Magical Artifice and Artificial History in the Roman De Perceforest by Tim Atkin Doctoral Thesis in French Literature

Magical Artifice and Artificial History in the Roman de Perceforest By Tim Atkin Doctoral Thesis in French Literature Re-submitted May 2021 1 Prefatory Note on Quotations: For quotations from the source text, Gilles Roussineau’s edition of Perceforest will be used throughout. It is divided into six ‘parts’ –– from the Première partie to the Sixième partie –– with each part divided into two ‘tomes’, except the Troisième partie, which consists of three ‘tomes’. When referencing a page in the book, I will use the formula: (4.2, p.801). Here, the number ‘4’ indicates the Quatrième partie, and the number ‘2’ after the decimal point indicates the second ‘tome’ of that fourth ‘part’. The page number follows after the comma. 2 Contents Introduction p.4 Part One: Appreciating Artifice p.25 Chapter 1: Bad Magic, and its Allure p.25 Chapter 2: Good Magic, and its Limits p.41 Part Two: Artificial History under the p.75 Microscope Chapter 3: Narrative Renewal, the p.76 Undead, and ‘Prophetic’ Artifice Chapter 4: Endings and Evaluations p.112 Conclusion p.148 3 Introduction: Definitions and Approaches A Characterful Text: This is the story of King Perceforest’s life and dynasty. A protégé of Alexander the Great, he is installed to bring civilisation to barbarous Britain. We see the rise, fall, trials and tribulations of this dynasty over several generations, and its eventual amalgamation – via the conquering Sicambrians – into the lineage of Arthur as we know it from the Vulgate. Along the way, the British royal family converts to the faith of the Souverain Dieu, and eventually to Christianity proper after the Virgin Birth.1 These few lines sum up the grand narrative project of the work, and yet it is the largest extant text from medieval France: “characteristically elephantine,” as Jane Taylor puts it.2 So what’s the rest? What exactly is the point of the text? Such questions have stumped critics over the years. Indeed: “The Roman de Perceforest […] has to many critics seemed simply a confused and highly derivative tangle of neo-Arthurian adventures”.3 The author terms his technique entrelardement, and this stuffing, or ‘fleshing out’ is an appropriate description: though each volume has its own central events, circling around them are myriad knightly adventures, tournaments, jousts, battles and marriages. Some of these sub-plots bear some relevance to the grand narrative, most notably the marriages, which secure the correct future Arthurian descendants in a careful and ambitious feat of imaginary genealogy. Many are far less relevant; pure fantasy, comic relief, or repetitive combat. The quality of the episodes varies considerably. Even at its imaginative best, it can remain prosaic: “de manière générale, l’auteur de Perceforest voit bien et peint mal.”4 1 And this fills in a historical gap in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, the text opening with an accurate translation of the former’s account of Brutus’ arrival in Britain. On the qualities and putative author of this translation, see Géraldine Veysseyre, ‘Les métamorphoses du prologue Galfridien au Perceforest’ in ‘Perceforest’: un roman arthurien et sa réception, ed. by Christine Ferlampin-Acher (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2012), pp.31-86. 2 Jane Taylor, ‘The Fourteenth Century: Context, Text, and Intertext’ in The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, vol. 1, ed. by Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, and Keith Busby (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp.267-332 (p.294). 3 Jane Taylor, ‘Reason and Faith in the Roman de Perceforest’ in Studies in Medieval Literature and Languages in Memory of Frederick Whitehead, ed. by W. Rothwell and others (New York: Manchester University Press, 1973), pp. 303-22 (p.303). 4 Jeanne Lods, Le ‘Roman de Perceforest’: origines, composition, caractères, valeur et influence (Geneva and Lille: Société de publications romanes et françaises vol. 32, 1951), p.189. 4 To top it off, we cannot know for certain when the putative original manuscript – if it existed – was written, or who wrote either this original, or the extant 15th century manuscripts.5 The debate has raged for many years on the date of composition, splitting into two schools of thought. General consensus posits an earlier manuscript between 1330 and 1350, a theory supported by the text’s ostensible status as foundational text pertaining to the ancestry of Hainaut, accordingly playing into the success of the Hainaut dynasty’s marriage with Edward III, who possibly founded the Order of the Garter based on the text’s own Franc Palais.6 This first theory in no way excludes possible 15th century edits or additions.7 However, certain problems have stuck out for other scholars, particularly that the text was not widely known in its own time, but did see a resurgence in the 16th and 17th centuries.8 Such thoughts inspired Ferlampin-Acher’s brilliant and persuasive analysis of potential intertextual