Chapter 13

Summary and Notes

The setting returns to Camelot, where we find Guenever sewing in her room. The author begins an analysis about Guenever, and how, now that she is 22, she has reached some level of maturity.

He introduces an idea called the “seventh sense,” by which he means knowledge of the world. White writes that this knowledge is acquired only through experience, and Guenever was beginning to have that in her twenties, but has not acquired maturity fully. He compares her to Elaine, who is still a child.

White writes, interestingly: “It is difficult to imagine her.” This line sums up the psychoanalyses that he ahs been performing on his characters in Book Three. It is difficult to imagine a character as overdetermined as Guenever, and yet White perseveres, and that makes this re-telling of the Arthurian legends unique and singularly un-medieveal.

Guenever sings a song for Lancelot, and mid-song, Lancelot arrives like a bullet; he and Guenever fall into each otherÂ’s arms, and make love.

LancelotÂ’s loss of purity with Elaine makes him able to consummate his love with the Queen, although he does not tell her that at this point. He has freed himself from the harrowing discipline of his training and that freedom has allowed him to love as any human would.

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