ABSTRACT
Both in medieval and in modern fiction, the figure of Guenevere personifies the feminine ideal, and in so doing indicates our changing attitudes to women and to sexual morality. In the last hundred years in particular, her character has undergone many changes, some of them startling. In 1895, a dramatic version of the Arthurian story 1 was put on in London by the famous Victorian actor and producer Henry Irving, specially written for him by his friend J. Comyns Carr. With sets and costumes designed by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Burne-Jones, music by the composer Arthur Sullivan, and Ellen Terry starring as Guenevere, the show—it must have been almost a musical, and quite spectacular at that—was an instant success. The play seems to have started a fashion for Arthurian drama: in the next ten to fifteen years, many plays based on the Arthurian legend were put on in little London theatres, and at least three centred specifically on Guenevere.
