Guinevere

Guinevere (/ˈɡwɪnɪvɪər/ (About this soundlisten) GWIN-iv-eer; Welsh: Gwenhwyfar About this soundpronunciation (help·info); Breton: Gwenivar, Cornish: Gwynnever), also often written as Guenevere or Guenever,[1] is the legendary queen and wife of King Arthur. First recorded in literature by the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has been portrayed as everything from a villainous and opportunistic traitor to a fatally flawed but noble and virtuous lady. A notably recurring theme in many Arthurian tales is that of her abduction.

The earliest datable appearance of Guinevere is in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-historical British chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae in which she is seduced by Mordred during his rebellion against King Arthur. In a later medieval Arthurian romance tradition from France, a prominent story arc is Guinevere’s tragic love affair with her husband’s chief knight and friend, Lancelot, indirectly causing the death of Arthur and many others and the downfall of the kingdom. Such motif first appeared in a nascent form in Chrétien de Troyes’s poem Lancelot prior to its vast expansion in the prose cycle Lancelot-Grail, from which it featured as a major plotline in Sir Thomas Malory’s seminal English compilation Le Morte d’Arthur. Guinevere has continued to be a popular character in modern adaptations of the legend, usually in relation with Lancelot.