Arthurian Continuity

When I think of King Arthur or Lancelot or Gawain, I have a fairly clear idea in my head of who they are to me. This is despite the fact that portrayals of them vary wildly from author to author, and sometimes even chapter to chapter in the same book. Mallory’s Arthur is both the young, giant slaying conqueror making all of Rome tremble, and the king who for the most part just sits and lets his knights go out adventuring in his name. These differences in Arthur’s character could be explained away by his aging and maturing, but there is simply no way to reconcile the Gawain from Gawain and the Green Knight with the one in Le Morte d’Arthur. These differences between portrayals of the same character should make definitive characterization impossible, yet I still have my general thoughts on who they all are.

While I said that I have an idea of the general template for each of the major characters in Arthuriana, I am also aware that other people reading the same texts as me could come up with an entirely different interpretation for every character. By reading enough stories, even ones that contradict each other, you can see a general sketch of who these people are. It will never fit exactly for any portrayal, and some might barely work at all, but I think it is interesting that by looking at all of the disparate portrayals of each character we all create an image and an idea of what that character means to us. It is our ideal representation of the character.

I also find this interesting because this is something that is also common in a very modern piece of pop-culture: the comic book. Any comic book character that has been around long enough has gone through so many iterations that none of them can be considered wholly definitive. But common threads and meanings eventually break through. Batman is a righteous crusader for justice, even if individual Batmen aren’t always portrayed that way. Similarly, Arthur is a just king whom all agree deserves universal respect, but there are Arthurs, such as in Erec and Enide, that are quite obviously not very good at being king, and make foolish decisions that everyone else has to deal with. These deviations from who they usually are add to the ever evolving meaning of who they actually are, without negating it. This allows Perceval to be both the son of Gahmuret and Pellinor, but he always seeks the Grail.

It is very cool that what seems like such a modern version of storytelling has been similarly in use for so long. It allows us to have a general idea of who all the players are when we go into a given Arthurian story, but also allows those expectations to be subverted to kept things fresh and exciting.

Arthur On Film

It seems so odd that there has yet to be a definitive portrayal of King Arthur in movies or TV. There is so much material to work with, and no shortage of ways it could be done. It could be a political drama like Elizabeth of Arthur consolidating his realm. It could be a love story between Lancelot and Guinevere, Erec and Enide or any of the many other couples. It could be an adventure film based on any of the romances. There are even some great possibilities for introspective character studies based on Gawain and the Green Knight or Silence.

Despite this, the closet we have to a classic Arthurian movie is Monty Python. I have no intention of calling that films brilliance into question, but it does not really tell an Arthurian story, so much as it shows a series of vaguely related sketches framed around the concept of King Arthur and the Grail. While it doesn’t quite fit the idea of what I mean by an Arthurian film masterpiece, it does illustrate a point professor Wenthe brought up in class. We seem to be unable to conceive of Arthur as anything but humorless and overly dramatic, or a parody of the that humorless drama. This means that outside of parodies of Arthur what we get is mainly over the top and cheesy. This might stem from the way the Arthurian classics are written. The old English and French verse, with discussions of honor and the nature of love, must make producers and writers think “stuffy” or “overly-dramatic” are the only correct feelings an Arthurian movie. Unless of course they are doing the “gritty realism” thing that has been so popular in films recently and you get the supposedly accurate Clive Owen King Arthur from 2004. In this instance the filmmakers abandoned the feel of previous Arthurian films, but they also abandoned most of what was true to the original story as well. Having King Arthur be a roman soldier might be the most hilariously nonsensical change I’ve ever seen in a movie. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too much longer before a script gets written by someone who appreciates the Arthurian legend enough to give it the respect it deserves.

My final thought on this is that a movie based around Sir Marrok, the Round Table Werewolf would set the record for most Academy Awards if there were any justice in the world.

The Real Merlin

Many of the characters in Arthurian legends are perceived differently in the popular mind than they are usually portrayed in the actual text. Most would not assume that Arthur generally does not go questing like his knights, and the degree to which Lancelot is sometimes used as a parody of knighthood and emphasis of brawn over brain was quite surprising to me. But more than any other character, I was surprised by what I read about Merlin.

Merlin’s name might be known even more widely than Arthur’s, and until Harry Potter burst onto the scene he was the go-to reference all things wizard related. He’s usually portrayed as a wise and considerate man, with an air of dignity and possibly a bit of an absent minded professor vibe. Besides his wisdom and knowledge of the mystical, this could not be more different than his portrayal in what we have read for this semester. Merlin’s wisdom is not the kind hearted wisdom of peace. His advice to put all of the infants born in May to death was chillingly Machiavellian. He clearly is not the kind of man who would advise anything but the most efficient solution to a problem, regardless of the morality questions in play.

