Le Morte d’Arthur · Concept
Love and Adultery
Romantic love, often adulterous, shapes key relationships, such as the tragic love between Launcelot and Guenever and Tristram and Isoud, leading to personal and political ruin.
Romantic love, often adulterous, shapes key relationships, such as the tragic love between Launcelot and Guenever and Tristram and Isoud, leading to personal and political ruin.
Uther's obsessive love for the married Igraine drives the conflict and sets up the central adulterous relationship.
Arthur's first sight of Guenever and his immediate love for her sets the stage for their future marriage and the tragic love triangle with Launcelot.
The damosel's suicide for love of Lanceor exemplifies the extreme devotion and tragedy associated with courtly love.
The lady Colombe kills herself for love of Lanceor, highlighting the tragic intensity of courtly love.
Characters
Chapters
- How Sir Mordred presumed and took on him to be King of England, and would have married the queen, his father’s wife.
- How Sir Launcelot Passed Over the Sea
- How Sir Bedivere Found Him on the Morrow Dead in an Hermitage
- Of the opinion of some men of the death of King Arthur; and how Queen Guenever made her a nun in Almesbury
- XVI
- How Sir Mordred presumed and took on him to be King of England, and would have married the queen, his father’s wife.
- The Siege of Benwick: Sir Gawaine's Challenge
- How Sir Launcelot and Sir Gawaine did battle together, and how Sir Gawaine was overthrown and hurt