relationships with authors including Jean d’Arras, Froissart, and Antoine de la Sale, as well as references to the historical Burgundy of Phillipe le Bon, that may place the text more firmly as an original 15th century work.9 She pioneers the second school of thought, for a later dating, which I personally find rather convincing. Regardless, critics agree that the author was a knowledgeable reader of the prose romances, as well as verse romance,10 and transmits Arthurian material in a unique style. As Jane Taylor humorously, yet pertinently 5 The elusive author may have been David Aubert, and was certainly someone who knew Burgundy well, and had ties to the Hainaut rulers. On the authorship question see Anne Berthelot, ‘From One Mask to Another: The Trials and Tribulations of an Author of Romance at the Time of Perceforest’ in The Medieval Author in Medieval French Literature, ed. by Virginie Greene, transl. by Darla Gervais (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 103-115. See also Gilles Roussineau, ‘David Aubert, copiste du roman de Perceforest’, in Les manuscrits de David Aubert: ‘escripvain’ bourgignon, ed. by Danielle Quéruel (Paris: Presses universitaires de Paris-Sorbonnes, 1999), pp.35-51. 6 See Gilles Roussineau, ‘Ethique chevaleresque et pouvoir royal dans le Roman de Perceforest’ in Actes du 14e Congrès International Arthurien, ed. by Charles Foulon and others (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1985), pp. 521-535. 7 On dating the text, see Lods (1951); Jane Taylor, Le Roman de Perceforest: Premiere partie (Geneva: Droz, 1979); Tania Van Hemelryck, ‘Soumettre le Perceforest à la question: une entreprise périlleuse?’, Le Moyen Français, 57-58 (2005), pp.367-79; Noémie Chardonnens, L’Autre du même: emprunts et répétitions dans le ‘Roman de Perceforest’ (Geneva: Droz, 2015), pp.23-35 and pp.683-688; see also Perceforest: Quatrième Partie, vol. 1, ed. by Gilles Roussineau (Geneva: Droz, 1987), pp.ix-xx. 8 See Alexandra Hoernel, ‘Réecriture(s) et réception du Perceforest au 16e siècle’ in ‘Perceforest’: un roman arthurien, ed. by Ferlampin-Acher, pp.317-333. 9 Christine Ferlampin-Acher, Perceforest et Zéphir: propositions autour d’un récit arthurien bourguignon (Geneva: Droz, 2010), pp.142-149. For a revised assessment of datation see also Gilles Roussineau, ‘Réflexions sur la genèse de Perceforest’ in ‘Perceforest’: un roman arthurien, ed. by Ferlampin-Acher, pp.255-267. 10 The text’s relation with the broader Arthurian canon is an enormous topic. For an introduction, see Taylor, ‘Fourteenth Century’ and for detailed analysis, see Chardonnens, L’autre du même. On the author’s relation to Marie de France, see Sylvia Huot, ‘Chronicle, Lai, and Romance: Orality and Writing in the Roman de Perceforest’ in Vox Intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages ed. by A. N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), pp. 203-23. 5 notes: “It is diminished if it is treated as merely expedient or as weak duplication of an existing bestselling formula: this is not just Son of Tristan, or Arthur III – or even Nightmare in Camelot XXV…”.11 The text, then, is in part a re-working of earlier Arthuriana, padded out with fantastical material, and with a broadly simplistic prose style. What could have attracted critics, including myself, to this lumpy leviathan? More recent criticism has begun to shed light on the hidden qualities of Perceforest. Beginning with Jeanne Lods’ critical volume, Jane Taylor and Gilles Roussineau subsequently set about the mammoth task of creating an edition, which Roussineau took over, and recently completed. Myself and others are indebted to this work, which will surely open the text to future scholarship. Both Taylor and Roussineau continue to make great critical contributions. In the English language, Sylvia Huot’s definitive volume analyses the text’s complex meditations on the civilising project using postcolonial and feminist theory, and has opened the work to students and experts alike.12 In France, we note the contributions of Anne Berthelot, Christine Ferlampin-Acher, Michelle Szklnik, and more recently Noémie Chardonnens. Again, these critics have demonstrated the text’s originality and complexity of thought on all manner of topics. I was originally attracted – to put it bluntly – to the text’s weirdness. The author loves putting his characters in contact with the absurd, the strange, and the ‘Other’. Giants, serpents, boars, the Beste Glatissante with its mesmerising neck, supernatural sites, and, above all, magic. Magic has a special place in the Perceforest. There is a lot of it about, practiced by virtuous ladies from the Greco-British royal family, as well as by wicked native witches and warlocks. It is tempting when confronted with the text's more imaginative or fantastical moments simply to state their idiosyncracy, or to work out how such episodes manipulate and build on earlier romances. I hope to demonstrate that there is a particular line of thought behind such magical moments: method in the madness.

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