Even when he is not being cold and calculating, he is usually animalistic. His feral appearances in The Life of Merlin and Silence are a far cry from the dignified robes and quiet mystery I always connected Merlin with in my head before this class. These appearances show his dark side in his prophecy as well, when he predicts what seems like an impossible, multiple death for a boy until it comes true. One wonders if he could have prevented the death by explaining his meaning but didn’t to prove his power. Or even worse, if his prophecies set into motion the events that led to the boy’s death. In Silence he seems to revel in displaying his power by cutting through the lies of the court. He unveils Silence’s deception, not caring if she wanted that or not.

All this said, I prefer this darker, more interesting Merlin to the generic wise old wizard figure I had been picturing all these years. This Merlin has some flavor and some depth. While I might find him slightly shady and a little disturbing, he is also one of my favorite characters from the semester, even though he doesn’t have nearly as much written about his as many other, less intriguing people.

Dialogue in The King

In reading Barthleme’s The King, the thing I found most striking was the overwhelming focus on dialogue. Up until now the focus has firmly been on the action. Characters speaking was less about them having a conversation, and more because it advanced the plot or clarified emotions and motivation. The way the knights and kings have spoken in previous works can be stilted and more declaratory than seems natural. Knights speak to air their grievances so there can be a fight, or to call for a truce so they can espouse philosophy on the nature of combat out of nowhere. Or sometimes they speak to give a long monologue expressing every emotion they have, not because it really makes sense for them to be saying all of these things, but because the reader needs to hear them. It was mostly a way of getting back to the description of what happened.

In The King, however, the dialogue has a natural flow. Descriptions of what is happening to the characters are the most bare bones I have ever seen. Only short, declarative, present tense sentences with no value judgements or interpretation by a narrator. Characters have their own voice, individualizing them in a far more intuitive way than previous Arthurian characterization. Their conversations do not seem like forced exposition, but like a natural and interesting way for two characters to speak. There is even actual flirting, trusting the reader to pick up on the attraction between the characters, instead of relying on an immediate, direct and poetic declarations of love. It is a refreshing change of pace to have at once a less definite interpretation of the characters, since we are never actually told anything about how they feel or think by the narrator, and a more nuanced portrayal of their personalities from the dialogue they have. From the deadpan moroseness of the Blue Knight, to the dry British unflappability of Kay, it was nice to have little character notes like these.

The King’s almost total reliance on dialogue over description would be striking no matter what, but in comparison to previous stories, it was particularly noticeable. This is not to say that the character development or dialogue in all the other Arthurian stories was bad, but that after so long reading in similar medieval style, it was nice to have a change of pace.

Gawain: Where's the Respect?

If there is one knight that I feel gets a bad rap, it’s Gawain. By the end of Le Morte d’Arthur, Gawain may have redeemed himself somewhat, but he has still sunk further than any other knight when you look at his former heights.

As early as The History of the Kings of Britain, Gawain is distinguishing himself as Arthurs greatest knight and one of his closest companions. And this might be part of the problem. Since he has started out so high, he has nowhere to go but down. Additionally, since he has already been established as a great warrior, he becomes the natural measuring stick to compare other characters against. The problem is that when a new knight needs to be quickly established as being of the highest caliber, that now means having him defeat Gawain. Since this is such an easy and effective narrative device, Chretien de Troyes made frequent use of it, and Gawain was just never the same afterwards. From then on it becomes impossible to take Gawain seriously as being part of the very highest order of knights. From there it was only a small step to making him the thoroughly unlikable knight of accidental beheadings and pointless grudges he is for most of Mallory.

This phenomenon is nothing unique to Gawain. TVTropes.com has named it “The Worf Effect” and given it an entire page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect) to enumerate its many appearances in literature and pop-culture. And maybe I’m just feeling biased towards liking Gawain more because it seems like he’s been with Arthur longer than almost anyone else. This might not be true in any given narrative, but in the meta-narrative of the creation of the Arthur mythos, Gawain has been there, and I feel like he deserves better than to simply be either the jerk or the measuring stick for other knights. He is an interesting figure who doesn’t always have the talent that knights like Lancelot or Galahad have, but has the capacity to be a far more interesting person, because he has to try where they don’t. Gawain and the Green Knight is probably the most inwardly focused story we read all semester, and shows much personal conflict. To me his history of sticking by Arthur and the fact that he isn’t always the most skilled knight but has the capacity to be among the bravest makes him a character that I feel many stories we have read wastes.

