Guinevere in the context of "Thomas Malory"

Idylls of the King, published between 1859 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892; Poet Laureate from 1850) which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom.

The whole work recounts Arthur's attempt and failure to lift up mankind and create a perfect kingdom, from his coming to power to his death at the hands of the traitor Mordred. Individual poems detail the deeds of various knights, including Lancelot, Geraint, Galahad, and Balin and Balan, and also Merlin and the Lady of the Lake. There is little transition between idylls, but the central figure of Arthur links all the stories. The poems were dedicated to the late Albert, Prince Consort.

Mordred or Modred (/ˈmɔːrdrɛd/ or /ˈmoʊdrɛd/; Welsh: Medraut or Medrawt) is a major figure in the legend of King Arthur. The earliest known mention of a possibly historical Medraut is in the Welsh chronicle Annales Cambriae, wherein he and Arthur are ambiguously associated with the Battle of Camlann in a brief entry for the year 537. Medraut's figure seemed to have been regarded positively in the early Welsh tradition and may have been related to that of Arthur's son. As Modredus, Mordred was depicted as Arthur's traitorous nephew and a legitimate son of King Lot in the pseudo-historical work Historia Regum Britanniae, which then served as the basis for the subsequent evolution of the legend from the 12th century. Later variants most often characterised Mordred as Arthur's villainous bastard son, born of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, the queen of Lothian or Orkney named either Anna, Orcades, or Morgause. The accounts presented in the Historia and most other versions include Mordred's death at Camlann, typically in a final duel, during which he manages to mortally wound his own slayer, Arthur. Mordred is usually a brother or half-brother to Gawain; however, his other family relations, as well as his relationships with Arthur's wife Guinevere, vary greatly.

In a popular telling, originating from the French chivalric romances of the 13th century and made prominent today through its inclusion in Le Morte d'Arthur, Mordred is a power-hungry son of Arthur from the incest with Morgause, prophesied by Merlin and destined to bring Britain to ruin. He survives Arthur's attempt to get rid of him soon after his birth and, years later, joins his half-brothers Gawain, Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth in Arthur's fellowship of the Round Table as a young and immoral knight. Eventually, Mordred learns of his true parentage and becomes the main actor in Arthur's downfall. He helps Agravain to expose the illicit love affair between Guinevere and Lancelot and then takes advantage of the resulting civil war to make himself the high king of Britain, ultimately leading to both his own and Arthur's deaths in their battle. Today, he remains an iconic character in many modern adaptations of Arthurian legend, in which he usually appears as a villain and the archenemy of Arthur.

Lancelot du Lac (French for Lancelot of the Lake), alternatively written as Launcelot and other variants, is a popular character in the Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition. He is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table, as well as a secret lover of Arthur's wife, Guinevere.

In his most prominent and complete depiction, Lancelot is a beautiful orphaned son of King Ban of the lost kingdom of Benoïc. He is raised in a fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake while unaware of his real parentage prior to joining Arthur's court as a young knight and discovering his origins. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot soon becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Queen Guinevere, to whom he is devoted absolutely. He also develops a close relationship with Galehaut and suffers from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of violent rage and other forms of madness. After Lady Elaine seduces him using magic, their son Galahad, devoid of his father's flaws of character, becomes the perfect knight that succeeds in completing the greatest of all quests, achieving the Holy Grail when Lancelot himself fails due to his sins. Eventually, when Lancelot's adulterous affair with Guinevere is publicly discovered, it develops into a bloody civil war that, once exploited by Mordred, brings an end to Arthur's kingdom.

Le Morte d'Arthur (originally written as le morte Darthur; Anglo-Norman French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose compilation and reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore, including the quest for the Holy Grail and the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory put together, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the Arthurian legend have used Malory as their principal source.

Apparently written in prison at the end of the medieval English era, Le Morte d'Arthur was completed by Malory around 1470 and was first published in a printed edition in 1485 by William Caxton. Until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934, the 1485 edition was considered the earliest known text of Le Morte d'Arthur and that closest to Malory's original version. Modern editions under myriad titles are variable, changing spelling, grammar and pronouns for the convenience of readers of modern English, as well as often abridging or revising the material.

Dame Julie Andrews (born Julia Elizabeth Wells; 1 October 1935) is an English actress, singer, and author. She has garnered numerous accolades throughout her career, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, three Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards, and seven Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for three Tony Awards. One of the biggest box office draws of the 1960s, Andrews has been honoured with the Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2007, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2022. She was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2000 New Year Honours.

A child actress and singer, Andrews appeared in the West End in 1948 and from 1950 to 1952 on the radio programme "Educating Archie" in which she played Archie's girlfriend [1]. She made her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend (1954). Billed as "Britain's youngest prima donna", she rose to prominence in Broadway musicals starring as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1956) and Queen Guinevere in Camelot (1960). She also starred in the Rodgers and Hammerstein television musical Cinderella (1957). She made her film debut playing the title role in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964) and won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The following year, she starred in the musical film The Sound of Music (1965), playing Maria von Trapp and winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

Agravain or Agravaine (/ˈæɡrəveɪn/ AG-rə-vain) is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, whose first known appearance is in the works of Chrétien de Troyes. He is the second eldest son of King Lot of Orkney with one of King Arthur's sisters known as Anna or Morgause, thus nephew of King Arthur, and brother to Sir Gawain, Gaheris, and Gareth, as well as half-brother to Mordred.

Agravain secretly makes attempts on the life of his hated brother Gaheris starting in the Vulgate Cycle, participates in the slayings of Lamorak and Palamedes in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and murders Dinadan in the Prose Tristan. In the French prose cycle tradition included in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, together with Mordred, he then plays a leading role by exposing his aunt Guinevere's affair with Lancelot, which leads to his death at Lancelot's hand.

The Lancelot-Grail Cycle, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an influential 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle of unknown authorship written in Old French. Consisting of a series of interconnected prose episodes, it is a lengthy faux chronicle-style chivalric romance that retells the legend of King Arthur while focusing on the character of Merlin, the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, and the religious quest for the Holy Grail. Expanding on Robert de Boron's "Little Grail Cycle" and the poems of Chrétien de Troyes, the work ties their previously unrelated and disparate stories together into a coherent single tale and supplements them with new material, such as additional details, original characters, and side stories. It also features an ending inspired by the Arthurian chronicle tradition by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

There is no unity of time and place within the plot, but most of the episodes take place in Arthur's British kingdom of Logres. One of the main characters is Arthur, around whom gravitates many other heroes, including the Knights of the Round Table. The chief of them is Lancelot, whose chivalric tale is centered around his illicit romance with Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere. However, the cycle also tells of adventures of a more spiritual type, featuring the Round Table's search for the Holy Grail (the vessel that contained the blood of Christ), until Lancelot's son Galahad ultimately retrieves it. Other major plot-lines include the accounts of the life of Merlin and of the rise and fall of Arthur.