LLT 180 Lecture 4 Part 1 We Had Stopped When We Were Talking
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LLT 180 Lecture 4 Part 1 We had stopped when we were talking about collecting fumets, not a particularly interesting topic. I don't think that would be my pastime. We're trying to make fun. The idea is that questing while it's an important aspect of being a knight is not supposed to be particularly attractive. He's questing after these Glatisant. They are on page 23. You should remember Glatisant's name. One of the things that come up later is that finally the questing beast only stays healthy and alive as long as Pellinore's questing after him. Otherwise, it fades away and dies. So, to me I can't help but think of the Peter, Paul and Mary song puff the magic dragon, and how that is the same idea. I think what's important here is that the quest is almost like a dream. So, unless maybe we nurture our dreams if this is trying to tell us something as we read through this unless we nurture our dreams, unless we nurture our ideals that they fade away and die. So, we have to pay attention to them. You can sit a lot with this and look up vocabulary. Just to prove that I do they describe the questing beast toward the bottom of page 23. They say this beast about maybe 12 lines from the bottom has the head of a serpent and the body of a libbard. What the crud is a libbard? It's an old spelling variation actually of leopard. It's a body of a leopard. The haunches of a lion and he is footed like a heart. A heart is actually the male of a red deer. I'm not going to ask you to draw this on the test even though it might be interesting. He has a large, white dog that's helping him pursue the best. All of this is just kind of silly funniness. Pellinore certainly does not make questing sound like fun. It's kind of an arduous thing. Remember he's been about this for seventeen years, about as long as all of you have been about anything. It's been eight months since he's even seen the questing beast. We read here at the bottom of page 24 the poor fellow's voice had grown sadder and sadder since the beginning of the conversation. Now, he definitely began to snuffle. So, he is sad. This is not fun. It is the curse of the Pellinore. So, who can find the questing beast? Only the Pellinores. It is their family quest; it is their family beast. After wandering about after that beastly beast what on earth use is she anyway? So, the questing beast is a female. It seems suitable. I'm trying to be funny. First you have to stop to unwind a bracket, referring to his dog. Then, your visor falls down. Then, you can't see through your spectacles. Nowhere to sleep, never know where you are, rheumatism or sun stroke in the summer, all this horrid armor that takes hours to put on, which will be the case when we practice doing it. So, really what he's like on page 25 is a bed. If he could have a bed it would be a wonderful experience. So, if he were rich. Again, remember this is Arthur's first view of what it's like to be a knight, a knight on a quest. A lot of times as I read through this and try to think of clever, critical things to say simply on the side of the text I write ha, ha. Like this is just the silliest stuff. For example, we get in Pellinore just the opposite view of what we think a great heroic knight would be. The point here is he fell off his horse with a tremendous clang. When we see the tape on knights and armor they're going to make the point that to be a great knight the most important attribute was not to be necessarily a great athlete. You had to be able to control your horse. So, the first thing almost as early as people could walk who were going to become knights they learned horsemanship. The modern remnant of that are competitions in dressage, in other words being able to control your horse, teach them so they walk sideways, backwards, do different movements because these could be important in battle. So, the end of this chapter the point of this is to puncture our traditional image of how great a knight is. Wart now is in the woods. He awakens late. He's fallen asleep. He's going to find of course Merlin. We're going to meet Merlin. Merlin is going to become his tutor. He finds Merlin, an old man in a cottage. We quickly recognize Merlin when he is described for us at the bottom of page 28. So, all the traditional getup that we would expect of a magician and later the point is made there are a lot of magicians. So, it's hard for us to imagine, it's like if you read tales that the brothers grim collected. You notice that all these tales are of princes and princesses and things of that nature. When you think of Germany in the middle of the early 1800s there were like 365 self-governing entities. So, if we started thinking of Europe in olden times there were a lot more small areas. So, you might be in line at Albertson's and there's a princess in front of you and a duke behind you. Then, behind the duke there is a magician or a court jester. So, a lot more of these people simply existed in society than we might ever think of in modern society. So, Merlin is described on the bottom of 28 and the top of 29. How does Arthur react? I mean Arthur's going to have a lot of unique experiences. What is his basic response when he meets Merlin? Is he frightened? Yeah, he's curious. He doesn't ever seem how does he react to magic? How does he react to the strange stuff at Merlin's cottage? How would he be different from Kay? Kay would be freaked out by it. He's just like entranced by it. He's like this is neat stuff. So, he doesn't seem particularly scared of magic. It seems like this is kind of an ordinary world for him. Stuff that would bug me, for example after he meets Merlin what is the first thing Merlin says to him on page 29 about line 15? "The aged gentleman put down his bucket and looked at him. Merlin's been muttering about having to haul up water and do all this stuff. We're going to find out later he's living according to White. He's living his life backwards. He says your name would be the Wart. So, here we are in the middle of nowhere and you run into somebody and they know your name. I'm gone; I'm far-gone. I'm running down the forest path. How does he respond? Yes, sir. He identifies himself. My name said the old man is Merlin. Now, if Merlin is living life backwards he's going to do what? He's going to keep becoming younger as the book progresses. They go to Merlin's place. Everything's marvelous in the sense of miraculous, unbelievable, magical. So, it is in the middle of page 30 here's the most marvelous room that he had ever been in. They described the contents in some great detail. We also have an owl. An owl traditionally is symbol of wisdom. The owl is going to be an important character again an aid and education for Arthur, which is important. The owl can talk. Its name is Archimedes. This magic world we read on about on 33 is just everywhere where Merlin is. Again, this idea is that he was expecting somebody. Later in the book I think it stated that Merlin was sent for Arthur. He was sent for Arthur's education. He has special magic for Arthur. He has special magic that he can only use to help educate Arthur. I've read this book more than once. It's very unclear. I think an interesting question when we get toward that part is well, if he has this special magic from whom does he have it. Who sent him? Why is Merlin here? I mean if you go back and believe in the divine right of kings did God did she send him? That is something to think about when we get to that point. Another thing, so he knew Wart's name and the breakfast table is already set for two. He knew Wart was coming. Now, that makes sense if Merlin is living life backwards. He knew what was going to happen. So, he could expect Wart. It gets kind of confusing in here and Merlin makes the good point about that. Why? In great big letters you see I wrote on the facing page why is Merlin here on page 34? What impresses Wart? About line six he said that Wart was so much impressed by the kindness of the old man and particularly by the lovely things which he possessed that he hardly liked to ask him personal questions.