Lingering Thoughts on Morte DArthur

I thought it'd be best, now that we've come to the end of the class, to post something so that we could maybe share any lingering thoughts we may have on Malory's work. I think our conversations on Morte DArthur were cut short, something that I think was unavoidable considering the length and complexity of the text. We could have easily spent a semester on this behemoth.

I have to admit having a few lingering thoughts on Malory myself, specifically with his last chapter, The Deth of Arthur. I'm still bothered by the silence of Arthur during the battles between Lancelot and Gawayne. Arthur spends most of the battle weeping, fainting, or notably staying silent. This silence seems purposeful. Though I can't for the life of me settle on what purpose it serves. In a way it distances Arthur from the conflict, when he ought to have been in the middle of it all. Arthur is unable to forgive Lancelot, either because of Gawayne's insistence or his own desire. Perhaps his inability to vocalize forgiveness also strips from him the ability to speak at all. He does exchange words with the maiden sent by Lancelot and spends some time lamenting, but I think it's importance to make note of the difference here in that we're not just missing Arthur's presence or his voice like we have before, we are specifically told that while Arthur is bodily present he is mute. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has any insight into the section.

Something else that's been nagging at me pertains to the section in that final chapter when Gawayne learns of the deal of his brother Sir Gareth, and his other brother but whatever. Arthur instructs his men not to tell Gawayne of the death of his brothers, but someone does anyway. That someone is never named in the text, he's referred to simply as "the man." Considering Malory's passion for names--he does after all give us nearly all of the names of the bazillion of knights that are part of the Round Table at it's height--this seems odd. It's possible this is done to reflect the fact that Gawayne's murdered brothers were unarmed when Lancelot killed them, the knightly equivalent of going unnamed.

This was what was lingering in my mind after we finished discussing Malory in class. Anyone else have any unfinished thoughts or ponderings?

Perceval's got nothin' on Indiana Jones

I can't believe I've gone through the whole semester without referencing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade! What came over me? It's possible I was distracted by that other Grail film (Monty Python) and just plum forgot about Indy's own excursion with the Grail.

While in the process of doing research for my final projects, I stumbled on an article written by Susan Aronstein titled: "Not Exactly a Knight": Arthurian Narrative and Recuperative Politics in the "Indiana Jones" Trilogy. While the article didn't suit my final project, it was itself an interesting read, and one that I recommend for anyone else in the class who is still interested in the Grail and Indiana Jones. Which, I mean, who isn't?

The quote in Aronstein's title is from the film, when Indy addresses the knight guardian of the Grail, Indy explains that he himself is "not exactly" a knight. Aronstein points out that in being the one to pass all the tests and pick out the one true grail, Indy is in fact "not exactly" a knight, but in fact "the best knight in the world" (3). At this, the third in the trilogy, Indy has hit his stride as a knight of the world. If the Indiana Jones films are "tales of knighthood, modernizations of medieval chivalric romances" than in the penultimate chapter Indy has proven himself and earned the right to fulfill the quest for the Grail. The work of his Father, an academic whose first foray into a physical adventure ends in him getting kidnapped by Nazi's, was doomed from the get-go. Only Indy, who had ventured out into the Third World, that Artonstein says "becomes the forest of adventure," and by facing off against Nazis "hostile knights" can claim the grail on behalf of an America that "stands in for the Arthurian court" (2).

Aronstein views the three Indiana Jones films "as Arthurian saga" that together "comprise a typical chivalric vita" (4). The films follow Indy from his "interpellation into the Arthurian court, through his demonstration of that interpellation by such actions as rescuing maidens and annexing kingdoms, to his final turning to the spiritual values of the Grail quest" (4). Artonstein goes on to examine the ways in which viewing the Indiana Jones trilogy in such a way "clarifies the saga's political and ideological implications" (4). I won't make the effort to summarize the whole of her analysis here, I'll just again, insist that those of you with an interest in Indiana Jones to read this article. It's fascinating.

I wanted to end with a video of the Grail scene from The Last Crusade, but sadly, couldn't find it anywhere. Instead, I found this version of it, re-enacted with Legos. Which I think is actually, better.

Women? "Run away!"

