Since my knowledge of King Arthur et al. was --until this past weekend-- limited to watching Disney’s The Sword in the Stone when I was a child and a movie here and there in the interim, I thought it be wise to read Lancelot of the Lake before classes started. It was very helpful because it gave me a panoramic view of the Arthurian landscape, cleared up misconceptions and sparked some ideas that I hope might be helpful.
Before I read it I already knew about the Lancelot/Guinevere affair but I was very disconcerted when I read Arthur had one as well. I thought Arthur was exemplary in all ways, but as Dr. Wenthe pointed out in class, knights’ behavior leaves much to be desired (or something along those lines). In Lancelot you can see more episodes of Arthur as weakling/passive/insecure, and Queen Guinevere as scheming. Again, I was very taken aback by this as I had the preconceived idea that they would be, in general, idealistic stories and characters. Connected to this is the fact that the characters were so pious, constantly making reference to God, and of course, this text being read by a mostly Catholic audience (I suspect). It was strange that their honorability did not extend to their love lives.
This and other ideas generated by Lancelot, to be explored:
1- The state of Catholic Church in the 13th century (when Lancelot of the Lake was written) or in the 12th century in the case of Marie de France’s Lanval. How much were these stories a reflection of the times? Were they escape or mirror?
2- How were marriage/love/adultery viewed/experienced in the late Middle Ages? Arthur’s relationship with Guinevere seems more of a partnership than a love story, and Arthur doesn’t react to Guinevere’s thing with Lancelot (at least in this text). As the introduction to Lanval says Marie de France wrote both of adulterous and non-adulterous relationships. Who was reading these texts? Was Marie’s aristocratic audience (pg. 34) the same as Lancelot's author?
3- The importance of names: ignoring a name, changing name, withholding names, using descriptions to refer to people (descriptions that are preserved through an excellent network of word-of-mouth communication, such as “the knight who was victorious at the encounter”, the “White Knight”, etc. )
4- Information as currency. People get things done and obtain information through oaths to each other.
5- Extreme emotionality of some scenes. Characters fainting at any suggestion of tragedy and actually dying of sorrow.
6- Lancelot was raised in a lake but I missed how life was like in the depths of the lake, on the banks or on surface (???).
I’d also like to direct you to pages 51-57 where there is a very good description of what a knight should do and is expected of him
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ReplyDeleteYou can find "Lancelot of the Lake" (Oxford) in googlebooks.com. Blogspot wouldn't accept my link - don't know why.
Reading Culhwch and Olwen, I cannot help wondering about the reference to Arthur as a “barber;” that the one who holds the sheers and comb, holds the power. Why did Culhwch need Arthur to cut his hair? Was it to make him more “courtly” as Arthur’s knights were supposed to be? Reading this tale brought Samson and Delilah to mind. Since Arthur and his men as well as the bards or story tellers were Christian, was there a Biblical significance to the question of hair; the power being in the hands of the one in the position to give the other (his enemy in the case of the Giant, and Samson in the Bible) a haircut? The trimming or shaving of the beard could be an analogy for over powering the manhood of the other which we see in a number of texts?
ReplyDeleteAlso, the boar king was powerful and rampaged through the isle until they overcame him and finally took his comb, or am I over simplifying it?
After Monday’s reading my reaction to Arthur is ambivalent. He does not seem heroic enough. He and his knights appear more like bandits and it made me uneasy. Could this be why Chaucer has the Wife scoff at the knights of old?
Another point that I would like to make is that one of the visual portrayals of Arthur in class by Dr. Wenthe, reminded me of Zeus. Is that how Arthur was seen by the suffering underdog Welch? He looked truly frightening. Also we have read how he killed 960 or 470 (depending on the text) men in a single stroke at Badon.
ReplyDeleteRoccio, since I cant handle blogs like blackboard, I am contrained to answer your comment here.
I too am rather uneasy now about Arthur. I dont want to lose my childhood fantasies; however, over the years I have re-read books and changed my mind about protagonists. Heathcliff being one.
I am not sure whether in this weekend's reading I saw Arthur as a weakling. However, the readings reminded me of other world myths in which there are shapechangers and tricksters and other less than heroic beings. Also we have read a great deal about what appears to be the supernatural or "faerie." Like Chaucer's The Wife of Bath, there seems to be a confusion of faerie and Christian. At least there are no pagan gods. Instead there is reference to the Biblical God. Maybe in the 5th and 6th centuries they were not so distant from the old Druid times and also story telling was an art that involved memory, analogy and exaggeration?
Regarding Nasreen's first comment:
ReplyDeleteThe barbering moment had me wondering too--it depicts a new and unusual Arthur, to say the least. The best I can do to make sense of the scene is to put it in a broader comparison of Culhwch's experiences at Arthur's court and Ysbaddaden's (which is a comparison the text seems to invite).
I could have made only a very few observations about Arthur's court prior to seeing Ysbaddaden's, so perhaps it would be best to begin there.
The quality that stands out most apparently in the Ysbaddaden-Culhwch dialogue is its heavy-handedness. The pattern of their exchange is accentuated to absurdity and impossible to miss: Ysbaddaden makes an outlandish demand, Culhwch belittles the demand's difficulty, and Ysbaddaden one-ups the demand with an even more outlandish one. The specifics of the demands we may as well tune out, they only get sillier and sillier. The message is loud and clear if we only so much as skim the six or so pages of Ysbaddaden's demands. It is this: Ysbadden is demanding. And how.
Ysbaddaden is a leader who makes demands, allots tasks, threatens, takes, kills. When we've seen how he leads, Arthur's barbering seems a bit less weird. Arthur's wants are almost non-existent, he instead takes guests in, tends to them (perhaps very literally), and relentlessly helps them attain what they want--Olwen, in this case--with every willing and able body at his disposal.
Whereas a guest in Arthur's court might expect an obliging and gentle haircut, a guest in Ysbaddaden's can expect to hunt down the Chief Boar and--impossibly!--remove its tusk so Ysbaddaden Chief of Giants can cut his own hair.
Ysbaddaden demands the impossible hoping it will kill his foes; Arthur makes the impossible not only possible, but simple and orderly to benefit his friends.