So, in my short paper I argued that the value of the Arthur legend lies in its repeated use as fodder for various stories since the tradition's inception; not all of the stories it has inspired could be considered Arthurian, however. I decided to pursue this line of thought because of two writers in particular. First, there is a passing comment by the eminent J.R.R. Tolkien in his essay, "On Fairy-Stories": "Oberon, Mab, and Pigwiggen may be diminutive elves or fairies, as Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot are not; but the good and evil story of Arthur's court is a 'fairy-story' rather than this tale of Oberon."[1] Tolkien's reasoning here lies in that "fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faërie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being."[2] After reading the first part of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain it is hard to consider historical Britain all that Faërie-esque. But it takes only a perusal of Merlin's role in Geoffrey's history to realize that Britain as we know it, 'magical' though it may be, differs widely from the realities that Geoffrey is willing to countenance. The tradition continues in this way. I think the other reason the stories in the Arthur legend are fairy-stories is a matter of their strangeness. If there is a recurring theme in our in-class discussion this semester, it is the strangeness of what we have found in these texts. Whether it is Gawain's propensity to cut heads off, the oddness of trusting hermits, or beheaded green men who ride off carrying their severed gourds, we are constantly confronted by the odd and the uncanny (which, come to think of it, probably gives Dr. Wenthe the fodder he needs to discuss Arthur's relationship to 'the other').
Some other noteworthy characteristics of fairy-stories:
- If satire is present, one thing mustn't be ridiculed: magic.
- The following are not (or are not necessarily) fairy-stories: beast fables, travellers' tales, and stories that merely occur in someone's dreams (sorry, Alice).
- They are presented as true.
- They are often the products of older stories, the matter of which may not be readily available to us.
- They make fantasies seem real, and in so doing, manipulate the desires of the hearer/reader.
- Fairy-stories have a moral dimension that prohibits, and they preserve this dimension as they are handed down through history, possibly because the moral code encoded therein is of a mythic timbre.
What do you all think? Based on these criteria, what would be the benefit of studying the Arthur legend as a collection of fairy tales? One more thing: what did you all decide is the value of the Arthurian tradition?
1. J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories," in The Tolkien Reader: Stories, Poems and Commentaries by the Author of 5 The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966), 36.
2. Ibid.
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteI definitely think you can examine Arthur that way. In fact, I don't see how you could seriously separate the two unless you were trying to make a historical account (such as the latest Arthur movie or Monmouth's History). Having read the "weird welsh stuff" as it's been called and delving into the Mabinogian in all its glory it's clear that the stories have their roots in human/Elvin entanglements. Magic is the foundation of Arthur's kingdom in a way and whether you're reading the French romances or Malory those Elvin people and/or witches will make themselves known. In this weeks reading it is an enchantress who stops in for a moment to clear the Queen before fading back into the mist... perhaps random, but because the fairy is as much part of Arthur's kingdom as the Round Table... not random. Arthur's kingdom and indeed the story makes no sense at all without the element of fairy. Many things are doubted- especially in T.H. White's retelling of Le Morte, but the fairy never is- in fact it's expounded upon.
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And to answer your last question I wrote my paper about the value of Arthur as a coming of age story, a cultural Bildungsroman. How the legend shows us that the story of one individuals journey into adulthood can inform an entire culture.
I think the most provocative element of your post is the assertion that fairy stories are of their nature moral stories. I think that's generally true, but the morality often emerges precisely from the contrast between human morality as we know it and the unfathomable behavior of the fairy world. The original Lady of the Lake--the one Balin beheads--certainly comes off as unexpected in several ways, and her replacement, Nynyve, has her own strange sense of being God's instrument while pursuing her own interests. And in terms of Arthur's connection to Faerie and the other, let's not forget that he was conceived in magic and disappears seemingly in the company of a team of enchantresses--including those who had previously adventured against his life and against Lancelot's liberty! Fairy values seem not to be straightforward human values, whatever they are. But then, one medieval way of coming to knowledge was through the clash of contraries.
ReplyDeleteHi, Aaron! I argued in my paper that Arthuriana is a medium for discussing conflicts between the individual and society-- related to when we were discussing Rocio's presentation on courtly love as related to the tensions between lay persons and clergy, and Dr. Wenthe presented the suggestion that courtly love stories function as a "fantasy laboratory" for the nobility in which questions of secular love, piety, asceticism, etc., are worked out.
ReplyDeleteWith Fairy-Stories, I wonder if the world of Fairy represents a greater threat and a greater wildness than what is presented in Arthurian canon? For example, the fairy lady who hooks up with Lanval is exotic, but only in the sense of being superlatively beautiful, superlatively wealthy, with superlative agency.