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...