I consider myself a fire-breathing feminist, so I’m trying to figure out why I’m so fascinated by Le Morte Darthur, which should send me into a fury of rants about sexism and social injustice. Maybe it’s because the role of medieval women (or at least Malory’s portrayal of it) is so antiquated, it seems useless to argue against it. It could also be because I’m letting the work do what it does best, which is examining the process of male identity construction; over-analyzing the obvious prejudice against women feels a bit like attacking Jaws for demonizing sharks. It’s just too easy. Mostly, though, the reason I’m so oddly forgiving of the oversimplified female characters is because I think it stems from medieval men’s complete and utter terror of women.

Many Arthurian women are associated with witchcraft and supernatural beings (Particularly Morgan and Nimue), which suggests that their actual human nature is intimidating to the men who deem them otherworldly. Because they don’t have the power to socially exert themselves, these women are forced to remain mysterious in their own culture. They’re either portrayed as tricksters whose sexuality lures men into traps, or as angelic beings whose purity is so unearthly, they can’t exist in the human world. (I’m thinking of Perceval’s sister and Elaine of Astolat, whose ridiculous amount of “goodness” proves to be a physical weakness in the world of men.)

The knights’ fierce loyalty to the brotherhood of the Round Table (which, as we’ve read many times in Le Morte Darthur, is valued over any relationship with women) almost seems like herd mentality as they band together against women and praise each other for their manliness. They’re so dedicated to perfecting their masculinity that femininity becomes foreign, and therefore, dangerous to the male-dominated society they’re attempting to construct.

Even Guinevere, who is praised for being a “true lover,” is lumped into the category of “other” because the compliment only refers to her relationships with Lancelot and Arthur -- it has nothing to do with her as an individual human being. She’s complimented for being one half of a couple. (Or two couples, as it were.) This belittling classification is a way of turning her into something inhuman that can be possessed, and therefore less of a threat to male superiority.

But there I go, getting on my feminist soap box...

Which Arthurian film do you want to see? (Poll)

Identity Construction is Hard, But It's No Excuse to Pick on Sir Kay

I’m about to say something not enough people say with regularity: I love Sir Kay. Ever since he evolved (or devolved) into the brat of the Round Table, he’s served as a voice for readers who find the self-righteousness of the other knights tiresome. Kay grounds Malory’s tales by representing the real-world skepticism of chivalric ideals. He’s also a hilarious and handy plot device, as we’ve seen in the stories of Lancelot and Gareth. It fills me with wrothe when the aforementioned knights use him to promote their own reputations, partly because their disrespect for him is a blow to the common man; when they disregard him, they elevate themselves further into the realm of unattainable knightly perfection.

Now I’m going to contradict myself for a second, because I don’t believe it was Malory’s intention to make Lancelot’s interaction with Kay seem demeaning. I think when Lancelot rescues him from the three pursuing knights, it’s supposed to be a reflection of Lancelot’s selflessness. After all, their armor swap allows Kay to travel safely, and in theory, Lancelot’s donning of Kay’s armor and winning several jousts with it can knock Kay’s reputation up a notch. However, since nearly everyone realizes it’s not Kay who’s fighting, I’m left wondering what Lancelot’s motives are for disguising himself as Kay, of all people.

The only explanation I can come up with has to do with Arthurian knights’ almost maniacal desperation for adventure. Lancelot’s (and later, Gareth’s, when he fights with Kay’s shield) decision to temporarily fool people into thinking he’s the worst knight in Arthur’s court seems to be evidence of the slightly self-destructive quality of self-promotion. He, along with other knights who have dedicated themselves to chivalry, will never be satisfied with the amount of glory associated with his name, so he’s constantly searching for ways to make his achievements more difficult. It seems that Lancelot’s Kay-disguise is merely a challenge to himself – and an element of amusement to keep himself from getting bored with winning all the time.

This is also the only reason I can think of for the Arthurian trend of hiding one’s identity. This is what all the cool kids do in Gareth’s tale, and though its main function seems to be plot development, I think it’s also another sign of knights’ desire to make things more difficult for themselves in order to justify their accomplishments. Their life’s work is constructing reputations for themselves, so their names are powerful signifiers of their worth. So much so, in fact, that the knights who hide their names seem to be conflicted between their self-identity and their courtly identity, which they try to reconcile by disassociating themselves from the names they’ve built their reputations on, and testing their prowess without them. It’s as though their relentless search for adventure is a reflection of their relentless search for identity.

Or maybe they’re jealous of Kay’s wit and secretly want to be just like him.

To Speak or Not to Speak?

Historic change to rule of succession finally gives equality to women

Hey, look at that -- someone decided King Evan messed up!

I’m sure this decision is the result of extensive meetings, votes, paperwork, and tea drinking, because the number of voices that need to be addressed in 2011 is large. Women were involved in the decision-making too, which is in direct contrast to their level of involvement in the decree Evan passed.

