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Bertagnolli, Ann Therese

THE CELEBRATION OF IMPERFECT HEROES AND HEROINES IN "ORLANDO FURIOSO," "DON JUAN,” AND "LE MORTE DARTHUR"

The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1984

University Microfilms

International300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

Copyright 1984 by Bertagnolli, Ann Therese All Rights Reserved

THE CELEBRATION OF IMPERFECT HEROES AND HEROINES

IN ORLANDO FURIOSO, DON JUAN, AND 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 Ann T. Bertagnolli, B.A., M.A.

The Ohio State University

1984

Reading Committee: Approved by

Professor Christian K. Zacher

Professor Richard T. Martin

Professor Robert C. Jones

Adviser

Department of E Copyright by Ann Therese Bertagnolli 1984 To Mona and Mary

i i Acknowledgements

This dissertation owes much to the encouragement and work of others.

A true friend and guide, Professor Robert C. Jones has that rare ability to reach into another's mind and understand the thoughts lurking there, some barely formed. He has helped me to draw mine out and to express them in the writing he has so patiently overseen. Professors Richard T. Martin and

Christian K. Zacher offered helpful, provocative comments that directed me in making needed revisions. Both were always encouraging. Kezia V. Sproat deserves special thanks for her generosity of spirit—for her words of wisdom and support that have influenced me both professionally and personally—as does Roseanne Rini, my friend and sister and the mentor who has so often sustained and enriched me. I am particularly grateful, as well, to Kay de la

Cruz, whose reassurance, honesty, and friendship I have come to prize.

Without Joyce Davenport's skill at the word processor and avid interest in

Arthurian tales, the preparation of this manuscript would not have been so satisfying.

To Dr. John Kangas I owe a very personal debt of gratitude. He has been and continues to be an invaluable presence in my life.

i i i The last debts tire often the most difficult. I have only one. Dennis Aig,

B.A., M.A., Ph.D., is, and always has been, my most treasured friend, my most respected critic and colleague. VITA

November 27, 1950 ...... Born—Townsend, Montana

1973...... B.A., Carroll College, Helena, Montana 1975...... M.A., University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada

1975-1981 ...... Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University

1981...... Lecturer, Department of English., The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Renaissance Literature Professor Robert C. Jones

Italian Renaissance Literature Professor Albert N. Mancini

Medieval Literature Professor Christian K. Zacher

Nineteenth Century British Literature Professor Richard T. Martin

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DEDICATION...... ii

VITA...... v CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION...... 1

IL ATTRACTIVE FICTIONS...... 25

III. "BUFFOONERY WITH A PLAN"...... 70

IV. THE QUEST BROUGHT HOME...... 185

V. CONCLUSION...... 297

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 304

v i CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Epic and romance literature generally elicits from its readers expectations of heroism and grandeur. Northrop Frye's description of the romance genre in his Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays emphasizes its typical idealism, depicted through characteristic gallant, virtuous heroes and heroines. Pitted against their moral opposites, these exalted figures consistently portray ideals they represent. Their marvelous actions allow them to be superior over an environment where the ordinary laws of nature are somewhat suspended. Frye's description of the epic closely parallels what he says about romance. Epic heroes are also idealized, superior in degree to others in their societies. They are distinguished primarily from typical heroes of romance in their limited ability to control their environment.

Traditionally, they are leaders who exert their power and authority within the order of nature. Works th at present themselves to us as "heroic fiction" (as both epic and romance conventionally do) affirm the ideals they characterize. Their idealized worlds are created, according to Frye, from our own hopes and desires. He points out that the romance is the nearest of all

1 2 literary forms to the "wish fulfillment dream." It is marked by an

"extraordinarily persistent nostalgia, {..a search for} some kind of imaginative golden age in time or space."! Irony "has no place in romance," he claims,because its suggested realism conflicts with this dreamlike, idealized world whose characters are what we would like to be. 2 Works that are mock heroic also use heroic ideals as standards of judgment. Frye's discussion points out that comedy and irony sometimes parody the epic to reveal a disappearance of the heroic in the actual world being posited. The discrepancy between this world and a traditional heroic world emphasizes the ludicrousness of characters in such a parody. They are ridiculed by the narrator's contrasting their shortcomings with the nobility of typical heroic figures. They are significantly beneath what they ought to be or could be, and the absence of the heroic in their natures and worlds is the object of satire.

My study focuses on three works that elude the polarization between irony and romance characterizing both heroic and mock heroic fiction in

Frye's term s. All three works, Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Lord

Byron's Don Juan, and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, posit themselves heroically, but the narrators in each similarly undermine ironically the chivalric, idealized worlds traditionally uplifted in heroic fiction. Rather than satirizing or mocking characters by holding up their actual behavior against heroic ideals, the narrators celebrate, instead, in varying degrees of obviousness, the more realistic, human world that emerges in each work. My aim in approaching these texts through their narrators is to show how each 3 storyteller, either overtly as in Don Juan or almost purely by suggestion as in

Le Morte Darthur, modifies the genre to which his work appears to belong. I do not attempt to define conclusively what the romance or mock-heroic are or to establish a new genre to account for the uniqueness I see in these fictions, but offer, instead, a way of discussing problems that appear to derive from inconsistencies and contradictions within a given framework. I thus use the romance and mock-heroic heuristically to highlight the modifications presented by each narrator and to illustrate how similar tendencies and characteristics emerge in three apparently diverse works. This study is meant to be suggestive rather than inclusive, to provoke further interest in seeing how the ironic/affirming perspective can be elsewhere applied. To approach the following works, or any other work, from this direction does not imply that this is the best or only method, but that it is one that can be useful in dealing with texts appearing to elude definitive characterization.

The three works I have chosen appear initially to be an odd grouping—they are not overtly connected by similarities that would invite us to look at the works together or to see one in terms of the other. Though attention in criticism has been devoted to Byron's use of the ottava rima, the form characterizing Ariosto's poem, and to the ironic/satiric "spirit" the two writers seem to share, relationships between the two poems are not systematically emphasized, at least in terms discussed here. 3 But the fact that these texts present major problems in being characterized—that they do not seem to fit into the specific traditions they evoke—is precisely the reason 4 they can be examined together. This similarity is drawn out by the fact that all three works participate in the romance and mock heroic genres. Orlando

Furioso overtly calls our attention to both, Don Juan more dramatically emphasizes the mock heroic, and Malory follows more consistently the conventions of romance. Yet each writer, to varying degrees, employs conventions of both genres, mocking the characters he describes and praising them as welL The presence of this undermining/affirming tendency in each work permits us not only to grasp a curious connection among them, but to understand, by comparing the ways in which all three call upon and modify shared literary traditions, the individual natures of each.

A good way to introduce the ironic/affirming pattern distinguishing

Ariosto's, Byron's, and Malory's fictions is to explore briefly Miguel de

Cervantes' The Adventures of Don Quixote. This text serves as a good preliminary model because it illustrates the movement from parody to affirmation. The work begins as a mock romance, poking fun at Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as characters who have created through their romantic delusions a world that does not actually exist. As it progresses, though, the narrator engages us more and more sympathetically with the comical duo originally targeted as objects of ridicule. We are encouraged to appreciate their humanness, and, particularly in P art Two, to hold back from deriding their perspectives on life. The narrator's scoffing portrayal of them occurs through his commentary on their behavior and mock-heroic imagery emphasizing how unchivalrous they actually are. He frequently declares Don 5

Quixote's madness, telling us that this ungainly, scrawny knight had "utterly

wrecked his reason" and that his even having a brain was questionable. 4 The

Don's horse is not the magnificent steed he claims but "the first and foremost

of all hacks in the world,"5 and Sancho Panza is merely a "poor yokel" who, in

his ignorance, goes along with his master in hopes of gaining an isle to

govern. Don Quixote transforms a homely country woman into his lovely

Dulcinea del Toboso and envisions the world around him as a battleground

filled with adventures. He becomes a legitimate problem for those he

encounters, requiring services he cannot pay for, freeing convicted prisoners, attacking innocent individuals, and battling sheep he sees as squadrons.

Sancho's responses to the Don often work in conjunction with the narrator's to point up the ridiculousness of these actions. He tends to perceive their surroundings as they really exist—he sees an inn instead of a castle and a barber's basin instead of Mambrino's helmet. His frequent challenges to the

Don to recognize circumstances in their actuality and his guffaws over his master's blunders show how exaggerated Don Quixote's misconceptions are.

But Sancho, too, is mocked by the narrator as a character who, because of his greed and overall simplicity, wholeheartedly engages himself in the fantasy the Don has created. He may see the fictional nature of chivalry, but tempted by the possibility of gaining the indulgent side of life, he embraces the fiction as keenly as Don Quixote. It is the work of enchanters, not just the actual world thrusting itself upon this team, that obstructs, they believe, the accomplishment of their noble goals. The world functions in the first part 6 of this work much more smoothly w ithout the intrusions of these characters—both, in fact, rather than partaking in the mainstream of life, live on the sidelines, separated from others by their ridiculousness.

Yet our willingness to laugh at Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is gradually modified as the work moves into its Second Part. Increasingly, we are invited by the narrator to see both characters sympathetically and to affirm them for who they are. The inherently positive aspects of their personalities are drawn out, and we recognize the value in each figure. Their relationship is often moving, particularly in the way it demonstrates their forthright loyalty and love for each other. Despite their squabbles regarding the appropriate behavior for knights and squires, each willingly defends and respects his companion. Those they encounter also encourage us to perceive the duo positively. Don Diego and his son Lorenzo acknowledge Don Quixote's intelligence, as does the narrator, and perceive him as a wise man in matters apart from chivalry. The Don is, in fact, a character whose comments occasionally and rightfully command an audience. He claims that in the present depraved times, he is "only at pains to convince the world of its error in not reviving that most happy age in which the order of chivalry flourished."® His perception of the past may be idealistic, but it does throw attention off him and onto Cervantes' present day, with the suggestion that all is not right with his contemporary world. Don Quixote's wisdom is more directly applied when he gives Sancho advice about being a governor. He tells him th at he should not be ashamed of his lineage for it is "more meritorious to 7

be virtuous and poor than noble and a sinner" and gives sound, fair,

compassionate guidelines for him to follow in judging legal cases.7 Sancho,

despite his misgivings, displays equal good sense in the performance of his

office and comes to certain realizations that allow him to be content with

who he is. He willingly relinquishes his governorship and announces: "I had

rather go to Heaven plain Sancho than to Hell a governor."8 He clearly learns

to accept himself:

I was not born to be a governor, nor to defend isles or cities from the enemies who choose to attack them. I understand more about ploughing and digging and the pruning and gathering of vineshoots than of law-giving or defending provinces or kingdoms. St. Peter is well at Rome: I mean that everyone is best practicing the trade for which he was born.®

We may often feel in listening to these two that the profundity of what they say actually eludes them in their innocence and simplicity, but we do sympathize with their humanitarianism and affirm them for it. Our compassion is provoked by their human natures and our earlier inclination to deride them is softened. Cervantes suggests, in fact, that we take a closer look at the characters who mock them when he tells us, "Cide Hamete says that he considers the mockers were as mad as their victims, and the Duke and

Duchess within a hair's breadth of appearing fools themselves for taking such pains to play tricks on a pair of fools."1° Such a comment deflects criticism away from Don Quixote and Sancho by implying fault on the part of those who ridicule them. 8

Some suggestion is also made that Don Quixote does perceive the

difference between his fantasy and reality. After Sancho elaborates on all

that he saw while he flew through the sky, his master whispers to him that he

will accept his farfetched account if Sancho accepts his story of what he saw

in the Cave of Montesinos. This statement, together with the denunciation of

chivalrous works Don Quixote provides before he dies, calls into question his

madness and the appropriateness of our mockery. But even before Don

Quixote's judgment is freed from his delusions and he becomes Alonso Quixano

the Good, Cervantes has led us toward affirming him and his often riotous

companion in spite of their lapses and imperfections. They are benevolent,

likeable, engaging characters. Their goodness and appeal are well described

by J.M. Cohen:

by the time ofiDon Quixote's} final overthrow by the Knight of the White Moon we are on his side against all the forces of reason and sanity. For his madness is something we all share, a fantastic protest against the limitations o f worldly existence, which makes us lend instant sympathy to the subtlest of all its critics, the comics who take its knocks; to Falstaff, or Charlie Chaplin, or to a more resilient mocker like Groucho Marx. I*

Sancho, as he goes from "strength to strength" and discovers his own ingenuity 12 "wins our affection by leaps and bounds."

The narrators in Orlando Furioso, Don Juan, and Le Morte Darthur similarly draw from us positive, sympathetic responses for the humanly flawed 9 characters they describe. Each speaker appears to undercut these figures because of their imperfections but simultaneously leads us away from judging them negatively for their failures to uphold heroic values. Ariosto clearly places Orlando Furioso as heroic fiction through its representation of a typical romance world, but his ironic presentations of characters in pursuit of their quests subvert the exalted view of them that his epic form and romance world would normally imply. We do not find in the poem the exalted heroes of Le

Chanson de Roland—those loyal, honorable, consistently uplifted warriors who serve a god-like, venerable Charlemagne. Instead, Ariosto suggests in his frequent comments about their behavior that the characters he describes are not the idealized figures one might expect defending the virtues they supposedly represent. While they are more romanticized than their counterparts so well parodied in Italo Calvino's The Nonexistent Knight, they are mutable and clearly limited by imperfections. Angelica is beautiful, but she is coldly selfish and shrewd—hardly the virtuous object of desire.

Ruggiero intensely loves Bradamante, but he tends to forget that she should be the sole object of his passion. He also is somewhat of a bungler, as demonstrated in one of the funnier passages of the work when, after performing miraculous feats of agility, he cannot remove his armor to make love with Angelica. The nominal hero of this long poem, Orlando, nephew of

Charlemagne, is a failure in both love and war. He deceives himself into believing that Angelica needs and loves him and that he is her protector. He rarely gets what he strives for and always seems a bit behind the action. His 10 singlemindedness and belief in the reality of his fantasies drive him mad.

The narrator's undercutting of these characters' heroic dimensions renders them more human than ideal. He appears to encourage this response by drawing parallels between himself and the characters. In comparing his own amorous difficulties and theirs, he suggests that their involvements and encounters are not unusual in that they reflect the norm of life as we know it. He claims these sufferings are real and even pretends to be overcome emotionally by his characters' experiences. These comparisons are clearly exaggerations, humorous because they are so obvious, but they emphasize the narrator's suggestion that these characters are humanly fallible rather than exalted, ideal, or especially noble. The narrator's allusions to Ariosto's contemporaries, particularly to members of the Este family, seem intended to reinforce his characters' humanness, as Byron's narrator's do in Don Juan, as well as to suggest that certain of these real-life individuals be perceived ironically. Implicit in these sections is the narrator's suggestion that particular individuals, like the imperfect characters depicted in the Orlando

Furioso, contrive heroic fictions about themselves. The real world, like the fictional world of the narrative, is illogical, non-consequential, and imperfect. Expectations of ourselves and of our world, he seems to imply, ought to be grounded more in reality than in ideals he suggests are falsely posited as reaL Yet, at the same time, he appears to present this process of fictionalizing as a basic human tendency to control and understand an incomprehensible world. His celebration of humanness derives from the 11

overall sympathetic rather than satiric approach he takes toward this

tendency. His role as narrator demonstrates his own fictionalizing, elevating

himself as god to reveal playfully his clever, poetic abilities as creator. It is

an ironic elevation, as we can see when he calls attention to his humanness,

and to the limitations of human endeavor, by relinquishing this role at the end

of the narrative. In both the fictional and the real world that Ariosto's

narrator posits, discrepancies exist between the way things are and the way

characters and individuals want them to be. He appears to appreciate these

discontinuities, to celebrate the variety in reality, the harmony derived from

coexistent, sometimes reconciled differences. Fictionalizing oneself

heroically is not necessarily a matter for criticism, but can be a positive

tendency if individuals distinguish between these fictions and reality, limiting self-deception by making choices about their beliefs on the basis of this awareness. Human creativity confronting an incomprehensible world is affirmed, in this sense, by Ariosto's narrator. It is an endlessly interesting, praiseworthy capability when one does not use it to delude himself.

Byron's narrator plainly uses the mock-heroic to undermine the significance of his characters and their enterprises. His ironic perspective is evident in invocations like "Hail Muse, etcetera" and in deliberately exaggerated accounts of love, tempests, travel, and war. Juan's blatant naivetd openly suggests he is not the typical epic hero. Rather than being a commanding presence, confidently in charge of himself, he appears to be almost a simpleton. He is unthinking, detached from those around him, 12

unaware of circumstances beyond him and of the significance of his own

actions. Most of the characters he encounters, in contrast, tend to overstate

their attributes. They are portrayed by the narrator as pretentious fools. His

frequent taunting remarks about their behavior mock them as misguided

figures who perceive themselves as much more than they are. These

characters, in general, are depicted in Don Juan as figures who assume they possess heroic statures rather than as those who actually do.

The narrator suggests through these ironic portrayals that the epic form

falsely exalts man and celebrates him for what he is not. He implies through allusions to real-life individuals that his characters are like them in their human limitations, bearing imperfections common to alL (Byron himself claimed that "Almost all Don Juan is real life, either my own, or from people I knew.")13 The poet seems interested in getting the reader to recognize and laugh at common human tendencies. In this regard, according to Barbara

Reynolds, he closely resembles Ariosto and brings to its "fullest flowering in

English poetry"14 the Italian poet's spirit of "light raillery, good-natured fun, and tolerant cynicism."*5 He, like Ariosto, emphasizes his own human nature in lengthy digressions from the narrative, demonstrating preoccupations with life's pleasures similar to those of his characters. Like them, he is easily sidetracked by food, love, and women. He is prone to exaggeration and to the same tendency to exalt himself that he exposes in characters (and their prototypes). These tendencies often are so funny because they are so familiar, and the narrator seems to suggest they apply to the reader as well, 13

using words like "our" when addressing him to emphasize their relationship.

What seems to offend the narrator, and thus to account for his satiric voice, is

that characters (and thus their real-life counterparts) actually believe they

are superior to others. He suggests they reach this conclusion because they

perceive their behavior as representative of certain ideals. The problem, he

implies, is that these ideals are fictions. They are not literal, attainable

truths, but ideas posited by man about the kind of behavior he should

maintain. Characters—human beings in general—not distinguishing these

fictions from reality are intolerant, pretentious, and ridiculous. Their folly in

not recognizing this limited perception is fully elaborated as Don Juan

progresses and the narrator becomes more outspoken. In characters like

Johnson, whose prototypes are plentiful, misguided notions of bravery, honor,

fame, and love are clearly apparent. Exploitation, ignorance, and

narrowmindedness flourish under the guise of honor. Society is just as out of

touch with the world as it claims the lower classes are. Ideals, the poet seems

to insist, are what an individual wants them to be, and they are delusory.

Characters in Don Juan (and people in the real world) who fictionalize themselves heroically are denying what they really are. Their misperception of reality, as Byron implies it is, ironically emphasizes their imperfection and reinforces their unidealized natures.

Humanness—that is, the ability among people to accept themselves for who they are, to acknowledge their limitations as human beings—is engaging and positive, In clear, moving passages, he talks about what is good in reality, 14

about what human beings are, and about what they discover in their world as

it actually exists. He points out the sweetness in ordinary human experiences

such as winning a game, falling in love for the first time, hearing a watch

dog's bark, and tasting a good wine. He describes touching moments, like the

quiet that falls over the earth at twilight, when people experience peace and

beauty. Mortality and pain, universal problems inherent in being human, are

discussed at length. These passages evoke a sympathy for those who honestly

confront life's complexities, recognizing, as the narrator does, the difference

between reality and fiction and accepting their inabilities to understand fully

their world. Juan is actually perceivable as a positive character in many

respects precisely because he does not attempt to transform himself into

anything other than he is. His refusal to do so is often a m atter of naivetd

rather than of conscious choice, but it nonetheless distinguishes him positively

from other characters. He is obviously not fully praiseworthy, but neither is he consistently the typical mock hero whose shortcomings emphasize an unfortunate absence of the heroic in the world or his ludicrous failure to meet such standards. His unidealized behavior occasionally reveals a kind of nobility. Juan is untainted by pretentious perceptions of himself, unencumbered by unrealistic expectations. The narrator's strong condemnations of poets like Wordsworth and Southey clarify his positive view of an unidealized world, suggesting he accepts as real only the practical kind of life he recognizes. He implies he is unwilling to transform reality, as he suggests they do, into something more mystical or elevated than it is. Nature, 15 and human nature, he claims, are too often twisted to conform to man's idealistic expectations rather than allowed to exist as they are.

Acknowledging this imperfect state and accepting it are more genuinely commendable in people than are their attempts to exalt themselves.

This focus on the positive value of human nature despite its inherent limitations distinguishes Don Juan from works such as Alexander Pope's The

Rape of the Lock, where even though the purpose is conciliatory, the means diminish the importance of human affairs and preoccupations.!® Similarly, in

Pope's The Dunciad and John Dryden's MacFlecknoe, straightforward satire dominates, and no redeeming feature surfaces in contemporaries thinly disguised as fictional characters. Byron's attacks on poets in his day are clearly satiric, but he does not leave his audience with the bitterness of harsh criticism. He moves away, in fact, from singling out, simply for the sake of doing so, the depraved abilities, as he sees them, of his contemporaries and encourages us to rejoice in the human experiences that touch us all. He offers his audience a means of redeeming themselves—not by denouncing the flaws that often characterize them, but by accepting them.

Malory's Le Morte Darthur is the most problematic of these three works for analysis because the narrator is not a clearly defined, consistently apparent presence. Our perceptions of the significance of certain actions, attitudes, or conversations among characters are developed often through what seem to be narrative suggestions.!? Notably absent, for example, are invocations to muses and extensive remarks about the work addressed to the 16 reader to establish its heroic nature. The narrator simply begins his story without introduction and rarely comments openly about his characters or about the fictional world he creates. He establishes the heroic nature of his work, instead, through his descriptions of Arthurian characters. Knights resemble typical romance figures nobly confronting marvelous adventures in quests. They strive to defend their honor in numerous encounters with opponents who challenge their heroic prowess. Beautiful women whose virtue they protect are sometimes the causes for these confrontations, and they often reward their victorious contenders with love. Knights' marvelous deeds emphasize the heroic nature of this world. They are miraculously powerful figures fighting in pools of their own blood long after such feats are credible.

Sometimes, as in the case of Gawain, they are aided by supernatural powers.

Dissimulation, characteristic of romance, is common in Le Morte Darthur. sorcery being a frequent practice cleverly performed by characters like

Merlin and Morgan le Fay. These figures make it clear that literal representations of places, situations, and characters are not to be taken for granted. Arthur's knights' experiences and visions in the Grail section are also notably fantastic.

The absence of the narrator's comments about the literary form he employs and about his characters makes it more difficult for the reader to determine whether these Arthurian figures are affirmed or mocked.

Questions about perceiving Malory's characters positively are provoked in readers because the narrator does not consistently present them as chivalrous 17

heroes. These questions are more problematic for us than those in Don Juan

or the Orlando Furioso since our responses are not clearly directed by the

narrator. Comments he does offer are more obscure than those of the other

two narrators, not openly defining what our perspective should be. We

become aware, however, that the narrator's view of his Arthurian characters

is ironic through accounts of them that subvert their chivalric heroism. The

narrator's irony is clearly illustrated in his characterization of the king.

Arthur successfully fights against thousands to establish himself as Emperor,

but he is not the uplifted, political figure appearing in The Alliterative Morte

Darthur who fights noble battles supported by Christ's might, nor is he the

sovereign allied with God in Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings

of Britain. He is not completely unpraiseworthy in Le Morte Darthur, but

Malory diminishes our sense of Arthur as an unmatched, heroic,

divinely-inspired leader. He is often portrayed, in contrast, as being daft

about the workings of his world. His perceptual inabilities, emphasized

particularly because they are not so consistently apparent in other characters,

distinguish him as a king who is not always typical of heroic fiction. He

marries Guinevere despite Merlin's warnings about the outcome of their

relationship, and he naively assumes King Marke is good for his word after the

Cornish king has openly demonstrated that he is not. Lancelot often rebukes him, chastising him for his naive gestures and assumptions. Lancelot himself

is a very intriguing and noble character whom the narrator suggests sometimes ought to be viewed ironically. He is not portrayed, for example, as 18

a chivalrous knight totally given over to love for Guinevere, as he is in

Chrdtien de Troyes' sympathetic account of him, but as a figure who does not

grasp the full meaning of his feelings for the queen. The few comments the

narrator makes seem to reinforce his ironic descriptions of these characters.

He emphasizes their less idealized natures by offering apparent excuses for

certain behavior. The implication, of course, is that their conduct is not what

we would expect of heroic figures and therefore needs explanation.

Characters who oppose Arthur's knights are also sometimes actually more

humorous than evil, undermining clear-cut responses to the moral opposition

typical among romance characters. King Marke, for example, is genuinely vicious in attempting to do away with Tristram, but the narrator's characterization of him as an incredible coward comically reduces his evil stature. He is not a consistently bad character, as we see when he sincerely grieves after hearing the fabricated story of Tristram's death.

The narrator's way of undercutting these characters appears not to satirize them negatively as a mock-epic might, but to posit them as understandably human. They do as well as they can in spite of their limitations. They clearly aspire to perfection, but, unlike characters in Don

Juan, they are not portrayed as pretentious fools out of touch with their real selves. On many occasions, the narrator describes them positively, presenting them as noble, praiseworthy figures who clearly strive for goodness. The reader is not given overt signals relating these characters to his own (or to the narrator's own) world, but he senses a similarity between them and real-life 19

individuals based on shared limitations. Characters bungle through their life’s adventures in spite of their good intentions in ways reminiscent of our own.

