Women and Arthurian literature

This is the first full-length study to explore the roles of women in Arthurian literature, from the medieval period, through the Renaissance and Victorian ages, to contemporary fiction. Covering the key Arthurian texts, such as Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Malory's Morte Darthur, Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Tennyson's Idylls, it also investigates the less well-known works by women, Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion, Julia Margaret Cameron's illustrations to Tennyson's works and, finally, the Arthurian women writers of the twentieth century, Mary Stewart, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Jane Yolen. The relationships between men and women, the Arthurian knights and ladies, are discussed to discover whether female identity was inevitably circumscribed by the romances, or whether the writing interacted with historical conditions to produce several alternative roles. Ultimately, Marion Wynne-Davies asks whether it has ever been possible for women to write Arthurian literature and so to 'seize the sword'.