The power of the males in Silence is audible. With a sentence, King Evan took away the rights women, and Cador banished all the minstrels in the land. Their words are potent enough to alter the fabric of society, which is too bad, because they’re usually spoken impulsively -- the men make bad decisions in obedience to Nature.

So far (halfway through the poem), I can’t tell if having a voice is something women should be rewarded for in the author’s opinion. The only time a woman says something that has the same lasting effects as the men’s words is when Cador’s cousin announces that Silence is a boy. Not only is this a lie, but it’s not even stated in her own words -- they’re Cador’s words coming out of her mouth. Because she’s not speaking naturally, her own voice is basically still silent. This might be beneficial to Silence if she’s able to inherit her parents’ land, so it seems like her silence is to be applauded.

When Silence sings (beautifully, apparently) she’s punished for it by the minstrels who want to kill her. While everyone else may enjoy it, it’s dangerous to Silence. It would appear that the author is saying, again, that vocality equals trouble.

The only vocal females are the abstractions (Nature, Nurture, and Reason), and their voices are generally just banter. They tend to muddle together until they become noise, sort of canceling each other out. Their words are ineffective (on the characters, not the narrative itself), and the men’s words aren’t well thought-out. So from the author’s point of view, is it “bad” to speak?

The Fisher King Serial Killer

So I like to 'switch off' sometimes on the weekends, don't we all, but watching a great deal of mindless television. Marathons of procedural shows are great for this kind of thing, dedicating eight hour blocks to Law & Order reruns is the greatest thing TNT ever did.

This past weekend I swapped Law & Order for Criminal Minds on A&E. If you've never seen it, it's a totally unrealistic, but really satisfying, show about the FBI Behavorial Analysis Unit. They hunt down serial killers! Think of it as The Clarece Starling show. So, imagine my surprise when one of the episodes, actually a two-parter, involves a man who sends teasing quotes to the FBI citing a plethora of Arthuriana. Specifically, he referred mostly to the story of the Fisher King. The killer himself is physically scarred places himself in the role of the Fisher King. In this retelling the grail that he insists belongs to him is, actually, a girl he had abducted and chained in the basement. Isn't it always so?

The most interesting aspect of this modern retelling of the Fisher King was that seemed to be, to a degree, an emphasis on instruction and knowledge. The youngest of the FBI Agents is referred to by the murderer as Perceval. He is told that he has the key to finding the grail. The clue that would lead to the abducted girl is squirreled away by the serial killer with, get this, the Agent's mother. The Agent's former Lit professor mother who used to read Arthuriana out loud to the Agent when he was just a little Agent. I find it interesting that I spent so much time harping on the abandonment of knowledge bestowed by the mother to Perceval in Chretien's telling of the story only to find this episode of Criminal Minds where, seemingly, a reversal takes place. An emphasis is placed on the Agent, this story's Perceval, returning to his mother and her teachings in order to solve the case and succeed in finding the abducted girl.

I wanted to include here a clip of the episode, but youtube has disabled embedding for this video. So, if you're interested at all in seeing a clip, follow this link to the climax of the episode, a scene where our FBI Agent/Perceval confronts the murderer/Fisher King.

The Education of Perceval

Although we’ve now moved on from Chretien’s story of the grail and Perceval, I had some lingering questions about his story that I thought I may as well address here, if anything just to get them off my mind so that I can focus on our new grail story.

Chretien’s story of Perceval really seemed to me to be a story focused on knowledge and education. It’s clear from the beginning, and Perceval’s first few monologues, that Perceval’s main source for information in life up to that point has been his mother. “My lady mother spoke the truth,” “my mother did not lie to me” (383) and “my mother herself said that one must” all collectively tell us this. It’s when Perceval begins to seek knowledge from others, beginning with that passing knight who, though he finds Perceval annoying still proclaims “before I leave I’ll tell him everything he wants to know”, that Perceval’s worldview begins to widen and with it comes his desire to venture away from the realm of his mother and her teachings.

Initially this distancing from his mother’s knowledge seems to be a good thing. His mother’s teachings are in a rather round about way declared inadequate by King Arthur when he, in reference to Perceval says that “though the boy is naïve, still he may be of very noble line; and if his folly has come from poor teaching, because he had a low-bred master, he can still prove brave and wise” (393). The only master the boy ever had was his mother, so she must be the low-bred failure of a teacher that produced an ill-educated Perceval. Even though Gornemant at first praises Perceval’s education, “blessed be your mother, for she advised you well” (398), at the end of his own instruction of Perceval he changed his tune and warns Perceval to “never again claim, dear brother, […] that your mother taught or instructed you.” His reasoning behind warning Perceval being that should he “continue to say that, people will take you for a fool.” So, though intitially Gornemant said that Perceval should swear to “believe your mother’s advice and mine,” (399) he later changes that to, ‘no, really, actually, just mine, forget Mom.’