Their imperfections and curious idiosyncrasies make them approachable—we derive pleasure from seeing that, in some ways, they are like us. Our response to the relationship among Lancelot, Guinevere, and Arthur m akes this engagement apparent. We can sympathize and vicariously suffer with these characters because the involvement they share genuinely creates a painful experience. We perceive a connection between them and us because their feelings remind us of some of our own, and the situation they find themselves in is similar to complicated situations familiar to us. Their world, in spite of its heroic setting, is not the typical romance w orld where good is clearly distinguished from bad. The narrator's descriptions blur this opposition, presenting a world that is grey rath er than black and white, similar to our own in its ambiguities. It is a mutable world—like ours—both incomprehensible and uncontrollable.

The inappropriateness of viewing these ch aracters according to heroic standards of perfection is emphasized in the Grail section. Christ's condemnation of Arthur's knights seems exaggerated, unfairly harsh, because

He ignores their sincere motivation toward good. They are not precisely parallel to the knights described in the Quest of th e Holy Grail of the Prose

Lancelot because Malory's emphasis is not primarily on Lancelot's repentance and consequent ascension into God's grace. The idea of sin and the exaltation of Galahad are much more central to the Quest, where the "Knights of 20

God"—those who wear "God's armor"—partake in the ultimate quest Malory

curtails or omits the doctrinal glosses contained in the hermits' discourses in

this source and, reducing the book to less than half its original length, creates a more complicated picture of his knights where they do not appear to be granted a fair appraisal. Eugene Vinaver perceives Malory as being simply

"not concerned with the yet higher law which cuts across the courtly world in the Grail books. . . . He reproduces both the condemnation and the contrition of Lancelot, but sets them against the background of Lancelot's glorious deeds in the days before the Quest, so that his former fame may be constantly borne in mind.1,1 ^ Christ's judgment of Lancelot and his companions against absolute standards conflicts with these more complex non-judgmental or positive responses the narrator has evoked from us. It is also difficult for us to be critical cf Arthur's knights with Christ's vehemence because the idealized characters posited in contrast to them, specifically Galahad and

Percival, are not particularly engaging. Galahad is more a divisive agent than a spiritually moving example. He disrupts the Round Table community and seems unable to provide the guidance the others seek to become better knights. Percival seems almost comic in his exaggerated attempts to drive away the lust that sometimes tem pts him. The narrator's celebration of humanness—of these characters as real persons rather than as fictive ideals—can be seen initially in his treatment of

Sir Bors, the third holy knight. His own human nature (his one unchaste spot) is clearly not a damning trait because he is one of the chosen to view the 21

GraiL He reinforces our experience of the goodness of the other Round Table knights by returning to them rather than becoming a monk after Percival and

Galahad die. Through Bors' return to these characters, the narrator seems to open the way toward final acceptance of them and their humanly imperfect world. They genuinely seek to better themselves, and they persist in their endeavors, unlike characters in Don Juan, with an awareness of their failures along the way. We sense they partially perceive the gap between idealized fictions and the reality of their world, a distinction presented more clearly in

Don Juan and the Orlando Furioso, especially at the end of the work when they seem to acknowledge openly their limitations and to accept themselves more fully for who they are. Encouraging this positive perception of them is the fact that Lancelot becomes the spiritual example for Arthur's knights that

Galahad failed to be. The narrator appears to reward these characters by granting them spiritual dignity in spite of their imperfections. He elevates

Lancelot to heaven as if he were a saint and transforms Arthur into a folkloric hero. Gawain is one of the more delightfully uplifted, blessed in death with the women he would have liked accompanying him in life.1^ Other Round

Table knights are equally uplifted, characterized as holy men. Malory's narrator celebrates imperfect, chivalric characters who simply try to be the best at w hat they can be.

Detailed analysis of the three works briefly described above begins in

Chapter Two, where I use Ariosto's Orlando Furioso to se t up and clarify the 22

ironic/affirming pattern characteristic of each work. The intermediate position of this poem, its direct appeal to and modification of both romance and mock heroic traditions, helps us to place the other texts and to see how they, though at opposite ends of the spectrum, call upon some of the same conventions and make use of the ironic/affirming pattern. Byron's Don Juan is discussed first after my analysis of Orlando Furioso, in Chapter Three, because of its overt and clear-cut demonstration of the pattern in the poet's modification of the mock heroic. It is followed by an examination of Malory's

Le Morte Darthur, which, because of a less-defined narrator, shows the pattern more obscurely, in Chapter Four. More space is devoted to my scrutiny of these two texts than to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso to illustrate that despite their appearing to be the most divergent from one another, these works share striking, structural similarities. Chapter Five briefly concludes my study by discussing the implications and usefulness, as I see them, of the ironic/affirming pattern I identify here. 23

NOTES

Chapter 1. Introduction

1 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957: rpt. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), p. 186. o Frye, p. 195. For a different view regarding irony, see D.H. Green's "Irony and Medieval Romance," in Arthurian Romance: Seven Essays, ed. D.D.R. Owen (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1970, pp. 49-64) and his more detailed analysis in Irony in the Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979).

3 Jerome McGann, in Don Juan in Context (Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1976) draws out the connection between the two, citing Byron's own statements about Ariosto. See also Claude M. Fuess' Lord Byron as a Satirist in Verse (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1912) for a system atic discussion of "The Italian Influence" on Byron. Several works, of course, address the overall compatability of the ottava rima form to Byron's poetic aspirations.

4 J.M. Cohen, trans., The Adventures of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1950; rpt. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 33. All translations quoted in the text are Cohen's.

® Cohen, p. 34.

6 Cohen, p. 477.

7 Cohen, p. 738.

® Cohen, p. 745.

^ Cohen, p. 814.

^ Cohen, p. 916. 24

11 Cohen, p. 16.

12 Cohen, p. 16. ^ Leslie A. Marchand, ed., Don Juan (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), p. vii. Cited from a letter of Byron's to his publisher, John Murray.

Barbara Reynolds, trans., Orlando Furioso, by Ludovico Ariosto, Part I (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1975), pp. 84-85.

15 Reynolds, p. 83. Reynolds additionally claims that Byron "would probably have been the ideal translator of Ariosto. Had he undertaken the task, the Orlando Furioso might not have lost its hold on English readers" (92).

16 Several works discuss the preference Byron had for Pope and point out the similarities and differences between the two. See, in particular, Andrew Rutherford's Byron: A Critical Study (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1961); the chapter, "The Poet and Society" in Harold Bloom's The Visionary Company: A. Reading of English Romantic Poetry (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1961); £TT>. Hirsch, Jr.'s "Byron and the Terrestrial Paradise" in From Sensibility to Romanticism, ed. Frederick W. Hilles and Harold Bloom (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965); and Willis W. Pratt's Notes on the Variorum Edition of Don Juan, 2nd ed., IV (Austin, Texas: Univ. of Texas Press, 1971). For discussions aimed more directly at illuminating Byron's working within eighteenth century traditions, see in Byron: A Symposium, ed. John D. Jump (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1975) the essays by W. Ruddick, "Don Juan in Search of Freedom: Byron's Emergence as a Satirist," pp. 113- 137; A.B. England, "The Style of Don Juan and Augustan Poetry," pp. 94-112, and P.M. Yarker's "Byron and the Satiric Temper," pp. 76-93.

^ As cited in Chapter Three, Peter R. Schroeder's article, "Hidden Depths: Dialogue and Characterization in Chaucer and Malory," (PMLA, 98, 1983, 374-87) is particularly insightful and useful in explaining this point. While I do not agree with all of his conclusions, I do fully concur with his analysis of how suggestions about Malory's characters evolve, manifested through the absence of the narrator's direct guidance.

■I Q Eugene Vinaver, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), I, xc-xci.

This outcome for Gawain is specific to Malory. In the Mort Artu of the Prose Cycle he appears to Arthur with a multitude of poor people, and in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, he is accompanied by many lords and ladies who look like angels. CHAPTER TWO: ATTRACTIVE FICTIONS

Ma l'escuso io pur troppo, e mi rallegro nel mio difetto aver compagno tale.

I

The Orlando Furioso presents us with a narrator who openly discusses his creation of the poem. He speaks of the "varie fila" ("many threads") he needs to weave the canvas of his storyl and refers to himself as "il buono sonator"

("the good instrumentalist") who plays at will on his instrument's many strings

(VIII. 29. 1-2). The variety in his story, the moving from one theme to another, is at the heart of the critical debates about whether the work is an epic or a romance. ^ The epic character of the poem is demonstrated in

Virgilian overtones. Troops are reviewed and Christian and pagan leaders enumerated as they prepare for battle, the preparations themselves are described, and God, like Zeus, beholds the action from above. The Angel

Michael, like the celestial messengers in The Aeneid. descends at the bidding of his Lord to work among mortals. ^ Characters in the Orlando Furioso echo to some degree those appearing in Virgil's poem. Ruggiero resembles Aeneas 26

in being the founder of a new and flourishing race,** his defeat of Rodomonte

in the last canto parallels the final battle between Turnus and Aeneas.

Rodomonte calls to mind the overwhelming presence and power of Hector, and

Orlando is reminiscent of Achilles in being vulnerable to injury only in the

soles of his feet. Angelica and Medoro recreate the scene found in The

Aeneid where Dido and Aeneas consummate their love in a cave, and Astolfo

transformed into a myrtle-bush by Alcina reminds us of the souls of lovers sharing similiar fates in the earlier work. Common to both The Aeneid and

the Orlando Furioso is also the vision of future descendents. The scope of

Ariosto's "canvas," with its Dantesque descent into the Lower World and ascent to the moon and its emphasis on heroic characters converging in battle suggests both the expansiveness and grandeur of the epic. The narrator's invocation to Phoebus invites us to see him in the role of the epic poet.

Elements of the poem encouraging us to see it as a romance include pastoral settings (the forest as a fundamental center of action), personifications, monsters, the hippogriff, magical devices such as Atlante's shield, Angelica's ring, Logistilla's horn, and Melissa's books, the constant play between appearance and reality at the hands of sorcerers and sorceresses, and the otherworldliness created in Atlante's castle, Logistilla's realm, and on

Alcina's island. Love plays a central part in the action and is responsible for the ennobling feats of Bradamante and the madness of Orlando. Characters 27

pursue quests but are repeatedly distracted from their goals by unexpected

obstacles along the way. At the center of their heroic aspirations is the idea

of chivalry—the attempt to live noble, spiritually uplifted lives. Virginity is

defended, constancy upheld, and valor the mark of a true knight The

narrator's role as a commentator on his characters and their encounters

reveals his manipulation of the poem's action, calling to mind the analogy

between the poet and God as creators that is typical of Renaissance

romances. His lavish finale to the work imitates the celebrations

characteristic of this genre.

Ariosto's appeal to both epic and romance conventions has created controversies about his seriousness in the poem. Critics often comment that the work's more elevated, epic tone is diminished by the elements of romance. Francesco De Sanctis, on the other hand, considered the Orlando

Furioso as a marvelous flight of fancy—art for art's sake—and C.P. Brand claimed that in Ariosto's ability to join the classical and vernacular traditions into "coherent and individual poetry," he accomplished one of his greatest achievements.5 Estimating the poem's seriousness, or even thinking of it in those terms, is problematic not primarily because of the combination of

Carolingian and Arthurian traditions, however, but because of the poet's synchronous detachment from and involvement in the text. He does clearly oversee his creation, but he emphasizes his vulnerability and similarity to his characters as well. Ariosto's "ironic detachment." D.S. Came-Ross 28

comments, "constantly suggests that the immediate narrative content is never

his sole, and sometimes hardly his main, interest. It is, in the strictest sense, g a vehicle."

Determining what the narrator wants us to believe becomes difficult because his character frequently appears so inconsistent. He seems, on the

one hand, intent on drawing out our humorous, sympathetic response to the

surprising and sometimes outrageous involvements of his characters. Yet on

the other hand, he assumes a less familiar, more authoritative voice to censure individuals or attitudes he finds reprehensible. Andrew Fichter sees two "poet-personae" in the work—one that identifies with Orlando as victim and the other that narrates the Ruggiero-Bradamante story and "acts as the spokesman for civic and moral values we need not assume Ariosto intended to ridicule."7 Robert Durling's discussion of the narrative voice in his The Figure of the Poet in Renaissance Epic is perhaps more useful, delineating as it does, on the basis of Wayne Booth's model in The Rhetoric of Fiction, distinctions among poet, Narrator, and Poet (implied author). Durling's capitalized terms refer to "that heightened intensified figure which is the imagined source of the narration," in contrast to Ariosto the poet, who creates both voices.® The ultimate significance of the Orlando Furioso, he claims, is in the way Ariosto manipulates the Narrator and Poet to encourage the audience to look through the poem at the real world. In my analysis, Poet refers to the Poet/Narrator of the poem, the character who draws attention to himself as storyteller and 29

commentator.

Ariosto's playing one voice off the other, that is, the narrator as he

identifies with his characters and as he becomes the Poet who comments on

life in general and real-life individuals, calls into question the validity of

affirming the heroic values upon which the romance and epic are based. To

illustrate this undermining, we need first to identify the ways in which the poet seems to uphold these values. His characters express them and his

comments appear to reinforce our acceptance of them. Bradamante, for

example, is consistently presented as a character who commands respect because of her diligence and moral determination. The narrator presents her as particularly "possente" ("powerful") (IV. 26. 8) but equally as compassionate. In the scene where she slays Pinabello, we are told that she rids the world of "il puzzo e '1 lezzo che tutto intorno avea il paese infetto"

(the filth and stench that has infected France all around) (XXII. 97. 5-6). Her fidelity to Ruggiero sets her apart from others—she is a character destined, despite overwhelming odds, to fulfill God's will by establishing the House of

Este. Ruggiero is a well-chosen mate. We are told that his beauty is incomparable, his prowess superior, and his courage and magnanimity unmatched. In presenting the knight, the Poet takes issue with those who are unlike him:

questo volgo (per dir quel ch'io vo' dire) ch'altro non riverisce che ricchezza, nd vede cosa al mondo che piti am mire, 30

e senza, nulla cura e nulla apprezza, sia quanto voglia la belta, l'ardire, la possanza del corpo, la destrezza, la virtd, il senno, la bontft; e piti in questo di ch'ora vi ragiono, che nel resto (XLIV. 51. 1-8)

{The herd has no respect except for gold; This is of all things what they most admire. Where it is not, in no esteem they hold The noblest deeds to which the brave aspire. For beauty, courage, their regard is cold, Prowess and m artial skill, heroic ire, Wisdom and goodness are of no account, Still less in such a case as I recount.}

He defends Ruggiero's honor when he must leave Bradamante by stating that

of all joys, "l'onore e di pi'ti pregio che la vita, / ch'a tutti altri piaceri e

preferita" ("Honour above all others is revered / And sometimes is to life

itself preferred") (XXXVIII. 4. 7-8). Orlando, too, is lauded for his prowess. In

his heart, the Narrator tells us, there lies no "zoppe voglie" ("lame desire") to uphold the good (IX. 57. 4). He is peerless in France. A stolfo, himself an

idealized chivalric figure in that he would willingly sacrifice his life to save others, refers to "le supreme forze . . . del cavallier di B rava" ("the supreme endeavors of the brave Orlando") (VI. 34. 5-6). The Count defends honor by throwing the cannon into the sea in order to preserve the laws governing heroic knights.

Presenting many of his characters in chivalrous terms affords the Poet the opportunity to comment on chivalry itself. He, in sympathy with Orlando, vehemently objects to the use of artillery, comparing the traum a it causes to 31

that initiated in Paradise when Eve succeeded in persuading Adam to eat the

apple. He claims the cannon has forced glory to flee from his own times:

per te il m estier de l'arme $ senza onore; per te e il valore e las virtu ridutta, che spesso par del buono il rio migliore: non pili la gagliardia, non pill l'ardire per te puo in campo al paragon venire. (XI. 26. 4-8)

£No honour now attaches to the art Of soldiering; all valour is pretence; Not Good but Evil seems the better part; Gone is all courage, chivalry is gone, In combat once the only paragon.}

He suggests that the absence of chivalry is responsible for the subjugation of

Italy. Drawing a parallel between the fate of the Christians, whose "eccessi"

(excesses) must have disturbed "la serena fronte" ("the serene Countenance") of the Father (XVII. 6. 2.), at the hands of merciless Rodomonte, he claims:

Or Dio consente che noi sian puniti da populi di noi forse peggiori, per li multiplicati et infiniti nostri nefandi, obbrobriosi errorL Tempo verra ch'a depredar lor liti andremo noi, se mai saren migliori (XVII. 5. 1-6)

(Now God consents that we should punished be, By other races who perhaps are worse, For all our manifold iniquity. The time will come when we shall raid their shores And make them of their errors pay the fee (If ever we shall learn to mend our course.) }

He reiterates the idea of Italy's fallen state as a result of a lack of honor in a 32

later canto when he states:

Oh famelice, inique e fiere arpie ch'all'accecata Italia e d'error piena, per punir forse antique colpe rie, in ogni mensa alto giudicio mena! (XXXIV. 1. 1-4)

{O cruel harpies, ever ravenous, Which on blind, erring Italy descend To ravage every meal prepared for us, A punishment perhaps the Powers send In judgement for our past iniquitous And vile wrong-doing!)

Such presentations of his country and contemporaries reinforce the notion that Ariosto upholds chivalric ideals and chastises his compatriots because they fail to live up to them. In speaking out against Italy's oppressors, he aims to rouse his nation to heroic action:

O d'ogni vizio fetida sentina, dormi, Italia imbr'iaca, e non ti pesa ch'ora di questa gente, ora di quella che gih serva ti fu, sei fatta ancella? (XVII. 76. 5-8)

Tu, gran Leone, a cui premon le terga de le chiavi del ciel le gravi some, non lasciar che nel sonno si sommerga Italia, se la man l'hai ne le chiome. Tu sei Pastore; e Dio t'ha quella verga data a portare, e scelto il fiero nome, perche tu ruggi, e che le braccia stenda, si che dai lupi il grege tuo difenda. (XVII. 79. 4-8)

(Ah! wretched Italy, asleep you lie, In drunken stupor, fallen subject to This and that other nation who were once Your slaves, your subjects, your dominions? 33

And you, great Leo, bearing on your back St. Peter's burden, do not still allow Fair Italy to sleep in sloth for lack Of your strong arm to pull her from the slough. You are the Shepherd: from the wolves' attack Defend your flock; stretch forth your right arm now. Like your proud name, chosen for you by God, B e leonine and worthy of your rod.}

II

It is possible, however, to see a modification of Ariosto's idealist tone in the poem. Critics have commented that his attitude toward warfare and chivalry remain ambiguous. Robert Griffin writes that Ariosto "strikes a

Janus-like pose" because of a "hopeless conflict between the individual prowess he is praising and modern technology."® Ariosto knows, according to

A. Bartlett Giamatti, that the chivalrous code is outmoded and has limitations, yet expresses regret "that such absolute standards must necessarily be corroded by the shifting, relative context of life."10 John

Clark concludes that Ariosto actually focuses, though primarily indirectly, on the "principal faults of chivalry"—he "depicts chivalry . . . on the wane, detaches the nullity of its results, and exhibits these as utter folly and ridiculous delirium."11 An examination of the poet's presentation of Orlando, the nominal hero of the work, can help to clarify Ariosto's stance in the poem and resolve—or at least address—some of the ambiguities the work seems to 34

present. These ambiguities are addressed as well in his parallel consideration

of his contemporary world.

Despite the Count's frequently praised nature and accomplishments, he

fails to live up to heroic ideals throughout the poem. Most obvious among his

faults, of course, is his deviation from the path of honor in the service of

Charlemagne and subsequent surrender to the consuming passion he feels for

the pagan Angelica. The Poet invites us to see Orlando both comically and critically in his descriptions of the knight's folly. His presentation of Angelica makes it clear that she does not love Orlando and exposes his seriously mistaken perception of their relationship. He often considers himself

Angelica's protector and suggests she is helpless without him, though we have seen numerous times how capable she is of her own defense. He idealizes her, seeing in her only the vulnerability he feels called upon to serve:

Deh, dove senza me, do Ice mia vita, rimasa sei si giovane e si bella? come, poi che la luce e dipartita, riman tra' boschi lassmarrita agnella che dal pastor sperando essere udita, si va laganando{ sic }in questa parte e in quella. (VIII. 76. 1-6)

(O my sweet life, where are you now, alone, Far from my help, so lovely and so young, Like a lost lamb which, when the day is flown, Meanders in a wood, in hopes ere long The shepherd will locate her bleating tone.)

His perception of her calls into question our view of him as a noble, uplifted knight because it conflicts so dramatically with the picture of Angelica 35

presented to us by the Poet. She is the beautiful object of many knights'

desires, but she is

. . . dura e fredda piu d'una colonna, ad averne pieta non perb scende; come colei e’ha tu tto il mondo a sdegno, e non le par ch'alcun sia di lei degno. (I._49. 5-8)

{cold and hard, more than a block of stone. She holds the world in such contempt and scorn, No man deserving her was ever bornj

The narrator even appears to poke fun at her when, in an unfortunate exit

from her horse, she is portrayed buttocks first, unglamorously flying through

the air. He challenges the virtue Orlando so unhesitatingly attributes to her:

Forse era ver, ma non perb credibile a chi del senso suo fosse signore; ma parve facilmente a lui possibile, ch'era perduto in via piil grave errore. Quel che l'uom vede, Amor gli fa invisibile, e l'invisibil fa vedere Amore. (I. 56. 1-6)

{Her virginity} may be true, but no man in his senses Would ever credit it; yet possible It seems to him, for, lacking in defences, To what is plain, but made invisible, The KingfSacripante} is blind (or with his sight dispenses), Since what is not, love's power makes credible.}

Orlando's misguided belief in Angelica's devotion to him is exaggerated in the

Narrator's rendering of his discovery of her relationship with Medoro:

Conosco io pur queste note: di tal'io n'ho tante vedute e lette. Finger questo Medoro ella si puote: 36

forse ch'a me questo cognome mette.— Con tali opinion dal ver remote usando fraude a se medesmo, stette ne la speranza il malcontento Orlando, chi si seppe a se stesso ir procacciando. (XXin. 104. 1-8)

{ "I know this writing well. I've seen and read it many times of yore. In fond imagination—who can tell?— Perhaps she calls me by this name, Medore." By means of notions so improbable, And from the truth departing more and more, Although for comfort he has little scope. The unhappy Count contrives to build false hopeJ

The madness into which he plunges is symptomatic of his error—St. John suggests to Astolfo that it has been the punishment for his delusions:

Figliuol, tu non sai forse che in Francia accada, ancor che tu ne vegne. Sappi che '1 vostro Orlando, perche torse dal cam in dritto le commesse insegne, e punito da Dio, che piu s'accende contra chi egli ama piu, quando s'offende. (XXXIV. 62. 3-8)

{ My son, the Christian folk In France (more than you know) are in distress, For you must learn that your Orlando took The wrong direction and is now, alas! Enduring retribution, for God sends Dire punishment when one He loves offends. }

By suggesting in such descriptions the idea that Orlando has fallen away from acceptable behavior, Ariosto appears to uphold chivalry as an approriate measuring stick against which to evaluate characters. He seems determined, in fact, to expose those who do not live up to heroic ideals. He tells us about 37

Ruggiero, for example, who is riding the hippogriff:

Ben che Ruggier sia d'animo constante, ne cangiato abbia il solito colore, io non gli voglio creder che tremante non abbia dentro piu che foglia il core. (VI. 17. 1-4) .{He was a valiant cavalier, I know, Stalwart and brave; and yet it's my belief, Although of calm he made an outward show, Within, his heart was trembling like a leaf. }

Ruggiero is more directly undermined by being made to look foolish when, after saving Angelica from the ore, he cannot get his armor off fast enough to

make love with her. He is, as Patricia Parker says, "a pupil with almost no retention" who repeatedly becomes sidetracked from his relationship with

Bradamante.12 Reynolds, too, comments about "moments of anticlimax" in the work, which, "deliberately contrived . . . reduce the knights to size, as when Ferrau, stooping to drink at a stream, drops his helmet in the water; or when Ferrau and Rinaldo continue to fight, unaware that the prize for whom they contend, namely Angelica, has ridden off and left them."13 s uch scenes suggest parody, which invites us to wonder about the greatness of Ariosto's knights and to approach them critically for their inabilities to behave heroically. More satiric suggestions are inherent in his description of the

Angel Michael's interaction with the religious. Rather than finding Silence among the monks, he finds Dame Discord smiling as they throw their breviaries at each other's heads. Greene sees in the poem an "irreverent play with religiosity" that precedes the mock-heroic or burlesque modes of the 38

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: "by ridiculing the church, Ariosto

ridiculed one of the theoretical props of the social order."!4

It has often been said about the Orlando Furioso that it aims, in

undermining its characters, to parody romance itself—to suggest that amorous

pursuits detract from the more honorable endeavors of epic warriors. Brand

claims that Ariosto realized that "chivalrous romances had lost contact with

reality" and were consequently more often the butt of his humor than the

knight-errant him self.!^ Fichter sees in Ruggiero's final triumph a statement about the superiority of epic values over those of romance—Ruggiero succeeds

where Orlando fails because the two move in opposing directions. The Poet's

intrusions into the text, however, his qualifications of his characters' interactions, particularly those of Orlando, move us away from debates of genre and encourage us to see that idealized behavior is both impossible and an undesirable goaL We come to this recognition through his identification with the Count in his suffering. On many occasions, he suggests he, too, is a victim:

Che non pud far d'un cor ch'abbia suggetto questo crudele e traditore Amore, poi ch'ad Orlando pud levar del petto la tanta fe che debbe al suo signore? Gia savio e pieno fu d'ogni rispetto, e de la santa Chiesa difensore: o per un vano amor, poco del zio, e di se poco, e men cura di Dio. (IX. 1. 1-8) Ma l'escuso io pur troppo, e mi rallegro nel mio difetto aver compagno tale; eh'anch'io sono al mio ben languido et egro, 39

sano e gagliardo a sequitare il male. (IX. 2. 1-4)

{Once Love has gained possession of a heart, What can this cruel traitor then not do? See how he tears Orlando's soul apart: So loyal once, now to his lord untrue, So wise, so versed in every noble art, And of the holy Church defender too, A victim now of passion unreturned, For God and King no longer he's concerned.

