The photographs:
Idylls and Fancy Subjects
Julia Margaret CAMERON
British, 1815–79
Queen Guinevere and the Little Novice, 1874
From Idylls of the King and Other Poems, volume I, plate XI
albumen silver photograph
35.0 x 45.0 cm
The Wilson Centre for Photography
96:5406:03
The text that accompanies this photograph is from Guinevere published in
1859. It is the eleventh book of Tennyson's Idylls of the King. The
photograph illustrates a scene from the beginning of the poem in the
aftermath of the relationship between Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. Here
Cameron has chosen to depict an obscure scene between the reclusive Queen and
the 'babbling' novice as opposed to one of the grand or heroic events from
the Arthurian legend.
"So the stately Queen abode
For many a week, unknown, among the nuns;
Nor with them mix'd, nor told her name, nor sought,
Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shrift,
But communed only with the little maid,
Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness
Which often lured her from herself."
The model for Guinevere is Mrs Hardinge. The model for the little
novice is not known.
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