Ayana Leon Guerrero Mrs. Abulencia 8th Grade Pre-AP Language Arts March 8 , 2016 King Arthur and His Love Triangle When people think about the legends of King Arthur, they usually think of the young man who had done the unimaginable. What most people don 't know was that his heart was broken by his wife-to-be, Lady Guinevere, and his most trusted knight and friend, Sir Launcelot. His heartbreak led to dark times for his people and himself. During the early ages of King Arthur 's kingdom, he felt he needed more knights. According to historians, the King had turned to one of his allies, France. A few weeks later, the knights had arrived. Out of the crowd of men, one had stood out, Sir Launcelot. From there, King Arthur and
Arthur is getting cheated on but he also is getting lied to also, his love with Guinevere is real on his side but is it real for her? “In great sadness Sir Launcelot took his horse and rode away from Camelot, far into the forest of mid Britain”...” Queen Guinevere was sorry and wished very much for Launcelot to return. However, she could not show this to anyone, so instead she called her ten Knights of the Round Table and told them that she would ride a-maying with them into the woods and fields of Camelot…”(p. p. 292-293)
Early in the relationship between Lancelot and Guenever they met with along with the King at a beach. Guenever kissed the king as a greeting because of their marriage. The day after this event he suspected that she didn’t care for him, so he asked to leave the court to go questing. Another time later in the book Lancelot wants to be with Guenever one night, but Arthur is home so she knows they can’t or they will get caught, so she says no.
Because of Arthur’s denial of Guinevere's affair with Lancelot, Mordred seizes his opportunity to accuse Guinevere, which causes Arthur to stage her “execution” and her rescue. Because of this, Gaheris and Gareth are placed in danger, and killed by Lancelot in his rampage, as well as many other soldiers who were only doing their duty. “” (White #) However, this has wider repercussions, and Mordred and Agravaine use Lancelot’s crime of “treason” to persuade some of the knights of the Round Table to follow his ideas. This culminates in a battle between his followers and Arthur’s, and ultimately ends in Arthur’s death, marking the end of his kingdom. “” (White #) All of Mordred’s actions would never have occurred if not for Guinevere’s affair. The chain of events causing Camelot’s collapse would never have happened if Guinevere had not loved both Arthur and
Lancelot has met chivalric standards of behavior through technicalities – he technically is defending the queen’s honor against an technically untrue accusation. But a lie of omission is still a lie; Lancelot’s equivocal oath only serves to compromise his integrity, and his immorality makes a mockery of his further appeal to God. Not only is Lancelot committing the sin of adultery by sleeping with another man’s wife, he is committing it against his king, to whom he should owe fidelity above anyone else. Although a common trope in chivalric romance is the concept that the transforming power of love makes a knight into a better person, Chretien’s narrative twists that to illustrate that Lancelot’s love has arguably made him a worse
Guinevere’s desire for Lancelot becomes so strong that Lancelot can not defeat it and it becomes nearly impossible to avoid her. Chretien makes Lancelot look just like a puppet while Marie makes Arthur look like one as well. Both authors make Guinevere desire men besides her own husband. In Chretien’s Lancelot, Guinevere has full control over Lancelot. Lancelot is so passionately in love, that he looks foolish which makes Guinevere look more intelligent.
Queen Guinevere is one of the main characters from the well known Arthurian legends. She is a Scottish princess who marries King Arthur of England and becomes his Queen. She is most commonly known for committing adultery with Sir Lancelot, who is one of King Arthur’s knights. The Knight of the Cart, written by Chrétien De Troyes during the Middle Ages, this legend is about how Sir Lancelot goes on a quest to rescue Guinevere, and their infamous night together in her bed. The poem by W.E.B. Henderson written in the early 20th century, “The Farewell of Lancelot and Guinevere” is about how after King Arthur’s death, Sir Lancelot returns to Guinevere and asks for her hand in marriage and although they are in love she declines out of respect for
Sir Kay was actually King Arthur’s foster brother and one of the first knights to join the Round Table. Though he loyal to King Arthur he was most known for his vile behavior, rude attitude to all the other knights in the court, and just overall distasteful comments. Sir Gaheris is yet another nephew of Arthur and is characterized as a handsome, agile, ladies man. It is also mentioned that he actually has one arm, his left arm, shorter than his right arm. He is at some point in the stories killed by Lancelot, another knight of the Round Table, by accident.
