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[SPOILERS FOR THE END OF MORTE DARTHUR]
As I've mentioned in class a few times, this was my first time reading Le Morte Darthur, and as I've intimated, I've run a little lukewarm on it--- until The Dethe of Arthur. There was no part of this book that didn't make me do this:
D:
and yet there was no one in the book I didn't love, and what felt irritatingly unfocused and obfuscated in the book heretofore now seems really masterful. I don't know if I just haven't been paying attention or what, but the characters seemed more nuanced and polychromatic than they had-- did anybody else feel like that?
Gawain, for instance, who went from being the embodiment of thuggish, petty knightly privilege to being a real dude, loyal to Guinevere and Lancelot, loyal to Arthur, begrieved by the loss of his whole family, and then at the last putting all his hope in Lancelot again.
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D:
I think the reason why the last book of Le Morte Darthur resonates with me in a way that the rest of the work didn't is that the running theme of fracture/disconnect/contradiction that had been nagging me finally coalesced into a legible tragedy. All of the "What? But you just said--!" and the "What the crap are you doing?" became illustrations of the inevitable and realistic unraveling of the Fellowship of the Round Table. Nowhere was this more apparent to me than after the initial split of Arthur and Lancelot, when Malory notes:
"Whan they harde that Kynge Arthure and Sir Launcelot were at debate, many knyghtes were glad, and many were sory of their debate." (657)
Really? Many knyghtes were glad, while many were sory? This suggests a much deeper rift than "I'm siding with Lancelot" vs. "I'm siding with Arthur." It begs the question of how long dissolution has been percolating in the minds of the Fellows of the Round Table-- how many instances of contradiction, disguise and/or general bad behavior that we've seen from our villains and heroes were the result of that percolation.
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Oh Gawain! Interestingly enough Erin, I thought Malory did a good job oh transitioning Gawain’s character. Malory had done a significant amount of damage to it (I think in favor of showing off Lancelot in contrast) but once Lancelot and the Queen begin their “you’re dismissed from me, no come back!” dance (I think it’s called the tango, I’m not sure what the British equivalent is… certainly not the fox trot) then Gawain’s character begins to change. For one thing, we see that he is older and less apt to leave the court. Malory never says it (oh the many things Malory never says) but I think the grail quest had an affect on Gawain as well. Certainly the turning point in the text was when he publicly accuses the Queen of treason (poisoning a knight of the Table Round/ a member of the royal family is treason right? something close to that?) and is proven twice over (once by magic and once by might) to be wrong and the Queen does not have his head. He’s a kinder, gentler Gawain after that.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think we loose track of the fact that however rude Gawain has been in this text (taking on many of Sir Kay’s duties), he’s never been Mordred. He doesn’t want Camelot to fall or to be king, he just wanted to avenge his fathers murder and he makes a lot of mistakes. He wass pissed when his little brother swipes off his mother’s head and except for “don’t murder that one guy, who, ya know, killed your dad at my orders” he’s obeyed Arthur.
He’s as caught in the knight’s code as anyone else I suppose.
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As for the whole "gladd" "sadd" issue... yeah, that threw me as well. I think this rift started to be clear back in the book of Trystam, but perhaps it was there from the start as T.H. White implies?
I refer you back to the tale of Balin, waaaaay back in the first book of the Morte. This adventure takes place prior to Lancelot's arrival, and the test of the damsel's sword reveals that Balin is in fact the greatest knight around--and specifically the most virtuous. You'd think that would be cause for the rest of the knights to celebrate his recuperation, from prisoner to paragon, but in fact they are mostly seized with envy and hostility, even before Balin gives them an excuse to pursue him by affronting Arthur with his murder of the Lady of the Lake. Or consider how Bagdemagus took it ill when Pellinore's son Sir Torre was promoted to the Round Table before him. The dark side of the knightly commit to "worshyp" is resentment of those knights who are more "worshypful," and resentment has to play a big role in the Orkney clan's mad hatred for Lancelot.
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