Morte Darthur

The Anglo-Saxons were a pagan people (Christianity came to England in 597 AD) who were motivated by survival. Their king's major virtues were wisdom and courage; there was no divine right of kings—i.e., the best warrior was king, was chosen for his abilities, and ruled until he was no longer able or until the populace decided to replace him. The life of the Anglo-Saxon warrior was a life of dreariness and misery. He had a keen insight in to the fragility of existence. A man's life expectancy was 26 years, and the infant mortality rate was unbelievably high. People were constantly at war. There weren't a lot of old people around, so seniority was trusted; if you were old, you must be good at surviving. Still, there was music, art, jewelry making; life appears to be transient, but men create long-lasting works, almost like an anachronism.

King Arthur is a mixture of Celtic and Germanic lore and also embodies some Mediterranean qualities. The Frenchman Chrétien de Troyes was the first  to put a romantic veneer on Arthur and probably developed his version of the tales from oral tradition. Manuscript copies of his tales are the earliest written records of Arthurian romance, but Arthur and other Arthurian characters appear in several other works predating Malory:
 

• Gildas, 6th c. Latin cleric writing after the departure of the Romans; "The Ruin of Britain" (ca. 540) mentions Ambrosius Aurelianus, whose slain parents were rulers before him. The tie to the Arthur legend is the battle of Baden incident.
• Nennius, 9th c. Welsh monk; "The Annals of the Britons" was written in 76 sections; in sec. 56, 'Arthur' details his single-handed slaying of 960 men of the enemy, Mordred, and tells of carrying the image of Mary into battle.
• William of Malmesbury, 12th c. monk; "Gesta Regum Anglorum" (Stories of the Kings of England) was made up of 5 books; Books 1 & 3 talk about Arthur (as Ambrosius) and Walwen (Gawain).
• Geoffrey of Monmouth, 12th c. (1137) Welsh monk; "History of the Kings of Britain" is the first to mention some of the prophecies; mentions Merlin; has both Arthur and Ambrosius Aurelianus; comes close to identifying a "tribe" of ancestry for Arthur; is the first to give Guinevere's infidelity, but with Mordred, not Lancelot; gives Uther & Igraine's sleeping together.
• Wace (Was) of Lyman, 12th c. (1155); "The Legend of Brut" mentions Merlin & translation of Nennius mentions the Round Table for the first time. The Round Table seated 1600 men and was shaped like a donut. Elaborates on Arthur's return from Avalon.
• Giraldis Cambrinsus, 12th c. (1195) monk; "Principals of Instruction" adds to lore by giving us Guinevere; details the discovery of Arthur's grave.
• Layman (Leohman), 12th-13th c.; "Brut" is the first English treatment of the Arthurian story in verse in English; makes Arthur an actual English monarch.
• Ralph Higdon, 14th c.; "Polychronicon" moves Arthur around through history.
• "Alliterative Morte D'Arthur," 14th c.; vivid account of Arthur's siege against the Romans.

With Malory's Le Morte Darthur, we have a book of eight pieces so arranged to give us a view of the medieval world. Books 1-3 give us the beginning of the Round Table. Books 4-7 give us the Round Table at its best, but the seeds for disintegration are there. Book 8 sees the destruction of the Round Table world. There is a pall of religiosity over the whole book; perhaps this "folk" tale was used and augmented for conversion purposes with the message that, at our best, our heroes aren't good enough.

‘…describes the circumstances of Arthur’s birth [Uther Pendragon’s trickery of Igraine], his accession to the throne, the victories he won over hostile neighbours and vassals, the tragic life of Balin,…the quests undertaken by Gawain, Torre, and Pellinor and a series of adventures which Gawain shares with Ywain…and Marhalte. Two other themes are interwoven with these: the life and death of Merlin and the treacherous intrigues of Arthur’s half-sister, Morgan le Fay.
 ‘Malory borrowed this varied collection of stories from a thirteenth-century French prose romance known today as La Suite du Merlin—a section of a vast recently reconstructed composition sometimes described as Le Roman du Graal.’ Sword in the stone, marriage to Guinevere, King Leodegrance’s wedding gift of the Round Table and 100 knights.

‘…is a shortened and modernized rendering of the English alliterative Morte Arthure—a fourteenth-century poem….There is also evidence to show that Malory’s source was more closely related…to such works as the so-called "Vulgate continuation" of the Merlin, Wace’s Brut, and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia.
 ‘…if Arthur loses in Malory some of his epic characteristics, Lancelot, on the contrary, assumes those of an epic hero. …Malory’s attitude at the time when he wrote his Tale of Arthur and Lucius was not very different from that of other English writers: his mind dwelt on problems of human heroism, not on the subtle issues of courtly behaviour. …What a recent critic describes as "the aggrandizement of Lancelot" is the expression of Malory’s consistent preference for Lancelot…. But consistent preference does not necessarily produce consistent characterization, and it is not surprising, therefore, that the Lancelot of [this tale] is not the Lancelot of later tales: when he does "great deeds of arms" and successfully attacks the Emperor Lucius himself, he is fighting for his king, not for his "sovereign lady".’

