Idylls of the King

a separation from his wife that committed adultery. The husband then had to sure his wife’s lover for a crime that is discreetly known as “criminal conversation.” If the husband wanted to re-marry after this then he had to go through an additional expensive process involving Parliament. Petzold uses gender-specific language because during the Victorian era, divorces almost always after this then he had to go through an additional expensive process involving Parliament. Petzold uses gender-specific language because during the Victorian era, divorces almost always involved and adulterous wife. However, it was publicly known that husbands committed adultery much more often than women. Also, it was believed that the reputation of a man who had committed adultery suffered far less than a woman who had committed adultery. Petzold continues to say that this double standard “was built into the system and it actually seemed unavoidable.” Even in 1857 when the Divorce Act was passed, the double standard still existed. Husbands had to prove that their wives committed adultery, of course, but wives could only obtain a divorce if they can prove that their husband’s adultery was “combined with incest, bigamy, rape, sodomy, bestiality, cruelty, or desertion for two years.” (Horstman, 70) Coincidently, Tennyson was writing his earlier idylls such of the likes of “Guinevere” in the same period when Parliament passed the Divorce Act and adultery was figured prominently in the newspapers. Never had so much adultery been paraded on such a public stage in a way likely to cause sensitive souls such like Tennyson some extreme distress. (Petzold) Tennyson uses allegory to expose these moral hypocrisies and double standard.

      Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot represents the moral decay in society and leads to the eventual destruction of Camelot. In “Guinevere,” Mordred catches Guinevere and Lancelot saying goodbye. The imagery of this scene foreshadows the eventual downfall. This... [continues]

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