The good king Arthur comes to the throne with a definite plan for his kingdom: he wants to unite everyone under him in allegiance to common principles of honesty, justice, and purity. His marriage to Guinevere is an integral part of that plan. Sounds pretty good, right?
This plan is flawed from the very start, though, by Guinevere’s unwillingness to unite with Arthur in quite the way he imagines. Only at the very end of the Idylls of the King, when it’s too late, do Guinevere and Arthur finally get on the same page.
Arthur’s hopes and plans for his kingdom depend upon his unity with his wife, but also his unity with his knights. Arthur’s ideal kingdom begins as a dream shared by everyone in it and falls apart when his knights, disillusioned by the rumors of Guinevere and Lancelot’s adultery, begin to see that dream as impossible to achieve.
Questions About Dreams, Hopes, and Plans
- What is Arthur’s plan for Britain? Upon what does its achievement depend? Is he successful?
- How does Arthur connect his hopes for his marriage to his hopes for Britain?
- Why does Guinevere’s adultery make Arthur’s dream seem impossible?
- What does Guinevere hope for at the end of her life? How does she try to achieve it?
Chew on This
The unity of will that Arthur imagines sharing with Guinevere parallels the unity that Bellicent describes him achieving with his knights in “The Coming of Arthur.”
Guinevere’s adultery threatens the viability of Arthur’s dream for Britain because it weakens his authority by revealing his inability to hold even his own wife to a vow.
Guinevere’s adultery threatens the viability of Arthur’s dream for Britain because it reveals the impossibility of perfect unity in social relationships.