Compared to Gawain, Lancelot is easily influenced by his emotions. Another example is when Lancelot asks Guinevere for a kiss after she told him she was becoming a nun. He disrespected her wish to leave her past behind and had the audacity to ask for something so selfish.
Courtly love in the medieval romance story of Lancelot (also known as The Knight of the Cart) is the driving force of this famous romance beloved for generations. This proves to be an interesting subject, seeing is a lot of other medieval stories do not focus on love and instead, show it in a rather negative light. This was obviously seen in another medieval story, Njal’s Saga, where not only were marriages arranged and sometimes unwanted by one or both parties, the relationships between men and women were rought with conflict, hatred, and sometimes even murder. The women were not beautiful, diminutive, helpless creatures; they were as strong as their male counterparts. Men also had relatively no interest in love, only of going on grand adventures
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere have been sleeping together this makes both him and the queen unloyal to King Arthur. Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere’s sin could have had them both killed for adultery. Sir Launcelot made it his very priority to protect the queen.
Chivalry was also seen in the short story From Morte D’Arthur. Chivalry is shown in From Morte D’Arthur by the loyalty that Sir Lancelot shows King Arthur. Sir Lancelot battles Sir Gawain for King Arthur as he is the favorite knight of King Arthur. “Here Lancelot is Arthur 's favorite, although he does kill Gawain 's brothers and commits adultery with the queen. And the final tragedy is that eventually Arthur and Lancelot end up battling each other as Camelot tears itself apart”(Adams).
Arthur’s teachings and customs had made his knights serve him with honor. In the beginning of the medieval romance, Gawain has accepted the task from the Green Knight for Arthur and Camelot. Although he has blood ties with Arthur and has a high status among the knights at the Round Table, Gawain reveals that he is the weakest among Arthur’s knights. He accepts because he is devoted to Arthur and has great respect for him. Arthur
When he spurns her love, refusing to betray his King, the Lady goads him into breaking the one rule given to him by Queen Semiramis, lest he never see his beloved again. Lanval announces to Arthur’s Queen “any one of those who serve her / the poorest girl of all / is better than you, my lady queen,”(298-300). This upset the Lady who complained to King Arthur, claiming that Lanval dishonored her, and the king was angered and “he swore an oath / if Lanval could not defend himself in court / he would have him burned or hanged” (326-28). By standing by his boast as truth, and through the efforts of Queen Semiramis, Lanval overcame the Supreme Ordeal of the trial by his King and as a reward “He was set free by their decision” (629). From there Lanval left the court to await his Queen on a marble stone and “When the girl came through the gate / Lanval leapt, in one bound / onto the palfrey, behind her.”
First Knight display some of the classical aspects of chivalry, with the most prominent aspect being loyalty as is demonstrated in the repeated use of the pledge that the Knights of the Round Table say to each other during initiation ceremonies and during crucial moments of the film, "Brother to brother. Yours in life and death." Lancelot is shown as a flawed man, but an incredibly masculine and chivalrous one and those qualities allow him to be redeemed of his affair with Guinevere and he gains the recognition from Arthur as the quintessential knight moments before Arthur's death, "My truest. My first knight." This is an accurate depiction of the Arthurian lore in the sense that Lancelot's chivalrous nature was enough to earn the forgiveness of Arthur because of Arthur's extremely chivalrous nature, but the rest of the characterizations of Lancelot are more reflective of modern chivalry.
Launcelot is not deserving of the title “greatest night of the round table” because he does not follow many aspects of the Medieval Chivalric Code, most prominently he does not respect women and he does not maintain his principles. In the book, “Le Morte D’Arthur” by Keith Baines, and the movie, “First Knight”, Launcelot does not show respect the women he meets. In First Knight, when Launcelot first meets Gwynevere, he immediately starts to harass her saying that the only prize needs for saving her life is her. He continues to tell her this even after she has told him that she is engaged, and on her way to see King Arthur, the man she is marrying. Launcelot still pursues her and kisses her even though she clearly does not want him to.