Queen Guinevere is a character from Arthurian legend.
Guinevere
The legendary character
The origin of the name Guinevere comes in all likelihood from the Welsh word "Gwenhwyfar" (old spelling "Gwenhwyvar") which means "white ghost" or "white fairy". (Which is the origin of the name Jennifer).
Therefore, we can say that Guinevere has a magical character that gives her a magical aspect, if not of the Otherworld. It is reminiscent of the bansidh of ancient Celtic mythology. Daughter of Leodegan of Carmelide, Guinevere is above all the wife of King Arthur. Her beauty, her eloquence as well as the prestige of her court made the queen a figure both prized by knights, hated by her peers and bordering on magic. Famous for his adulterous relationship with Lancelot du Lac, the character of Guinevere is one of those figures, like Yvain, who testify to the courtesy of the Arthurian legend operated in the 12th century. But Guinevere is more than that:she is both the courtly lady and the pagan grail of long prose cycles.
The queen of the country of Logres is first and foremost the courteous lady for whom all feats are accomplished:Lancelot, in Le Chevalier à la Charrette (1176-1181), appears as her lover subject to her will, at the risk of seeing himself humiliated and scorned in his honor. Guinevere has been kidnapped by Meleagant who desires her. Arthur, an inactive and passive king, leaves Gawain in charge of bringing the queen back to court. It was during his wanderings that he met an anonymous knight who soon turned out to be Lancelot du Lac, "the best knight in the world". The episode of the cart is characteristic of this unfailing (or almost!) devotion of the knight to his lady, the courtly ideal par excellence:Lancelot, after hesitating for two steps to get into the cart of infamy led by a dwarf, that of prisoners, assassins and other unworthy:
“At the moment, the knight continued on his way without getting on it; he was wrong, wrong to be ashamed and not immediately jump in the cart because he will regret it one day. But Reason, who opposes Love, tells him not to ascend, restraining him from ascending, restraining him and teaching him not to do or undertake anything that could bring him shame or reproach. It is not from the heart but from the mouth that this discourse comes, that Reason dares to give him. But Love, locked up in his heart, urges him and invites him to get on the cart right away. Love wants it then he jumps at it; he is no longer afraid of shame, since it is the order and the will of love. (around 329-380)
Lancelot then becomes asocial in the name of the absolute love he has for the queen. The latter, during her meeting with Lancelot at the Château de Gorre, reproached her for this influence of reason on passionate madness. Coveted by Méléagant, Lancelot and, to a lesser extent by Gauvain, the queen is the subject of all attention. She is, therefore, the one who holds the reins of power. By her status as queen, Guinevere is the representation of the political power stolen from Arthur. If the king's court is the epicenter of courtly virtues, it is undeniable to see the queen as being truly at the head of the country of Logres, unofficial power certainly, but the most powerful. This characteristic trait of the queen is exacerbated when at the Noauz Tournament she asks Lancelot, then unrecognizable under unknown weapons, to joust "at best" and "at worst" according to her wishes. The knight, as a faithful and devoted lover, can only submit to his wishes:
“The queen called her maid of honor and said to her:go, miss, take your palfrey. I send you to the knight of yesterday and tell him only that he must still joust at worst. And when you have communicated this order to him, pay close attention to his response! She wasted no time, for she had noticed the direction he was heading the night before, not doubting that they would send her back to find him there. So she went through the ranks and finally found our knight. She immediately went discreetly to tell him to fight at worst if he wanted to keep the love and the good graces of the queen, because it was her watchword. And he, since she ordered it, answered:It is very well so! »
A demanding lover, Guinevere is an absolute lover. She is, in fact, the tyrannical mistress (tyrannos in Greek means master) of Lancelot:the position of the latter at Arthur's court is significant of the influence of the queen on him. Indeed, Lancelot is not really part of Arthur's court but is nevertheless the strongest support of the king. Auxiliary help, he does not lead his adventures in the name of the monarch but in the name of the queen, the only one who has the power of domination over him.
Consequently, Guinevere becomes in the eyes of Lancelot a real Grail:the parallel is not uninteresting. What is immediately striking is the magical or at least magical posture of the queen. She is the resurgence of the "phantom white" of the Nordic sagas:the whiteness of her complexion and the brilliance of her golden hair are to be compared to this fact. In addition, Guinevere seems to have the same characteristics as fairies:they usually appear near aquatic places. Lancelot finds the queen's comb with some of her hair on the edge of a fountain. Moreover, the couple she forms with him is identical to that which a fairy, such as Mélusine, forms with a man. This one is usually on a quest when he encounters one of these Otherworldly creatures. The fairy sets her sights on a man and promises him her total love on one condition which, from all points of view, is unachievable. This contractualization of the loving bond woven between the knight and the fairy illustrates this inadequate proportion of man and woman, human and divine, earthly and celestial. Guinevere made a contract with Lancelot identical to that of Melusine with her lover. Thus she is a figure from the Otherworld who gives Arthurian society a much more spiritual connotation that would otherwise be a pale reflection of twelfth-century society.
Thus, the original material of the Guinevere myth was transformed in a slow process that can be defined in three stages:first the writing down of the Norse, Welsh and Breton legends at the end of the ninth century, showing Guinevere as the mythical figure of sovereignty then by the courtesy of the texts at the beginning of the 12th century under the impulse of Eleanor of Aquitaine and his daughter Marie de Champagne, to end with a Christianization of the textual elements at the a time when the Church was extending both its political power and its cultural diffusion. It is obvious that Guinevere can be compared to the Holy Grail. First through the mediation of Lancelot who sees in his friend a true goddess following the crystallization of his love. The knight devotes a real cult to her, a pagan liturgy, not hesitating to kneel before her as a vassal would before his lord or the priest before the altar.[1] Guinevere is for Lancelot what the Grail is to Perceval or Gilead, that is to say the absolute object of the knightly quest. Each quest has common traits:it requires asceticism and patience in order to progress to a higher state. Lancelot must be perfect to be worthy of his lady, just like Perceval to become the guardian of the Grail. Nevertheless, the Christianization of the material will insert the characteristic of the hierarchy between the different quests. That of Guinevere is dedicated to the earthly and carnal sphere while that of the Grail is turned towards the celestial, spirituality and the divine. From then on, it is the sign of the end and the slow degradation that will undergo the Arthurian world which ends in apotheosis in La Mort le Roi Arthur.
An archetypal figure of the courtly lady, fairy, goddess, Guinevere is a multi-faceted character who illustrates the abundance of the medieval imagination. Idealized woman or fantasy crystallization of man's desires, she is the projection of carnal desire and spiritual aspirations.