LLT 180 Lecture 11 1 Let's Get Done with This. This Gets Us Through The
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LLT 180 Lecture 11 1 Let's get done with this. This gets us through the first half today so we can have a test next time. We left -- we're in the northern areas. Again, we're still alternating chapters. And some of what's in here is extremely silly because part of it's extremely serious as we move Arthur toward resolution of what he's gonna try to accomplish. They explain again -- we were on 272. Isn't that where we were, 272? I think, in the middle of that chapter. Morgause, who has been kind of captivated by the three knights who showed up, has now decided that they're ridiculous and, as women are wont to do, is giving up on them at this point. And we see again this different order, the idea that this world -- you know, they keep being referred to as the old ones -- that this world, the world where these people are, where Gareth and his brothers come from, is somehow an older world, has secrets that the Norman world does not. They talk some about the fort. And when Gareth finds his brothers, it's the basic nature of the Orkey faction of the four brothers to not get along very well. And we get these stereotypical kinds of representations again that Gareth is the peacemaker, that Gawaine is the forceful one, and Agravaine is just kind of a pain; and that we can see a fight coming, and it's rather in the form of a tableau. We could probably get some people up here and -- you know, it's very theatrical. It almost sounds like a stage direction to a play as he describes the action -- we're over on page 275 -- the action of the little battle. And basically, again, to show the hostility of the brothers and something particular about three of them: Agravaine, Gawaine and Gareth. LLT 180 Tape 11 2 This whole deal with the counterfeit beast is just silliness, but we do get some insightful statements. Part of what we're seeing is finally that Pellinore is growing up. That he, even with the counterfeit beast, doesn't seem to have much interest in pursuing the beast, even when they try to get him interested. They think this is what is wrong with him. He's not even particularly interested in talking about it. And so finally, over on 277, they say, "Hey, we saw the beast." He doesn't want to play word games. He just seems really into himself. The Questing Beast -- and, you know, I'm not sure exactly why this is -- Glatisant is a she. And so I don't know if somehow symbolically he's supposed to be striving after the ideal she, and it takes him all these years to find her, and then it's Miss Piggy, and so he doesn't need the Questing Beast. I don't know. Let's ask somebody in the Psychology Department. The king says what? In other words, if he's finally growing up, he's gonna leave. We get back to this childish -- I don't think my brain is connected to my hand today. We're leaving these childish things behind. And so now all of a sudden he says that this Questing Beast is stupid, whereas before it was pretty much the focus of his life. And he even says, at the bottom of 277, what? It's like his life hasn't been logical. Like, "Why am I doing this? Why have I been chasing this Questing Beast?" And so all of a sudden it's like he's saying the very nature of part of being a knight, of accepting any quest and pursuing it to its logical conclusion, is not logical. He's still thinking about Miss Piggy. He doesn't refer to her as Miss Piggy. That's the, you know, large, fat, pink thing coming to my mind. But rather just Piggy. Unfortunate. This was LLT 180 Lecture 11 3 written obviously way before that, but I just can't get Miss Piggy out of my mind whenever -- and, you know, they don't give her a very kind description anyway. So it's like, "Miss Piggy. He's in love with Miss Piggy." I'll try to straighten up. So anyway, he talks about the Queen of Flanders' daughter and he really did love her, and so he really feels that because he had to accept this new quest, when the magic barge appeared, he missed out on this. That she really understood him, she was understanding of him, tolerant of him, and he even has had an idea he's gonna have four sons and he's already picked out names for 'em. And these names are important. These are gonna be important characters later in the work, especially two of them. The two -- the names are even on the bottom of page 278, about 10 lines up. And the two that are gonna be important are obviously Percivale who, in the original tradition, he is going to be the knight who finds the grail. He's very, very, very important. And Lamorak is very important for some other reason. And I don't want to ruin the story for you, but -- well, anyway. I just want to tell you so bad 'cause it's so weird. It belongs on daytime TV. Anyway, he's been chasing this beast forever and ever and they said -- well, you know, they're trying to get him interested. And he's not interested. He's interested in Piggy -- not Miss Piggy, but Piggy -- and he's in love and he's preoccupied. So they say, "Well, you know, we'll drive it toward you." They go dressed as the beast -- you're gonna read this. It's all very silly, obviously. It really gets good, though, over on page 282 -- really, you know, kind of comical, when they are dressed as the beast, trying to make their way toward Pellinore. And LLT 180 Tape 11 4 unbeknownst to them, we find out later, Glatisant and Piggy have been picked up by the magic barge. They've been looking for Pellinore together and the magic barge has gone back and picked them up. So they're here. And so Glatisant sees them and he's in love. And so she starts kind of bumping him from the back and making amorous sounds, and the knights are kind of freaked -- as any sane person would be -- and so they run for it. This goes on and on. And finally, on page 283, the one knight feels for what's out there and he feels something cold and slippery. Does it move? "It moves, and--it snuffles!" "Snuffles?" "Snuffles." At this moment the moon came out. "Merciful powers!" And they run for it. So they try to run away. Pellinore -- and then we see this one little brief thing where they're talking about Pellinore, and Pellinore is totally not into it. He's thinking about Miss Piggy. And he finds them trapped by the Questing Beast. So we leave, then. So again, this serious, funny, comical, whatever, alternation of chapters by their content. As we go to Chapter 10, what our expectation would be: "Okay. We've been having fun. We're relaxed now. We're theoretically in a mood that we can read something serious and not throw the book away. We are ready as readers to learn something else." LLT 180 Lecture 11 5 Merlyn -- and it's all the way at the very end of this. Merlyn keeps coming back to this -- "I forgot to tell Arthur something" -- and he just can't remember what it is. It's the night before the battle and he keeps asking, on 285, "Did I tell you this? Did I tell you that?" And, of course, Arthur says, "Yeah," or "I don't care," but he doesn't touch upon the key point. And Merlyn only can't remember what is important. He tells him he does remember that it's vital and it has to do with what happens at the very end, and that is who his mother is. He's told him Uther's his father but he's never told him who his mother is. So Arthur still doesn't know that Morgause, Morganda -- I'm sorry -- Morgause, Elaine and Morgan la Fay are his half-sisters. He tells him another parable -- and a parable, we all know, is a short piece of fiction that somehow reveals a moral attitude or a religious principle -- and this is a pretty simplistic little story. We start reading on 286: "In the East, perhaps in the same place which that Rabbi Jachanan came from, there was a certain man who was walking in the market of Damascus when he came face to face with Death. He noticed an expression of surprise on the spectre's horrid countenance, but they passed one another without speaking. The fellow was frightened [understandably], and went to a wise man to ask what should be done. The wise man told him that Death had probably come to Damascus to fetch him away next morning. The poor man was terrified at this, and asked however he could escape. The only way they could think of between them was that the victim should ride all night to Aleppo [however you pronounce that], thus eluding the skull and bloody bones.