What an interesting read! However, I have a million questions. It is wonderful how Malory makes us despise Mark despite Trystram’s guilt. After all Isode is his uncle’s wife. Am I the only one who has noticed the change in Trystram? How Isode bows down to him and his rules. On page 490, it appears that Trystram has been away two years from Isode (the span of Launcelot’s madness). It is a wonder that Mark or any other enemy does not try to spirit Isode away. It appears also in this text that all except Arthur are aware of Gwenyver’s adultery, and the two queens openly exchange letters and messages regarding their knights.
As for the Gawayne brothers, it is awfully shocking what they are up to. How could Gaherys behead his mother and later gang up and kill Lamerok after he had saved the brothers from Palomydes. Later what is more confusing is when Gawayne and his brothers volunteer to look for Launcelot. In this version Sir Bors seems to have Gawayne’s adventures. Why does Malory do this? A hatred of the Scots since he is so taken with Inglonde?
As for Mark, I was surprised to learn about his brother and his nephew who not mentioned in the earlier book. And that’s not the only surprise. Percival has a different background here. He is Lamerok’s brother. In Chretien, he his dead father and brothers are knights but he is a brought up all wrong by his mother. Another question is that if Palomydes is a pagan, how come his mother is Christian. Has she converted along with her other sons?
Finally, I do like Arthur. He actually fights and takes a beating and has to be rescued. He is contrasted with Mark and obviously is above board and trusts to the honor of knights which include his nephews and Mark (and maybe Launcelot too who seems to hang around the king as though they are best buddies).
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I think we despise Mark because he's the conscience Tristram and Isode and the rest of the Malory world doesn't have. He's like a dangerous Cart. I can't help making a connection with Chretien and finding a Chretien residue in Malory. Malory’s treatment of the ‘dynamic duos’ (Trystram/Isode & Lancelot/Guinevere) remind me so much about Chretien’s portrayal in The Knight of the Cart. The communal compact (unspoken conventions of a group) which Amanda mentioned in her shame presentation-- which sort of ‘protected’ the Lancelot&Guinevere affair is extended to Tristram&Isode in Malory. Everyone comes and goes with only Mark to obstruct their love-carousing.
ReplyDeleteOne slight difference between the works is knighthood is not connected the same way to love in The Cart as it is explicitly in Malory. In The Cart knighthood is sort of subjugated to love. However, in Malory’s chapter “Sir Tristram and sir Dinadan”, Tristram says: “A knight will never be a true knight of prowess unless he is a lover”. And Isode echoes him when she tells Dinadan about the inseparability of knighthood and love. In Malory, Trystram’s knighthood is priority number 1. In Chretien’s work knighthood seems priority No. 2 for Lancelot. Has anyone found this as well?
Rocio, I've been thinking about this, and I wanted to disagree with you and say that knighthood and romantic love are so intertwined in Chretien that one can't trump the other. BUT now I think you're right - Chretien's Lancelot is willing to throw a tournament to prove his love. He's not happy about it, but he's willing and seems to feel that he has no choice - he is completely bound by his love for her. I don't think we've seen Malory's Lancelot doing that - have we? - he is first and foremost a paragon of knightliness, because he has to be. And I think Guinevere's love for him depends on his being so(though he might show up at a tournament disguised as someone else, in which case all bets are off).
ReplyDeleteYeah, the ending is all about Arthur's knightly incompetence and Lancelot's knightly constancy. In Morte D'Arthur, we discover (and the characters discover) that love was ultimately incompatible with the knighthood project. In the end, the Guinevere and Lancelot relationship was more habit, than real feeling. After they are discovered, they don't admit their love, they don't want to fight it out or go away and be together somewhere else. Their "love" was not really a priority -- it was more of a whim of sorts. Why couldn't Lancelot skip a night with Guinevere?? Their intention was to maintain a facade of honorability, but it turns out the facade was corroding the foundations of Lancelot's knighthood. After the tragedies, the G&L love doesn't survive. What kills Guinevere? It's like the unacknowledged guilt catches up with her and overwhelms her, and she 'infects' Lancelot who dies as well.
ReplyDeleteHmm...I want to demur from Rocío's views on the Lancelot-Guinevere relationship at the end of the Morte, just to note that they have endured a lot of personal history up to that point and at every point their public pronouncements are governed by the same sensitive to shame and honor that is operative everywhere else in the text. In other words, just because they seem cagey and formal to the end doesn't necessarily indicate that their love is pretense or rote.
ReplyDeleteDr. Wenthe, I guess I've gotten attached to my creative project about The Knight of the Cart and comparing L&G's Ovidian mad love in KOTC versus Malory's conscientious love, Malory's seems rather insipid, and tragic...I guess I have missed the long amorous monologues....
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