readers can clearly see this when Arthur "brushes off" the Queen's relationship with Launcelot, instead focusing on the turmoil that it is bound to cause between his knights and the kingdom as a whole. Tennyson, meanwhile, devotes an entire scene to the King's reaction and confrontation of the Queen. This scene displays Arthur's love for the Queen, even after her betrayal, and that he does not remain loyal to Launcelot in the same way that he does in Malory's text. In fact, Tennyson makes Arthur's character in this scene very sympathetic, which contrasts strongly against Malory's "ignorance is bliss" version of Arthur. He even tells Guinevere that he still loves her, but must leave her in shame, explaining that if he does not leave her, the memory of her sins will haunt him. He says, "And I should evermore be vext with thee/In hanging robe or vacant ornament,/Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair./For think not, tho' thou wouldst not love thy lord,/Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee. I am not made of so slight elements./Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame." (282). This makes the reader feel as though Arthur is truly a complex character who simultaneously cares for and despises his cheating wife--a conception which is much closer to modern-day examples of character emotions.
 Similar to Malory, however, we do get the feeling that Arthur blames Guinevere for the dismantling of the knights of the Round Table. He even takes it a step farther, and blames her for all romantic turmoil at court, saying: "And all this throve before I wedded thee,/Believing, 'lo mine helpmate, one to feel/My purpose and rejoicing in my joy.'/Then came they shameful sin with Lancelot;/Then came the sin of Tistram and Isolt;/Then others, following these my mightiest knights,/And drawing foul examples from fair names,/Sinn'd also"(281-282).
 Overall, King Arthur's speech to Guinevere and her delayed (and solitary) response to him are both extremely interesting passages which reveal a great deal about Tennyson's interpretation of the characters. But do we as readers feel more or less sympathy for the Queen after this in-depth look?

Idylls of the King-Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur

          Of the readings we were assigned by Tennyson I chose to focus on The Coming of Arthur. The beginning quite resemble that of stories we have become very familiar with. Arthur is described as uniting the kingdom under his rule, and a brief mention of Guinevere's beauty foretold. As we have grown accustom to in mallory and D' Troyes beginnings often start like this. Then we reach the second page and a mention of werwolves is thrown into the text. It is interesting that the story starts with such a mythical creature never have to be mentioned in any readings before this era. Which lead me to believe that this reading my have more magical/mythical happens than those we are used to. They story then however veers back toward familiar territory when arthur is described as riding among his knights into battle, here is where the first mention of money is encountered. As we have previously discussed in class it seems like money shows your social standing so it was interesting that within the opening scene King Arthur is seen riding as "a simple knight, among his knights, and many of these richer in arms than he". Its almost demoralizing to describe him in this way which we are not used to seeing especially concerning King Arthur. However this does show that some of our old narrative motifs are going to come into play within the Tennyson take of this story. the story continues on with the claim that Arthur is not rightfully king and then the desire for Guinevere blooms..(sound familiar?) Also the vision dream on page 32 makes an apperence once more, but there is the difference in that it seems it wont predict the suture but maybe foretell bad or good fortune to come. What then throws the story off is that no one seems to know of Arthur's heritage which is true in pervious stories but the undertaking of finding his true lineage is dragged out for a couple pages and is much more of a scene within this book. It was in fact a factor in Guinevere's decision to mary Arthur. Which is strange because before this story everyone knew of Arthur's lineage before he wished to marry Guinevere. In this take however Guinevere does not know of his Kingsmanship and is doubtful of that to marry him because of this. Going Back to Uther's reign a new light is shed on the Igraine situation. " enforced she was to wed him in her tears and with a shameful swiftness". In mallory she was tricked by merlin but seemed not to mind, in Tennyson she is utterly against the union. While were on the topic of describing differences Mallory also had a different father figure for Arthur than Tennyson. The irregularity in this is strange because in no other story has Arthurs "father" not been Sir Ector where in this story his name is Anton.

            Moving away from differences there was a very peculiar part of this story that caught my attention. Guinevere talks of knowing the King long before this marriage proposal (no mention of Lancelot). Page thirty gives a short story told from Guinevere's point of view about how as a child she had been beaten and arthur ha come to her aid to cheer her up ad then she knew she loved him. Never before do we see the mention of intermingling childhoods before this, so this type of background information is fascinating. And sets up the premise that these two have a much stronger relationship than seen before in any novel.