B ut I excuse him and rejoice to have In my defect companionship like his, For to such passion likewise I'm a slave, While my pursuit of goodness languid is. }

He characterizes himself as an expert on all the "gravi pene in amor"

("grievous pains of love") (XVI. 1. 1) and is driven, on behalf of Orlando and in response to his own anguish, to denounce women. He cries out in sympathy with the Count against the cold Angelica:

O conte Orlando, o re di Circassia, vostra inclita virtu, dite, che giova? Vostro alto onor dite in che prezzo sia, o che mercS vostro servir ritruova. Mostratemi una sola cortesia che mai costei v'usasse, o vecchia o nuova, per ricompensa e guidardone a merto di quanto avete gia per lei sofferto. (XIX. 31. 1-8)

{O Count Orlando, O Circassian, Of what avail your prowess and your fame? What price your honour, known to every man? What good of all your long devotion came? Show me one single favour, if you can, What recompense, what kindness can you name, What gratitude, what mercy has she shown For sufferings for her sake undergone?} 40

His denunciation of the pagan princess leads to a more vehement attack on

contemporary womens

N£ questa sola, ma fosser pur state in man d'Orlando quante oggi ne sono; ch'ad ogni modo tutte sono ingrate, ne"si trova tra loro oncia di buono. (XXIX. 74. 1-4)

{And would not only {Angelica }were inf Orlando's} hands, But all the women in the world today! Unkind to all their lovers in all lands, There is no scrap of good in them, I'd say.}

Their charms are the traps smeared with lime Astolfo sees on the moon.

Although the Poet retracts many of his denunciations of women and

attributes them more to his excesses than to their faults, he achieves an

identification with Orlando that invites us to perceive the Count positively.

The suggestion of error remains, indicated in the Poet's description of his own passion as a malady that forces him to make unjust reproaches, but this sense of wrongdoing is ultimately undermined in the scene on the moon where

Astolfo reclaims Orlando's lost wits. The effect of this scene is to modify our

tendency to see the Count in mock heroic terms because it calls into question

the validity of viewing his, and the Poet's, lovesickness as a failing at alL

Carried one step further, it encourages us to see that absolute virtue is fictional, its absence not necessarily a matter of condemnation. St. John the

Evangelist tells us that Orlando's blinding "amore d'una pagana" ("passion for a pagan maid") (XXXIV. 64. 5-6) earned him three months' sentence from God, who "fa ch'egli va folle, / e mostra nudo il ventre, il petto e il fianco" ("caused 41

him to run mad, / With sides and chest and belly stripped and bare") (XXXIV.

65. 1-2). In that he is punished by God and reclaims his wits only by relinquishing his passion for honor and duty to Charlemagne, Orlando appears to serve as a model for righteous behavior. He has been saved from his error by divine intercession and is moving again in a direction that will help him achieve ultimate spiritual salvation.16 The Poet's solution to his own lost wits, however, undercuts the moral seriousness he seems to attribute to the

Count's experience. His sensibility is reclaimed much more easily:

Chi salirli per me, madonna, in cielo a riportarne il mio perduto ingegno? che, poi ch'usci da' bei vostri occhi il telo che '1 cor mi fisse, ognior perdendo vegno. Ne di tanta iattura mi querelo, pur che non cresca, ma stia a questo segno; ch'io dubito, se piu si va sciemando, di venir tal, qual ho descritto Orlando. (XXXV. 1. 1-8)

Per riaver l'ingegno mio m'e aviso che non bisogna che per l'aria io poggi nel cerchio de la luna o in paradiso; che '1 mio non credo che tanto alto alloggi. Ne' bei vostri occhi e nel Sereno viso, nel sen d'avorio e alabastrini poggi se ne va errando; et io con queste labbia lo corro, se vi par ch'io lo r'iabbia. (XXXV. 2. 1-8)

{ Who will ascend for me into the skies And bring back the wits which I have lost? The dart you aimed, my lady, with your eyes Transfixed my heart, to my increasing cost. Yet I will utter no complaining cries Unless more triumph over me you boast; But if my wits continue to diminish, I know that like Orlando I wiU finish.

But to regain my sanity, I know 42

I have no need to journey to the moon Or to the realms of Paradise to go, For not so high my scattered wits have flown. Your eyes, your brow, your breasts as white as snow, Your limbs detain them here, and I will soon Retrace them with my lips, where'er they went, And gather them once more, with your consent. }

Such a declaration causes us to suspect the Poet's sincerity in condemning either his actions and attitudes or the Court's. It introduces the possibility that he means, instead, to move us to question how literally he has meant the confessions and retractions in which he has emphasized his own guilt. In that he goes to the source of his problem, not to God as Orlando does, for his cure, he suggests that the problem itself is not necessarily moral and therefore does not require being viewed as a wrongdoing. The notion of error is challenged and with it the appropriateness of seeing Orlando's, and the

Poet's, contradictory passions as punishable. Parker observes that because the

Poet's "Cure of Folly" differs so drastically from Orlando's, his "confession of weakness pushes ..{his} supposed sincerity just far enough to make the opening question, .{"Chi salira per me, madonna, in cielo" ("Who will ascend for me into the skies") {literally, rhetorical, and to extend its suggestion of hyperbole back over all such confessions in the poem."!^ If such irony, she continues, "applies on a moral level to all such admissions of a share in his characters' errors, it also applies to the play in the narrative itself between detachment and involvement"—it appears that we have here a picture of a poet "who enjoys an aerial view of such distances and of a poem whose errant appearance is the 43

highly conscious product of his own hand" rather than a poem whose "errant

nature appears as an unavoidable result of the errors of its characters. "1®

The poet's ironical perspective leads us to look at love from a widened point of view. Not only are we encouraged to see passion as inevitable and blameless, we are also invited to see that love is not perfect. It carries with it complications that cannot be absolutely resolved. The attempt to make lovers be steadfastly faithful is more at fault than their inability not to be.

The Poet explores this less idealized view of love in the poem's frequent tales about fidelity. In a story related to his guests by a landlord, the question at stake is the faithfulness of women. One of his guests, "un uom d'eta ch'avea piu re tta opinion degli altri, e ingegno e ardire" ("a man, mature in years, endowed with sense / And better judgement, and with courage too") (XXVIII.

76. 1-2), the Poet tells us, responds to the tale by saying:

Ditemi un poco: e di voi forse alcuno ch'abbia servato alia sua moglie fede? che nieghi andar, quando gli sia oportuno, all'altrui donna, e darle ancor mercede? credete in tutto '1 mondo trovarne uno? chi i' dice, mente; e folle e ben chi '1 crede. Trovatene vo' alcuna che vi chiami? (non parlo de le publiche et infami). (XXVIII. 79. 1-8)

Quelle che i lor mariti hanno lasciati, le piu volte cagione avuta n'hanno. Del suo di casa li veggon svogliati, e che fuor, de l'altrui bramosi, vanno. Dovriano amar, volendo essere amati. e tor con la misura ch'a-llor danno. (XXVIII. 81. 1-6)

(Tell me: is there one man among you all Who has not been unfaithful to his wife, 44

Who would refuse an extra-marital Adventure as a change from married life? A man must be a liar or a fool Who would deny such episodes are rife. Temptation is the test of constancy (I'm not referring here to harlotry).

Those wives who are unfaithful (there are some) Have good reason for it, I dare say: Their husbands, tired of what there is at home, After new joys and new adventures stray. They should give love, if they expect love from Their wives, and in the same degree and way.)

The testing of a lover's constancy is dismissed as inappropriate in a later

scene where Rinaldo chooses not to drink the goblet that can indicate if his

wife has been unfaithful. He argues:

Potria poco giovare e nuocer molto; che '1 tentar qualche volta Idio disdegna. Non so s'in questo io mi sia saggio o stolto; ma non vo' piu saper, che mi convegna. Or questo vin dinanzi mi sia tolto: sete non n'ho, ne vo' che me ne vegna; che tal certezza ha Dio piu proibita, ch'al primo padre l'arbor de la vita. (XLIII. 7. 1-8)

(What good will come of ./(drinking)? Perhaps much ill, For God is vexed by those who probe and pry. Whether I am a foolish man, or sensible, I know not, but this wine I will not try. So let it be removed, I pray; I feel No thirst for it and no such thirst do I Desire, for God denies such certainty, More than to Adam He denied the treeJ

The fault is in the attempt to prove fidelity, not in the act itself of being unfaithful. The poet's attention to these tales suggests that we ought to 45

accept the limitations of our knowledge and ability rather than to condemn

them. As Griffin points out in his analysis of how "overreaching" in the poem

is the greater misdeed than the deed itself, "there are various approaches to

the various kinds of knowledge that are available to us throughout life; the greater part of wisdom may be the realization that we are all subject to error on this side of paradise."1^ Such qualifications of idealized behavior apply to

Orlando. The Poet's exultant announcement of Orlando's regained wits parodies, as Fichter has pointed out, the Christian miracle of salvation by

on grace: u

maraviglioso caso! che ritornb la mente al primier uso; e ne' suoi bei discorsi l'intelletto rivenne, piu che mai lucido e netto. (XXXIX. 57. 5-8)

Come chi da noioso e grave sonno, ove o vedere abominevol forme di mostri che non son, ne ch'esser ponno, o gli par cosa far strana et enorme, ancor si maraviglia, poi che donno e fatto de' suoi sensi, e che non dorme; cosf, poi che fu Orlando d'error tratto, resto maraviglioso e stupefatto. (XXXIX. 58. 1-8)

{O miracle! {Orlando's}intellect returned to its pristine Lucidity as brilliant as before, As his fair discourse later witness bore.

As one who wakes from a distressful dream Of gruesome monsters which could never be, However grim and menacing they seem, Or of committing some enormity, And though his senses have returned to him, From his amazement cannot yet shake free, So now Orlando, wakened from illusion, 46

Remained in stupefaction and confusion.}

Set against the episode quoted earlier where the Poet's comment about his

own cure ironically vindicates Orlando's passion for Angelica, this scene serves to emphasize the Poet's suggestion that idealized heroic behavior is neither obtainable nor an appropriate goal. Orlando's madness results from a series of delusions he has about his relationship with the pagan princess, but it is not indicative of a moral flaw in his character.

Delusions, in fact, more than wrongdoing and subsequent retribution, are at the heart of Ariosto's poem. Durling claims that the "madness of Orlando is simply the extreme form of what is universal"21 We see in the Orlando

Furioso a head-on conflict of desire with the "essential illusoriness of the world of appearances or with the desires of other characters." The forest, where much of the action takes place in the poem, was a "particularly well-established symbol of man's life" by Ariosto's time. Such a symbol,

Durling says, emphasizes universal madness—the inconsistency of man—as the central theme of the Orlando Furioso—"Ariosto (in keeping with the medieval sense that human inconsistency involves ontological instability} thinks of man as suspended—like the rest of creation—between being and nothingness."22 In his comments about present-day humanity, Ariosto makes clear that how much an individual can know about his or her world is one of the principal questions explored in the poem. He establishes the same ironic/affirmative pattern used with Orlando in his descriptions of his contemporaries to lead us 47

away from believing that anything in life is definite. He suggests, for example, that they ought to be censured for failing to behave in a morally and spiritually uplifted manner, telling us that "non conversiam sempre con gei amici / in questa assai piu oscura ehe serena / vita mortal, tutta d'invidia piena" ("not all we m eet with are benevolent / In this our life, so full of envious spite, / And gloomier by far than it is bright" (IV. 1. 6-8) and

Oh quante sono incantatriei, oh quanti incantator tra noi, che non si sanno! che con lor a rti uomini e donne amanti di se, cangiando i visi lor, fatto hanno. Non con spirti constretti tali incanti, ne eon osservazion di stelle fanno; ma con simulazion, menzogne e frodi legano i cor d'indissolubil nodi. (VIII. 1. 1-8)

.{Enchanters and enchantresses abound, Plying their artifice among us all, And many a lover to a face is bound Which has been changed from plain to beautiful, Not by the aid which in the stars is found, Nor by the spirits magic spells recall, But by dissimulation, fraud and lies In never-to-be-loosened knots and ties} 23

Human beings are unable to stand steadfastly when confronted with the fluctuations of life:

O degli uomini inferma e instabil mente! come sian presti a variar disegno! Tutti i pensier mutamo facilmente. (XXIX. 1. 1-3)

{ How vacillating is the mind of man! How rapid are the changes which it makes! How quickly jettisoned is every plan!} 43

Those in high office who claim to be honorable are not and thus betray the values upon which uplifted behavior is based:

Spesso in poveri alberghi e in picciol tetti, ne le calamitadi e nei disagi, meglio s'aggiungon d'amicizia i petti, che fra ricchezze invidiose et agi de le piene d'insidie e di sospetti corti regali e splendidi palagi, ove la caritade & in tutto estinta, ne si vede amicizia, se non finta. (XLIV. 1. 1-8)

Quindi avvien che tra principi e signori patti e convenzion sono si frali. Fan lega oggi re, papi e imperatori; doman saran nimici eapitali: perche, qual l'apparenze esteriori, non hanno i cor, non han gli animi tali; che non mirando al torto piu ch'al dritto, attendon solamente al lor profitto. (XLIV. 2. 1-8)

{In poor and humble homes, in cottages, In hardship and disaster, hearts are joined More lastingly and truly than where ease And opulence with envy are combined, In regal courts and-splendid palaces, Where cunning and conspiracy you find, Where fellow-feeling long extinct has been, Where there's no friendship that is genuine.

Thus pacts and treaties of great potentates Crumble and fall at the first wind that blows. Popes, emperors and kings and heads of states, Allied today, tomorrow will be foes. No way their inner mind or heart relates To what their simulated aspect shows. Heedless of right and wrong, of false and true, Their own advantage only they pursue. }

Ariosto's apparent affirmation of heroic ideals casts doubt upon the 49

praise he grants his patrons because they do not always live up to them. He

addresses Ippolito as "Piaceiavi, generosa Erculea prole, / ornamento e

splendor del secol nostro" ("Most generous and Herculean son, / The ornament

and splendour of our age") (I. 3. 1-2) and declares his devotion in a later canto

when he says,

Magnanimo Signore, ogni vostro atto ho sempre con ragion laudato e laudo; ben che col rozzo stil duro e mal atto gran parte de la gloria vi defraudo. (XVIII. 1. 1-4)

(Magnanimous Signor, your every act With reason I have praised and still I praise, Though my poor style, alas! the power has lacked Your glory to its fullest height to raise.}

The Cardinal was not celebrated in his own time, however, for being particularly magnanimous. His dealings with Ariosto himself caused the poet anguish and are documented more directly in his Satires. According to

Edmund Gardner, Ippolito was

licentious and worldly, haughty and over­ bearing, . . . (and }utterly devoid of reverence for God or man; some ability as a diplomatist, according to the cynical, materialistic standpoint of the age, coupled to physical courage and a certain amount of skill in military matters, was the nearest approach to virtue he possessed.

Gardner emphasizes, together with many other Ariostan critics, that the

Cardinal's less than model behavior was notoriously well known in his lifetime. Among his most blameworthy acts is his participation in the blinding 50

of his brother, Giulio, who was preferred in love over the Cardinal by Angela

Borgia.

It is true that Ippolito distinguished himself against the Venetians and

mercenary Slavonians in the naval battle of Polesella, where he captured

numerous enemy vessels, and Ariosto does give testimony to this

accomplishment. He compares the Cardinal to warriors in former times who

practiced noble deeds of courtesy and points out that such warriors are

numbered in modern times, thus appearing to elevate Ippolito. His praise of

his patron seems unqualified in his description of him as he fought against the

Venetians in Padua:

per voi piu d'una fiamma fu interdetta, e spento il fuoco ancor, poi che fu messo, da villaggi e da templi, come piacque all 'alta cortesia che con voi nacque. (XXXVI. 4. 5-8)

{ It was by your command that in that war Fires were put out, as the Venetians knew And villages and churches, near and far, Were spared, such the nobility and worth Which graced your nature ever since your birth.)

But the historical facts about Ippolito's overall character and behavior cloud our willingness to take Ariosto's comments about his patron literally. It is possible to assume that his presenting Ippolito in chivalric terms was a deliberate attempt to reveal ironically how far short the Cardinal fell from heroic ideals, and thus to criticize him indirectly. His descriptions of Alfonso encourage us more openly to question the literal nature of his comments. In 51

reviewing Alfonso's victory over the Spaniards at Ravenna, he says,

Quella vittoria fu piu di conforto che d'allegrezza; perche troppo pesa contra la gioia nostra il veder morto (XIV. 6. 1-3)

Nostra salute, nostra vita in questa vittoria suscitata si conosce, che difende che '1 verno e la tempesta di Giove irato sopra noi non crosce: ma ne goder potiam, ne farne festa, sentendo i gran ramarichi e l'angosce, ch'in veste bruna e lacrimosa guancia le vedovelle fan per tutta Francia. (XIV. 7. 1-8)

{Of greater comfort was that victory Than gladness, because blighting to our hopes And joy it is so many deaths to see.

Our welfare and our lives by Spain's defeat Have been preserved; this is the debt we owe. On us no longer will Jove's tempest beat; On us no more the winter's blast will blow. Yet we cannot rejoice at such a feat. We feel too much the anguish and the woe Of weeping women garbed in widows' weeds, The sad young victims of your valiant deeds.}

In that Alfonso was responsible for the use of the cannon Ariosto detested, it is reasonable to assume that the poet is critical of him for what he considers unchivalrous conduct in battle. Ariosto's denunciation of artillery makes it difficult to accept at face value his praise of the Duke and

L'inclita stirpe che per tanti lustri mostro di cortesia sempre gran lume, e par ch'ognor piu ne risplenda e lustri. (XLI. 3. 1-3)

{That famous House, whose glory long has shone, Illustrious in deeds of chivalry, 52

Whose splendour, still increasing, yields to none.}

Many critics have responded to the inherent contradictions in the poem's encomia. Fichter claims that "we may conclude that Ariosto's purpose is to leave his audience with the distinct impression that Ippolito is no

Augustus."25 Gardner more directly undermines the Cardinal and the Duke and faults Ariosto for praising them in the poem: "the adulation, at times outrageous and shameless, that finds expression in so many passages of the

Orlando Furioso is a blot upon the beauty of the poem and upon the character of the author."^® Perhaps a more accurate assessment of the Poet's position in the poem is Robert Durling's. He suggests that Ariosto upholds chivalric valor, but that he also values Ippolito's and Alfonso's ability to defend

Ferrara. The poet recognizes the drawbacks of his patrons' alliance with

France but praises those deeds he deems worthy and speaks out against those that are not.2^ Warfare is plainly a complicated issue for Ariosto. His outright condemnation of current practices among the Slavonians in battle implies he seeks more chivalrous behavior:

Simile esempio non credo che sia fra gli antiqui guerrier, di quai li studi tutti fur gentilezza e cortesia; ne"dopo la vittoria erano crudi. (XXXVI. 10. 1-4)

{ No such example of barbarity Among the cavaliers of old you'd find. To honour, noble deeds and chivalry They pledged themselves with heart and soul and mind; Nor were they cruel after victory. } 53

C.P. Brand and Thomas Greene both see in the poem Ariosto's nostalgia for a more chivalrous past age and Barbara Reynolds emphasizes that part of

Ariosto's purpose was "to awaken response to the ideals of Christendom and chivalry. "28 Gardner claims that

the chivalrous world of knights and ladies seems to .{Ariosto! a very goodly and beautiful world, far more worthy of admiration than the sixteenth century itself. ... his sigh for the gran bonta de cavalieri antiqui at the outset of the poem comes from his very heart. All his most bitter satire is reserved for his own conte mporar ies.2 9

But human beings, as Orlando, are the victims of life as well—the human nature they have been endowed with prevents them from overcoming some of life's complications. People harbor in their hearts "Questo disir . .. / de' fatti altrui sempre cercar novella" (the need to "learn about another man's affairs")

(II. 36. 1-2) and they are prey for the pangs of jealousy:

Che dolce piu, che piu giocondo stato saria di quel d'un amoroso core? che viver piu felice e pih beato, che ritrovarsi in servitu d'A more? se non fosse l'uom sempre stimulato da quel sospetto rio, da quel timore, da quel martlr, da quella frenesia, da quella rabbia detta gelosia. (XXXI. 1. 1-8)

Pero ch'ogni altro amaro che si pone ra questa soavissima dolcezza, e un augumento, una perfezlone, et b un condurre amore a pill finezza. L'acque parer fa saporite e buone la sete, e il cibo pel digiun s'apprezza: 54

non conosce la pace e non l'estima chi provato non ha la guerra prima. (XXXI. 2. 1-8)

{What sweeter bliss and what more blessed state Can be imagined than a loving heart, With happiness and joy inebriate, Possessed, in thrall to Love in every part, But for the torment which Man suffers, that Suspicion, sinister and deep, that smart, That aching wretchedness, that malady, That frenzied rage, which we call jealousy?

All other bitterness which may arise To temper the excess of so much sweet, The joys of love augments and multiplies, Refining them and making them complete. Water more exquisitely satisfies When we are thirsty; hunger what we eat Improves; Man cannot relish peace before He has experienced a state of war.}

Human value is recognizable: "per tugurii ancora e per fenili / spesso si

trovan gli uomini gentili" ("In humble dwellings and in haylofts, too, / The

hearts of men are often kind and true") (XIV. 62. 7-8). For those who suffer or

who are overwhelmed by situations in life, the Poet suggests they will be relieved by an avenging God. Using Pinabello as an example of one brought to his rightful end, he observes:

E Dio, che le piu volte non sostiene veder patire a torto uno innocente, salvo la donna; e salvera ciascuno che d'ogni fellonia viva digiuno. (XXIII. 2. 5-8)

{And God, who many times does not allow The innocent to suffer, when He sees A way to save them, as He savedfBradamante), Will ever to the blameless grant His aid.} 55

This, he claims, may have been the situation Alfonso faced atBastia:

Forse fu da Dio vindice permesso che vi trovaste a quel caso impedito, accio che '1 crudo e scelerato eccesso che dianzi fatto avean, fosse punito. (XLII. 5. 1-4)

{ Perhaps the avenging Deity permitted That you should be laid low in that event, That an excess of cruelty committed (by the enemy } Should meet, as it deserved, with punishment. }

The delusory nature of idealized values is emphasized yet again in

Ariosto's ironic description of God as the rescuer of humanity. His

implication that the spiritual is the constant in a mutable world is undermined

in both his comments and in his representation of the Angel Michael on his

missions for God. Greene contends that Michael's bungling nature, the fact

that he fouls up his mission and is primarily concerned that God does not hear

about it, invites us to question the nature of the Master who employs him.

The conclusion he draws is that

the Christian cause for which the grandiose and bloody battle is fought, for which the very war is fought that constitutes the spine of the plot, that cause is not at every moment to be revered or even to be taken seriously. Inevitably these ironic reservations will qualify whatever conception of heroism the poem contains. One might say that the Christianity of the Furioso is not so much disbelieved as made insubstantial just as the figures of God and Michele are insubstantial.30

It is not so much that God Himself is undermined, however, but that the 56

perception of Him as the constant lending meaning to people's lives, as the figure who can make all things in life clear and fair, is questionable. The Poet at one point even addresses God as the Causer of confusion: "Oh sommo Dio, come i giudicii umani / spesso offuscati son da un nembo uscuro!" ("O God on high, how often you obscure / Men's vision with an obfuscating mist!") (X. 15.

1-2). He attributes to Fortune the fluctuations of people's lives and thus emphasizes that all experiences are random, their sources unknowable:

Quanto piu su l'instabil ruota vedi di Fortuna ire in alto il miser uomo, tanto piu tosto hai da vedergli i piedi ove ora ha il capo, e far cadendo il tomo. (XLV. 1. 1-4)

Si vede per gli essempii, di che piene sono l'antiche e le moderne istorie, che '1 ben va dietro al male, e '1 male al bene, e fin son l'un de l'altro e biasmi e glorie; e che fidarsi a l'uom non si conviene in suo tesor, suo regno e sue vittorie, ne disperarsi per Fortuna avversa, che sempre la sua ruota in giro versa. (XLV. 4. 1-8)

(The Higher up on Fortune's wheel you see A wretch ascend, the sooner he will fall, And where his head is now, his feet will be.

From history's examples we conclude, And modern instances teach us the same: Good follows Evil, Evil follows Good, Shame ends in glory, glory ends in shame. Thus it is evident that no man should Put trust in victories or wealth or fame, Nor yet despair if Fortune is adverse: She turns her wheel for better, as for worse.}

God's presence in the world is not manifest, and signs of His involvement 57

in our lives not issued upon demand. The Poet makes this point by parodying

the idea of Christ as an interceder. His ironic perspective is evident in a

scene with Astolfo and later with Oliver:

Poi che, inchinando le ginocchia, fece al santo suo maestro orazione, sicuro che sia udita la sua prece, copia di sassi a far cader si pone. Oh quanto a chi ben crede in Cristo, lece! I sassi, fuor di natural ragione crescendo, si vedean venire in giuso, e formar ventre e gambe e collo e muso. (XXXVIII. 33. 1-8)

e in nome de le eterne tre Persone, Padre e Figliuolo e Spirito Santo, diede ad Olivier la sua benedizione. Oh virtu che da Cristo a chi gli crede! Caccio dal cavalliero ogni passione, e ritornolli a sanitade il piede, piu fermo e piu espedito che mai fosse. (XLIII. 192. 1-7)

And when(Astolfo) reached the top, he knelt and prayed (His mentor-saint would answer him, he knew). Next, down the hill, rock after rock he sped. How much a firm belief in Christ can do! The rolling stones no natural laws obeyed, For, as they tumbled down the slope, they grew A rounded belly, legs, a neck, a muzzle (And how they did it still remains a puzzle).

