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Arthur's Heirs: Situating Medieval Welsh, Spanish, and Scandinavian Texts in Their Literary and Historical Contexts

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Arthur's Heirs: Situating Medieval Welsh, Spanish, and Scandinavian Texts in Their Literary and Historical Contexts University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Spring August 2014 ARTHUR’S HEIRS: SITUATING MEDIEVAL WELSH, SPANISH, AND SCANDINAVIAN TEXTS IN THEIR LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS Nahir I. Otaño Gracia University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Celtic Studies Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Scandinavian Studies Commons, and the Spanish Literature Commons Recommended Citation Otaño Gracia, Nahir I., "ARTHUR’S HEIRS: SITUATING MEDIEVAL WELSH, SPANISH, AND SCANDINAVIAN TEXTS IN THEIR LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 122. https://doi.org/10.7275/5490896.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/122 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARTHUR’S HEIRS: SITUATING MEDIEVAL WELSH, SPANISH, AND SCANDINAVIAN TEXTS IN THEIR LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS A Dissertation Presented By NAHIR I. OTAÑO GRACIA Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2014 Program of Comparative Literature Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures © Copyright by Nahir I Otaño Gracia 2014 All Rights Reserved ARTHUR’S HEIRS: SITUATING MEDIEVAL WELSH, SPANISH, AND SCANDINAVIAN TEXTS IN THEIR LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS Dissertation Presented By NAHIR I. OTAÑO GRACIA Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________________________ Maria Tymoczko, Chair _________________________________________________ Elizabeth Petroff, Member _________________________________________________ James Hicks, Member _________________________________________________ Sherrill Harbison, Member _________________________________________________ Albert Lloret, Member __________________________________________ William Moebius, Department Head Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures __________________________________________ Maria Barbon, Program Director Comparative Literature Program DEDICATION Para mi familia, la roca que me aguanta: mi esposo Matthew, mi hija Violet, y el resto de los poetas de mi casa. Recuerden que de poetas y locos todos tenemos un poco y nosotros más que otros. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor, Maria Tymoczko, for absolutely everything. I am aware of all the time and energy you have spent on me and I very much appreciate it. I must also thank Elizabeth Petroff. Together, they have made graduate school a pleasure and have given me all the support, confidence, and help necessary to do the best work possible. I would also like to thank my committee members for always being there for me: James Hicks, Sherrill Harbison, and Albert Lloret. Their comments, suggestions, and support are much appreciated. I would like to thank The University of Pennsylvania and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States’ Universities for funding this research and providing support. Special thanks for the wonderful people that populate the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and the Comparative Literature Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In the many times I have wandered the halls of Herter, there has always been a warm body ready to walk with me. My colleagues and friends have been a great source of inspiration and I want to express my appreciation: Anna, Antonia, Dan, Delia, Emily, Alejandra, Alex, Maureen, Raquel, Rhona, and so on. To Linda, Jean, and Alice who have opened the mailroom door for me for the last seven years, and to JoAnne for welcoming me with open arms. To my family for always being there for me: mis padres Will y Betty, mis hermanos Frances, Carlo, y José, mis abuelos Miguel, Manuel, y Dulce, y mi titi Blanqui. The last space in this acknowledgement must go to my husband, Matthew, and my v daughter, Violet – the two most important people in my world. Let us ride dragons together. vi ABSTRACT ARTHUR’S HEIRS: SITUATING MEDIEVAL WELSH, SPANISH, AND SCANDINAVIAN TEXTS IN THEIR LITERARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEXTS MAY 2014 NAHIR I. OTAÑO GRACIA, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO RIO PIEDRAS M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Maria Tymoczko My dissertation addresses a significant gap in Arthurian scholarship and calls for the study of Arthurian literature as a transnational phenomenon. Inspired by postcolonial and translation theory, my dissertation research offers a new perspective on medieval Arthurian texts in the peripheries of Europe (also called “second-tier” Arthurian texts). Instead of concentrating on the canonical texts (French, English, and German), I analyze materials from the Celtic (Irish and Welsh), Scandinavian (Norwegian and Icelandic), and Iberian (Castilian and Catalan) traditions, demonstrating how these Arthurian texts played different roles in each culture and how they were shaped by, and in turn shaped, their environments. Chapters II and III introduce the ways that Celtic texts present a delicate balance between praising kings for their amazing deeds and chastising them for ultimately leading to the downfall of their people and the lands they should have protected. Thus, the Celtic texts concentrate on both Arthur and his knights as a unit. Chapter IV shifts the analysis to a transnational perspective by comparing the Arthurian texts of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chrétien de Troyes, among the most vii canonical Arthurian texts, pointing out the ways in which their uses of Arthur and his knights fit with their own historical and cultural contexts. Each text creates a different Arthur that has family resemblances to the other Arthurs. The Arthurian texts from the Iberian Peninsula concentrate on the knights, but turn them into kings, a very different interpretive move from the Arthurian texts discussed above. Chapter V discusses how Iberian courtly ideals were intertwined with ideas of chivalry and knighthood. Arthurian literature served as an example for the nobles of the Castilian and Catalan courts. The kings in these tales emulated Arthurian journeys and jousts and even imitated the behaviors of Arthur’s knights. The obsession of the Iberian courts with Arthurian ideals is the subject of one of the most important critiques made by Cervantes in Don Quixote. By contrast, in Scandinavian Arthurian texts the knights take center stage. Chapter VI explores how the Arthurian texts relate to the characters of the Icelandic sagas such as Egils saga skallagrímssonar. The sagas depict Icelandic settlers interacting with the kings of Norway. A close comparison of the Icelandic sagas with the Nordic Arthurian tales reveals parallels between the relationship of Arthur to his knights and the relationship of the kings of Norway to the Icelandic Vikings. The primary parallel exists in the exaltation of those that travel (knights and Icelandic Vikings) over the kings (Arthur and the Norwegian kings). I conclude that this correlation between the sagas of the Icelanders and the Arthurian texts clarifies why Scandinavian Arthurian texts were first translated in Norway but only survive thanks to copies made in Iceland. Chapter VI also addresses the fact that the Icelandic Tristan is Spanish and fights “heathens” that pray to Mohammed, exposing the ways in which Spaniards were constructed in the north. viii My work demonstrates the transnational qualities of Arthurian tales, emphasizing the ways in which the peripheral cultures take the Arthurian motifs and transform them, while still presenting King Arthur and his knights. Moreover, my research reveals that our notions of the canonical Arthurian texts (emphasizing the English, French, and German texts) are not shaped by the literary reality of medieval texts, as Arthurian literature was present throughout the entirety of Europe. A scholarly comparison between the Arthurian material of the Iberian Peninsula and Scandinavia has not been undertaken to date. This dissertation calls for the study of Arthurian literature as a transnational phenomenon that moves beyond nationalistic points of view reflecting the perspectives of the culturally dominant modern European nations. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCING THE KINGS ........................................................................................1 Understanding the Arthurian Web ................................................................................1 Arthurian Interpretations: The Field of Comparative Arthurian Studies ......................4 Translating Arthur: The Role of Translations, Pseudotranslations,and Rewritings .....9 Local Arthurs: Translation and Postcolonial Theory as a Tool to Highlight Specificity ..............................................................................................................20 Work Cited Chapter I ..................................................................................................27
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