I have trouble reconciling this replacement of mentors and knowledge with what happens in the narrative. If Perceval hadn’t cast aside the teachings of his mother, do we think he would have been more likely to ask the right question when he saw the Fisher King and the grail? The Perceval who is a knight holds his tongue for fear of insulting the Fisher King. The Perceval who was an overly inquisitive boy surely wouldn’t have kept silent. I question whether this is saying that the more naturally acquired parental knowledge ought to be privledged over the later chivalric knowledge—rather perhaps, the answer is that one ought not to abandon one completely for the other but achieve some sort of balance? No one can deny that Perceval is a better knight for having learned from Gornemant. Then again, even Gornemant in the text at one point isn’t given total credit for creating, through his teachings, Perceval as brilliant knight. Perceval is described as almost a natural talent, “he began to carry the lance and shield as properly as if throughout his life he had frequented the tournaments, for it came naturally to him; and since Nature was his teacher and his heart was set upon it, nothing for which Nature and his heart strove could be difficult” (399-400). Nature is the teacher here, not Gornemant. Is Nature a reference back to the mother? Or is Perceval ultimately his own creator? He is as we discussed in class, a self-made man, at least when we compare him to Gawain.

Really I suppose it’s a miracle that Perceval learned anything, since he never seems to be listening to any of his ‘teachers’ in the text. He “paid scarcely any attention to what his mother said” (387) and “did not give a fig for anything the king told him.”

So, what do we make of the education of Perceval?

"Camelot! (It's only a model...)"

I’m going to write about characterization one more time before I move on to something more original. I sort of love (and sort of hate) Chretien’s larger-than-life adventurers because of their predictability. I’m not claiming to have expected Yvain to save a lion from a dragon, or Gawain to be attacked for wanting to lie on a cursed bed, but the narratives are very formulaic in structure, as are the knights. We know our protagonists are going to be victorious in battle, that they’ll get the ladies, and that they’ll do all of it in accordance to Chretien’s sense of morality. We also know whichever knight we’re following is going to be the best at what he does, which is the Chretienism that I find the most annoying and oddly intriguing.

As I said before, I think the romances are instructional, working like fables to influence the reader’s social behavior and to impart a specific code of ethics. Accordingly, the characters serve as embodiments of abstract qualities such as strength, bravery, cowardice, or pride in order to expand the tale from “a day in the life” to “a day in the life of humanity.” It’s as though Chretien purposely adds incredulity to his stories to draw the reader’s attention away from individual characters and direct it toward the immensity of their deeds and the consequences that follow. It’s his way of demonstrating the rewards of adhering to specific codes of conduct; to underline their importance, he makes each action extreme.

The grey areas are particularly interesting, like Lancelot’s affair with the queen. Chretien doesn’t punish either lover for their sins, which is almost the same as rewarding them for it. (I say “almost” because in the end, Guinevere’s still married to Arthur -- not Lancelot.) Even though he makes it a point to put Lancelot on a cart, the knight isn’t humiliated by the experience; everyone he encounters finds it humiliating, but he’s so focused on finding Guinevere, it doesn’t affect him. Chretien then shows us how great of a fighter Lancelot is, and how noble, putting the emphasis on this desired behavior rather than the adultery, which, oddly enough, serves as a vehicle for chivalry.

Perceval’s story is interesting too, because it isn’t quite as predictable. Chretien gives his reader a knight-in-the-making, who’s less than perfect and completely human. (At least at first.) Because Perceval’s is a story of education, he’s allowed to break the typical knightly mold and not be entirely archetypal. However, the author makes Perceval’s learning period notably awkward and uncomfortable, which guarantees the reader’s anticipation of his eventual success. What makes this story unique is that his prowess is learned and gradual. In the end, though, Perceval is basically the same character as every other knight in the Romances, and represents the same ideals.

Chretien doesn’t hide his desire to instruct his reader. He’s constantly incorporating words of wisdom into his work, like “Wretched is the man who sees that the propitious hour has come but waits for a still better one” (438), or “Words that are not understood by the heart are lost completely” (297). These little gems may as well be preceded by “I’m talking to you, reader! Yes, you, holding this book!”