And in the name of the Eternal Three Father and Son and Holy Ghost,{ the herm it Jgives His blessing. Lo, a miracle they see! What power is granted when a man believes In Christ! The cavalier is instantly Restored, the suffering departs and leaves (Oliver's)foot more firm than it had ever been.}

The magical abilities associated with Christ in these scenes and the effusions 58

of the Poet exaggerate the miraculous nature and deeds we often attribute to

God and encourage us to see, by contrast, how absent from our real-life

experiences He frequently appears to be. His interactions in our lives are not

immediately identifiable or ultimately knowable. Attempts to present

Christ's acting perceivably in our midst are fictions created to give meaning

to our experiences, over many of which we have no control, to justify our

actions, or to rescue ourselves from an overwhelming fear of our own

insignificance. The unknowable nature of life is emphasized in Giammati's

description of Alcina's garden:

Dangerous and corrupting though it certainly was, false and deceptive though its illusions were, Alcina's garden remains as the image of a way of life which man can never wholly reject. He cannot reject it because it is so much a part of himself. . . . {it suggests} Ariosto's gentle yet all-pervasive sense of the futility of human affairs. . . . The garden teaches us that all deception is largely a matter of self-deception, and that no matter how strenuously we try to disagree, the final illusion is to think life would be at all bearable without illusions.

Ill

In a world that is by nature mutable and incomprehensible and where human nature is inherently imperfect, heroic ideals themselves, by implication, are posited as fictions. They are unobtainable measures of behavior, as elusive as the Ultimate Perfection Who does not make clear the 59

ways of the world. We cannot mirror what we cannot know, and thus our

failures to live exalted lives cannot be fully condemnable. Ariosto's irony is a

response to the world in flux, Giamatti claims,

the gradual deepening of man's sense of bewilderment and despair as he attem pts to reconcile the values of the past with the implications of the present and future. . . . Between what seems and what is, lies either the sane, middle path, open to a few, or the bitter road of futility and delusion, taken by most. And yet—perhaps both ways are finally the same; perhaps the road to sense is also the same as the path to non-sense. Perhaps the only answer or standard or guide to life is that there is no answer, guide, or standard. What is finally most important is that man be tolerant—that is, that man be forever aware of the many possibilities, contingencies, new realities which can exist under a single, simple-seeming guise.3^

The absence of absolutes in our lives does not have to lead to either regret or despair, as many of Ariosto's critics claim. In fact, the poet's representation of himself as Poet invites us to see that fictionalizing is a positive, understandable response to an incomprehensible world where we feel powerless, as long as the process is recognized and we do not delude ourselves into believing at face value what we create. His characterization of himself serves as an example. St. John tells Astolfo that the true poet is very powerful—a figure who can overcome the ravages of time by prolonging fame:

Non si pietoso Enea, ne forte Achille fu, come e fama, ne si fiero Ettorre; e ne son stati e mille e mille e mille che lor si puon con verity anteporre: ma i donati palazzi e le gran ville dai descendenti lor, gli ha fatto porre 60

in questi senza fin sublimi onori da l'onorate man degli scrittori. (XXXV. 25. 1-8)33

{ Aeneas not so pious, nor so strong Achilles was, as they are famed to be; Hector was less ferocious; and a throng of heroes could surpass them, but we see Their valour and their deeds enhanced in song, For their descendents had so lavishly Rewarded poets for their eulogies With gifts of villas, farm-land, palaces.)

In his presentation of himself as the sole manipulator of the poem's action, not

indebted to any other supernatural power, Ariosto assumes the role of creator over a cosmos. Godlike, he controls the destinies of his characters and the world they inhabit. But even this elevation is ironic, as he makes clear when he gives up the role at the end of the narrative. He joyfully embarks upon the conclusion to his work, calling attention to the fact that it is a fiction that must end, in the opening to the last canto:

Or, se mi mostra la mia carta il vero, non fe lontano a discoprirsi il porto; si che nel lito i voti scioglier spero a chi nel mar per tanta via m'ha scorto; ove, o di non tornar col legno intero, 0 d'errar sempre, ebbi gifc il viso smorto. veggo la terra, e veggo il lito aperto. (XLVI. 1. 1-8)

{ Now, if the bearings of my chart speak true, Not far away the harbour will appear. On shore Til make my votive offering to Whatever guardian Angel hovered near When risks of shipwreck threatened, not a few Or of for ever being a wanderer. B ut now I think I see, yes, I am sure, 1 see the land, I see the welcoming shore.} 61

His catalog of friends, poets, and scholars who await and welcome him emphasizes playfully the superior power he has temporarily assumed while at the same time it clarifies his going "home"—his return to who he really is.'*4

Creating, in this case the Orlando Furioso. is a pleasurable exercise of power, and clearly a major achievement, but actually possessing God-like power over life is itself an illusion. Ariosto gets caught up in the fantasy world of romance, Brand tells us, with its utopian splendors, but he clearly recognized

"the dichotomy between literature and life."'*5 He does not chastise his characters or contemporaries for fictionalizing, but he does warn against these fictions becoming delusions we impose on both ourselves and others.

Giammati emphasizes a similar point when he says that "power or sense of illusion is repeatedly used to expose delusions, and thus the reader is always warned against taking literature (or life) at face value.1,56

Once chivalric ideals are exposed as fictions, Ariosto does not denounce the fictions themselves. He invites us to see not only in his role as poet

(creator of a cosmos) but in his role as lover, that ideals, though illusory and unobtainable, are nonetheless attractive. His description of himself and his lady as figures of the marvelous fountain the "courteous cavalier sans reproche" shows Rinaldo makes this point clear.57 Eight majestic female figures support the golden cupola of the structure and are themselves supported by the shoulders of two figures beneath them. These lower figures are sculpted in a way to show their full devotion: "e quell'atto in che son, par 62

che disegni / che l'opra e studio lor tutto lodasse / le belle donne che sugli

omeri hanno" ("Their pose suggested they would dedicate / Their lives in

praise of the fair ladies who / Were standing on their shoulders. . . ") (XLII.

81. 5-8). These figures bear scrolls on which are written the virtues of the

women above them, and include many real-life poets, such as Ercole Strozzi and Antonio Tebaldeo (holding up the figure of Lucrezia Borgia) and Gian

Iacopo Calandra and Gian Iacopo B ardelone (holding up the figure of Isabella d'Este). Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione are also named, and the poet describes himself, in contrast to those mentioned before him, as one who stands alone, anonymously, under the feet of his lady. His description of her is appropriately exalted:

formata in alabastro una gran donna era di tanto e si sublime aspetto, che sotto puro velo, in nera gonna, senza oro e gemme, in un vestire schietto, tra le piil adorne non parea men bella, che sia tra l'altre la ciprigna Stella. (XLII. 93. 3-8)

Non si potea, ben contemplando fiso, conoscer se piu grazia o piu beltade, o maggior maesfa fosse nel viso, o pill indizio d'ingegno o d'onestade. "Chi vorra di costei" dicea l'inciso marmo "parlar, quanto parlar n'accade, ben torra impresa piu d'ogn'altra degna; ma non pero ch'a fin mai se ne vegna." (XLII. 94. 1-8)

{On a tall figure now they fix their gaze, In alabaster carved, and so sublime, No other form is worthier of praise. Veiled and in black, adorned with neither gem Nor gold, yet no less lovely she appears Than Venus does among the other stars. 63

One cannot tell by looking a t her face Which of these qualities prevail in it, Such are her beauty, majesty and grace, The upright virtues of her mind, her wit. This message on the marble scroll they trace: 'Who speaks of her as fully as is fit, His gifts to a most worthy task will lend, Yet such that he will never reach the end.'}

The Poet renders his lady unobtainable by idealizing her, a point emphasized especially by her standing above him, seeming disdainful that "con umil canto / ardisse lei lodar si rozzo ingegno" ("with humble song / One so uncouth should seek to honour her") (XLH. 95. 3-4), but the significance in his presentation of the two of them is th at he chooses to pursue her even though she will, in her perfection, elude him. Inherent in this description is the same undespairing attitude we see in the poet's role as creator. B ecause he has so frequently shown throughout the text th a t women (and men) are not idealized lovers and are by nature flawed and sometimes fickle, we cannot naively credit the deified version of his lady or the version of himself as completely enraptured and devoted. But we do recognize in his description of her as goddess and of himself as pursuer of the ideal the pleasure of partaking in fictions—in suspending ourselves just long enough to entertain possibilities unoffered to us. This same pleasure is expressed in his role as creator-Poet and demonstrates in a very clear way the central position Orlando Furioso assumes between Don Juan and Le Morte Darthur. Ariosto's emphasis on the attractiveness of fictions as fictions distinguishes his use of the mock heroic 64

from Byron's, whose Don Juan strongly denounces illusory ideals. We are not encouraged in Ariosto's poem, so much as we are in Le Morte Darthur. to value the chivalric capabilities of characters, and when we are, as with

Orlando or the real-life Ippolito, we do so with the awareness that the chivalric code is not realizable but that the fiction is appreciable. Such a distinction between the illusory and yet attractive quality of heroic ideals does not lead to despair but serves to remind us, in a playful though serious way, of the many complications, joys, sorrows, and engaging experiences involved in being human.

Ariosto's irony does not leave us with a world that is bleak or meaningless, but with one that is ultimately unknowable and uncontrollable.

Seeing clearly the distinctions between what we can know and be and what is actually unobtainable allows us to affirm life for what it is and to appreciate its variety and complexity. Our acceptance of the mutability of life can help us to accept the limitations in human nature as well, and to be patient with them. We can appeal to each other for the reassurance the Poet tells us we cannot always find in an incomprehensible world:

Studisi ognun giovare altrui; che rade volte il ben far senza il suo premio fia: e se pur senza, almen non te ne accade morte n§ danno nfe ignominia ria. Chi nuoce altrui, tardi o per tempo cade il debito a scontar, che non s'oblia. Dice il proverbio, ch'a trovar si vanno gli uomini spesso, e i monti fermi stanno. (XXIII. 1. 1-8) {Let us help one another, if we can, For rarely do good deeds go unrewarded. Or if so, to be loved is better than To suffer vengeance at the end, unguarded. If anyone should harm his fellow-man, The debt to pay will not be unregarded. Men seek each other out, the proverb says, The mountain, motionless, unchanging stays. } 66

NOTES

Chapter 2. Attractive Fictions

Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, a cura di Remo Ceserani (Torino: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1962), I, II. 30. 5, p. 77. Hereafter cited parenthetically by canto, stanza and line. Translations in quotation marks in parentheses and those of full and partial stanzas set off from the text are Barbara Reynolds' (Orlando Furioso, 2 vols. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1975 and 1977, respectively). 2 For discussions of the genre characterizing Orlando Furioso, see C.P. Brand's Ludovico Ariosto: A^ Preface to the 'Orlando Furioso', Writers of Italy Series, I (Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1974); Barbara Reynolds' Introduction in Part I to her translation of Orlando Furioso (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1975); Andrew Fichter's Poets Historical: Dynastic Epic jn the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1982); Reverend E. W. Edwards' The Orlando Furioso and its Predecessor (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1924); Robert Griffin's Ludovico Ariosto, gen. ed. Sylvia E. Bowman, Twayne's World Authors Series: A Survey of the World's Literature, ed. Carlo Golino, TWAS 301 (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1974); and Patricia A. Parker's Inescapable Romance: Studies in the Poetics of a Mode (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1979). 3 See Thomas Greene's The Descent from Heaven: A^ Study jn Epic Continuity (1963; rpt. New Haven: Yale CJniv. Press, 1970) for a discussion of the messenger in epic literature. 4 Andrew Fichter focuses his discussion on the dynastic epic, a term derived from Peter V. Marinelli's Ph.D. thesis (Princeton Univ., 1964), "The Dynastic Romance: A Study in the Evolution of the Romanic Epics of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Spenser." He distinguishes Ruggiero and Bradamante from Orlando by saying that the former "learn to behave according to dynastic 67

imperatives" (71). Hence, he claims, they succeed where Orlando fails.

c Francesco de Sanctis, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, a cura di Benedetto Croce, II (Bari: Gius. Laterza e Figli, 1925); C. P. Brand, p. 150. g D.S. Carne-Ross, "The One and the Many: A Reading of Orlando Furioso, Cantos 1 and 8," Arion 5 (1966) 197. See also Brand for his discussion of the poem as a vehicle for a commentary on his times.

? Fichter, p. 74. g Robert M. Durling, The Figure of the Poet jn Renaissance Epic (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1965), p. 3.

9 Griffin, p. 73.

1® A. Bartlett Giamatti, The Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966), p. 151. See Brand on chivalry as outmoded.

11 John Clark, A^ History of Epic Poetry (New York: Haskell House, 1964), pp. 269-70.

12 Parker, p. 22. She provides an excellent analysis of Ariosto's playing on the verb "errare" to suggest the knight-errant, the poetic voyage itself, and the notion of error.

Reynolds, I, p. 41.

I4 Greene, p. 130.

1C Brand, p. 95. He writes that Ariosto perceived chivalrous, romance characters as anachronisms, though we are encouraged to perceive them sympathetically rather than comically in the poem. See also Griffin for a good discussion of chivalric parody as it relates to the Orlando Furioso. 1 fi Brand draws an interesting conclusion on this point He claims that Orlando's love for Angelica is immoral because he is married. The love between Bradamante and Ruggiero is good, however, and leads to the conclusion that "the conflict of love and duty can be resolved if the love is the right one" (p. 62). See Fichter as well on what he considers the more "righteous" love of Ruggiero and Bradamante.

17 Parker, p. 27. 68

Parker, p. 28. She goes on in a superb analysis to explain how Ariosto presents the fictional principle of romance, which she sees as a metaphor for fiction itself. One of her main points is that Ariosto deconstructs the idea of "fiction without error"—of an "authoritative or privileged literary genre," such as the epic.

*9 Griffin, p. 111.

20 Fichter, p. 82.

21 Durling, pp. 164-65.

22 Durling, p. 175.

OO Cf. Don Quixote, where "enchanters and enchantresses" are imagined by the Don and thus exist only as elements of his elaborately transformed, illusory world. In the contemporary world presented in Orlando Furioso, individuals are deceived, this verse emphasizes, not purely or primarily by their imaginations, but by others' actual, deliberate deceptions.

24 Edmund Gardner. The King of Court Poets: A Study of the Work. Life, and Times of Lodovico Ariosto (1906; rpt n.p.: Archibald Constable and Company, Limited; New York: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1968), pp. 47-48.

^ F ich te r, p. 106.

9fi Gardner, p. 287. Most, I think, would acknowledge this view as dated.

27 Benedetto Croce (Ariosto, Shakespeare and Corneille, trans. Douglas Ainslie, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1920) sees Ariosto's politics as idyllic morality but discredits the idea of seeing irony in his praises of the Estes. Such comments were, he says, "serious celebrations of glorious military enterprises and of magnanimous acts" (61). 28 Ludovico Ariosto: A Preface to the 'Orlando Furioso1 and The Descent from Heaven: A_ Study jn Epic Continuity. Brand suggests that chivalric values were diminishing in importance all over Europe because of the decline of the role and the status of the knight. Reverend E. W. Edwards also sees this nostalgia in Ariosto, claiming that chivalric values were Ariosto's own. Reynolds, I, p. 24.

29 Gardner, p. 271. A few critics do comment, however, that in the case of his patrons, Ariosto was using traditional literary format and thus cannot be perceived as deliberately mocking them. See Croce (Ariosto. Shakespeare and Corneille). 69

Greene, pp. 121-22.

^ Giamatti, p. 164. 22 Giamatti, pp. 138-39. 33 In that St. John was also a writer with a "patron," Parker suggests the authoritative text of even the Gospels is threatened. 34 Griffin comments that with the ambiguities in life that Ariosto emphasizes, his own predicaments with the Estes could also be seen in these terms. That is, since life is comprised of difficulties that exist for no discernible reason, the task at hand is to accept situations as they really are and not to mourn for something that has never existed in the first place.

25 Brand, p. 56.

36 Giamatti, p. 139.

37 I am indebted to Robert C. Jones for calling my attention to this scene in the context of the discussion presented. CHAPTER THREE: "BUFFOONERY WITH A PLAN"

Whate'er the critic says or poet sings 'Tis no slight task to write on common things.

I

Lord Byron's Muse, writes Andrew Rutherford, was "Janus-faced," his

poetry oscillating "between the roles of sentiment and satire."* Like Ariosto,

who, according to Robert Griffin, also "strikes a Janus-like pose," Byron presents his readers with a work that is not easily characterized.2 Both

poems, because of their elusive, sometimes contradictory natures, frequently provoke questions about their authors' seriousness and sincerity. In the case of Byron, inquiries involve not only how to place Don Juan generically, but how to place the poet himself in terms of his contemporaries. John Clubbe and Ernest J. Lovell, Jr. address the latter problem by claiming that

Byron"was (in his special way) as much a Romantic as the other poets" and point out that even though he was not interested in the theoretical discussions characteristic of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Blake, he was "as genuinely

70 71

convinced a s Blake of the fallen state of man."3 Both believe, in fact, that

Byron "is th e most orthodox of his contemporaries on the subject of man's

inherent imperfections and the need for redemption," even though his "diction

of redemption" is much more secularized.^ They maintain Byron experienced

the need as strongly as his contemporaries "to escape from the isolated self,

to transcend it, and achieve a meaningful and deeply satisfying sense of union

with the non-self."5

Discussions of Byron's ideological perceptions as they are expressed in

his writings often focus on his paradoxical view of life—on the inevitable

interrelatedness of contraries such as disillusionment and hope. M.G. Cooke

tells us, "Byron, the romantic ironist, continually entices us with the apple of

vision, only a t the peak of aspiration or faith to spin into prominence the

dismaying worm of 'reality.' "® A similar view is expressed by E.D. Hirsch,

Jr.: "the present moment, if happy, is clouded by the knowledge of some glorious possibility which has been denied to us."7 Thus, according to Cooke,

"a residue of hope, a modicum of pain are betrayed in{ Byron's} statem ent of

'what we are.' "8 This way of apprehending the world distinguishes Byron to some degree from other Romantics—particularly the earlier writers—and has led to the perception of him as an individual always at odds with his world.

His paradoxical view, William Marshall tells us, "seems to reflect a fundamental split between skepticism and the impulse to believe and belong."8 He demonstrates, Cooke writes, "a certain incapacity to come to terms with the realities of existence . . . that manifests itself . . . in {his } 72

satire as well as in this itieroic' plays and tales."10

Seen as an expression of this paradoxical vision, Don Juan represents for

many critics Byron's declaration, through satire and irony, of the painful

disillusionment inherent in life. He is haunted, according to Harold Bloom, by

"the spector of meaninglessness, of pointless absurdity" and "creates a poem

without faith in nature, art, society, or the very Imagination he so capably

employs."11 He "ends up poised between a sharp recognition of things in their

imperfections and a sardonic resignation to things as they are"—though he

"despaired of apocalypse," he "could not be content with Man or Nature as

given."12 At the heart of these and similiar readings of the poem is the idea

that Byron's bleak view of the world derives from humanity's violation of

ideals. Elizabeth F. Boyd, for example, claims his cynicism "springs from his

ideal of perfection in human nature which he sees everywhere betrayed by

frailty and ignorance.She compares him to Juan, believing both move

through experience toward ultimate despair.

A more optimistic reading of Don Juan is frequently presented, however,

that emphasizes Byron's faith in the manifestations of ideals and subsequent

less-anguished relationship with his world. Hirsch writes, "Byron's recurrent unwillingness to accept the mixed character of experience is rooted in his special sort of religious faith. . . . To believe in a heaven on earth is to believe in the possibility of an earthly perfection, and this was a faith that Byron never relinquished."1'1 His disillusionment "would not constantly recur were it not for a recurrence of faith in the distant 'there,' and this faith, in turn, 73

could not be preserved if one did not (now and then) experience earnests of

possible perfection."1^ Byron's various moods expressed in Don Juan, Hirsch

explains, reflect his attitude toward the ideal—he is "ecstatic" when

presenting the "vision or experience of perfect fulfillment," ironic when

revealing "a less than ideal reality," and cynical when exposing the "complete

failure of the ideal" —its absence from our l i v e s .16 Leslie A. Marchand also

sees in Don Juan Byron's affirmation of the ideal but qualifies the poet's belief

in perfection as a dream rather than an obtainable reality. His view is

comparable to that presented for Ariosto in Chapter Two—the ideal is

attractive and thus merits pursuit, but with the knowledge of its intangibility:

Byron refused to deceive himself into believing that the dream was other than of the mind's conception. . . .{_His} modernity rests in his clinging to an ideal without deluding himself with a transcendental belief in 'dreaming true,' and in his insistence upon seeing the world as it is . . . without losing his interest in the romantic dream or discounting it. The most completely realistic of all the romantics, he accepted the romantic urge as a part of human nature without pretending it was more than a dream.17

The often contradictory views of Byron's perceptions of his world are reflected as well in discussions of Don Juan as a mock-heroic poem. George

M. Ridenour emphasizes the Christian myth of the Fall as the central theme of the work, saying,

There is, from man's viewpoint.. . something profoundly wrong about {the universe} and about his place in it. But at the same time there is a generous provision of means 74

and opportunities of dealing with this wrongness and making it humanly right. But these means and opportunities have a way of being closely allied with the primary causes and manifestations of the wrongness.. . . Don Juan is about coming to terms with such a world.

How this reconciliation occurs, if it is even possible, leads to conflicting analyses of the poem's genre. Byron's use of satire is traditional, Ernest J.

Lovell, Jr. claims, in that it directs the community "to know itself and so avoid deceiving itself," resulting in "a poetry which is of the world and free of despair, avoiding the extreme position of the congenital disillusioned idealist. It counsels man to live in his world and be reconciled with it, if only the more effectively to correct it."1** But William H. Marshall and Claude M.

Fuess, in contrast, see Byron's satire as destructive rather than constructive.

Marshall believes Byron

had largely accepted imperfection in the Self and in Man's consciousness as an end in itself rath er than as an obstacle in one's view of life that somehow had to be gotten around. He had become ... an ironist, one aware of the limits of human capacity and the absurdity of many forms of human activity, but in exposing these he was offering no suggestion for an ideal substitute in human behavior, as the satirist implicitly does.

Don Juan is not satire, he concludes, because "its irony is terminal rather than instrumental."^1 Fuess accepts the satirical nature of the poem, but, like

Marshall, sees Byron's "philosophical conceptions" as "destructive rather than constructive, skeptical rather than idealistic, founded on doubt rather than on faith."22 Jerome McGann suggests the poem is not consistently mock-heroic 75

at all, but frequently elegiac. He sees the shipwreck, Haidee, and Ismail

passages as imitative of certain topoi in heroic poetry but not—as Fuess states—treated mockingly. Those sections of the work that do suggest a derisive attitude on the part of the poet "often shade into deep pathos or an 23 equivocal serio-comic mixture." Byron's adherence to and affirmation of epic values is additionally a source of debate. Hirsch believes Don Juan posits "selfless love and genuine heroism" as not only possible but, "as his true epic showed, sometimes actually to be f o u n d ."24 Yet several critics, to varying degrees, claim that Byron re­ jected—and sometimes refuted—epic ideals. Ridenour considers the poem, in its emphasis on the association between war and the epic, an invitation to see that "the traditional heroic poem compromises itself morally by its apparent glorification of b l o o d s h e d"25 . Don Juan is "anti-epic" in John Lauber's view,

the epic tradition . . . an influence to be destroyed, a wornout form whose conventions . . . prevent the modern poet from dealing with "human things and acts" (his proper subject) and whose moral values, with their glorification of war and false conception of heroism, are positively dangerous to society.

Emphasized in Cooke's perception of the work, Byron's "peculiar form of humanism and stoicism" is "counter-heroic," "specifically deflating the hero of mere power, specifically celebrating the life of courage and virtue."2?

Central to divergent perceptions about Don Juan, as I see it, is

Byron'smodification of the mock heroic format. Like Ariosto, though more 76 consistently and forthrightly, he appears to satirize characters (and their real-life counterparts) for failing to live up to heroic ideals, but, at the same time, he undermines the validity of using ideals as standards of judgment at all. His mock heroic emphasis in the poem is apparent in his ridicule of unexalted characters by placing them and their actions inan epic context that clearly overstates their significance. They are trivial, as are the real-life individuals they call to mind, ludicrous in the degree to which they fall short of their heroic counterparts. Elevated style gives way to colloquialized invocations and descriptions that appropriately correspond to the narrative's trivialized subject. Byron's commentary, as Ariosto's, points out, though even more emphatically, that his real-life contemporaries have created their own world through their limited and misguided perceptions of themselves and their society. He appears to target them as the object of his satire because they are less than they could be—they fail to live up to the ideals they claim guide their behavior. Theirs is a world distinguished by its lack of heroism.

Don Juan's mock heroic nature is modified, however, in the poet's comments about the world and in descriptions of characters that undermine heroic ideals themselves. These declarations and observations stress, as

Ariosto's do somewhat less often and directly in Orlando Furioso. that ideals are unrealistic goals—misperceptions—because they do not actually exist.

Human beings are naturally imperfect and ought to perceive themselves realistically, accepting themselves for who they are rather than condemning 77

their limitations. Byron, like his Italian predecessor, describes many of the

characters' actions sympathetically as stemming from undesirable human

motivations. His remarks and frequent identification with his characters

encourage us to see, as similiar practices do in Orlando Furioso. that vices, as

some would call them, are merely human foibles. Those characters who deny

their imperfections and claim their actions are more idealized than those of

others are ridiculed for being pretentious, for perceiving themselves as moral

superiors. They deny their own duplicitous natures and unjustly impose their

attitudes on others. Byron redefines heroism in human terms, instead of

simply mocking ridiculously inadequate heroes, showing that the truly positive

actions among people are those stemming from compassion. He affirms

individuals who equate themselves with all others and do not claim moral or

political superiority. He also affirms concrete, human experiences that are

universally shared. His poem does have a strong moral center, he insists,

because it encourages a compassionate and realistic view of human life. The

following pages describe in detail Byron's modification of the mock

heroic—the ironic/affirming pattern—in an attempt to clarify how Don Juan

"comes to terms" with its world.

II

The pretentiousness Byron criticizes throughout the poem is an attitude in his characters and in real-life individuals that prevents them from seeing 78

who they really are. It is a self-delusion, an inflated perception of their

importance and position in the world that convinces them they are distinct

from others. Among the characters he most clearly satirizes for this attitude

is Juan's mother, Donna Inez, whose pretensions to idealized behavior

convince her she is morally superior to others and thus capable of and called

upon to judge and publicly condemn their actions or attitudes when they do

not coincide with her own. 28 The poet deflates her through irony, presenting

her in ways that consistently expose the falsehood of her beliefs and thus show

us who she really is. He also frequently comments on her behavior to draw

out and emphasize the pretentions he mocks. We see his irony in his

descriptions of Inez when he appears only to record information about her

activities but, in fact, clearly implies through word choices and overall

phrasing that she is to be ridiculed. Inez's arrogant and unflinching belief that

her husband, Don Josd, is condemnable is mocked when the poet points out

that she calls in druggists and physicians and tries "to prove her loving lord

was mad. / But as he had some lucid intermissions, / She next decided he was

only bad,"30 ghe sets herself apart from him, and ultimately from all others,

in her perception of herself as a person who is morally superior and called on by duty "both to Man and God" (I. 27. 7) to expose reprobates.30 Her wisdom in these matters is also ironically called into question when she turns her attention to Juan. The poet tells us that she, "Sagest of women, even of widows . . . / Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon, / And worthy of the noblest pedigree" (I. 38. 1-3). The mock heroic nature of his praise is 79

evident when he continues, showing us the underlying ostentatiousness of her actions:

But that which Donna Inez most desired, And saw into herself each day before all The learned tutors whom for him she hired, Was, that this breeding should be strictly moral: Much into all his studies she inquired, And so they were submitted first to her, all, Arts, sciences, no branch was made a mystery To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history. (I. 39. 1-8)

To abide by what she considers her moral superiority, she insists that all sexual references be eliminated from the classics in literature before they are taught to Juan. She also retains the family Missal from him because she perceives its elaborate ornamentation may be too suggestive. The poet plainly mocks her attempts to educate Juan when he comments that he "had

{his} doubts" (I. 51. 1) about the manner in which she was nurturing Juan's growth. He claims "That if {.he} had an only son to put / To school . . . / 'Tis not with Donna Inez {he} would shut / Him up to learn his catechism alone" (I.

52. 3-6). Inez's censorship is characteristic of her pretentiousness, and her lessons are designed to keep Juan away from reality. When he lets her down by becoming sexually involved with Julia, and, most importantly, by being discovered publicly, she assumes the same kind of magnanimous stance she assumed earlier with Don Jose, and the poet ironically undermines her again.

First she "vow'd (and never had she vow'd in vain) / To Virgin Mary several pounds of candles" (I. 190. 5-6), and after she ships Juan off from Cadiz, 80

Brave Inez . . . set up a Sunday school For naughty children, who would rather play (Like tru an t rogues) the devil, or the fool; Infants of three years old were taught that day, Dunces were whipt, or set upon a stool: The great success of Juan's education, Spur'd her to teach another generation. (II. 10. 2-8)

Byron's mock praise of "Brave Inez" exposes her absurd perception of children as immoral and condemns her attempts to transform them. Her role as teacher is decidedly inappropriate in that Juan's "great success" in education is largely lacking. Byron's more direct comments about Inez undermine the validity of her self-characterization by revealing the contradictions in her actual behavior.

We see early—and he takes pains to make it evident—Inez's tendency to fictionalize about herself:

Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, A great opinion of her own good qualities; Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, And such, indeed, she was in her moralities; But then she had a devil of a spirit, And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities, And let few opportunities escape Of getting her leige lord into a scrape. (I. 20. 1-8)

Dogged in her attempts to shame Don Jose publicly, she assumes a posture of meekness that is undermined in the face of his faults:

And then this best and meekest woman bore 81

With such serenity her husband's woes, Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore, Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose Never to say a word about them more— Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, And saw his agonies with such sublimity, That all the world exclaim'd, "What magnanimity!" (I. 29. 1-8)

In truth, Inez generates many of these "calumnies" against her husband, but in her eyes, she is a virtuous, heroic woman who, in keeping with this exalted position, must suffer his faults in silence. Her silence—the "serenity" with which she "bears her husband's woes"—is calculated to make him look even worse than he is. The poet suggests this less than honorable intention on

Inez's part when he says:

'Tis . .. pleasant to be deemed magnanimous, The more so in obtaining our own ends; And what the lawyers call a "malus animus." Conduct like this by no means comprehends: Revenge in person's certainly no virtue. (I. 30. 3-7)

Inez is not the virtuous person she claims to be, but a pretentious, aloof character whose self-perceptions are glaringly inaccurate. She is a character who is not at all meek but "An all-in-all-sufficient self-director" (I. 15. 3), "a walking calculation" (I. 16. 1). In comments like "Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all" (I. 12. 3), "Oh! she was perfect past all parallel—"

(I. 17. 1), and "Her guardian angel had given up his garrison" (I. 17. 4), Byron parodies her self-elevation. He undermines her more precisely when he says,

"In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her, / Save thine 'incomparable oil,' 82

Macassar!" (I. 17. 7-8), deflating the sublime with the ridiculous. She is much

more concerned about maintaining the public image she has created for

herself than about restoring anyone else's morals. When those close to her

err, in her perception, she turns their faults into opportunities for displaying

her magnanimity. Her concern is primarily not to look bad herself—by

association with these characters—rather than to redeem them.

Byron mocks Inez's assumed heroic position even further when he points

out that she does not always honor her own exalted standards. She had

"Forgot with {Alfonso} her very prudent carriage" (I. 66. 8) before he was

married, and her friendship with Julia is exposed as merely a way for her to

keep up "the old connexion" (I. 67. 1). She always thinks only of herself and

calculates ways to get what she wants. Her selfish intentions are revealed

when the poet ironically comments that she may have been aware of Juan's

blossoming relationship with Julia but chose not to interfere, "Perhaps to

finish Juan's education, / Perhaps to open Don Alfonso's eyes, / In case he

thought his wife too great a prize" (I. 101. 6-8). Her "chaste connexion" with

Alfonso is not a condition she wholeheartedly upholds. The feelings she has

toward her own husband also conflict with her apparent magnanimity.

Beneath their public, seemingly moral facade, these two wished each other

"not divorced, but dead" (I. 26. 3). Inez is a character who persistently undermines her own declarations on chastity and morality. She exalts herself beyond who she really is and is irritatingly consistent in her failure to distinguish between the fantasy and reality of her own role among others. She 83 believes that she is superior to them and is satirized because she imposes this sense of superiority on those around her, repeatedly avoiding any negative judgment or realistic assessment of herself. Her actions in private, in spite of her public affirmation of virtue, expose her as a hypocritical character intent on prying into the lives of others to pronounce judgments against behaviors and attitudes she is not exempt from herself. We clearly perceive the inaccuracy of her assumption about her character and are increasingly critical of her as she further extends her fictionalized role.

Paralleling such pretensions to moral authority are the political pretensions of Catherine, Potemkin and Suwarrow in the narrative account of the Russian attack on Ismail.31 The poet moves here into the most common area of heroic poetry—the battlefield—but rather than continuing his satire through irony, he makes use of direct statements that are outright condemnations. The difference in his technique may be accounted for by the difference in the subjects of these two sections. Inez is a detestable character, but the repercussions of her actions are less serious than those of

Catherine's. The Empress is detestable in a much more profound way, irrevocably altering the lives of thousands when she imposes her will on them. Her selfishness is more extreme and perverted. Both characters are targets of the poet's satire, but he directly condemns Catherine and her commanders because their pretensions are more dangerous. He describes

Catherine as Clytemnestra and calls her "the grand Epitome / Of that great

Cause of war, or peace, or what / You please" (9. 57. 1-3). She is a royal 84

harlot, a woman whose tendency to keep herself surrounded by a multitude of

"favourites," specifically young men, and the speed with which she replaces

each for another, is emphatically satirized by the poet. She is openly cut

down when he exposes her as a murderous woman who would, without

conscience or concern, widow a whole nation for pleasure:

And carcases that lay as thick as thatch O'er silenced cities, merely served to flatter Fair Catherine's pastime,—who looked on the match Between these nations as a main of cocks, Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks. (9. 29. 4-8)

Her soldiers are dispensible—their battles her amusements.

The poet debases Potemkin and Suwarrow in similar direct ways,

foregoing mock praise for explicit and literal condemnation. He compares the

Prince to a Spartan to emphasize the subversion of the potentially heroic

qualities he possesses: Potemkin's letter to Suwarrow to take the Turkish

fortress (at whatever price" (VII. 40. 8)

Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause Been one to which a good heart could be partial, Defence of freedom, country, or of laws; But as it was mere lust of power to o'er-arch all With its proud brow, it merits slight applause. (VII. 40. 2-6)

He is a man in whom noble valor and heroic strength are absent, and the poet describes his prowess as a kind of savagery. He is merciless—"a great thing in days / When homicide and harlotry made great" (VII. 37. 1-2). Suwarrow is 85

characterized as a bold, reckless, 'little —odd—old man" (VIL 49. 7) who plows

through battle as if it were a sport. Like warriors in heroic fiction, he is "A

thing to wonder at beyond most wondering" (VIL 55. 4)—a character who

stands apart from others, but Byron displays the commander's uniqueness as

perversion. Suwarrow "love{s} blood as an Alderman loves marrow"

(VII. 8. 8)—his trade is "butchery" (VII. 69. 7). The absence of nobility in his

character is emphasized when the poet openly declares his lack of regard for

others: ". . . lecturing on the noble art of killing,— /{.Suwarrow deemed} hu­

man clay but common dirt" (VII, 58, 4-5). He is a man who

saw things in the gross, Being much too gross to see them in detail, Who calculated life as so much dross, And as the wind a widowed nation's wail, And cared as little for his army's loss

As wife and friends did for the boils of Job. (VII. 77. 1-7)

Our negative response to Suwarrow is directly evoked when we are told the

commander writes Catherine boorish, trivialized rhymes about the destruction

of Ismail. The exalted depiction of the individual one experiences in heroic

fiction is lacking in Suwarrow's poems because he is a cold, inhumane figure,

insensitive and unconcerned about humanity. Catherine, cruelly indulgent in

the same m artial perversions, "smilefs} at mad Suwarrow's rhymes, who threw

/ Into a Russian couplet rather dull / The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew" (IX. 60. 2-4).32 86

with the splendor of epic battles. When the poet compares the war at Ismail

to that of Ilion, he makes clear how much more vicious and calculating this

present war is. His method again is to be direct rather than mocking, as we see when he refers to the actions he presents in the narrative as "crimes"

(VIII. 90. 1). This war is not characterized by the honor depicted in Homer's account of Troy but is reduced to a massive slaughter for the sake of power and wealth:

The work of Glory still went on In preparations for a cannonade As terrible as that of Ilion, If Homer had found mortars ready made; But now, instead of slaying Priam's son, We only can but talk of escalade, Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets; Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets. (VII. 78. 1-8)33

Where Homer "couldst charm / All ears, though long; all ages, though so short,

/ By merely wielding with poetic arm, / Arms to which men will never more resort" (VII. 79. 1-4), Byron declares that he must "paint a siege, wherein more men were slain, / With deadlier engines and a speedier blow, / Than in th is }

Greek gazette of that campaign" (VII. 80. 2-4). He cannot honor each slain man in verse because the slaughter is so massive:

fifty thousand heroes, name by name, Though all deserving equally to turn A couplet, or an elegy to claim, Would form a lengthy lexicon of glory, And what is worse still, a much longer story. (VIII. 17. 4-8) 87

The war at Ismail reduces man to his lowest level. He loses his individual honor in an overwhelming slaughter where he joins so many of his companions. They become anonymous in their deaths—grouped together as one large mass rather than distinguished individually in their one-to-one combat with their enemies. They fight a different war than their heroic counterparts. They do not always confront their attackers or have a chance to defend their lives because they are fighting against invisible bullets aimed to cut them down. How successful a man is in preserving his life—and he looks out for his own more than for his comrades'—depends on how clever he is at dodging confrontations with his enemies rather than facing them. Feats of strength and arms are generally nonexistent, diminished to bullish, crude acts. A Moslem on the verge of death, for example, feels a Russian officer's foot above him and bites it through at the Achilles tendon. He refuses to relinquish his grip and even after he dies and loses his head to the officer's sword, his teeth barely let go of the foot. The officer remains lamed for life, more, the poet tells us, as the result of a regimental surgeon's incompetence than the Moslem's bite. This scene contrasts sharply with the foretelling scene in Homer's Iliad of AchiUes' death by Paris' arrow, guided by ApoUo to meet its mark in the vulnerable heel. Byron draws our attention to this contrast through his allusion to Achilles when he describes the Moslem's target on the Russian officer. Achilles' brilliance and his acceptance of his 88

fate following Hektor's death diminish the significance of the comparable

scene in Don Juan. It appears particularly perverse in contrast, a gross

reduction of man's significance. Desperation and hatred bordering on the absurd take the place of honor in a war that is as debased in nature as those fighting it. Byron uncovers the reality of war and emphasizes its baseness in his opening invocations to the Eighth Canto:

Oh blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds! These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem, Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds: And so they are; yet thus is Glory's dream Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds At present such things, since they are her theme, So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars, Bellona, what you will—they mean but wars. (VIII. 1. 1-8)

The narrative account of Russia's attack on Ismail provides the poet the means to attack certain of England's political figures with the same direct condemnation. He claims they, like Catherine, Potemkin, and Suwarrow, pretentiously assume political authority over others, willingly sacrificing the lives of compatriots and people in other countries for the cause of imperialism. In their power over their countrymen, they are ultimately brutal and inhumane because they little respect the lives of their subjects in their pursuit for glory. They are leaders who are satirized, as are Catherine and her commanders, in direct, literal statements rather than with mock praise to emphasize the dangerous nature of their pretensions. The Duke of Wellington and Robert Stuart, Viscount Castlereagh, come under the poet's most 89

vehement attack. Both are condemned primarily for their involvement in

Waterloo, for what the poet considers their inhumane approach to Ireland's

people and problems, and the repressive measures they imposed on England.

He draws out the comparison between Catherine and her group and England's

Wellington and Castlereagh when he characterizes the latter as tyrants— self-seeking individuals fond of praise and wealth—obtaining both at great expense to their nation. Castlereagh is an "intellectual eunuch" (Dedication.

11. 8) in his perception, a "monstrous Hieroglyphic" (his speech was often tangled and unclear according to Byron and several of his contemporaries), and a "long Spout of blood and water" (IX. 50. 5-6).34 The poet openly and vehemently denounces him for being the one most responsible for crushing the

Irish rebellion:

Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant! Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore, And thus for wider carnage taught to pant, Transferr'd to gorge upon a sister shore, The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want, With just enough of talent, and no more, To lengthen fetters by another fix'd, And offer poison long already mix'd. (Ded. 12. 1-8)

He is depicted as a perverse incompetent who is "emasculated to the marrow"

(Ded. 15. 2) in his vileness:

A bungler even in its disgusting trade, And botching, patching, leaving still behind Something of which its masters are afraid, States to be curb'd, and thoughts to be confined, Conspiracy or Congress to be made— 90

Cobbling at manacles for all mankind— A tinkering slave-maker, who mends old chains, With God and man's abhorrence for its gains. (Ded. 14. 1-8)

Castlereagh's fearlessness is more accurately, according to Byron, a viciousness that stems from a complete lack of feeling. He is comparable to

Ixion, an evil Thessalonian king portrayed by Aeschylus as the first murderer.

His position of power enables him to impose his debased nature on others at any cost. The poet clearly announces his lack of sympathy for Castlereagh's suicide and denies its significance as a repentent act in his Preface to Cantos

VI, VII and VIII. He states:

. . . if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson,35 had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the Minister was an elegant Lunatic—a sentimental Suicide—he merely cut the "carotid artery" (blessings on their learning) and lo! the Pageant, and the Abbey! and "the Syllables of Dolour yelled forth" by the Newspapers—and the harangue of the Coroner in an eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased—(an Anthony worthy of such a Caesar)—and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded Crew of Conspirators against all that is sincere or honourable. (Preface to Cantos VI-VIII)

Castlereagh's participation as Foreign Secretary of England in the downfall of

Napoleon and his political alliance with the Duke of Wellington debase him further in the poet's eyes because he considers the Duke so reprehensible. He censures Wellington when he invokes his name: 91

Oh, Wellington! (or "Vilainton"—for Fame Sounds the heroic syllables both ways; France could not even conquer your great name, But punned it down to this facetious phrase— Beating or beaten she will laugh the same). (IX. 1. 1-5)

The words Villain ton, which translate "bad taste," roughly suggest the name's

French pronunciation and appropriately call to mind the English meaning of villain, effectively satirizing the Duke on two counts.36 The poet angrily denounces Wellington's campaign at Waterloo as an unheroic, misapplied demonstration of political power:

War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art, Unless her cause by Right be sanctified. If you have acted once a generous part, The World, not the World's masters, will decide, And I shall be delighted to learn who, Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo? (IX. 4. 3-8)

Wellington is the "best of cut-throats" (IX. 4. 1), in the poet's perception, for his defeat and suppression of Napoleon. The Duke could have

"freed fall'n Europe from the Unity / Of Tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore" (IX. 9. 3-4), but he has channelled his power into pursuits of conquest instead. His actions openly deny the freedom among people he purports to have protected. As a sympathizer with the French Revolution, Byron equates sovereigns with tyrants who claim to rule in the interest of their subjects but who, in fact, as he sees it, do not. England's participation in the French

Revolution occurred at the cost of common people, who through indirect 92

taxation were put in the position of helping to pay for the war. Their own

economic problems increased as prices rose and food became more scarce. He

denies the value of Wellington's French campaign to his own country when he

addresses him directly:

And now—What is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye? Now—that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er? Go! hear it in your famished Country's cries! Behold the World! and curse your victories! (IX. 9. 5-8)

Heroic virtues are subverted in Wellington because his martial endeavors intensify man's oppression rather than relieve it. Despite this negative fate of the common individual, the Duke "sup£s }full of flattery" (IX. 5. 1) for his political accomplishments, a fact Byron finds particularly appalling because it emphasizes how clearly disconnected from his common countrymen he really is. That they should suffer—be so openly victimized—and he should gain in reputation at their expense is grossly unfair in the poet's eyes and an outright inversion of the heroic leader Wellington claims, through flattery, to be. His rewards from battle are this flattery and wealth, both of which Byron uses as targets of satire in his condemnation of the Duke:

They say you like ^flattery ]—'tis no great wonder: He whose whole life has been assault and battery, At last may get a little tired of thunder; And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he May like being praised for every lucky blunder; Called "Saviour of the Nations"—not yet saved, And Europe's Liberator—still enslaved. (IX. 5. 2-8) 93

He degrades the Duke further by contrasting his prosperity with the poverty of England's common people:

Now go and dine from off the plate Presented by the Prince of the Brazils, And send the sentinel before your gate A slice or two from your luxurious meals: He fought, but has not fed so well of late. Some hunger too they say the people feels:— There is no doubt that you deserve your ration, But pray give back a little to the nation. (IX. 6. 1-8)

Unlike the Roman general Cincinnatus, Wellington is not acclaimed for his virtue. Byron declares that he is, instead, more appropriately comparable to the Roman conquerors of the Sabines:

Though as an Irishman you love potatoes, You need not take them under your direction; And half a million for your Sabine farm Is rather dear!. . . (IX. 7. 5-8)

Wellington's greatness is established on foundations far too weak to support it. It is a perversion, in the poet's eyes, because the Duke has actually forsaken the people he claims to serve. He has money and food enough, but thousands—particularly those people in Ireland—are starving. "Great men have always scorned great recompenses" (IX. 8. 1), the poet claims, and to collapse Wellington's heroic pretensions he contrasts his wealth with

Epaminondas', a Theban general and statesman, and George Washington's poverty. Both leaders, unlike the Duke, put the people they represented and 94

led before themselves. William Pitt, prime minister of England during the

French Revolution, sacrifices his country in contrast—"ruining Great Britain

gratis" (IX. 8. 8). In him is the inversion of the honorable leader represented

by Epaminondas and Washington. Leonidas, a Greek hero and king of Sparta,

and Washington fought wars "Whose every battle-field is holy ground, / Which

breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone" (VIII. 5. 3-4), and their names,

like others comparable to them, will be "a watchword till the future shall be

free" (VIII. 5. 8). The Duke "did great things; but not being great in mind1

/ . . . left undone the greatest—and mankind" (IX. 10. 7-8).

War and glory as they exist in the real world contrast with their fictive

counterparts in not being heroic. Men are made hard

By the infinities of agony, Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard— The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye Turned back within its socket,—these reward Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest May win perhaps a ribbon at the breast! (VIII. 13. 3-8)

Glory for those who fight in battles is cut down to a financial, and to a lesser degree, literary consideration. The poet makes clear this reduction when he declares:

Yet I love Glory;—glory's a great thing;— Think what it is to be in your old age Maintained at the expense of your good king: A moderate pension shakes full many a sage, And heroes are but made for bards to sing, Which is still better; thus in verse to wage Your wars eternally, besides enjoying 95

Half-pay for life, make mankind worth destroying. (VIII. 14. 1-8)

He trivializes these individuals' rewards by emphasizing their more realistic

statures:

And therefore we must give the greater number To the Gazette—which doubtless fairly dealt By the deceased, who lie in famous slumber In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt Their clay for the last time their souls encumber;— Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt In the despatch .... (VIII. 18. 1-7)

Drawing from his own experience an example to drive home his point, Byron

tells his readers he "knew a man whose loss / Was printed Grove, although his

name was Grose" (VIII. 18. 7-8).^ Glory is not only a fleeting matter or a

matter only of being listed in casualty counts, it often is not even correlated

to the individuals earning what little it has to offer them. Anonymity

replaces recognition, meaningless slaughter replaces sacrifices made in the

name of freedom. Wars for whom individuals sacrifice their lives are

enormous wastes of humanity fought not to benefit the country's people but to

allow its leaders to prosper. Byron overtly exposes this situation when he says:

But still there is unto a patriot nation, Which loves so well its country and its King, A subject of sublimest exultation— Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing! Howe'er the mighty locust, Desolation, Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling, 96

Gaunt Famine never shall approach the throne— Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone. (VIII. 126. 1-8)

England's leaders, in his perception, impose a vicious reality upon their subjects that even they do not experience. They enjoy their wealth and comfort because of the great sacrifices made by the people they govern.

Byron suggests that England was once great but that it has permitted itself to lose this stature when he claims:

I have no great cause to love that spot of earth, Which holds what might have been the noblest nation; But though I owe it little but my birth, I feel a mixed regret and veneration For its decaying fame and former worth. (X. 66. 1-5)

He implies, in fact, that England has betrayed him, characterizing her as "a false friend" and gaoler—as a butcher in her dealings with India and as a bully in her negotiations with America (X. 81. 8). He similarly debases the country by comparing its prime minister to his fictionalized character Lambro, a pirate who steals considerable wealth from others and chains and sells his prisoners:

Let not (Lambro's) mode of raising cash seem strange, Although he fleeced the flags of every nation, For into a prime minister but change His title, and 'tis nothing but taxation. (III. 14. 1-4) 97

The imperialistic political structure of England is exploitive. The country is

"mighty Babylon" (XI. 23. 2), pretending to greatness in spite of its depraved

nature. In the narrative, this characterization is established initially through

Juan whose first experiences there contrast England's lost exalted state with

her present state of denigration. Shooter's Hill overlooking London is

compared to the Acropolis, and London itself to Attica, but the positive

connotations of these comparisons is brought up short. When Juan proclaims

all the good things about London one might expect to hear, such as its bustle

and great size, and asserts that "here . . . is Freedom's chosen station" (XI. 9.

5), "Here are chaste wives, pure lives," (XI. 10. 1), and "Here laws are all

inviolate; none lay / Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear" (XL 10. 5-

6), he is abruptly cut off by "a knife" and a voice demanding, "Damn your

eyes! your money or your life!" (XI. 10. 8). Byron emphasizes the irony of

Juan's situation by calling the threats levelled against him "freeborn sounds"

(XI. 11. 1). His point throughout the poem is that English society is corrupt.

London is

so well lit, that if Diogenes Could recommence to hunt his honest man. And found him not amidst the various progenies Of this enormous city's spreading spawn, 'Twere not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his Yet undiscovered treasure .... (XI. 28. 1-6)

England's "chaste wives and pure lives" are matters of illusion, particularly among the English aristocracy, who tend to exalt themselves above who they 98 really are and to project this image of themselves onto others whenever possible. They resemble Inez, perceiving themselves as intelligent, cultured, virtuous individuals, but they are, in actuality, trite, narrow-minded, and hypocritical. Their behavior ultimately undermines these pretensions.

Lord Henry, a member of the leading high society, is exemplary of the kind of individual Byron satirizes. He is particularly comparable to Inez, and ironically mocked in many of the same ways, in that he

also liked to be superior, As most men do, the little or the great; The very lowest find out an inferior, At least they think so, to exert their state Upon: for there are very few things wearier Than solitary Pride's oppressive weight, Which mortals generously would divide, By bidding others carry while they ride. (XIII. 19. 1-8)

The poet undermines the perfection Henry associates with himself by exposing him through mock praise and parody as a political figure who is out of touch with the majority of people in his country. We are told that he is among those in society for whom wealth and fashion are "the best Recommendation" (XIII.

28. 6-7) and that he exercises his power and influence in groups, being representative for the poet of the words of Solomon—"there's safety in a multitude / of counsellors" (XIII. 29. 1-2). Those with whom Henry associates at the banquet are mocked through a parody of the epic catalog. These guests include "the young bard Rackrhyme," "Lord Pyrrho, the great freethinker,"

"Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker," (XIII. 84. 5, 7-8), the "Duke of 99

Dash" (XIII. 85. 1), "Dick Dubious, the metaphysician," "Sir Henry Silvercup,

the great race-winner," the "Reverend Rodomont Precisian, / Who did not

hate so much the sin as sinner" (XIII. 87. 1-4, 5), "Jack Jargon, the gigantic

guardsman," "General Fireface . . . Who ate . .. more Yankees than he kill'd,"

and the "waggish Welch Judge, Jeffries Hardsman . . . {.who} when a culprit

came for condemnation, / He had his Judge's joke for consolation" (XIII. 88. 1,

2, 4-5, 7-8). The table these guests confront is so elaborate, the poet tells us,

that it "was a board to tempt even ghosts / To pass the Styx for more

substantial feasts" (XIII. 99. 3-4). In a later canto, he continues his parody by

derisively setting up the table as the scene of impending great deeds:

Great things were now to be achieved at table, With massy plate for armour, knives and forks For weapons; but what Muse since Homer's able (His feasts are not the worst part of his works) To draw up in array a single day-bill Of modern dinners? where more mystery lurks, In soups or sauces, or a sole ragout, Than witches, b—ches, or physicians brew. (XV. 62. 1-8)

Throughout the next twelve verses, the different dishes on the menu are catalogued in great detail, each one carefully characterized as an exalted dish

O o worthy of heroes. ° Those who are involved in this meal are appropriately ostentatious:

The mind is lost in mighty contemplation Of intellect expended on two courses; And indigestion's grand multiplication Requires arithmetic beyond my forces. 100

Who would suppose, from Adam's simple ration, That cookery could have call'd forth such resources, As form a science and a nomenclature From out the commonest demands of nature? (XV. 69. 1-8)

The glasses jingled, and the palates tingled; The diners of celebrity dined well; The ladies with more moderation mingled In the feast, pecking less than I can tell; Also, the younger men too: for a springald Can't like ripe age in gourmandise excel, But thinks less of good eating than the whisper (When seated next to him) of some pretty lisper. (XV. 70. 1-8)

The mock-seriousness the poet attributes to this feast and all its participants

effectively exposes their triteness. Henry, like the "Blues," the

literary-minded women who present themselves as highly perceptive and learned individuals, is a character who lacks "Soul" (XIV. 71. 3). He is

passionless, banal, and condescending.

In reflecting on the nature of such reduced characters, Byron uses mock praise to satirize the pretentiousness of his contemporaries. He says:

of knights and dames I sing,99 Such as the times may furnish. 'Tis a flight Which seems at first to need no lofty wing, Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite: The difficulty lies in colouring (Keeping the due proportions still in sight) With Nature manners which are artificial, And rend'ring general that which is especial. (XV. 25. 1-8)

The difference is, that in the days of old Men made the manners; manners now make men— Pinned like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold, 101

At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten. Now this at all events must render cold Your writers, who must either draw again Days better drawn before, or else assume The present, with their common-place costume. (XV. 26. 1-8)

Virtue among these individuals translates into rank according to wealth and fashion. Good society "is no less famed for tolerance than piety: / That is, up to a certain point; which point / Forms the most difficult in punctuation"

(XIII. 80. 8 and 81. 1-2). Members of this group are caught up in appearances, and they evaluate others on this basis. The poet mocks such an attitude when, after speaking in Italian, he mentions parenthetically, "(Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then, / If but to show I've travell'd; and what's travel, /

Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil?)" (XIII. 47. 6-8). He undercuts this group more directly when he claims they are "smooth'd to that excess, / That manners hardly differ more than dress" (XIII. 94. 7-8). They are "one polish'd horde, / Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored" (XIII. 95. 7-8).

Like Henry, English aristocracy is lifeless—the poet describes the passion these individuals do experience as "half a fashion, / . . . half commercial, half pedantic" (XII. 68. 4-5). They resemble Inez in that they believe they have the right to know pertinent details about others' relationships and to make judgments, based on the moral superiority they assume for themselves, against them. Byron ironically undermines such individuals when he comments, a

"young bride {who} errs" has a very difficult time in the face of such judges—"Poor thing! Eve's was a trifling case to her's" (XII. 64. 7-8). They are 102 hypocritical, as Inez is, because in spite of the virtuous public images they project, they are involved in their own private scandals. Their characters are not flawless, and their marriages are not idyllic. By focusing on others' actions and involvements, these people avoid resolving their own problems and inflict themselves on others through their moral arrogance. Politicians are among the worst, imposing their own desires on the people they are meant to serve. Byron satirizes this group through mock praise that effectively reduces their significance when he says they are, in their "collective wisdom," the

"only cause that we can guess / Of Britain's present wealth and happiness"

(XIII. 29. 7-8). Both, of course, he claims are nonexistent. He undercuts

Parliament by describing it as a gauge to perceive the present state of honor in London:

When its quicksilver's down at zero,—lo! Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage! Wheels whirls from Carlton palace to Soho, And happiest they who horses can engage; The turnpikes glow with dust; and Rotten Row Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age; And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces, Sigh—as the postboys fasten on the traces. (XIII. 44. 1-8)

We see clearly through his mock praise that the age is not bright and that chivalry is not a pervasive mode of behavior. It is a pretention of the upper class. 103

m

One might understandably come away from Don Juan, as some of Byron's contemporaries did, with a very bleak picture of the world. These are the readers who might assume that the basis of this demeaned society is its lack of honor and morality, its inclination to succumb to vice and to wallow in it.

Such readers see in Byron's mock epic poem an invitation to perceive the need for English society to recognize itself and to reform—to rise above what they have become and restore honor and dignity to themselves and thus to

England. The poet seems to encourage such a reading in his brief discussion of

Cervantes' Don Quixote, where he bemoans the irony of virtue being Don

Quixote's ticket to madness. He asserts that

Of all tales {Don Quixote} 'tis the saddest—and more sad, Because it makes us smile: his hero's right, And still pursues the right;—to curb the bad, His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight, His guerdon. . . . But his adventures form a sorry sight;— A sorrier still is the great moral taught By that real Epic unto all who have thought. (XIII. 9. 1-8)

This "great moral" is that such virtue is sadly misplaced:

Redressing injury , revenging wrong, To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong, From foreign yoke to free the helpless native;— Alas! Must noblest views, like an old song, Be for mere Fancy's sport a theme creative? A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought 104

And Socrates himself but Wisdom’s Quixote? (XIII. 10. 1-8)40

His tone of sadness about the ineffectiveness of virtue in a world not dominated by right and his appeal to our sense of the heroic ideal and regret at its apparent absence encourage us to believe he aims simply to satirize

England's moral demise and resultant inability to transcend baseness.

Yet we are not finally called upon by the work to condemn characters and real-life figures for failing to uplift themselves in accordance with heroic ideals. Belief in these ideals is itself ultimately satirized as the cause of the tyranny the poet denounces throughout the poem. These people unjustly elevate themselves to positions of moral and political superiority, considering themselves distinguished from all others in perceiving more accurately what is right or wrong—what the world itself means. They claim authority or insight into their own and other people's behavior that they do not really have. They deny who they really are by assuming they can rise permanently above human tendencies and characteristics, and they unrealistically separate themselves from all others, who are, in fact, just like them in being human.

In place of heroic ideals used as standards of judgment for human behavior, Byron affirms the appreciation and acceptance of universal human limitations. All people are imperfect by the very nature of being human.

Imperfections, along with actions often labelled as vice, are simply human foibles. They are the result of being what we are, and actions deemed negative by society often have very legitimate and understandable 105 motivations behind them. The mock heroic framework is modified in this affirmation of humanness—of accepting rather than condemning human limitations. The poet makes this modification evident when he upholds many of his characters by providing sympathetic explanations of their behavior in contrast to his descriptions of them in mock heroic terms. Adeline serves as an excellent starting point in a discussion clarifying the poet's method of affirmation because she appears to be simply another target of his satire, but is, in fact, much more complex.41 Our response to her is complicated, and we cannot perceive her with the same ease and surety we can characters like Inez or Henry. The poet seems to portray her as trite and debased when he parodies the epic simile to describe her growing interest in Juan:

But Adeline was not indifferent: for (Now for a common-place!) beneath the snow, As a Volcano holds the lava more Within—et eaetera. Shall I go on?—No! I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor: So let the often used volcano go. Poor thing! How frequently, by me and others, It hath been stirred up till its smoke quite smothers. (XIII. 36. 1-8)

I'll have another figure in a trice:— What say you to a bottle of champagne? Frozen into a very vinous ice, Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain, Yet in the very centre, past all price, About a liquid glassful will remain; And this is stronger than the strongest grape Could e'er express in its expanded shape: (XIII. 37. 1-8)

'Tis the whole spirit brought to a quintessence; And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre A hidden nectar under a cold presence. 106

And such are many—though I only meant her, From whom I now deduce these moral lessons, On which the Muse has always sought to enter:— And your cold people are beyond all price, When once you have broken their confounded ice. (XIII. 38. 1-8)

But after all they are a North-West Passage Unto the glowing India of the soul; And as the good ships sent upon that message Have not exactly ascertained the Pole (Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage) Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal; For if the Pole's not open, but all frost, (A chance still) 'tis a voyage or vessel lost. (XIII. 39. 1-8)

And young beginners may as well commence With quiet cruizing o'er the ocean woman; While those who are not beginners, should have sense Enough to make for port, ere Time shall summon With his grey signal flag: and the past tense, The dreary "Fuimus" of all things human, Must be declined, while life's thin thread's spun out Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout. (XIII. 40. 1-8)

Byron's parody continues when he ironically reduces her impending relationship with Juan: "But Destiny and Passion spread the net, / (Fate is a good excuse for our own will) / And caught them;—what do they not catch, methinks?" (XIII. 12. 5-7). Their actions are their own, and the Fates are no more involved here than they are anywhere else. These characters are responsible for what they do. The poet encourages us to see and ridicule

Adeline's pretensions through his mock praise:

Graceful as Dian when she draws her bow, She seized her harp, whose strings were kindled soon As touched, and plaintively began to play The air of " 'Twas a Friar of Orders Gray." (XVI. 38. 5-8) 107

"But add the words," cried Henry, "which you made; For Adeline is half a poetess," Turning round to the rest, he smiling said. Of course the others could not but express In courtesy their wish to see displayed By one three talents, for there were no less— The voice, the words, the harper's skill, at once Could hardly be united by a dunce. (XVI. 39. 1-8)

The subject matter and occasion of this little scene are so trite, the significance of what Adeline recites as a "poetess" is nonexistent. She

had a twilight tinge of "Blue." Could write rhymes, and compose more than she wrote; Made epigrams occasionally too Upon her friends, as every body ought; (XVI. 47. 1-4) and played and sang for those gathered around her "as 'twere without display,

/ Yet with display in fact" (XVI. 42. 5-6). Byron's humorous mocking reveals a character whose values appear to be merely matters of social conduct.

Adeline also seems not to have any particular moral depth, as we see more clearly at the banquet she and Henry host to aid him in his election. She plays the role of a political wife so well that even Juan "began to feel / Some doubt how much of Adeline was real" (XVI. 96. 7-8). The poet diminishes her in his ironic comment:

So well she acted, all and every part By turns—with that vivacious versatility, Which many people take for want of heart. They err— 'tis merely what is called mobility, A thing of temperament and not of art, 108

Though seeming so, from its supposed facility; And false—though true; for surely they're sincerest, Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest. (XVI. 97. 1-8)

Adeline's apparent virtuous manner makes a very positive impression on her guests, but we see something more negative through the poet's mock praise:

Meanwhile sweet Adeline deserved their praises, By an impartial indemnification For all her past exertion and soft phrases, In a most edifying conversation, Which turned upon their late guests' miens and faces, And families, even to the last relation; Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses, And truculent distortion of their tresses. (XVI. 103. 1-8)

Complicating our perception about Adeline, however, are descriptions of her and comments about her behavior that encourage our sympathetic responses. When she is initially presented to us, the poet describes her very positively:

But Adeline had not the least occasion For such a shield, which leaves but little merit To virtue proper, or good education. Her chief resource was in her own high spirit, Which judged mankind at their due estimation; And for coquetry, she disdained to wear it: Secure of admiration, its impression Was faint, as of an every-day possession. (XIII. 31. 1-8)

To all she was polite without parade; To some she showed attention of that kind Which flatters, but is flattery conveyed In such a sort as cannot leave behind A trace unworthy either wife or maid;— A gentle, genial courtesy of mind, To those who were or passed for meritorious (XIII. 32. 1-7) 109

But Adeline is bored in her marriage, though she would not perceive her attitude in those terms, and in response to her untended needs, she is drawn to

Juan and attempts to establish a relationship with him that will allow her to feel more fulfilled. She is a very youthful and passionate woman married to a man who is cold and aloof. Adeline's "defect," in view of her situation, is one with which we can empathize:

Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion; Her conduct had been perfectly correct, As she had seen nought claiming its expansion. A wavering spirit may be easier wreck'd, Because 'tis frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one; But when the latter works its own undoing, Its inner crash is like an Earthquake's ruin. (XIV. 85. 1-8)

She is a character who attem pts to do everything right, as she is expected to do, but whose life because of these actions and attitudes becomes unfilfulled and laborious:

She loved her lord, or thought so; but that love Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil, The stone of Sysiphus, if once we move Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil. She had nothing to complain of, or reprove, No bickerings, no connubial turmoil: Their union was a model to behold, Serene, and noble,—conjugal, but cold. (XIV. 86. 1-8)

In her boredom, Adeline sees with Juan the possibility of becoming a more active participant in life. She is presented realistically as a woman who, unappreciated by her husband, seeks to be reaffirmed in someone else's eyes. 110

This intention on her part is not altogether a conscious one, for as the poet points out, she is functioning as someone who honestly tries to adhere to societally-sanctioned mores regarding her position. The emptiness she feels in her life is an experience she most likely could not translate into terms expressing a clear understanding of its nature. Juan provides her an opportunity to receive such affirmation. She assumes a kind of maternal, moral responsibility for him, which we perceive as humorous because she is almost exactly his same age. Her pretentiousness in this matter is not really condemnable because she actually assumes it in a kind of innocence. She honestly believes she is trying to come to the aid of her new found friend:

She was, or thought she was, his friend—and this Without the farce of friendship, or romance Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss Ladies who have studied friendship but in France, or Germany, where people purely kiss. To thus much Adeline would not advance; But of such friendship as man's may to man be, She was as capable as woman can be. (XIV. 92. 1-8)

In keeping with the societal role she unquestioningly serves, she decides it is crucial for her to guide Juan away from his apparently impending involvement with a married woman, the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke. Byron points out that

She thought with some simplicity indeed; But innocence is bold even at the stake, And simple in the world, and doth not need Nor use those palisades by dames erected, Whose virtue lies in never being detected. (XIV. 61. 5-8) I l l

Her intention is also presented somewhat sympathetically because the poet

interjects a satiric remark against Adeline's contemporaries: Don Juan's

impending actions with the Duchess are problematic in that

foreigners don't know that a faux pas In England ranks quite on a different list From those of other lands unblest with Juries, Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is. (XIV. 60. 5-8)

Adeline "in her way too was a heroine" (XIV. 90. 8), the poet tells us, and

she represents the kind of "heroine" the poem affirms. She is a very

realistically portrayed rather than exalted character whose motivations stem

from valid human needs and desires. She often sees others as they really are

and does not elevate them or herself. The poet affirms the likelihood—and

reasonableness—of Adeline's involvement with Juan when he says, "Love bears

within its breast the very germ / Of change; and how should this be

otherwise?" (XIV. 94. 1-2). In her innocence and unhappiness in her marriage,

Adeline unconsciously projects her own impending threatened chastity onto

Juan. She " 'gan to ponder how to save his soul" (XV. 28. 8) rather than to

protect her own. By trying to transform Juan from a bachelor to a husband,

Adeline attempts in actuality to reduce his significance as the object of her growing passions. Instead of harnessing these feelings in herself, she transfers

them to Juan and seeks to marry them (and him) off to someone who is equally as cold and intangible as Henry in order to control them. Her conscious energies are fully preoccupied by this task, and her recommendations to Juan 112 of prospective wives are all notably wanting in attractiveness. It is not surprising that she omits Aurora from this list in view of the complicated nature of her feelings. Aurora is the single guest who most clearly possesses the attributes of her hostess, and the rivalry that ensues between them (on primarily an unconscious level in Adeline) stems from Adeline's desire to keep

Juan, in some measure, to herself. When Juan expresses his awareness of this discrepancy to her "half smiling and half serious," Adeline responds "with some disgust," and "marvell'd 'what he saw in such a baby / As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?' " (XV. 49. 5, 7-8). Aurora is, in fact, as the poet makes apparent to his readers, a cold, aloof woman, but Adeline's reasons for dissuading Juan's interest in her are consistent with her own emotional needs. Because of this overall sympathetic portrayal of Adeline, readers are encouraged to perceive as ironic the poet's comments about her impending moral downfall because of her growing involvement with Juan. When he says,

And I shall take a much more serious air Than I have yet done, in this Epic Satire. It is not clear that Adeline and Juan Will fall; but if they do, 'twill be their ruin, (XIV. 99. 5-8) we do not take him literally. He has spent too much time preceding this point setting the groundwork for the inevitability, the reasonableness, of their involvement, and we perceive these reasons as valid, and Adeline, consequently, as deserving of our support. We have the same reaction a few verses later when the poet says, "The Lady Adeline, right honourable, / And 113

honour'd, ran a risk of growing less so" (XV. 6. 1-2). The "honour" we have

seen her upholding to this point is more honestly perceived as societal

expectations, and we are not encouraged to view them positively. The

possibility of Adeline's breaking out of that society and becoming more

sincerely in touch with her real emotions and attitudes leads us, in fact, to

uphold and respect her. Her deviation from the role expected of her is

therefore a positive—a sympathetic—change. Where she is criticized—

genuinely mocked—is when she fails to follow through with this independence

and individuality and adheres to the attitudes and behaviors of the mocked

upper crust around her.

Julia resembles Adeline as a complex character who attempts to live up

to specific pretensions. Both characters differ from Inez, and in some ways from Henry, by not having as their main objective the imposition of these arrogant attitudes on others. Adeline more directly than Julia does attempt to affect the lives of those around her, but she is motivated by a sincerity

Inez consistently lacks, and she is not coldly calculating. Both she and Julia experience internal conflicts that compel them to make their lives more interesting, and they evoke our sympathy because we so clearly recognize the emptiness they feel. Julia's attempts to live up to certain pretensions are often more sympathetic because her overall experience is more solitary—she seeks primarily to transform herself, and in doing so, she is ultimately isolated 42 from society and punished for an offense that is not, in fact, condemnable.

Initially, we see Julia as a character who pretentiously projects an image of 114

herself as a virtuous woman honorably devoted to preserving her chastity and

loyalty to her husband. She is a delicate female, she suggests, helpless in her

feminine frailty to cope with life's more pressing conflicts. Often, she

perceives herself the victim of events because of this powerlessness. In

actuality, Julia deviates from this idealized characterization and is depicted

as a clever woman who pursues the attentions of a naive, young boy. Her

interest in Juan stems partly from the fact that she and her husband do not

fully engage one another. Both seek additional lovers. They live together

"Suffering each other's foibles by accord, / And not exactly either one or two"

(I. 65. 5-6). In contrast to Julia, Antonia, her maid, is a practical,

down-to-earth character whose perceptions are more likely to coincide with

ours because they are more realistic and match our experience thus far with

Julia. Antonia does not falsely elevate individuals or situations as we see

Julia has a strong tendency to do. There is such a thing as innocent love

between "young persons," Byron affirms, "a platonic love—a discovery of one

another," but as far as Julia and Juan are concerned,

such a {relationship} might be Quite innocently done, and harmless styled, When she had twenty years, and thirteen he; But I am not so sure I should have smiled When he was sixteen, Julia twenty-three. (I. 69. 2-6)

Julia creates a fiction about her involvement with Juan in response to the boredom she feels in her marriage in which she attempts to play the part of the pure, young woman whose intentions toward an attractive youth are 115

wholly platonic. She consistently views her behavior in idealized terms, resolving when she feels her heart going to Juan to make "The noblest efforts for herself and mate, / For honour's, pride's, religion's, virtue's sake" (I. 75. 3-

4). The narrator undermines this view of hers when he points out that the little pressure Julia's hand leaves behind on Juan's when they first touch was comparable to a "magician's wand" that could wreak "with all Armida's fairy art" (I. 71. 6-7). In this comparison, he hints that Julia is much more the sorceress than the innocent. Julia is ironically undermined even further when the poet declares that her resolutions to virtuous behavior almost would have made "a Tarquin quake" (I. 75. 6). We quickly see that Julia's resolutions are not strong convictions but only words. She prays to the Virgin Mary "as being the best judge of a lady's case" (I. 75. 8) but when, in fact, she does not see

Juan the day following her declaration to herself and Mary that she would see him no more, she was "a little sore" at the Virgin's answer to her prayers and

"That night the Virgin was no further pray'd" (I. 76. 4, 8). Julia simply pays lip service to the ideals she claims to honor, and creates a role for herself that changes with her new scene. She sets the context for each of these scenes in keeping with her exalted pretensions about her character, and the poet effectively undermines every role she creates by showing that it is not real.

When she foregoes the prayers to the Virgin, "She . . . determined that a virtuous woman / Should rather face and overcome temptation" (I. 77. 1-2).

She tells herself that 116

there are such things as love divine, Bright and immaculate, unmix'd and pure, Such as the angels think so very fine, And matrons, who would be no less secure, Platonic, perfect, "just such love as mine." (I. 79. 1-5)

We already know that Julia's intentions toward Juan are not quite so chaste and that she cannot, or does not really want, to abide by what she preaches.

Her "purity of soul" is not really "well fenced in mail of proof," her honor not really a "rock, or mole" (I. 82. 1-2, 4). In her growing attraction to Juan, she even contemplates the convenience for her of her husband's death. She later rationalizes that she could never survive the loss, though it is quite clear that she could. Her fine inventions are fictions that collapse one after the other, giving rise to new fictions as she goes along. When she finally does confront

Juan again, she plays the role of honest wife, but while telling herself that she would never "disgrace the ring she wore" (I. 109. 4), she throws her hand upon

Juan's. The narrator mocks Julia's ability to fictionalize about her behavior when he states that she threw her hand on Juan's quite by mistake, thinking it was her own. This assumption is as ridiculous as that which claims that Julia

"only meant to clasp /{.Juan's} fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze" (I. 111. 4-

5). Julia's actions with Juan are more conscious than she admits to herself.

She sets herself up for situations that will not withstand her idealistic pretensions of "Victorious virtue" and "domestic truth" (I. 107. 3) because she does not really want to remain chaste. Sitting with Juan in the moonlight, she strives a "little" against temptation "and much repented," but whispering " 'I 117

will ne'er consent,'—consented" (L 117. 7-8). Antonia, Julia's nurse, calls

attention to the outrageousness of Julia's pretensions when she says after

their bedroom encounter with Alfonso:

"Had it but been for a stout cavalier Of twenty-five or thirty . . . But for a child, what piece of work is here! I really, madam, wonder at your taste—. (I. 172. 1-4)

We know Julia cannot hold firm in her chaste task because her heroic

antentions are so plainly undermined, but the poet suggests throughout that

her attempt to be heroic is not an ultimately positive goal. He makes this

point by openly poking fun at heroic ideals in exaggerated declarations of

mock horror at Julia and Juan's unchaste trespasses. He assumes the

moralistic voice that is satirized, encouraging us not to take his declarations

literally and seriously. We thus do not perceive as offensive Julia's inability

to measure up to an ideal. The poet affirms instead the powerful humanness

that gets in the way of idealized behavior—human vulnerability, imperfection,

and resourcefulness. He seems almost to enjoy the way Julia and Juan lose

their powers of control, the way Julia's carefully constructed pretensions fall

prey to her more human inclinations. When the two first become involved

with one another, sitting together under the "chaste moon," the poet exclaims

in his description of their gradual embrace that "the situation had its charm, /

And then—God knows what next—I can't go on; / I'm almost sorry that I e'er begun" (I. 115. 6-8). The very detail he uses in his description of the moonlit 118

setting undermines this declaration, for it is clear he fully delights in his

revelations of these characters' amorous actions. We are humored by his

moralistic tone because it is so out of proportion to the offense itself. His

exaggerated shock at "discovering" them in bed together continues to

undermine the offense's seriousness and mock the ideal as an inappropriate

gauge of their behavior. He handles this scene playfully, beginning with "

'Twas midnight—Donna Julia was in bed, / Sleeping, most probably" (I. 136. 1-

2), stated in a way to suggest, of course, exactly the opposite. He develops

this suggestion later, when he says after Don Alfonso comes to Julia's

bedroom, "Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep, / (Mind—that I do not

say—she had not slept)" (I. 140. 1-2). To exaggerate the irony in this part of

the scene even more fully, he adds that Antonia

Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap, As if she had just now from out them crept: I can't tell why she should take all this trouble To prove her mistress had been sleeping double. (I. 140. 5-8)

This statement is obviously ironic, for the true nature of the developments so

far is quite evident, and we know there is good reason for Julia's alarm at the

presence of her husband. The humor of the scene stems not only from these

ironic declarations, but also from Julia's resourcefulness. She is an extremely versatile character in this situation, and we are encouraged to appreciate this trait in her by the poet's mocking presentation of her husband, Alfonso. Over and over he is portrayed as an aging husband who is simply not very 119 interesting. His connection to Inez also undercuts him because she is presented as essentially unsympathetic throughout. In this particular scene,

Alfonso and his comrades appear stupid. The poet emphasizes this characterization of them when he comments, " 'Tis odd, not one of all these seekers thought, / And seems to me almost a sort of blunder, / Of looking in the bed as well as under" (I. 144. 6-8). By comparing them to Aeneas and

Achates, he mocks them, saying Alfonso's lawyer, the only one amused by what occurs, was like "Achates, faithful to the tomb" (I. 149. 6). This comment, too, is ironic, because in his amusement the attorney is not really

"loyal" and Alfonso, in his stupidity, and eventual intimidation, is in no way comparable to the heroic Aeneas. Julia rises to the occasion with such resourcefulness in the face of such stupidity that we are inclined to view her positively. We appreciate the fact that she possesses the capability of duping her uninteresting spouse. She demonstrates her ingenuity effectively when she demands that he search the room and defends herself through a marvelous series of ironies that continually reduce Alfonso and his companions to fools.

