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Ann Arbor, MI 48106 A REBEL AND A WITCH: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTION OF MORGAN LE FAY IN MALORY'S LE MORTE DARTHUR DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By MaryLynn Saulj B.S., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1994 Dissertation Committee: Lisa Kiser Approved by Nicholas Howe _____ Adviser Christian Zacher Department of English Copyright by MaryLynn Saul 1994 To my father, William Saul, without whose support I would not have been able to finish this. 11 VITA July 3, 1964 ...................Born--Middletown, Ohio 1986 ........................... B.S., The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 1986-1992 ..................... Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1988 ........................... M.A. The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 1992-present...................Lecturer, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Studies in Medieval Literature, Lisa Kiser Twentieth Century Literature, Barbara Rigney Composition, Kitty 0. Locker 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION.............................................. ii VITA ................................................... iii INTRODUCTION.......................................... 1 CHAPTER I: THE CONFLICT BETWEEEN COURTLY LOVE AND MEDIEVAL MARRIAGE ................... 3 6 CHAPTER II: GENDER AND P O W E R ......................... 89 CHAPTER III: MORGAN AS WITCH AND HERETIC ............... 137 CONCLUSION............................................. 194 WORKS C I T E D ........................................... 202 IV Introduction Morgan le Fay^ is one of the most intriguing characters in Le Morte Darthur due to her attempts to seize more power than any other woman in the book, and even more than any other man except for Mordred. She most emphatically does not confine her actions to those expected of conventionally passive women in the Middle Ages. She kidnaps Lancelot many times, orders knights to pursue and destroy either Lancelot or Tristram (whichever they happen to meet first), and attempts to expose the adultery of Guenevere. She controls her own castle, which can be defended against everyone, including the King. She spares no mercy for her husband, whom she attempts to murder. Most rebelliously, and in her very first recorded action, she manipulates a battle between her lover Accolon and her brother King Arthur in a bid to rule the country herself. This action, in fact, establishes her role as enemy to Arthur and his court. Numerous characters fear her power, and yet she achieves none of the specific goals she sets for herself. The characterization of Morgan le Fay is even more complex when one considers that Malory's focus is on the men. Although Malory includes such traditional love stories as those of Lancelot and Guenevere and Tristram and Isolde, his attention is more often on the battles and tournaments of the males, and he tirelessly describes each in detail. Yet he also includes the troublesome Morgan le Fay. What is she doing in this very masculine book? Previously published books and articles on Malory's work have not given many answers to this question (when they have examined Morgan at all). In fact, critics writing on Malory have only very recently taken notice of the female characters in his narrative. The traditional focus of criticism on Le Morte Darthur is best represented in the two main collections of essays devoted to it. Aspects of Malorv^ and Malory's Oriainalitv.^ In the latter and older book, the essays correspond to tales, covering the tales of King Arthur, King Arthur and the Emperor Lucius, Lancelot, Gareth, Tristram, the Sankgreall, and Lancelot and Guenevere. Each critic attempts to locate a tale in the context of the whole narrative according to theme and technique, ultimately arguing that Malory "wrote a single unified book rather than eight separate 'Tales'" (Lumiansky 4). Some discussion of Malory's use of sources is also included. The former collection, on the other hand, concentrates almost exlusively on Malory's use of sources, with the point being mainly that Malory knew what he was doing when he adapted his sources to fit his own purposes. However, none of these topics has much to do with Le Morte Darthur's female characters and how they fit into Malory's artistic or socio-political purposes. A check through the MLA Bibliography on Malory reveals that recent criticism maintains a heavy emphasis on male characters, especially Lancelot (but with a new interest in Merlin) and on issues such as narrative styles, the knights' fellowship and chivalry. However, in recent years, some attention has been given to the female characters with articles such as Martin R. Shichtman's "Elaine and Guinevere: Gender and Historical Consciousness in the Middle Ages. He argues that Elaine of Astolat was the perfect masculine idea of a woman, beautiful and submissive, who self-destructs upon Lancelot's rejection because he refuses to allow her to attain the role she sought: that of a wife. Rather than finding new roles, or even rather than go back to the old roles of sister and daughter, Elaine attempts to assert her automony by starving herself to death. Shichtman characterizes Guenevere, on the other hand, as always less than perfect, a character which evolves over time, and ends her life in the convent, rejecting all her previous authority and responsibility. There is also the recent book. Sir Thomas Malorv: Views and Reviews, which includes a few essays on female characters and a few on love.5 One of these studies, Peter Waldron's "'Vertouse Love' and Adulterous Lovers: Coming to Terms with Malory," focuses on the distinction between love for God and romantic love, arguing that Lancelot and Guenevere do not live up to the higher ideal of love of God. In another essay. Ginger Thornton and Krista May raise the issue of Malory's possible feminism in "Malory as Feminist? The Role of Percival's Sister." However, the article disappoints the feminist reader expecting a significant improvement in development of a female character's role. In comparing Malory's version to what is believed to be his source, they note that Malory has increased the involvement of Percival's sister in the quest, yet they fail to show more than a few minor differences, which I believe they have exaggerated in any case. Significantly, Malory still does not name the sister. Her new assertiveness in Malory's version mainly consists of Percival's sister choosing to die by shedding the blood needed by a dying maiden instead of being forced into death, as in the previous version. This self-sacrificial act may give her a slightly higher reputation by allowing her the honor of being buried alongside Galahad and Percival and thus possibly implying that she has achieved as high a spirituality as these two knights. Nevertheless, a truly feminist revision on Malory's part would surely not consist of him representing a woman choosing to die. In fact, in the end the authors admit, "To argue Malory's ardent commitment to fifteenth-century feminism--if such a thing could even be said to have existed--would be ridiculous" (50) . So the title question turns out to be a red herring. In fact, many of the new studies of women in Malory disappoint by employing the very stereotypes that feminist critics caution against. The titles of these articles alone suggest the limitations of this approach : "Bitch or Goddess: Polarized Images of Women in Arthurian Literature and Films''^ and "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Study of Malory's Women. Therefore, while there have been feminist studies of Malory, they have not always been as penetrating and as deep as they could be. As can already be seen from previous examples, studies of the female characters concentrate mainly on Guenevere and both Elaine of Corbenic Castle (Galahad's mother) and Elaine of Astolat, all lovers of Lancelot. Some studies of the female characters also focus on the whole Arthurian tradition or on modern popular images of these characters. Therefore, such articles are not very illuminating about Malory's specifically fifteenth-century versions of these characters.