I think I understand Chretien’s intentions, but I have a hard time putting them into a modern context. What does he expect his reader to walk away with after reading his manual of manners? How timeless are his values? I’m also struggling to define his ultimate motive in writing these romances, because the readers he had in mind and the readers of 2011 have such different values and mindsets. Am I right in assuming the tales are meant to be social models, or am I taking them too seriously?

Strangers of the Round Table

If you asked me what Arthur looked like (or Guinevere, or any of the knights), I’d only be able to describe him in pieces: his armor, his crown, his posture. Even then, I’d have to generalize. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what color of hair he had, or how tall he was, if he had a beard, or what his voice sounded like, because none of that seems to matter in Arthurian legends; the stories tend to outsize the people they’re about.

The writers of older texts appear to put more care and effort into what their characters represent, rather than exploring their individuality. As a modern reader, I expect to “know” literary characters inside and out, but this type of intimacy is missing from the early accounts of Arthur; the narratives demand a completely different relationship between text and reader, and establish a unique method of engagement between the two.

The classic characters in these legends (the noble knights, the pure maidens, and of course, the deceptive lords and promiscuous ladies) are mostly archetypes. Contemporary readers have been trained to evaluate characters’ psychological motives based on their quirks and thought processes, which grant them accessibility. When writers value actions over reasons, the characters become much more distant than what we’re used to these days, forcing us to examine the ideas of the characters more than the characters themselves. In terms of reader engagement, I’m not sure if this provides more opportunity for identification than contemporary texts, or less.

Though the internal monologues of “Cliges” offer insight into the characters’ emotions, we’re still denied the details of their everyday existence; we never get a real sense of who they are, but I suppose that’s the point. The story isn’t about Cliges -- it’s about the ideas of love and devotion, and their various levels of meaning. By keeping the characters slightly out of reach, Chretien asks that we shift our attention from the people in the story to the emotions that govern them.

What little physical descriptions we get (beyond the vague “beauty” of the central characters) are based on the segmentation of physical attributes. Soredamors and Alexander, for instance, constantly think of their eyes and hearts as organs that have betrayed them. Soredamors calls her eyes “traitors,” and curses her tongue for not obeying her heart. The lovers are mostly presented in pieces, which emphasizes the author’s elevation of abstraction over physicality. Chretien also refers to love and largess as “him” and “her,” to underline their significance.

Alexander and Soredamors are ruled by love, so much so that they physically suffer from it. They’re only able to recognize themselves as wholes when the queen unites them with each other. After she does this, Chretien writes, “Thus [Soredamors] had what was hers, and [Alexander] what was his; she was his entirely, and he entirely hers” (151).

As a reader of contemporary fiction, it’s sometimes hard for me to respect the type of characters in the legends we’ve been discussing because I don’t see them as authentic. (Though I realize they would have seemed novel at the time the tales were first published.) They appear to serve only as instruments of instruction. I appreciate the writerly intentions, but I can’t say it makes for pleasurable reading. Maybe it’s a generational difference in taste? Or a cultural difference in values? Or maybe it’s just me...

Once and Future

I want to talk about time as it works in the Arthurian Legends we have read, how it may come to work in the Legends we will read, and what we may hope to make of that, if anything. I think there’s something seemingly circuitous at work in regard to time, or, at least, I get a sense of it in Monmouth. In the introduction we are told that Merlin’s prophecies were so intriguing to Geoffrey’s Medieval readers because they “first and foremost, imply the idea that the future is, in some sense, pre-existent, and that its patterns are knowable by human beings” (25). I’d argue interest in the future as pre-existent and understandable to human beings is something that still rings rather true today a la Madame Marie in Springsteen’s ‘Sandy.’ Where the present and the future starts to become part of something that isn’t linear so much as cyclical, is when Arthur, the Boar of Cornwall is referenced in the same prophecy as “the House of Romulus” (131). The House of Romulus meaning Rome. Arthur, as a Briton, is a descendent of the first proclaimed Briton and leader of the Britons who was a Roman in exile. By referencing Arthur and then the House of Romulus, which Arthur is however diluted, somehow a part of, there begins to be a sense of things folding back into themselves in the “snake eating its own tail” sort of way. The prophecies continue with reference to renewal with women turning “continually into serpents” and the “campus of Venus” being “renewed” (135).

