Arthuriana for the ‘Fair Sex’: Gender Politics and the Reception of Romance

Abstract

In the Romantic period, Arthurian material was bowdlerised, repackaged, and reframed for female readers on a new scale and across a variety of print media. This chapter introduces a new portrait of Guinevere in The Lady’s Magazine to illustrate how the myth was reshaped for moralising purposes and to fit eighteenth-century models of sensibility. Clara Reeve and Susannah Dobson’s early attempts to promote Arthurian romance to female readers demonstrate how Arthurian material was considered to be outside the boundaries of acceptable female knowledge. Particular attention is given to a selection of Thomas Percy’s Arthurian ballads produced for young women, while the closing discussion examines how contemporary gender debates influenced the marketing of Romantic editions of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur.