Labyrinth and Maze: the Shapes of Arthurian Romance

Labyrinth and Maze: The Shapes of Arthurian Romance Norris J. Lacy he intent of this essay, which is dedicated to our friend and colleague William Kibler, is to discuss the applicability of two spatial or concrete metaphors to the nature and construction of T 1 medieval romances, specifically Arthurian. Such efforts are by no means a novelty. It is possible to read scholarship from some years back, or even more recent days, and find romances characterized, for example, as mosaics, in which each piece—episode, scene, motif— fits into the pattern that constitutes the whole. That particular metaphor was challenged by Eugène Vinaver, who insisted that romances—and he was referring in particular, though not exclusively, to the French Vulgate or Lancelot-Grail cycle and later to Malory—were a tapestry rather than a mosaic.2 A piece removed from a mosaic leaves a conspicuous gap, but the rest of the work remains intact. But texts that are held together by structural interlace, as Vinaver argues and as the term “interlace” suggests, are instead exam- ples of tapestry technique, in two significant ways: first, every thread is present at every point, even when not seen: it is there behind the visible threads, and it contributes not only to the texture but also to the cohesion of the whole. Second, and as a result of the uninterrupted presence of the threads, “a single cut across it, made at any point, would unravel it all” (Vinaver 10). After developing the tapestry analogy in Form and Meaning in Medieval Romance and other 1 An expanded version of this article was first presented as the keynote presentation for the Mid-America Medieval Association meeting in February 2006. Although I have abridged and revised it considerably, I have preferred to retain a relatively informal style. 2 Eugène Vinaver, Form and Meaning in Medieval Romance: The Presidential Address of the Modern Humanities Research Association 1966 (Leeds: Maney, 1966) 10. 220 Norris J. Lacy publications, Vinaver also proposed a related metaphor applicable to medieval narrative but drawn from the depiction of ornament in “Romanesque painting and sculpture”; specifically, he studied poly- centricity, characterized by interlace and “the coiling spiral, originally modelled on the acanthus leaf” (14). Vinaver’s work, concerning both the tapestry effect and the poly- centric focus, is invaluable, though far more applicable in regard to long and complex prose cycles than to individual and shorter romances, particularly those in verse. Without any impertinent intent to refute or discard Vinaver’s argument, I would like to propose here an alternative that, I believe, may prove useful in our continuing efforts to define some aspects of romance composition and to refine our understanding of the form. First, a caveat: applying spatial metaphors to verbal constructs is a hazardous enterprise that, if the case is forced, can sponsor conclusions that are unhelpful at best and illegitimate and misleading at worst. I will hope to offer some that are legitimate and modestly useful,3 though the metaphors I discuss will not be perfectly and neatly applicable: that would attribute to the romance genre a sterile uniformity that it does not possess and would constitute an impoverishment of an extremely rich and varied literary form. Spatial metaphors must be taken as approximations, as analogies that are suggestive rather than exact. Over the years, sometimes in print but more often in papers and discussions, especially in that medievalist locus amoenus called Kala- mazoo, I have heard Arthurian romances being likened to labyrinths and mazes. Whichever term is used, the usual implication of the analogy is that a knight sets out with no idea of how to reach his destination and sometimes with no specific destination in mind. He wanders randomly—but not aimlessly—until he encounters adven- tures and meets challenges, but he cannot anticipate the nature of those encounters. It is the apparent randomness and unpredictability of events that sponsors the labyrinth or maze analogy. However, for my purposes, the key word in that last sentence is “apparent.” 3 Apart from a few scattered remarks, I will be dealing in this essay with continental material. This is a matter of chronological necessity rather than of preference, simply because English Arthurian romance—though not chronicle—developed roughly at the end of the time period I’m discussing here. That does not necessarily mean that some of my points may not be applicable mutatis mutandis to Middle English, but only that that is a subject for another time and place. .

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