In class, some of us alluded to the "fact" that the Grail Story, as depicted in the "Quest," was a story that was already authored--by this, I mean its characters and actions were pre-determined by God to follow the courses they did. Though this may be true, there are numerous instances in "Quest" where its principal characters are told they are the agents of their own destiny. This occurs most obviously with Lancelot, who is told repeatedly not only that he needs to shape up, but that it is in his power to do so. And when the story ends, we're left hanging, unsure of what his future holds.
The "Quest" tells us that "Each will be paid according to his just desserts" (154); and in the Bors section, that, "A man's heart is the helm of his ship..." (178). If these ideas hold true for the story, then we are dealing with characters who are actively creating their own destiny, as opposed to just fulfilling a role. Yet, the pre-determined nature of Galahad's life suggests otherwise--that everything is written, everything fated. What the heck is going on here?
I know this is a large can of worms, but I was wondering a few things:
How does free will operate in "Quest?" What purpose does Anonymous serve by including it and creating the tension between free will and determinism? Is the presence of free will solely an attempt to lend support to a complex, and in my opinion, extremely tenuous, theological idea?
Dear philosophers, maybe you'd like to weigh in on this question.
Yours,
Len e.
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I will confine my remarks to noting that "can of worms" is the phrase that I have associated with the eternal "free will vs. predestination" chestnut ever since my early grad school years, so thanks for that. Well, and I'll also note that the Quest is a very orthodox text in many ways and that the orthodox view in the medieval Christian west is that, yes, humankind has been endowed with free will by God. The usual way around the seeming conundrum is to appeal to the different kind of knowledge available to God, who sees all things at all times at once. For more from a perspective that was highly influential in the Middle Ages, you might want to read Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy (De consolatione philosophiae)--which interestingly avoids any explicit invocation of Christian theology or belief, despite the fact that Boethius was himself a Christian. (Hence, perhaps, it's not titled The Consolation of Christianity!)
ReplyDeleteHi, Lenny! My thought is that an analysis of medieval attitudes on predestination becomes totally tricky with the Quest for the Holy Grail, since that quest is very particular-- very unlike killing a giant so you can marry his daughter-- and the acquisition of the Grail is explicitly reliant on subservience to God's will.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Galahad, we are told by Lancelot's confessor that:
"This knight is the paragon who in his lifetime shall exemplify the sum of earthly chivalry. And when by dint of his achievements he shall live wholly in the spirit, he will slough off the garment of the flesh and join the company of the knights of heaven. Such was Merlin's prophecy...
"None the less, for all it is true that this knight has now a greater share of valour and hardihood than any other, you may be sure that if he gave himself to mortal sin-- from which Our Lord preserve him in His pity-- he would get no further in this Quest than any other ordinary knight." (134)
My reading is that you are given certain traits by the Creator-- Lancelot got Amazingly Good-Looking, Hale and Streetsmart (terrestrial life as cosmic insipid role-playing game)-- which you can use for ill or good. Meanwhile, in your life there is a right (ie, predestined) path and 359 degrees of wrong paths; a good and correct use of your gifts will keep you in line with God's will, where negligence or perversion of those gifts will send you spinning out in the secular void, like Gawain, who just kind of wanders around being awesome but isn't even in the running for the Grail, even though the whole thing was his idea, and if I were Gawain I would be so pissed.
Anyway--
What I'm venturing is that the Quest for the Holy Grail is unique because it precludes mistakes. The Quest is exceptional because its fulfillment requires a complete synchronization of man's will and God's will, and that synchronization is what the story of the Quest primarily features.
This tension between a sublime Author and individual authoring of one's life and destiny also appears in Wolfram as a tension between writing, speech and meaning (including the theme of names). So, I'm wondering if we can extrapolate an overall theme to the Arthurian literature we've read thus far of a Derridaean struggle between word and meaning. It seems to me that at least Troyes and Wolfram, whether consciously or subconsciously, express through their writing an uncertainty about the final authority of a higher Authority's writing. If words and externalities cannot be trusted — Wolfram provokes the reader into doubting his words by saying, "believe it if you will, for apart from what my story tells, I have no witnesses" (196) — then can the meaning of the Writing on the Grail be conclusively known, much less trusted? What about God's Word? Can we ever know or trust that God "authors" our fate? Or is our fate, like our essence, unwriteable in name or word?
ReplyDeleteBrief and rather undistillated, I know, but it's just a thought I had, and a thread (ha ha) I noticed in at least parts of Parzival ;)