The Never-Ending Defense of Guinevere

The myth of King Arthur has pervaded Western culture since its origin and recent film makers, television producers, and writers continue the fascination with this legend. While the portrayals of Arthur are relatively similar in such adaptations, as the ruggedly handsome king who skillfully leads his kingdom and dies gloriously in battle, opinions continue to be split on Guinevere. William Morris attempts to pierce through this veil in his "Defense of Guenevere" by finally giving Guenevere her own voice.

Morgan le Fay on the door
at Two Temple Place

Guinevere on the door at Two
Temple Place

Since the story's creation, Guinevere's primary label has been that of an adulteress whose infidelity brought down a kingdom. The shaming of Guinevere inherent in many adaptations of the story finds its way into artistic renditions of the Arthurian myth, in which she is portrayed either with Lancelot or alone in physically questionable stances. On a door in the upper level of Two Temple Place, nine Arthurian women are gilded on the wood. Guinevere appears in the middle of the door, lounging on a throne. She leans forward in the image, resting her chin on her hand. In this stance, with her arms open, her entire body is visible, her breasts and open legs defined through the fabric of her dress. Contrasting this image, Morgan le Fay, the typical villain in the later adaptations of the myth, appears demurely playing aharp, her arm crossed over her body to conceal her breasts. Looking at these images alone, Guinevere's promiscuity, suggested by her open, revealing stance, seems to supersede any of Morgan's villainy, making her into the true enemy of the legend.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Arthur's Tomb
Source: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/
highlights/highlight_objects/pd/d/rossetti,_arthurs_tomb.aspx

Depictions of Guinevere with Lancelot only add to the shame consistently placed on her in adaptations of the Arthurian myth. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with William Morris, tries in a different manner to defend Guinevere in his watercolour, Arthur's Tomb. In this piece, Lancelot meets Guinevere over the tomb of her fallen husband, attempting to kiss her while leaning over Arthur's effigy. Guinevere raises her hand to stop him, almost in a show of respect for her dead husband. Regardless of this refusal, Guinevere's fallen state is alluded to by her encasement in shadow. Rossetti depicts a regretful Guinevere after Arthur has died, shunning her sexuality as she shuns Lancelot.

As Morris's "Guenevere"defends herself against her accuser Gauwaine, she gradually accepts and possesses her sexuality. After describing Lancelot kissing her in the garden, she adds, "I scarce dare talk of the remembered bliss," refusing to call their meeting anything degrading that her accusers would expect her to use in her defense. She asks after this recollection of bliss, "After that day why is it Guenevere grieves?" With this question, Guenevere not only admits to her affair with Lancelot, but questions why she should be grieved by it, when their love seems natural to her. Not only does Guenevere rise to defend herself in Morris's poem, she also draws on a sort of communion of women by recalling Morgan le Fay, another woman executed for adultery. She calls to Guawaine, "Remember in what grave your mother sleeps, / Buried in some place far down in the south, / Men are forgetting as I speak to you." This exclamation aligns Guenevere with Morgan, the two "villains" of the story, but it also betrays some of Guenevere's own anxieties: her fear of men "forgetting" her. She calls herself "a great queen," but recognizes her execution will result in her obliteration from memory. Her rescue at the last minute by Launcelot riding up on a "roan charger" ensures that the obliteration she feared will not occur, and she is left to be immortalized by poets like Morris.

Guinevere (Kiera Knightly) in King Arthur
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/
culturepicturegalleries/8737427/Venice-Film-
Festival-Keira-Knightleys-career-in-pictures.html?image=6

Guinevere (Angel Coulby) and Lancelot (Santiago Cabrera)
in the BBC's Merlin
Source: http://www.boomtron.com/2010/04/
merlin-lancelot-and-guinevere-2-04-review/gwen/

While Morris does give Guinevere a voice in his poem, he certainly doesn't write a Guinevere who definitively owns or disowns her infidelity as she continually tries to draw pity from the men who seek to execute her. The scattered nature of her defense suggests that Morris himself did not want to come to a conclusion about the queen. This tendency has been reflected in recent movie and television adaptations of the Arthurian myth. In the movie King Arthur, Clive Owen's Arthur, a Roman calvary officer, captures Kiera Knightly's Guinevere, a Pict warrior princess. The movie does not seek to explore the consequences of Guinevere's affair with Lancelot after she is married to Arthur. Instead, the affair occurs prior to a war with the Saxons in which Lancelot is killed, conveniently paving the way for a marriage between Arthur and Guinevere to unite the Romans and the Britons and usher in the golden age of Albion. In the slightly more family-friendly recent adaptation, the BBC's Merlin, the show entirely avoids demonizing Guinevere by making Morgana (Morgan le Fey in this version) entirely responsible. Morgana enchants Lancelot and Guinevere so that they will be seen together on the night before Guinevere's marriage to Arthur. While Arthur's initial reaction is harsh (he banishes Guinevere from Camelot), Merlin quickly discovers that everything was Morgana's fault and fixes everything. Both of these versions show the continued discomfort with portraying Guinevere's story. As our culture moves forward, hopefully out of the days of shaming women, the depictions of Guinevere as a fallen woman no longer seem apt, but the recent choices to sweep Guinevere's story under the rug also give a disservice to her character. Perhaps what Guinevere needs now is another William Morris, someone who will give her a voice and make her into the queen who doesn't need Launcelot to ride up on his charger and save her.