the Knight of the Cart

What is life without love. This question is asked extensively in Troyes The Knight of the Cart. This story portrays Lancelot a brave and noble Knight fighting to save the lady he loves, yet the lady he loves is not his. Guinevere the queen of Camelot is betrothed to Arthur the true and noble king of England. Both Lancelot and Guinevere do drastic actions for each other throughout the book in the sake of love. These actions go to show how love can make even the best of people lose sight of what is important. The Knight of the Cart is a parody that mocks the idea that any action taken out of love is morally righteous. Lancelot is considered a noble and extraordinary knight yet he continuously acts like a fool especially when dealing with the ford. At the beginning of the story Lancelot and Gawain run after Guinevere and when they get separated Lancelot forgets about the dangers around him because he is so entranced by the thought of Guinevere. A guard yells, “Knight, do not enter the ford…or by my head I’ll strike you the moment I see you in it” (216). As Lancelot’s horse heads towards a ford a guard screams to him to tell him not to cross it but he cannot hear him. At any moment Lancelot could have died. Instead of being a Knight: on guard, prepared, and confused on the task ahead, he is day…

Chretien de Troyes wrote Knight of the Cart, a twelfth century piece of literature which established the reader with a sence of how both knights and women of the past fit into society. Knights during the medieval ages were known to exemplify great honor and chivalry. Ironically, Lancelot is a knight who in a way sacrafices his honor by riding in the cart, but shows his devotion to the queen by going on his quest to save the queen. The role of women and how they are viewed changes throughout…

any less of a heroine in the story. In contrast, Vivien, is seductive, and can easily be viewed as evil, but her motives prove that anyone who was to be in the same predicament would follow suit. In the Idyll “Merlin and Vivien” she describes to King Mark that her father was killed during battle with Arthur, claiming that she is now “born from death” (Merlin and Vivien, 44), signifying that this is the reason why death follows her. Vivien could be seen as more of an outspoken character as…

Margaret’s influence on Arthuriana appears in multiple disciplines for the direct similarity between her reign and Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. Stephen Knight and Merry Wiesner-Hanks’ Arthurian Literature and Society depicts the key similarities. Lancelot and his party represent the Yorkists, Henry VI played Arthur, and Guinevere, locked in a tower, represents Margaret as she defended herself from outside attack and dealt with her actual imprisonment. As the fifteenth century came…

The feast was a big day for all the knights in Camelot. Some men raised their glasses and drained them, others ate heartily, and all laughed and spoke merrily. The night was so filled with fun and festivity that none of the men noticed when Guinevere excused herself and Sir Lancelot followed, trailing close behind. A single tear traced a path down Guinevere's flawless face. She glanced down at the perfectly polished floor of the palace, and caught a glimpse of her angelic reflection peering…

Tennyson uses language to connect them; his title for Arthur “the Good King” (XI. 207) parallels the language used to describe the Prince Consort, whom Tennyson describes as “Albert the Good” (I. 42). Similarly, Tennyson claims that Albert seems “scarce other than my king’s ideal knight” (I. 7). However, once this connection is established, the list of characteristics which Tennyson attributes to both the fictional King Arthur and the Prince Consort actually serves to prove the deficiencies in…

Idylls of the King, written by Alfred Lord, Tennyson, is a poem about King Arthur’s knights and his kingdom succumbing to corruption. It is also a tale that elaborates on the famous love triangle blossoming between King Arthur, Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot. Lord, Tennyson wrote his widely famous poem as a social commentary of the industrialized Victorian era and its supposed corruptness versus a time of no industrialization. Alfred Lord, Tennyson uses the power of motifs to describe the immoral…

the Lady herself, who is under the spell of a mysterious curse that does not allow her to look out her window. She seems happy regardless, and she spends her days weaving her “magic web” and singing (alluding to Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, who weaves while her husband is away, and other myths that involve a woman’s weaving). Her web, a symbol of artistic fecundity but also of her enslavement, depicts the world outside, but only as reflected in her mirror. She sees knights and pages and boys and…

the role and treatment of women, honor, humility, bravery and courtesy. Chretien de Troyes illustrated the importance of these conventions through the juxtaposition of the successes and demises of those who followed the ideals and values of courtly love and chivalry and those who did not in his Arthurian Romances. Like many of the Arthurian romances, in the story of “Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart”, the significances…

Love Heals All Wounds Love. Nowadays, it is such a trivial word, so quickly and easily thrown around. “I love this” and “I love you,” being said within days or weeks of meeting someone. There is little to no weight behind the word now. Love came in many forms in the past. It meant being willing to give up everything, your body and honor included, for your beloved. Even if that beloved belongs to someone else. That is what happens in The Arthurian Romance, “The Knight of the Cart.” Lancelot, a…