The Once and Future Queen

by Nicole Evelina

  During this time, Guinevere comes into her own, a being with her own identity, thoughts, and desires. Bonner summarizes how this happened: “Some female authors have attempted to ‘free’ Guinevere from the strictures of patriarchal society: they have tried to portray her as more than just a tool to man’s action, as more than an ornament of the King, as more than a submissive and pleasing lover. They have given Guinevere more actual action and autonomy than she is given by authors of previous years.”457

  In keeping with this trend, suddenly the previously barren queen began having children and ruled beside her husband. Brewer notes this is unusual in the Arthurian tradition. “In the nineteen-eighties, Queen Guenevere seems to have become a superwoman, a successful executive and administrator whose role is not merely to attend state functions as a graceful consort, but to rule… The Arthurian superwoman must also have experienced pregnancy and childbirth.”458

  One interesting theory on Guinevere’s sudden fertility after hundreds of years of barrenness – put forth by Gordon-Wise – is directly tied to the culture of the time: “The treatment of this problem [Guinevere’s barrenness] in these current Arthurian fantasies suggests an ongoing debate, perhaps centered on the issue of career versus children, within the feminist community.”459 According to this theory, Guinevere’s fecundity serves a larger purpose. Her previous inability to have children is seen as a symbol of the stifling nature of patriarchal control where women could not live up to their full potential, whereas her newfound ability to bear babes is tied to the fruitfulness of the feminist movement. If she can at least be pregnant, she is seen as taking on the responsibility of the modern woman by “having it all”—a successful queenship in which she actively participates (a.k.a. a job outside the home), children, a thriving marriage (with Arthur), and a satisfying sex life (presumably with Lancelot, if not with Arthur).

  But yet, this fully-formed life may not be quite the liberation it is cracked up to be. “Increased attention to the Arthurian ladies, has not, for the most part, liberated fictional women from traditional feminine roles,” Lacy argues.460 Cooley agrees, adding, “[T]he duties of Arthurian women [still] fall under traditional feminine gender roles, such as home-keeping and child-bearing and -rearing: the only differences between noble and peasant women are the management aspects of running a household and the understanding that their marriage will be based on the political advantage of men before all else.”461

  In some ways, this is an obvious and unnecessary argument to make, primarily because most Arthurian fiction is set in the past, when women were expected to perform these duties. It would be very odd for a reader to encounter a semi-medieval or quasi-Celtic Lancelot saying he will clean up the dishes after a feast so Guinevere can go and rest, or Arthur demanding equal parenting time with Mordred from Morgan. Second, the argument rings false because—transgender literature aside—Guinevere will always be female. While in the 1980s and beyond, men began doing more of the household chores and child-rearing,462 women will always be the child-bearers. Even in situations of single-parent homes where the father raises the children, there are some things only a mother can give or teach. That part of the female experience will never go away unless human beings evolve to where men can have babies.

  However, looked at from another angle, it is a perfectly valid argument because by the 1980s, in addition to the traditional duties of homemaking and motherhood, women had careers that demanded a disproportionate share of their time. Why shouldn’t Guinevere experience the same tug-of-war on her time? Hence, we see writers like Bradshaw, Woolley, and Miles placing additional emphasis on the administrative nature of Guinevere’s role as queen.

  During the 1980s, Guinevere is finally given a fully-fleshed backstory, making her for the first time a truly three-dimensional character. As Barbara and Allan Lupack note, “A spate of recent novels by women have retold the story of Camelot from the queen’s perspective…offer[ing] Guinevere’s own views on her youth, her difficulties adjusting to the sweeping and radical social changes inherent in Arthur’s reign, and her attempts to maintain her own independence, particularly in the face of patriarchal attitudes toward women.”463 This is a woman who doesn’t simply magically show up on the scene when she’s needed by a man—be he Arthur or Lancelot—but a real person who was shaped by her past, with dreams and ambitions of her own. Cooley writes of the Guinevere created by Sharan Newman, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Persia Woolley: “Guinevere, High Queen of Camelot, is written with more variety than any other female character across feminist Arthuriana. Working within a literary tradition of a beautiful, educated Guinevere whose skills as a queen are of little importance when compared with her betrayal with Lancelot and her part in the fall of Camelot, these authors all reinterpret her character differently.”464 It is definite sign of growth for the character, giving her increased depth and realism, and also a subtle recognition that women are individuals who need not be tethered to their male relatives in order to have identity or purpose.

