The Mists of Avalon | Social Concerns

The Mists of Avalon Social Concerns

Arthurian legend, perhaps more so than any other long-lasting myth spawned in the Middle Ages, has adopted the medieval attitude toward sexuality and religion as an integral part of the stories themselves. After all, Camelot falls in the end due to Arthur's participation in what Christians would call the most diabolic sin— incest. Mordred, conceived incestuously by Morgaine and Arthur, must come back to destroy the golden city. A land ruled by a king with such a grave sin on his conscience cannot possibly survive; Camelot cannot survive because the sins of its king have become the sins of the land (the notion of the land carrying the sins of its king is also seen in Tennyson's Idylls of the King and the Fisher King stories of this century). Marion Zimmer Bradley's feminist publication The Mists of Avalon introduces Camelot to its reader by recreating the female characters associated with...
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