In characterizing herself as a grieviously wronged wife through her husband's gross assumptions about her morality, she cries:

"Yes, search and search . . . Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong! It was for this that I became a bride! For this in silence I have suffer'd long A husband like Alfonso at my side." (I. 145. 2-6) 120

She is the victim in this arrangement, she asserts, saying,

"Is it for this I have disdain'd to hold The common privileges of my sex? That I have chosen a confessor so old And deaf, that any other it would vex, And never once he has had cause to scold, But found my very innocence perplex So much, he always doubted I was married —" (I. 147. 1-7)

She becomes even more daring when she asks Alfonso,

"Who is the man you search for? how d1 ye call Him? what's his lineage? let him but be shown— I hope he's young and handsome . . . (I. 154. 4-6)

The irony of her question is blatant because we know Juan is, in fact, "young and handsome." Julia displaces her own guilt by transforming this scene into an occasion to condemn Alfonso. Each of her statements applies more to her than to him, and in her ability to invert this situation, she is much cleverer than her befuddled husband. Antonia is an excellent comic companion and plays the scene with as much expertise as Julia. When Julia requests Alfonso's companions leave the room because Antonia is not dressed, Antonia dutifully and effectively chimes in, "Oh! . . . I could tear their eyes out" (I. 152. 8).

The poet's exaggerated exclamations throughout this scene not only undermine the validity of ideals as standards of behavior, but also clearly suggest that Julia's actions as far as Juan is concerned are hardly reprehensible. When Alfonso leaves his wife's bedroom after being shamed into submission and Juan is then revealed, the poet feigns shock and horror at 121

the discovery of the truth we have known all along. He exclaims:

Oh shame! Oh sin! Oh sorrow! and Oh womankind! How can you do such things and keep your fame, Unless this world, and t1 other too, be blind? (I. 165. 1-4)

This remark is clearly ironic in that the poet's overall portrayal of Julia has been sympathetic throughout the scene, undermining the seriousness of his apparently negative claim. Later, when Alfonso returns to his wife's bedroom and stumbles over a pair of shoes, the narrator exclaims:

A pair of shoes!—what then? not much, if they Are such as fit with lady's feet, but these (No one can tell how much I grieve to say) Were masculine ...... Ah! Well-a-day! My teeth begin to chatter, my veins freeze— (I. 181. 1-6)

The poet's exaggerated fear parodies the seriousness attributable to this discovery. His exclamations anticipate the moral outrage such actions might provoke and undermine its appropriateness. He has described the scene in humorous terms that do not elicit overall negative judgments against Julia.

He defends her outright, in fact, when he blatantly announces, "Julia . . . had tolerable grounds, / Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known" (I. 176. 1-2).

In his description of the events following Alfonso's discovery of Julia's affair with Juan, the poet mocks the publicity it receives, suggesting in this mockery that the newspapers are to be blamed and chastised rather than Julia 122

or Juan. "The pleasant scandal," he tells us, "which arose next day, / The nine

days' wonder which was brought to light, / And how Alfonso sued for a

divorce, / Were in the English newspapers, of course" (I. 188. 5-8). He

undermines the significance of the event itself in calling it only a "nine days'

wonder" and criticizes the media for being so preoccupied with what he

suggests is such triviality. He also implies that those who moralize are

hypocrites publicly devoted to behaving according to and promoting accepted societal standards but privately attracted to savory details of what they consider immoralities. He continues to describe Julia in sympathetic terms after she retreats from the invasive media and joins a convent in penance for her involvement with Juan. In her letter to him, we see a woman ultimately undone by love in "a man's world" rather than a woman who deserves to be criticized because she fails to comply with virtue. She writes:

"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis a woman's whole existence; man may range The court, camp, church, the vessel, and the mart, Sword, gown, gain, glory offer in exchange Pride, fame, ambition, to fill up his heart, And few there are whom these can not estrange; Men have all these resources, we but one, To love again, and be again undone." (I. 194. 1-8)

She refrains in this letter from the exalted pretensions she had fallen prey to and seems to accept responsibility for her actions. Her words are characterized more by genuine feeling and sincerity than by pretensions to heroic idealism .4^ We finally uphold her as a positive character because she 123 is real—she is honest about herself and her life in ways that Inez could never be, and she is more successful than even Adeline in confronting reality. The person she actually is—the character that evolves for us—is vital and engaging.

The poet's affirmation occurs in a different way with a second grouping of characters, Lambro and Gulbeyaz. Like Adeline and Julia, both characters appear to be objects of his attack but are finally not wholeheartedly condemned. Lambro and Gulbeyaz have pretensions to power, but they do not live up to them or impose them on others in the same way Catherine and her commanders do. The poet's affirmation of them is more qualified, however, because the repercussions of their actions do ultimately victimize those with whom they come in contact. Neither character uses power primarily to hurt others, but both tire unthinkingly selfish and thus impose themselves on other characters unfairly. We are encouraged to perceive Lambro and Gulbeyaz sympathetically in spite of what they do because both have legitimate feelings and are openly vulnerable. Their intentions are not predominantly negative.

Gulbeyaz, like Inez, simply views herself as an individual with a right to impose her will on others around her. She equates the power of her royal position with being idealized and never stops to consider that she bears no innate superiority over other human beings. The poet ironically undercuts her blind assumption of this superiority through classical allusions that more accurately portray her for who she really is. Her attendants 124

Composed a choir of girls, ten or a dozen,

• • • • .{Who} formed a very nymph-like looking crew, Which might have called Diana's chorus "cousin," As far as outward show may correspond; I won't be bail for any thing beyond. (V. 99. 2. 5-8)

Obviously, the correspondence between Gulbeyaz and Diana, the patroness of unmarried women and of chastity, does not exist. Gulbeyaz is contrasted, in fact, to the Devil when the narrator says:

Her form had all the softness of her sex, Her features all the sweetness of the devil, When he put on the cherub to perplex Eve, and paved . . . the road to evil. (V. 109. 1-4)

As overseer of Juan's fate, she is compared to a "Pythoness," the priestess of

Apollo at Delphi, and because of her jealousy bears her power against Juan with a vengeance even Baba cannot dissuade her from.

Yet calling her the "third heroine" (VI. 7. 1), Byron describes her in more realistically human terms as well, giving explanations for her behavior that are logical and ultimately help to render her a more engaging figure.

Gulbeyaz is arrogant in her attitude about herself, essentially, we get the feeling, because she is ignorant about any other kind of life. Her pretensions are somewhat less offensive than Inez's because she does not arbitrarily decide she is superior—her royalty confers this status, however unrealistically, upon her. The poet points out that, "She deemed her least command must yield delight, / Earth being only made for queens and kings" (V. 128. 3-4). 125

When she succeeds in having Juan brought to her bedroom, she "deemfs} herself extremely condescending / When, being made her property at last" (V.

116. 3-4), she asks him if he can love. Juan's response to her, his bursting into tears, unnerves her, for it is completely out of her eontroL She is shocked by his spontaneity and tears, and as she finds out she might not have her own way, her confusion gives way to anger. Her attitudes are openly qualified by the narrator when he declares that she felt humbled after her rage against

Juan, "and humiliation / Is sometimes good for people in her station" (V. 137.

7-8). This humiliation teaches them that others,

Although of clay, are yet not quite of mud; That urns and pipkins are but fragile brothers, And works of the same pottery, bad or good, Though not all born of the same sires and mothers. (V. 138. 3-6)

His condemning comments, like those used in his discussion of Julia, are ironic in that they are immediately undermined by comments that reduce their literalness or seriousness. He claims he knows "Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; / I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it" (VI. 8. 1-2). But this condemnation is slowly qualified when he presents another set of reasons for his behavior. Gulbeyaz's

reasonCwas Iweak, her passions strong, She thought that her lord's heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. (VL 8. 5-8) 126

Her marital situation parallels Julia's—both are married to men who are essentially uninteresting to them, and both women are consequently bored and unsatisfied. The poet openly draws upon our sympathy when he explains,

The fair Sultana erred from inanition; For were the Sultan just to all his dears, She could but claim the fifteenth-hundred part Of what should be monopoly—the heart. (VI. 9. 5-8)

Continuing, he says,

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) The favourite; but what's favour amongst four? Polygamy may well be held in dread, Not only as a sin, but as a bore." (VI. 12. 1-4)

These comments provide some justification for Gulbeyaz's actions. Her feelings are understandable when one considers her youth and passions. And, as with Alfonso in the bedroom scene with Julia, Byron describes the Sultan less sympathetically to emphasize the more positive attitude we should have of Gulbeyaz. He is an arrogant type, clearly out of touch with the needs of his young wife:

His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,— So styled according to the usual forms Of every monarch, till they are consigned To those sad hungry jacobins the worms, Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,— 127

His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz's charms, Expecting all the welcome of a lover, (A "Highland welcome" all the wide world over). (VI. 13. 1-8)

Bearing in mind Byron's disdain for monarchies, it is not surprising he presents

the Sultan negatively. His "sublimity" is less a kind of exaltation than a

position of haughtiness, and Gulbeyaz is a character ultimately trapped in an

unfortunate situation. The poet's real emphasis in this section, as in the

scene with Julia, is not in mocking Gulbeyaz's actions as nonvirtuous, but in

showing that they stem from very real human needs and motivations. They

are not aberrations and do not characterize her as a primarily debased

figure.

Lambro, Haidee's father, is described in a manner that puts us in mind of

Shakespeare's Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. His concern for riches and

power do not obliterate his feelings, and he is wounded by his daughter's apparent indifference to him. When he first returns home after being at sea and looks down from the hill on his house, he is moved by the comforting

familiarity of this scene. He gradually becomes aware of the festivities occurring there and perceives that they are costing him quite a bit of money.

Our response to Lambro overall is not primarily positive and his concern here strikes us as selfish, but his reaction to the expense of these gay, wonderful experiences Haidee and Juan share in his house is realistic. When he enters his home, his "reception at his people's banquet / Was such as fire accords to a 128

wet blanket" (III. 36. 7-8). He discovers that he has been reported dead, and

though his household had been in mourning for several weeks, he feels that for

"one deem'd dead returning, / This revel seem'd a curious mode of mourning"

(HI. 49. 7-8). He enters a home that feels as if it is not his,

and felt The solitude of passing his own door Without a welcome; there he long had dwelt, There his few peaceful days Time had swept o'er, There his worn bosom and keen eye would melt Over the innocence of that sweet child, His only shrine of feelings undefiled. (IU. 52. 2-8)

The poet emphasizes Lambro's paternal feelings for Haidee when he continues:

whatsoe'er he had of love reposed On that beloved daughter; she had been The only thing which kept his heart unclosed Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen; A lonely pure affection unopposed: There wanted but the loss of this to wean His feelings from aU milk of human kindness, And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindness. (HI. 57. 1-8)

Haidee is not the inattentive daughter her father perceives her to be, but we can understand why he would see her this way in this situation. He loves his child and "would have wept the loss of her" (III. 26. 7). Ultimately, of course,

Haidee is victimized by her father's jealousy, consumed by his obsession. Her death, and thus the death of hers and Juan's child, is sacrificial. But Lambro is not depicted as simply an evil, debased character opposed to happiness in others.44 His actions are motivated by tendencies we can at least understand 129 and that, in more mitigated terms, we sometimes share. His fears of losing her prevent him from recognizing that she has become a young woman destined, as all maturing children, to live independent of him. His pride is wounded when he sees that she is happy with another man, and he separates them to regain his lost (and illusory) control and to restore his hurt feelings.

We sympathize with his situation while still holding him responsible.

Byron affirms an interesting third group of characters in a less qualified and more direct manner. All of these characters are unpretentious. None of them is preoccupied with idealized behavior, and all are very much a part of their world—they transform neither it nor themselves into anything other than they are. These characters differ from one another, however, in that they range from the innocent and unknowing to the sophisticated and clear-sighted. Some are thus unpretentious because they are not aware of anything other than what is natural and real, and others make deliberate choices not to idealize themselves because their experience and knowledge about the world make them realize how absurd it is to do so. The character of the poet is included in this group and is ultimately affirmed as the hero of the work because he willingly confronts the world as it exists and presents it realistically, and with compassion, through his poem. It is appropriate to begin a discussion of this group with Haidee because she is the most innocent. She contrasts with the character of the poet, who exists at the other end of the spectrum in his experience and knowledge about the world.

In between these two extremes falls the other affirmed characters. 130

Haidee differs from the rest of the characters in this group in that she is initially described in more idealized terms, resembling a young maiden in a typical romance, drawn to a youthful lover in opposition to her father's wishes. The narrator describes her as beautiful, innocent, and kind. She is

"The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles" (H. 128. 2) and "like to an angel" (n. 144. 1) whose voice "was the warble of a bird, / So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear" (II. 151. 3-4). But the poet cuts off our increasing sense of her exaltation in ways that show us this is an essentially inappropriate perception of her character. When we first meet Haidee and Zoe, for example, he makes this distinction clear:

I'll tell you who they were, this fem ale pair, Lest they should seem princesses in disguise; Besides, I hate all mystery, and that air Of clap-trap, which your recent poets prize; And so, in short, the girls they really were They shall appear before your curious eyes, Mistress and maid; the first was only daughter, Of an old man, who lived upon the water. (II. 124. 1-8)

Haidee is no special woman, in other words, in being idealized or uplifted beyond something human.^® She is simply a beautiful, innocent, young woman. We see this point about her even much more emphatically when the poet talks about her feelings for and involvement with Juan. They are not inspired by anything more exalted than human attraction. Ceres and Bacchus are nothing other than good food and good drink, merged effectively with idle time: 131

While Venus fills the heart (without heart really Love, though good always, is not quite so good) Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli,— For love must be sustain'd like flesh and blood,— While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly: Eggs, oysters too, are amatory food; But who is their purveyor from above Heaven knows,—it may be Neptune, Pan, or Jove. (IL 170. 1-8)

The reality of the situation is not that there are gods intervening to perpetuate Venus' work but th at good food, wine and idleness arouse people.

This sense of reality is emphasized by the poet when he describes Haidee's passionate encounter with Juan:

A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love, And beauty, all concentrating like rays Into one focus, kindled from above; Such kisses as belong to early days, Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move, And the blood's lava, and the pulse a blaze, Each kiss a heart-quake,—for a kiss's strength, I think, it must be reckon'd by its length. (II. 186. 1-8)

Haidee's "heart beat here" (IL 202. 8). She is portrayed as realistically human in her feelings and passions. The joys she and Juan experience are those comparable to any young lovers might share in their discoveries of one another. They are simple, common joys, such as in the scene where Haidee watches Juan sleeping. Byron tells us,

A sailor when the prize has struck in fight, A miser filling his most hoarded chest, Feel rapture; but not such true joy reaping As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping. (H. 196. 5-8) 132

These two were simply natural together, and in this sincerity they are described very sympathetically. They are youthful rather than idealized, unpracticed in the pretentiousness that so characterizes their elders. They are also not unique in their sincerity and faithfulness, but bear the feelings common to all, falling in love for no other reason than human attraction.

Juan, too, is an innocent, but he is described in very different terms from Haidee. Rather than seeming somewhat idealized, he actually appears to be described as a typical mock epic character. He resembles a "low-norm eiron," Northrop Frye's term for what he calls "irony's substitute for the hero.His character is that of "the Omphale archetype, the man bullied or dominated by women." He allows his lovers to impose their fantasies on him and naively and repeatedly assumes the parts scripted for him. But Byron carefully qualifies Juan's actions in ways that encourage us to look at them uncritically. They are the result of youthfulness and inexperience and in their normalcy are not condemnable. We see Juan as a character who is consistently unpretentious, and we enjoy his innocent responses to certain situations because we recognize both their reasonableness, considering his youth, and their limitations. The poet focuses on the humor of Juan's misapplied actions or perceptions as well as on their normalcy to evoke a positive response toward him from his audience. When Juan becomes involved with Julia, for example, we see a smitten youth whose thoughts and impulses appear to be metaphysical but are really grounded in the physical: 133

In thoughts like these true wisdom may discern Longings sublime, and aspirations high, Which some are born with, but the most part learn To plague themselves withal, they .know not why: 'Twas strange that one so young should thus concern His brain about the action of the sky; If you think 'twas Philosophy that this did, I can't help thinking puberty assisted. (I. 93. 1-8)

He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers, And heard a voice in all the winds; and then He thought of wood nymphs and immortal bowers, And how the goddesses came down to men: He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours, And when he look'd upon his watch again, He found how much old Time had been a winner— He also found that he had lost his dinner. 47 (i. g4. i-8).

We are amused when Juan flees his first adventure naked, running from

Alfonso "like Joseph . . . but there, / . . . all likeness ends between the pair" (I.

186. 7-8). He does not have much foresight in such a situation because he never encountered similar circumstances. Byron encourages us to recognize the positive nature, and relative insignificance, of Juan's involvement with

Julia and subsequent loss of innocence when he says:

Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis, And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails; The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us, The priest instructs, and so our life exhales, A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame, Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name. (n. 4. 1-8)

It makes sense that he shared a relationship with Julia, and his experience is not unique or unusual. The poet claims, 134

I can't say that it puzzles me at all, If all things be consider'd: first, there was His lady-mother, mathematical, A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass; A pretty woman—(that's quite natural, Or else the thing had hardly come to pass); A husband rather old, not much in unity With his young wife—a time, and opportunity, (n. 3. 1-8)

It also makes sense that Juan reacts the way he does to Gulbeyaz and

Catherine. When he is expected to kneel down to kiss the Sultana's foot

because of her royal position, he frowns and responds negatively, saying, " 'It

grieved him, but he could not stoop / To any shoe, unless it shod the Pope' "

(V. 102. 7-8). This protestation appears to hinge on the ridiculous in that

Juan's religiosity has not been evident elsewhere, but it reflects the natural

ardor of youth. Byron humorously emphasizes this point when he says:

(.Juan) stood like Atlas, with a world of words About his ears, and nathless would not bend; The blood of all his line's Castilian lords Boiled in his veins, and rather than descend To stain his pedigree, a thousand swords A thousand times of him had made an end; At length perceiving the "foot" could not stand, Baba proposed that he should kiss the hand. (V. 104. 1-8)

Moments later, when Juan and Gulbeyaz are left alone together and our Atlas

is reduced to tears, reminded of Haidbe, when Gulbeyaz asks if he can love, he

attempts to appease the Sultana, who also succumbs to weeping. He

temporarily forgets Haidbe, wonders "why he had refused" and "if matters could be made up now" (V. 142. 3-4). Juan's motivation is sincere, and we see 135

him realistically portrayed as a youth who responds to the moment. He is

unpretentious and uncalculating, and his intentions are positive. The poet

explains Juan's attraction to Catherine, or the feeling the youth assumes is

attraction, as understandable when he tells us:

{Juan}.. . if not in love, Fell into that no less imperious passion, Self-love—which, when some sort of Thing above Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion, Or dutchess—princess—Empress, "deigns to prove," ('Tis Pope's phrase) a great longing, tho' a rash one, For one especial person out of many, Makes us believe ourselves as good as any. (IX. 68. 1-8)

In his youth, Juan is vulnerable and naive before Catherine, and he is easily

impressed by an apparent superior's positive opinion of him. His attraction to

her is also a reflection of his pleased conception of himself, and this tendency

in him is presented in very understandable, human, and appealing terms. The

poet justifies Juan's attitudes and behaviors when he adds that, "Besides,

{Juan} was of that delighted age / Which makes all female ages equal—when /

We don't much care with whom we may engage" (IX. 69. 1-3). His depiction of

Catherine increases the credibility and validity of Juan's involvement: "And

Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine) / Though bold and bloody,

was the kind of thing / Whose temporary passion was quite flattering" (IX. 70.

1-3). Her many attributes, all of which are primarily sexual, "explain /

Enough to make a stripling very vain" (IX. 72. 7-8). We are also inclined to

view Juan sympathetically in this situation when we are reminded of his 136

relatives, in contrast, who greedily hope to prosper materialistically through

his connection to the monarch. Unlike them, Juan is remarkably unsolicitious

and sincere. They are emphatically undermined as hypocritical figures saying

one thing and assuming another. They are the potential parasites Juan never

really becomes. We are critical of them, and of Catherine, because their

motivations are so base. Juan, in contrast, is not a dissimulator.

Rather than being an innocent, idealized character who gradually

becomes corrupted by those with more experience, as he is commonly

perceived to be, Juan is portrayed as a youth whose attitudes and actions are realistically human and understandable. He is depicted overall as a character who possesses human flaws and vulnerabilities that are not ultimately negative. Juan gets carried away, as all people do, by what life offers him.

He is "quite 'a broth of a boy,1 / A thing of impulse and a child of song; / Now swimming in the sentiment of joy, / Or the sensation" (VIII. 24. 1-4), as when he becomes involved in the frenzy of war. Byron's characterization of him in battle emphasizes his human motivations. He is swept up, as so many others, in the heat of conquest, plowing through people with a sense of honor leading him on. We see the same impulse in him when he denies the crew of the wrecked ship the opportunity to face death drunk, exclaiming:

"No! 'Tis true that death awaits both you and me, But let us die like men, not sink below Like b ru tes.. .." (IL 36. 2-5) 137

We appreciate his sincerity in these situations and uphold his youthful zeal while at the same time recognizing its limitations. We also affirm him because he "goes with the moment"—his actions are not predetermined by adherence to certain ideals. In his interaction with Leila, we see the individual nature of his priorities. He has no prententious attitudes about war and clearly makes his own choice about what is most important to h i m . 48 we get an accurate picture of him in Lady Pinchbeck's assessment: "she thought him a good heart at bottom, / A little spoiled, but not so altogether" (XII. 49.

2-3), and the poet quickly encourages this positive attitude when he adds,

Which was a wonder, if you think who got him, And how he had been tossed, he scarce knew whither: Though this might ruin others, it did not him, At least entirely, for he had seen too many Changes in youth, to be surprised at any. (XII. 49. 4-8)

Byron's apparent derisive comments about Juan are appropriately ironic throughout the work and thus make clear his affirmation. We do not take him seriously, for example, when he tells us that

Haidee and Juan were not married, but The fault was theirs, not mine: it is not fair, Chaste reader, then, in any way to put The blame on me, unless you wish they were; Then if you'd have them wedded, please to shut The book which treats of this erroneous pair, Before the consequences grow too awful; 'Tis dangerous to read of loves unlawful. (III. 12. 1-8) 138

In that Juan and Haidee eventually come to share a relationship characterized by more open and unaffected affection for one another than many of the married couples the poet describes, this hinted danger at reading about them is clearly ridiculous. Their love is exemplary in its unpretentiousness. When the poet adds, "Yet they were happy,—happy in the illicit / Indulgence of their innocent desires" (HI. 13. 1-2), we recognize that the term "illicit" is plainly ironic, emphasizing the inappropriateness of such a negative response, because his overall rendition of this relationship has been positive. Thus, when the poet hints at their prospective downfalls, we do not take seriously the idea that they faH because of moral shortcomings. They are not, as he suggests ironically, comparable to Adam and Eve, running "the risk of being damn'd for ever" (H. 193. 4), and their hearts do not prompt

deeds eternity can not annul, But pays off moments in an endless shower Of heU-fire—aU prepared for people giving Pleasure or pain to one another living. (H. 192. 5-8)

Such comments serve to exaggerate the inappropriateness of viewing these characters this way. Haidee is a vibrant, positive character—"Round her she made an atmosphere of life" (IH. 74. 1). Juan's involvement with her is a positive, affirmed experience occasioned by natural human inclinations and desires. Both characters are openly upheld.

When the poet refers to Juan in England as "our young diplomatic sinner"

(XL 29. 6), we do not take him literaUy, viewing Juan in these moralistic 139

terms, because overall his activities do not merit such serious judgment. He is not a "sinner," as the poet ironically implies, but a character who is maturing in realistic and positive ways. As Truman Guy Steffan writes, Juan's

psychological progress, begun in Russia, is continued in every English canto exceptXin. Juan has acquired a new and positive flexibility. He had formerly been passive and pliant as he drifted with circumstance, but now he has acquired a mature facility in adapting himself to society. He is thus "all things unto people of all sorts," and has mastered the "art of living in all climes with ease," without strain, duplicity, or betrayal of his own natural integrity. (I, pp. 275-276)

We laud his determination to help Leila, and the poet emphasizes the sympathy of their situation:

LJuan) naturally loved what he protected: And thus they formed a rather curious pair; A guardian green in years, a ward connected In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender; And yet this want of ties made their's more tender. (X. 57. 4-8)

Juan is also a very positive character in our eyes when he fails to be intimidated by the Blues and effectively plays up to them without becoming overtly pretentious in the process. We recognize the mocked affectation of these women and are pleased when Juan does not give in to them. His aloofness from women in general in England is one of his positive features, particularly because many of the society women he meets are trite and superficial Later on, when he is the object of both Adeline's and Aurora's 140

attentions, he is humorously described as "a good ship entangled among ice"

(XV. 77. 7). Juan, like Alcibiades, possesses the "art of living in all climes

with ease" (XV. 11. 8). He is ultimately adaptable because he does not assume any ostentatious guise to which he has to adhere. He grows more positive in our eyes because we see his individuality emerge more consistently and because we see him becoming increasingly aware through his experiences of others' idealized perceptions of themselves. His maturing awarenesses are most developed, of course, toward the end of Don Juan. A good example occurs when he gently teases Adeline for not recommending Aurora to him in her list of potential mates and thus obviously understands what her behavior suggests. Overall, Juan emerges as an autonomous figure who is, in fact, heroic in the poet's terms. Even though he is in the midst of English society, he does not absorb their traits:

The talent and good humour he displayed, Besides the marked distinction of his air, Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation, Even though himself avoided the occasion. (XII. 85. 5-8)

The more Juan comes out untouched by these people, the more sympathetic he is. Byron affirms this individuality in his comments about Juan's behavior:

His manner was perhaps the more seductive, Because he ne'er seemed anxious to seduce; Nothing affected, studied, or constructive Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse Of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective, To indicate a Cupidon broke loose, And seem to say, "resist us if you can"— Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man. (XV. 12. 1-8) 141

Juan's manner "was his alone" (XV. 13. 4).

