King Arthur Analysis

All of this, of course, assumes that Arthur actually isn’t aware of the betrayal he faces, a position which has been extremely prevalent in academic scholarship until fairly recently. However, this analysis fails to take into account several hints made throughout the poems that Arthur is actually suspicious of Guinevere’s affair. Vivien makes this accusation, claiming that Arthur “sees what his fair bride is and does, and winks” (VI. 780). Even Merlin, one of Arthur’s staunchest supporters, is forced to concede to Vivien that “Arthur either rejects the evidence of his ‘own eye-witness’ or simply cannot apprehend the reality seemingly known to all others” (Adams 428). Arthur once again displays his detachment from the Court’s reality. Additionally, Guinevere herself notes that “there gleam’d a vague suspicion in his eye” (VII. 127), which was the result of Lancelot, “the chiefest of knights” (VII. 140) declining to participate in a jousting tournament which he had a history of winning so that he could stay with Guinevere. If he is aware, as the above hints suggest, then that would “undermine his stature as the stainless man” (Adams 429) by exposing the hypocrisy of his moral order for the nation. Vivien herself claims that Arthur must know, and for this, one “Could call him the main cause of all …show more content…
Enid and Geraint’s marriage does not suffer from infidelity, lack of passion, or one-sidedness the way many of the other romantic connections within the Idylls do, and towards the end of Enid’s idylls, it appears that harmony has been reached. However, the nature of Enid’s marital struggles and subsequent resolution actually reveals a deeper problem within her relationship. Most of the “problems with the Enid idylls almost uniformly result from oppressively strong gender over-coding coupled with the characters’ inability to readjust their performance of masculinity and femininity” (Ranum