I chose only one of the two stories to discuss because as you see if i were to analyze both this would become ridiculously long. =)

       

The Saga of the Mantle

I found this story to be peculiar in its context. The messenger is described as ornately handsome, which is something we are not used to from the other texts, and he comes into Arthur's court bearing this beautiful crafted robe on which he offers as a gift to the one women whom it fits best. The context behind the cloak's magical powers is then given and the women of the court each must try their hand at wearing the garment. Where this man came from and why he is making all the court's women try on this deceptive cloak is not clear. Which seems to be a reoccurring story telling tool during this era. The authors seem to keep things ambiguous almost on purpose for reasons the reader may or may not later discover. When moving from the strange context of the story to the actual oddities within the narrative i believe a good place to begin is when the queen tries on the cloak. It is strange that the king was not angered by the fact that he learns that his queen has not been exactly faithful in every way. The queen skillfully plays off her shame by making all her ladies of the court put on the cloak next so as to show that her infidelity is much less than many of the unfaithful women there. The whole concept of this garment is well devised and yet strange that its almost a test of your virginal and courtly behavior. It shows that these ideals in women were extremely important and highly regarded in society during this time. I found it slightly unfair though that after all of the women are put through this shame, why is it that the men get away without so much as a test of their fidelity? This also shows that being bound to just one woman perhaps wasn't something expected of men during that time. Men obviously followed much different moral codes than their women and were expected to uphold different values.

The saga of the Mantle

I would like to start of by saying  why are only the women being chastised here? The idea that all of these so called "noble" nights is completely faithful is not possible as we have learned from previous readings. Also I found it rather confusing that there wasn't more outrage amongst the men, specifically the king. Seeing as his wife was the very first to be seen as unfaithful yet no one other then Valven says even a word to her about her infidelity. And even then his response seemed almost like a joke "is seems to me that you are somewhat more faithful than she is, and yet you are quite alike, but there is less falsehood in you than in her." said Valven to the Queen. Now this response took me buy surprise, I would have thought at least someone in the court would have been more concerned with the QUEEN being the first person to be seen as unfaithful!

Lanval: De France

In this story I find it interesting how the main focus on the beginning is less on the characters and more on the money and the gold. They talk about how now he is rich and how he will give money to everyone strangers or friends and how he was giving rich gifts and how he was being generous. The second thing that intrigued me was how he denied the queen and she knew the king would believe the lie so she lied to make it seem like he wanted her and she refused and he spoke badly to her making the king make him fight to prove himself. Again in this story the queen is lethal and puts him in a position where it is very easy for him to be killed.

De France: Wealth and Money

The story of Lanval was a totally new addition on our readings in some ways, and very similar in others. One pattern that I noticed in this text that did not appear nearly as much in Malory or De Troyes was the idea of money and wealth. Although Malory and De Troyes probably both reference money in some way, it does not come up very often at all. In fact, the only scene in which money is truly memorable is in Malory's take on Launcelot's relationship with Elaine, when he essentially bribes her to leave him alone. He offers a great quantity of money in this scene, but Elaine does not take it and no further mention is made of Launcelot's riches. In the Marie De France piece, however, many references are made to signify how rich the knights are, and a much greater emphasis is placed on wealth. In just a few short pages, money, wealth, riches, or land are mentioned 6 times explicitly. This pattern begins on 35, when De France introduces Lanval by saying, "He belonged to King Arthur's household, but he had spent all his wealth, for the king gave him nothing, and Lanval asked him for nothing." (35). Although other texts may have mentioned that a particular knight had come from a poor or wealthy household, De France focuses much more on the idea of Lanval's relationship with the king involving (and revolving around?) money. Such a focus did not seem to exist in the other pieces. De France also emphasizes the monetary values of the objects in this story, whereas in the past, the object's magical tendencies might be more important. For example: "They led him to the tent, which was beautiful and luxurious: neither Queen Semiramis, however much wealth, power and knowledge she had, nor Emperor Octavian could have afforded even the flap of the tent." (36). Why this shift from money as simply existing to money being "a big deal"? The most obvious shift seems to come on page 37, after Lanval has found his love, De France tells us: "Lanval gave rich gifts; Lanval pardoned prisoners; Lanval outfitted jongleurs; Lanval performed noble acts. There was neither stranger nor friend to whom Lanval would not give money." (37). Here, the implication is that Lanval has become a true and noble knight. But the qualities of "what a good knight should be" seem to have changed slightly. Lanval is not just noble and strong...but he is also a good money lender? What is the importance of such a trait to a knight? This seems to be a very interesting pattern that sets De France apart from Malory and De Troyes.