  Sharan Newman

  “Guinevere was not overly concerned, for in her whole life she had never had a difficulty that someone hasn’t quickly helped her out of…someone would soon come to find her.”465

  — Guinevere by Sharan Newman

  One of the first authors to explore Guinevere’s early life was Sharan Newman. Her 1981-1985 Guinevere trilogy is still one of the best-known, most studied, works of Guinevereian fiction, even more than thirty years after the final book was published. She was the first to explore Guinevere’s youth, but also to give her a clear character arc that spanned the entire trilogy and helped the reader grow attached to her even as she matured. Bonner summarizes her character arc:

  In the first novel of the trilogy, Guinevere, Newman follows Guinevere’s life from her childhood to her marriage with Arthur….Newman continues Guinevere’s development in The Chessboard Queen (1983), presenting Guinevere as a much more capable and active figure than she was in Malory and other writers…without portraying the queen as a shrew with no life of her own. Finally, Newman extends the narrative much further than most authors in the final novel Guinevere Evermore (1985). In the final book of the trilogy, Guinevere comes to terms with her own desires and needs and even leads her life without Arthur and Camelot.466

  When we meet Guinevere, she is living a very sheltered life, and because of this she is rather self-centered and over-protected, even “emotionally stunted” as Harold J. Herman calls her.467 She is being raised to be a typical nobly-born/aristocratic girl, with her education centered on domestic training, which she escapes as often as possible to be outside, where she is far more comfortable. The world Guinevere is raised in seems to be a fantasy in itself since it is highly-Romanized even though the rest of the country has moved beyond the Roman occupation. She lives in a villa with mosaic floors, murals on the walls, heated rooms, and even a Roman bath,468 harkening back to the glory days of an occupying empire that long ago abandoned Britain. Given this willful delusion on a mass scale by her entire household, it is perhaps not surprising that Guinevere herself resides in a world at least partially of her own making.

  A strong supernatural element pervades the plot of Guinevere. Guinevere befriends a unicorn and can see/hear faerie folk. Some critics, like Walters, argue that this isn’t merely a nod to the fantasy genre, but represents Guinevere’s desire to live in her own world and her inability to form relationships. Raymond Thompson cites “use of the faery world to indicate alienation within a character.”469 Others, like Gordon-Wise, take a more traditional symbolic approach, claiming the unicorn represents Guinevere’s virginity and maidenhood, especially as it disappears upon her marriage to Arthur. She argues that this Guinevere experiences the supernatural as part of daily life because she is “a medial figure between the new Christian religion and the old goddess worship. Guinevere, herself a Christian like the rest of her family, accepts the numinous but remains poised between these two worlds.�
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  The in-between is a strong theme, coming up again and again in various pairings: the fantasy/real worlds, Roman/Britain, girl/woman, Christian/pagan. We see many of these dichotomies played out through Guinevere’s relationship with others, especially her parents and household servants; Gaia and Timon, the two hermits she is sent to live with; and with those she encounters during her years in Cador’s kingdom, where she is finally forced out of her childish bubble and compelled to participate in the real world. Herman argues, “Because Newman is principally concerned with the development of Guinevere from a teenager to an emotionally mature, self-reliant, altruistic woman, most of the first novel is devoted to a delineation of the character traits of Guinevere as a teenager and especially the effects of her parents and other members of the household upon her.”471

  This first book is Guinevere’s journey from spoiled, self-absorbed child, to responsible, caring new wife. Bonner believes it is the first of many steps for the character. “Newman uses the first of her novels as an initiation or education for her heroine. Moreover, she clearly shows that Guinevere had, and will have, an existence with or without Arthur or any other man.”472 And that is perhaps the most important point. For the first time, Guinevere has had experiences that don’t involve her famous husband and that can affect her independently of him, which means she develops her own opinions and viewpoints.

  When The Chessboard Queen opens, Guinevere is married to Arthur, a proposal she was given the choice whether or not to accept, unlike in many previous versions. Though it is her choice, her marriage to Arthur is not ideal. She and Arthur love one another, but he does not give her sexual satisfaction. She is also barren, which is seen as divine punishment. She is shunned by the other women of the court because she is childless, which only increases her sense of isolation.

  Thus, the situation is ripe for Lancelot to enter the picture. Interestingly, even though he sees Guinevere as a goddess to adore, she does not immediately like him, feeling he is too perfect and too pious. But over time, she comes to realize they are a perfect fit, not only because she is terribly lonely, but both are outsiders, raised in an Otherworld of sorts—she in her Roman villa with a unicorn and faerie folk and he in the underwater palace of the Lady of the Lake.473 Her attraction to Lancelot occurs in a flash, and every aspect of their relationship is equally intense. Finally, she has found a man who can sexually satisfy her.

  By Guinevere Evermore, the third book in the series, Guinevere has grown from a selfish child into a warm, caring woman, sensitive to the concerns and emotions of others, but she is still in many ways weak and immature. She is unwilling to accept adult responsibility, and she often pretends to understand the running of the household, while allowing the servants to bear the true burden.474

  In one of the strangest twists in modern Arthurian legend, Guinevere claims Galahad as her own child, even though he belongs to Elaine and Lancelot, and raises him as her own. She says to him, “You are my child, Lancelot’s and mine. It was his love for me that conceived you. You have my hair, my skin, and I claim you as my own… You must come to love me, for I am truly your mother.”475 This odd declaration not only shows the depth of Guinevere’s need for a child but also that the delusions of her youth have not fully left her. Cooley suggests that this—and other incidents in modern Arthurian legend where Guinevere acts as a mother to either Galahad or Mordred—is a reflection of society having working mothers for the first time who “often run themselves ragged trying to juggle competing demands on their time.”476 Other critics, however, see it as simply an odd, perhaps a bit crazy, method of fulfilling a longing Guinevere can in no other way appease.