Several important events in Uther, and then Arthur’s, lives happen around Christian holidays that highlight renewal. Uther’s coronation is at Easter. Arthur’s is near Pentecost. Uther, Aurelius Ambrosias and Constantine are all buried within the Ring of the Giants, a pagan symbol that is a circle—okay, renewal theme might be a stretch there, but I’m just trying to open it up for discussion. Is this where the seeds are planted that later become the theme of Arthur being the “Once and Future” King? The Britons lose the land, but are told they will “regain the island […] after the predestined time had passed” (216), suggesting a return to the glory they once held that has not so much ended with the death of Arthur as it has gone into slumber with him. This is perhaps more in line with what was discussed in the intro to Marie de France, where the death of the nightingale is mentioned as symbolizing in the poem not “the end of love, only of the idyll.” There is no end to Arthur, or what he symbolizes, only an end to that moment in time of his rule, and from there is born the hope of the Britons regaining control of their lands and their former glory with the return of Arthur.

And okay, this second thing doesn’t fit with my theme of time, but it had me wondering what we make of the moment of the lake with the weird fish in Geoffrey’s Kings of Britain when compared to the treatment of Marie de France’s lovers and society as described in the intro?

The weird square lake is an interesting moment; one I don’t completely know what to do with. “No one knew whether” the lake had “been shaped by nature of by the craft of men” and in the lake there are “four different kinds of fish in its four corners, and the fish from one corner never mingled with the fish from the others” (169). The knee-jerk reading is to look at this as a statement discouraging racial intermingling amongst what I assume would be the Britons, the Pics, the Scots and the Saxons. Which, upon consideration, becomes insane. When you consider the history of the collective peoples in the History of the Kings of Britain, and the number of times one conquered another only to invade another and be invaded by yet another, you realize the purity of any given collection of people was compromised years ago. Should this moment of the lake, with the four different fish, be read in the obvious way? Or as some kind of weird throw away by Geoffrey? What do you make of it? What do you make of it, too, when considering Marie, who concentrated “on the individuality of her characters” and as such was “not very concerned with their integration into society.” The major appeal to the Arthurian Legend, to me at least, always seemed to be Arthur’s ability to draw his people to him, to create unity. Then again, Arthur is himself such an amazing character that complete unity is impossible, he will always stand out from his people and even the smaller circle of his knights.

Welcome and Protocols for Posting

Welcome to the online forum for continuing and extending the conversations and investigations conducted in the classroom for LIT 360/660.01: Arthurian Legends, a course in the Department of Literature at American University in Washington, DC. I hope that this blog will enable all participants in the course to follow their individual Arthurian interests outside our time together in class while still benefiting from the support and critiques of their classmates. For that to happen, we'll need to cultivate a spirit of fellowship and shared enterprise that involves active reading and commenting on each other's posts as well as dedicated creation of our own posts. If our class is to emulate the Arthurian ideal in any way, let it be in the beneficial spirit of shared values that animate and give meaning to our more solitary pursuits (even if those pursuits are scholarly and artistic rather than martial or chivalric).

Ideally, an entry posted to this blog should both record an interesting thought on the part of its author and strive to provoke further thought on the part of its readers. An entry should be clear and concise, and when appropriate it should make use of the Web-based resources available to blogs (for example, links to specific other pages under discussion or to sites hosting texts or forums of interest, and images or clips that illustrate relevant points of interest).

Posts can vary in length. A paragraph can suffice, provided it offers a complete idea or raises an interesting problem in a fully intelligible way. But a post may also constitute a brief essay in itself, if you are moved to pursue the thread of a particularly interesting topic. Given the screen-based interface, however, you should avoid posting lengthy entries that would require scrolling down for more than a few screens. If you want to sustain an argument that's longer than that, you should really break it down into a series of separate posts. That will both ease readability and help to ensure that comments are focused on discrete points of interest.

As for the topics of your posts, all I ask is that they relate to the subject of our course. How they relate is up to you! You may choose to write a response to a current text under discussion, or you may prefer to continue an argument about a broader theoretical approach. You may also use this space to solicit feedback on your own research interests, or to explore other aspects of our topic that couldn't fit into our syllabus or in-class discussion. Reviews and recommendations of other texts (including articles and books of criticism) are also appropriate, but make sure to avoid mere plot summary or paraphrase—give your readers a sense of the work's value and tackle its claims.

The main purpose of these blog entries is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information among participants in our class. The exchange can be as lively and as wide-ranging as you want it to be, as focused and as deeply-considered as you can make it, though it should always remain respectful and thoughtful, even at moments of disagreement or in attempts at humor (Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of the best Arthurian films ever in part because it's so knowledgeable about the material it's spoofing). I expect that we'll all learn what posts work best by simply continuing to post, read, and comment regularly. I look forward to following the progress of our blog!