Set in “a summer cottage in Camelot, Maine” in 1916, King Arthur’s Socks concerns Guenevere and Lancelot, a couple in love with each other, but, because both are married to others, must fight the impulse to “act upon their amorous inclinations.” However, Guenevere subsequently learns that Lancelot has also caused two other women, her friend Vivien and her servant Mary, to fall in love with him. They each come to Guenevere to reveal their secret, not knowing that she is in love with Lancelot herself. Confronted by the truth, Guenevere and Lancelot begin a debate around men and women’s attitudes towards sex and infidelity. Although the couple almost give in to their passion one last time, Lancelot leaves and Guenevere returns to her chair to “and quietly resumes the darning of her husband’s socks.”
Floyd Dell’s one-act play offers a fun examination of marital fidelity versus amorous spontaneity, touching upon the debates surrounding marriage, tradition, and free love in Greenwich Village during the 1920s.
King Arthur's Socks guide sections
