Citation

Nesse MH. Hum. Nat. 1995; 6(2): 145-163.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/BF02734176

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines four retellings of the Arthurian legend of Guinevere and Lancelot from a bio-evolutionary perspective. The historical and social conditions which provide contexts for the retellings are described, and those conditions are related to underlying male and female reproductive strategies. Since the authors of the selected texts, Chrétien de Troyes, Thomas Malory, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and William Morris, are all male, the assumption is made that these versions of the legend reflect male reproductive preoccupations and encode male attitudes toward femaleness in general and toward female adultery in particular.

Language: en