  Unlike in previous versions of the legend, in Newman, it is not Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot that ends up being the source of her downfall. In fact, as Bonner writes, Newman’s Guinevere “takes full responsibility for the scandal [of her affair with Lancelot], saying ‘It was my stupidity, my own willfulness, that caused this.’ Thus, Guinevere is reconciled to Arthur, in a scene of confession very different from those of any other authors.”477

  The trouble, and Camelot’s undoing, comes from Mordred, who seeks to shame Arthur and his wife by accusing Guinevere of using witchcraft to stay young, attract Lancelot, and keep Arthur from attacking his enemies. She is tried by the bishops, and Arthur feels he can do nothing to help her. Here again, the supernatural comes into play. Merlin gives Guinevere a choice to become immortal or live and die in the mortal world. She chooses the mortal world and the possibility of death. Herman sees this as “a courageous decision. It is also, according to Merlin, the first time in her life she has made up her own mind, and is the first time she is afraid.”478 This is a major step for a character who has always depended on others.

  Later, after Lancelot is exiled and Arthur is in Armorica fighting a war, Guinevere finds herself alone with Mordred, who is regent. He is a sadistic ruler and she is afraid of him. Nevertheless, she tamps down her own feelings in favor of defending her people and marries Mordred in exchange for allowing the women and children he had imprisoned to go free. Over time, using her new-found inner strength, she stands up to his abuse and figures out a way to get herself and Mordred’s remaining prisoners to freedom. She says to Lancelot, “All my life, I waited patiently for someone to come along and rescue me. But with Mordred, I knew no one could. And I stopped waiting. After all these years, I finally rescued myself.”479

  Guinevere’s journey is one many women can relate to. This was especially true in the 1980s when women who were born in a more father/husband-centric time finally woke up to see themselves as individuals who didn’t need to depend on the men in their lives to survive, financially or in any other way. Gordon-Wise notes that Guinevere’s gradual independence is consistent with the novel’s larger motif: “Newman’s queen throughout much of this trilogy is not the fiercely independent queen of Parke Godwin’s Beloved Exile, but this is in keeping with the theme of Newman’s trilogy which closely follows Guinevere’s voyage from a woman always relying on male wishes, desires, and rescues, to a truly adult woman who makes her own choices and therefore lives independently.”480

  Guinevere’s independence comes to the fore after the battle of Camlann and its disastrous consequences. Guinevere and Lancelot willingly part and she goes to the home of her father, where she lives as an adviser and healer. To Gordon-Wise this is a fitting end to her story. “Unlike earlier versions of the myth which assign Guinevere to a nunnery where she spends the remainder of her life attempting to atone for her sin, Newman allows her queen a choice: to remain as wise dowager queen at Camelot with her successor Constantine, or to retire to the family estate. Her decision to return to her ancestral home is indicative of her transformation from sheltered daughter, wife, and lover to independent lady of the manor.”481 This is a Guinevere given much more freedom than her predecessors, even down to how she will spend the final years of her life, and she chooses to have peace at long last.

  * * *

  453 Walters, “Introduction,” lvx.

  454 Howey, "Once and Future Women," 28.

  455 Cooley, "Re-vision from the Mists," 35.

  456 Johnson, “Guenevere's Conflict," 69.

  457 Bonner, "Guinevere as Heroine," 75.

  458 Brewer, “The Figure of Guenevere,” 286-287.

  459 Gordon-Wise, The Reclamation of a Queen, 152.

  460 Lacy, The New Arthurian Encyclopedia: New Edition, 526.

  461 Cooley, "Re-vision from the Mists," 36.

  462 The 2015 American Time use survey commissioned by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that even in 2015, thirty-five years after the period we are discussing, women spent on average one hour more a day performing household activities than men. When that was broken down into specific activities, “women spent more than twice as much time preparing food and drink and doing interior
cleaning, and over three times as much time doing laundry as did men.” See “American Time Use Survey,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor. December 20, 2016. Accessed August 15, 2017. https://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/household.htm. https://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/household.htm.

  463 Lupack and Lupack. “The Forgotten Tradition,” in Arthurian Literature by Women: An Anthology. New York: (New York: Routledge, 2013), 24.

  464 Cooley, "Re-vision from the Mists," 20.

  465 Newman, Sharan, Guinevere, 1981 (New York: Tor, 1981, 1996), 10.

  466 Bonner, "Guinevere as Heroine," 84.

  467 Herman, Harold J., “Sharan Newman’s Guinevere Trilogy,” in Lancelot and Guinevere: A Casebook, ed. Lori Walters (New York: Routledge, 2002), 291.

  468 Ibid., 292.

  469 Thompson, Raymond M., The Return from Avalon: A Study of the Arthurian Legend in Modern Fiction (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985).

  470 Gordon-Wise, The Reclamation of a Queen, 130.

  471 Herman, "Sharan Newman's Guinevere," 292.

  472 Bonner, "Guinevere as Heroine," 89.

  473 Herman, "Sharan Newman's Guinevere," 43-45.