‘…In the first section Lancelot decides to "prove himself in strange adventures" and, accompanied by Lionel, starts on a quest for new experiences. The next section describes how Lancelot killed Lionel’s captor, Tarquyn, released the prisoners and, in order to conclude this adventure, assisted a damsel by disposing of another enemy of knighthood, Perys de Foreste Savage, a "thief" and a "ravisher of women", who "distressed all ladies and gentlewomen". Three days later Lancelot performs another noble deed: he frees the people of the Castle of Tintagel of the tyranny of two giants. The source of these stories is a later section of the Prose Lancelot. …Lancelot rescues Kay from four knights, overcomes three more knights…, meets four knights of the Round Table …[and] defeats them all with one spear, rescues Melyot de Logrys and saves his own life by killing Phelot who had framed an elaborate plot to capture him. Then, after a long journey through "moors and mares", he tries to rescue a lady from Sir Pedyvere who, in spite of Lancelot’s warning, cuts off her head and then throws himself upon Lancelot’s mercy.’

‘Its immediate source is unknown. …[T]he plot hinges on an expedition…to rescue a lady. … Gareth [is a] young noblemen who conceal[s] [his] high birth and begin[s] [his career] in a humble way. …[A] lady in distress comes to Arthur’s court to ask for protection against a redoubtable knight. The young man obtains Arthur’s permission to undertake the adventure, but for a long time the lady scorns his attempts at fighting on her behalf and rebukes him in the rudest possible fashion. Finally, …the lady begins to suspect that her champion is a man of high birth. The ending is a happy one: the young hero marries the lady he has rescued.’
 Gareth’s two outstanding features are his beauty and his modesty. Sir Kay ridicules him with the nickname ‘Beaumains’, because one of Gareth’s arms is longer than the other. The nickname comes to be complimentary, though, because it signifies Gareth’s ‘fayre-handid’ness; ‘he is the most generous man that ever lived.’

The source is the French Prose Romance of Tristan, written about the year 1230. ‘Tristram, after accidentally drinking a love potion with Isolde, falls hopelessly in love with her. Unfortunately, she is the bride-to-be of his uncle, Mark, and Tristram is put in the difficult situation of watching his only marry his patron and uncle, whom he greatly respects. Tristram’s sadness forces him into the forest. He is brought back to the castle, banished by Mark, and flees to Camelot. Gaining great reknown in Camelot, Tristram has soon also won the respect of Arthur and Launcelot, and when Mark appears with a plot to murder Tristram, Launcelot discovers him. Mark is ordered by Arthur to let Tristram return to his kingdom, where he successfully avoids all of Mark’s traps and escapes to England with Isolde.’

 ‘…is the least obviously original of his works. …[I]t is to all intents and purposes a translation of the French Queste del Saint Graal, the fourth branch of the thirteenth-century Arthurian Prose Cycle.’
 ‘A prophesy of an ancient hermit is realized when a young knight by the name of Galahad pulls the magic sword from the rock, thus proving his worthiness to accompany his father, Sir Launcelot, on the quest for the Grail. This great adventure concludes with the death of Sir Galahad, who, after receiving communion from the Grail and performing a miracle, had been imprisoned and subsequently chosen king of an unnamed city in the near East.’

 Sources include the French Mort Artu, the last branch of the Arthurian Prose Cycle, and the English Le Morte Arthur—a fifteenth-century stanzaic poem. Episodes include Knight of the Cart, The Poisoned Apple, and The Fair Maid of Astolat. A tale of courtly heroism and courtly romance.

 ‘The tragedy of the Round Table as Malory saw it was not just an example of the mutability of man’s destiny nor the result of the failure of the ‘worldly’ knights to achieve the quest of the Grail. The final catastrophe was to Malory a human drama determined from first to last by the tragic clash of loyalties. …It is Lancelot’s loyalty to Guinevere that causes him, in his anxiety to protect her, to act with such rashness as to destroy unwittingly the man he loves most—Gareth, Gawain’s brother. It is…genuine grief that turns Lancelot’s truest friend, Gawain, into a mortal enemy. And above all, Arthur’s affection for the two opponents and his deep sorrow at their fateful strife serve as a reminder…of the human greatness which is both the cause and the victim of their tragic folly.
 

Questions for Close Reading:

1. How many times are oaths given? How many times are oaths violated? What happens when oaths are broken?
2. Discuss how knights treat their opponents; the true warrior will never fight a man at disadvantage — is this true of Arthur's knights?
3. How do the knights treat non-knights (women, children, sick, elderly)?
4. How is the work a good example of a romance?