The Effects Of Victorian Culture On The Arthurian Legends

The Effect of Victorian Culture on the Arthurian Legends The Arthurian legends stand as a mutable model of the perfect court and ruler which has been transformed by authors over the centuries to fit new cultural ideals and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King is no exception to this pattern of transformation. With his retellings of the tales of King Arthur based on earlier models of the stories, most notably the works of Sir Thomas Malory, Tennyson represents some of the most common Victorian cultural views. This representation is most clearly observable in his portrayal of the female character of Guinevere and the concept of sexual morality in a tale that places great emphasis on the effects of the adulterous affair between Sir Lancelot and†¦show more content†¦Essentially a woman’s only expected or accepted role was to be a good wife and societal pressures were exerted to ensure that women would adhere to this expectation. Women are essentially meant to serve men in this society which is a contrast to Malory’s Arth urian society in which men of the chivalric code were expected to be in service to women. It is important to note the way in which the Malorian world â€Å"places such high value on knights providing service to women† (Ackerman 8) which seems to give women some power, but actually made women analogous to a prize or a pawn in many respects and failed to give the female characters any active role in the story. The main distinction of Tennyson’s version seems to be the agency he gives his female characters, but that doesn’t necessarily mean women were represented and treated fairly in the poems. So, the two societies seem similar in some respects yet the main difference between them lies in the agency given to female characters and the amount of importance placed on different cultural ideals. The most significant of those ideals in both Tennyson’s retelling and the Victorian society in general is the exaggeration of feminine virtue and subsequent emphasis of a woman’s chastity as essential to the foundation of the society. The portrayal of Guinevere in the two versions of the story provides anShow MoreRelatedThe Period Of Victorian Times3057 Words   |  13 Pages Late-Victorian civilians had no hope or faith left by the end of Queen Victoria’s reign. Victorian poets either attempted to change the mind and hearts of Victorian people for the benefit of the throne or attempted to raise awareness for the benefit of progress over the course of the era’s entirety. Nineteenth century England reached its height as a world imperial power and had changed as dramatically as it had in all of its history combined during this time (Greenblatt 2145). The population of