Serene, accomplish'd, cheerful but not loud; Insinuating without insinuation; Observant of the foibles of the crowd, Yet ne'er betraying this in conversation; Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud, So as to make them feel he knew his station And theirs:—without a struggle for priority, He neither brook'd nor claim'd superiority. (XV. 15. 1-8)

Juan is an appropriate and literal answer to the poet's, "I want a hero" (I. 1. 1) because he unpretentiously confronts his world. In his maturing youth, he perceives both himself and others more completely and realistically, and we uphold his growth.

Lady Pinchbeck, the Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, and Johnson naturally follow

Juan in the progression of characters from innocence to sophistication because their perceptions of themselves and of their world evolve through the knowledge and experience Juan is just beginning to gain. These characters clearly distinguish between the pretenses of others and reality, and they choose to live their lives in their own way, regardless of society's comdemnations. They know who they are, recognize the validity of their own beliefs and attitudes, and refrain from imposing their values on others. They are innovative, often playful, compassionate characters. Lady Pinchbeck and the Duchess call to mind Julia and Adeline, showing us what the latter two characters could have been had they been able to see vividly who they were and forego pretensions. Lady Pinchbeck is a very unassuming character who 142 confronts her world with warmth and understanding. When we first learn that

Juan obtains her by consulting " 'the Society of Vice Suppression' " (XII. 42. 7-

8), we initially expect to meet another arrogant member of the upper class, but this expectation is inverted when we actually encounter her. She openly accepts herself for who she is and does not feel compelled to model her behavior on societally accepted standards. Instead, she carves out for herself attitudes about her world that are more honest, realistic, and positive.

Experience and understanding temper her perceptions about life. She is direct, clear-headed, and warmly loving. The suggestion that she had not, in her youth, been what her contemporary "moral" society would consider virtuous turns out to be a positive characteristic. Those who perpetuate negative ideas about her are the characters the poet criticizes. They are compared in their gossiping to "human cattle," their "abominable tittletattle" their "cud" (XII. 43. 7-8). Lady Pinchbeck is openly affirmed when the poet comments on her nature by reflecting on real life experiences:

I've remarked (and I was once A slight observer in a modest way) And so may every one except a dunce, That ladies in their youth a little gay, Besides their knowledge of the world, and sense Of the sad consequence of going astray, Are wiser in their warnings 'gainst the woe Which the mere passionless can never know. (XII. 44. 1-8)

The opposite of Lady Pinchbeck—the woman whose virtue supposedly is superior—is the object of his criticism: 143

While the harsh Prude indemnifies her virtue By railing at the unknown and envied passion, Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you, Or what's still worse, to put you out of fashion,— The kinder veteran with calm words will court you, Entreating you to pause before you dash on; Expounding and illustrating the riddle Of Epic Love's beginning, end, and middle. (XII. 45. 1-8)

Now whether it be thus, or that they are stricter, As better knowing why they should be so, I think you'll find from many a family picture, That daughters of such mothers as may know The world by experience rather than by lecture, Turn out much b etter for the Smithfield Show Of vestals brought into the marriage mart, Than those bred up by prudes without a heart. (XII. 46. 1-8)

Lady Pinchbeck deals with reality and is realistically human herself. She is not a moral degenerate but a character capable of seeing the world around her with insight and sympathy. She "was the mild reprover of the young" who did more good than can be recited in the poet's verses (XII. 48. 2). Her fresh honesty distinguishes her from a character like Inez, who considers herself a superior guardian. In Lady Pinchbeck's hands, Leila will not be perversely and unfeelingly molded.

The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke provokes worry among the society of people with whom she associates but is overtly affirmed as a positive character because she, too, is not ostentatious or affected. She is very much what she wants to be wherever and whenever she chooses. The poet describes her as "a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde, / Desirable, distinguish'd, celebrated" 144

(XIV. 42. 1-2). Her suggested inconstancy to the Duke is somewhat mitigated in the poet's description of him: " 'twas rumour'd, Lhe Hook / But small concern about the when, or where, / Or what his consort did . . . " (XIV. 45. 3-

5). Like many of the men depicted in the narrative's marriages, the Duke is apparently not a figure from whom the Duchess receives much attention. She does not suffer from this situation, though, as we see in Byron's continued description of her. She is an independent, life-loving, mischievous, and fun-loving character. She is the "gracious, graceful, graceless Grace," the

"full-grown Hebe" (XVI. 49. 1-2). The Duchess is not a goddess to be sure—but she is affirmed for being so alive and so playful.49 Her attitude about the people around her also characterizes her positively. She does not perceive them as exalted, and she feels no need to model her life after theirs. She does not, as we do not, take them seriously:

While Adeline dispensed her airs and graces, The fair Fitz-Fulke seemed very much at ease; Though too well bred to quiz men to their faces, Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize The ridicules of people in all places— That honey of your fashionable bees— And store it up for mischievous enjoyment; And this at present was her kind employment. (XVI. 100. 1-8)

Her frolicking with Juan displays her playfulness in very humorous and positive terms. As the Black Friar, she is quite clever in arranging her rendevous with her young, potential lover, a point the poet openly emphasizes when he describes Juan's anticipation for his unknown ghost: 145

The night was as before: he was undrest, Saving his night gown, which is an undress; Completely "sans culotte," and without vest; In short, he hardly could be clothed with less. (XVI. 111. 1-4)

Juan is well prepared, in other words, for an impending, though yet unknown,

amorous encounter. The revelation to him of who this ghost actually is also

portrays the Duchess in very positive terms:

The ghost, if ghost it were, seemed a sweet soul As ever lurked beneath a holy hood: A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole Forth into something much like flesh and blood; Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl, And they revealed—alas! that ere they should! In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk, The phantom of her frolic Grace—Fitz-Fulke! (XVI. 123. 1-8)

The Duchess is creative, playful, and successful in her adventures with young

Juan. Except for pretending to be the ghost, which is a purely clever endeavor, she does not, like many of the other characters depicted in the poem, attempt to create a world—a reality for herself—that is not really there. She perceives her present world for what it is and functions well within it, oblivious to—though aware of—the critical attitudes others bear against her. Secure in herself, she chooses to be simply who she is, in spite of these negative attitudes.

The poet provides us a more in-depth view of Johnson by allowing us to overhear his assertions about life and the people who live it. Johnson has a 146

very accurate view of the world around him. This attitude of his is

immediately apparent when we encounter him with Juan waiting to be auctioned as slaves. Juan remarks to him that he "takefs} things coolly" (V.

21. 1), and Johnson responds,

"what can a man do? There still are many rainbows in your sky, But mine have vanished. All, when life is new, Commence with feelings warm and prospects high; But time strips our illusions of their hue, And one by one in turn, some grand mistake Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake." (V. 21. 2-8)

Johnson's perception of his world is pragmatic—he is not pretentious. He is what Juan is on his way to becoming—clear-sighted and secure in himself.

The position he shares with Juan on the auction stand teaches them at least knowledge, Johnson claims, which will enable them to be better masters, knowing what it is like to be slaves. He accepts man's lot as being less than idealized and has no further expectations. His perception of society is also realistic, as we see when he says,

"But after all, what js our present state? 'Tis bad, and may be better—all men's lot: Most men are slaves, none more so than the great, To their own whims and passions, and what not; Society itself, which should create Kindness, destroys what little we had got: To feel for none is the true social art Of the world's stoics—men without a heart." (V. 25. 1-8) 147

Johnson is also sympathetic because of his genuine interest in Juan. Though he is eager to march on in battle in the Turkish city, he recognizes and accepts the higher importance of Juan's concern for Leila. The poet emphasizes Johnson's sympathetic nature when he says,

Johnson . . . really loved JJuan }in his way, Picked out amongst his followers with some skill Such as he thought the least given up to prey; And swearing if the infant came to ill That they should all be shot on the next day; But, if she were delivered safe, and sound, They should at least have fifty roubles round. (VIII. 102. 2-8)

"And all allowances besides of plunder In fair proportion with their comrades." (VIII. 103. 1-2).

Johnson is realistic about the nature of humans even in these negotiations with them. He accepts their materialism as he accepts his own and realistic­ ally straddles both sides of the fence—he wants his cut of battle spoils but he also recognizes the need to do right by Leila—and Juan as well. We see

Johnson portrayed engagingly again when he and Juan encounter the Khan.

Both Juan and Johnson are slightly wounded by him, but they

Expended all their Eastern phraseology In begging him, for God's sake, just to show So much less fight as might form an apology For them in saving such a desperate foe—. (VIII. 108. 2-5)

Johnson recognizes the true nature of war and perceives the human worth of both himself and those he fights. As we do, he recognizes the needlessness of 148 killing the Khan.

Johnson's attitudes in many ways parallel those advanced by the poet, whose clear-sightedness and persistent willingness to confront and portray the world as it is make him the ultimate hero of the work.50 He is portrayed also as a figure with normal, human limitations, and in his position as poet, which he equates with being a truthteller, he is determined to deflate the significance of heroic ideals by showing that they are illusions and to define the world in realistic terms. In contrast to epic poets, he writes colloquially about unexalted subjects to clarify both his and their unelevated statures.

When he wants to stress the beauty of the women in the Sultan's harem, for example, he claims "This is no bull" (VI. 67. 1), and when he wants simply to change his subject, he says, "But never mind ..." (VIII. 50. 1). More emphatically colloquial are his exclamations and invocations to the Muse, which include "By Jove! (VIII. 39. 1), "Egad!" (VIII. 42. 1), "Oh ye! or we! or he! or she!" (IX. 34. 1), "Eureka!" (XIV. 76. 1), and the well-known "Hail, Muse! et cetera" (HI. 1. 1). These expressions make him tangible because they are part of familiar speech. We can identify with him because of this familiarity.

Both he and Ariosto use this created sense of familiarity to encourage us to see the figures they describe more sympatheticaUy. Through their frequent and overt identification with characters, we come to see in them the human nature both poets affirm.

The humanness of the poet in Don Juan is equaUy apparent in his descriptions of himself as a person of appetites rather than as a poet inspired 149

by spiritual voices and heroic subjects:

I grow pathetic, Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green tea! Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic; For if my pure libations exceed three, I feel my heart become so sympathetic, That I must have recourse to black Bohea: 'Tis pity wine should be so deleterious, For tea and coffee leave us much more serious. (IV. 52. 1-8)

Unless when qualified with thee, Cogniac! Sweet Naiad of the Phlegethontic rill! (IV. 53. 1-2)

In setting the scene for the public discovery of Donna Julia's and Juan's affair, he is prompted to point out about himself that he is "fond of fire, and crickets, and all that, / A lobster salad, and champaigne, and chat" (I. 135. 7-

8). He displays the same colloquialized characterization of himself when he claims he does not know well how Juan and Julia become involved, "And even if {he} knew, {he shall} not tell— / People should hold their tongues in any case; / No matter how or why the thing befell" (I. 105. 3-5). He makes a similar comment after describing the public interest in the affairs of Donna

Inez and Don Jose:

I loathe that low vice curiosity, But if there's any thing in which I shine 'Tis in arranging all my friends' affairs, Not having, of my own, domestic cares. (I. 23. 5-8)

By actually doing what he says he hates and avoids, he points out that he is not an inspired, exalted observer but a figure with a realistic tendency to 150 become caught up in conversation about his own interests and desires. As he says, Apollo must pluck him "by the ear" (IV. 7. 7) to motivate him to progress with his story rather than to persist in his digressions. His preoccupations are most apparent when it comes to the subject of women. When first describing

Julia, he comments on her "eye" and adds, "(I'm very fond of handsome eyes)"

(I. 60. 1) and concludes after pointing out that she was tall, that he hates "a dumpy woman" (I. 61. 8). Juan's travels to Cadiz after being discovered with

Julia offer him another opportunity to reveal his preoccupation with women.

Recalling that he had been to Cadiz himself he declares, "And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies" (II. 5. 5), catching himself before he goes on with his more colloquialized rendering of their features. Unlike the epic poet who affirms idealized values, the poet characterizes himself as one who clearly distinguishes them from realistic, human behavior. When he questions

Juan's dedication to Julia after Juan encounters Haidee, he claims:

I hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest, Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast No permanent foundation can be laid; Love, constant love, has been my constant quest, And yet last night, being at a masquerade, I saw the prettiest creature, fresh from Milan, Which gave me some sensations like a villain. (II. 209. 1-8)

He goes on to emphasize that Philosophy comes to his aid and helps him overcome his temptation, but his commitment to avoiding the temptation is undermined in the yearning he expresses. When Philosophy tells him to "think 151 of every sacred tie!" the poet responds with

"I will, my dear Philosophy!.. . But then her teeth, and then, Oh heaven! her eye! I'll just inquire if she be wife or maid, Or neither—out of curiousity." (H. 210. 3-6)

He is a "moderate-minded bard, / Fond of a little love" (I. 118. 5-6), who, as all others, enjoys Pleasure and attempts to overcome his temptations and meanderings with strengthened convictions:

I make a resolution every spring Of reformation, ere the year run out, But, somehow, this my vestal vow takes wing, Yet still, I trust, it may be kept throughout: I'm very sorry, very much ashamed, And mean, next winter, to be quite reclaim'd. (I. 119. 3-8)

We know, of course, that "next winter" the process simply will be repeated and the reclamation will remain a distant objective.

In keeping with his unexalted portrait, the poet describes himself as a philosopher who observes life around him and attempts to write what he sees. He composes from reality, as he perceives it, always questioning what it is, and states that his purpose in Don Juan is to examine life—to contemplate the value and meaning of human beings and their actions. After discussing man's confrontation with the unknown, he says,

But what's this to the purpose? you will say. Gent. Reader, nothing; a mere speculation, For which my sole excuse is—'tis my way, 152

Sometimes with and sometimes without occasion I write what's uppermost, without delay; This narrative is not meant for narration, But a mere airy and fantastic basis, To build up common things with common places. (XIV. 7. 1-8)

He explains the same idea more specifically:

my Muse by no means deals in fiction: She gathers a repertory of facts, Of course with some reserve and slight restriction, But mostly sings of human things and acts— And that's one cause she meets with contradiction; For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts; And were her object only what's call'd glory, With more ease too she'd tell a different story. (XIV. 13. 1-8)

The poet asserts repeatedly that he writes what is real and universal, as when he says,

I write the world, nor care if the world read, At least for this I cannot spare its vanity. My Muse hath bred, and still perhaps may breed More foes by this same scroll: when I began it, I Thought that it might turn out so—now I know it. (XV. 60. 3-7)

The poet's perceptions of himself and of his world, like Johnson's, realistically reflect human nature and behavior and deny the reality of idealized existence. He characterizes his compatriots in his commentary much like

Johnson describes "the world's Stoics" in his conversation with Juan. Both societies are comprised of people bearing grand illusions and "men without a 153 heart." He attacks his audience—and many of the English poets among them—because they deny reality, as he perceives it, by upholding the idea that human behavior is exemplary of, or ought to be modelled after, heroic ideals.

Such attitudes encourage people to denounce who they really are and to believe their actions can be transformed into exalted gestures or behaviors that give them the right to make moral and political judgments about others.

In bearing this attitude, the poet distinguishes himself from Ariosto, who addresses the same problem but shows the attractiveness of heroic fictions individuals create while at the same time does not de-emphasize their intangibility. For Byron, such fictions are dangerous and destructive.^! In denying their own human nature, individuals condemn it in others. Many of the activities they identify as vice are familiar even to themselves. Byron points out this hypocrisy and emphasizes that such actions are not always condemnable. As he explains, "You will find, / Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, / There is no sterner moralist than pleasure" (III. 65.

6-8). Such satisfactions in life as drinking, carousing, and indulgent dining are not simply wanton pleasures, but they teach people perspective.

Overindulgence in any pleasure transforms its original enjoyment into a disquieting experience. Inconstancy is also less a vice than some might be inclined to perceive it. The poet gives a very realistic account of how inconstancy happens—how the "heart works." He claims

that which Men call inconstancy is nothing more 154

Than admiration due where Nature's rich Profusion with young beauty covers o'er Some favour'd object; and as in the niche A lovely statue we almost adore, This sort of adoration of the real Is but a heightening of the "beau ideal." (II. 211. 1-8)

'Tis the perception of the beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filter'd through the skies, Without which life would be extremely dull; In short, it is the use of our own eyes, With one or two small senses added, just To hint th at flesh is form'd of fiery dust. (II. 212. 1-8)

The poet believably qualifies a human tendency that should be regarded, in his eyes, as no more than that. This perception of the beautiful—the "heightening of the beau ideal"—is a universal experience. It shows how we aspire to higher ideals and even feel, at times, that we are worthy of exaltation, but that these aspirations are ultimately illusory—merely part of what it is to be human. Heightened experiences eventually pass, the "killing perceptions" we have in someone fade after a time, and the "fiery dust" loses some of its punch. Reality is composed of both these flights of fancy and the more painful, realistic, and sometimes even base aspects of humanness. Byron mocks the exaggerated significance attributed to such common tendencies when he deliberately imitates the moral, authoritative voice he satirizes.

Unlike Ariosto, however, he calls upon us to denounce our aspirations to idealized experience. Both poets assert a choice must be made between what is and what is fictional, but Byron insists we focus, in life as well as in 155

literature, on what he perceives as the realities of being human in an

unknowable world.

The ideals his audience upholds as appropriate standards against which

to measure human behavior are also qualified. These ideals are illusions—they

are fictions to which individuals aspire or which they claim to enact, but they

are unobtainable. Exalted behavior is found only in heroic fiction, in epic

narratives about fictional, idealized figures and events. Glory as we know it

in heroic fiction does not distinguish actions among humans:

glory long has made the sages smile; 'Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind— Depending more on the historian's style Than on the name a person leaves behind: Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle; The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks, Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coxe. (IIL 90. 1-8)

When pointing out "Black Edward's helm" and "Becket's bloody stone" in the cathedral at Canterbury, the poet defines the realistic nature of glory once

more, saying,

There's Glory again for you, gentle reader! All Ends in a rusty casque, and dubious bone, Half-solved into those sodas or magnesias, Which form that bitter draught, the human species. (X. 73. 5-8)

He calls to mind some of the participants at the historical seige of Ismail to emphasize the illusory nature of fame. The French noblemen Prince de Ligne, 156

Langeron, and Da mas, "Names great as any that the roll of Fame has" (VIL 32.

8) are unrecognized:

For out of these three "preux Chevaliers." how Many of common readers give a guess That such existed? (and they may live now For aught we know.) Renown's all hit or miss; There's Fortune even in Fame, we must allow. 'Tis true, the Memoirs of the Prince de Ligne Have half withdrawn from him oblivion's screen. (VII. 33. 2-8)

But here are men who fought in gallant actions As gallantly as ever heroes fought, But buried in the heap of such transactions Their names are rarely found, nor often sought. Thus even good Fame may suffer sad contractions, And is extinguished sooner than she ought: Of all our modern battles, I will bet You can't repeat nine names from each Gazette. (VII. 34. 1-8)

Idealized glory and fame are simply not realities in our world. Modeling our actions on ideals in no way quarantees that we will achieve anything near them, and in no way guarantees that we will be acknowledged in heroic terms. Byron demeans such attem pts when he explains:

When I call "fading" martial immortality, I mean, that every age and everyyear, And almost every day, in sad reality, Some sucking hero is compelled to rear, Who, when we come to sum up the totality Of deeds to human happiness most dear, Turns out to be a butcher in great business, Afflicting young folks with a sort of dizziness. (VII. 83. 1-8) Medals, rank, ribbons, lace, embroidery, scarlet, Are things immortal to immortal man, As purple to the Babylonian harlot: An uniform to boys, is like a fan To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet But deems himself the first in Glory's van. But Glory's Glory; and if you would find What that is—ask the pig who sees the wind! (VII. 84. 1-8)

At least he feels it, and some say he sees. Because he runs before it like a pig; Or, if that simple sentence should displease, Say, that he scuds before it like a brig, A schooner. .. . (VII. 85. 1-50)

Like heroic glory and fame, idealized love also does not exist in the real

world. First love seems particularly exalted and fantastical to us but is an experience common to all and one that is often transitory. All love experiences are motivated by physical as well as spiritual needs. The poet emphasizes this physical nature to distinguish real human love from idealized chaste love when he explains,

Besides Platonic love, besides the love Of God, the love of Sentiment, the loving Of faithful pairs—

besides all these pretences To Love, there are those things which Words name Senses;— (IX. 74. 1-3, 7-8)

Those movements, those improvements in our bodies Which make all bodies anxious to get out Of their own sand-pits to mix with a Goddess, 158

For such all Women are at first no doubt. How beautiful that moment! and how odd is That fever which precedes the languid rout Of our sensations! What a curious way The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay! (IX. 75. 1-8)

No matter how innocent we are when we first become engaged in love, it bears with it frequent, natural pitfalls. Women and men both s u f f e r . 52 The love of women

is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing; For all of theirs upon that die is thrown, And if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring To them but mockeries of the past alone, And their revenge is as the tiger's spring, Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel. (II. 199. 1-8)

But women are not entirely blameless in love, and men are sometimes the more unfairly treated:

In her first passion woman loves her lover, In all the others all she loves is love, Which grows a habit she can ne'er get over, And fits her loosely—like an easy glove,

One man alone at first her heart can move; She then prefers him in the plural number, Not finding that the additions much encumber. (III. 3. 1-4, 6-8)

In a lover, passion is "glorious," but in a husband, it "is pronounced uxorious"

(III. 6. 7-8). Responding to these attitudes, "Men grow ashamed of being so 159

very fond; / They sometimes also get a little tired / (But that, of course, is rare), and then despond" (III, 7.1-3). Such imperfect love is rarely nurtured in marriage:

There's doubtless something in domestic doings, Which forms, in fact, true love's antithesis; Romances paint at full length people's wooings, But only give a bust of marriages; For no one cares for matrimonial cooings, There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss: Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life? (III. 8. 1-8)

Byron reflects as well on the nature of love between parents and children. After focusing on Lambro's return to the island to find all its inhabitants in celebration, he says,

It is a hard although a common case To find our children running restive—they In whom our brightest days we would retrace, Our little selves re-form'd in finer clay, Just as old age is creeping on apace, And clouds come o'er the sunset of our day, They kindly leave us, though not quite alone, But in good company—the gout or stone. (III. 59. 1-8)

Our suppositions that idealized love exists are fantasies. Byron satirizes individuals who are so caught up in pretending they are models of virtuous behavior, actually believing these ideals exist and are tangible, because they lose sight of their real value and deny their own limitations. He asserts that they object to what they read in his poem because it is "too much truth," and they do not like to see themselves as they really are. They also very seriously 160

misperceive his role as poet and his overall point in Don Juan:

They accuse me—Me—the present writer of The present poem—of—I know not what,— A tendency to under-rate and scoff At human power and virtue, and all that; And this they say in language rather rough. Good God! I wonder what they would be at! I say no more than hath been said in Dante's Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes; (VII. 3. 1-8)

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault, By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato; By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau, Who knew this life was not worth a potato. 'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so— For my part, I pretend not to be Cato, Nor even Diogenes—We live and die, But which is best, you know no more than I. (VII. 4. 1-8)

These individuals fail to see, he feels, that Don Juan is a moral work whose focus is compassion and tolerance and the rejection of all forms of tyranny.

Their inaccurate perception of his poem mirrors the unrealistic attitude they have about life. He angrily denounces their pretentiousness when he declares:

Dogs, or Men! (for I flatter you in saying That ye are dogs—your betters far) ye may Read, or read not, what I am now essaying To show ye what ye are in every way. As little as the Moon stops for the baying Of Wolves, will the bright Muse withdraw one ray From out her skies—then howl your idle wrath! While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path. (VII. 7. 1-8)

They are pretentious in the judgments they make against him, taking on the same self-seeking, condescending, superior-oriented attitude ridiculed 161

throughout the poem. Byron satirizes them directly when he states: You are

not a moral people, and you know it / Without the aid of too sincere a poet"

(XL 87. 7-8). He claims they characterize themselves in their criticisms of

his poem as his moral superiors, thus implying he is debased and they are

virtuous and upstanding. Like Inez in the narrative, they elevate themselves

on whim and ignorance, not on fact. Their actions too often belie their

words. They refuse to see, as Inez does, that they are just as human as

everyone else and thus prone to the same vulnerabilities and imperfections.

They also refuse to see that these hums n characteristics are not condemnable but matters that bind them to all others. They deny, more particularly, much of what they are. In defense of his position, Byron claims that his audience hates him, not he them (IX. 21. 8) and affirms the positive nature of his work when he continues:

I maintain that£the poem}is really good, Not only in the body, but the proem, However little both are understood Just now,—but by and by the Truth will show 'em Herself in her sublimest attitude: And till she doth, I fain must be content To share her Beauty and her Banishment. (IX. 22. 2-8)

IV

The ultimate target of Byron's attack is contemporary poets whom he believes perpetuate the idealism he undermines as false throughout the 162

poem. They write, according to him, out of a sense of fashion—to soothe, to flatter, and to preach to please the masses rather than to encourage them to see their world in realistic, compassionate terms. In his eyes, they are not philosophers and truthtellers but status seekers.5 3 They succumb to desires for fame and fail to remember, in their self-exaltation, that they bear the same human imperfections as all others:

Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end; For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning; Our sin the same, and hard as his is to mend, Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are. (IV. 1. 1-8)

He defines a good poet as one who partakes

all passions as they pass, Acquirefs }the deep and bitter power to give Their images again as in a glass, And in such colours that they seem to live. (IV. 107. 3-6) a reflection of his own role in Don Juan, which guides us in seeing things as they are—in acknowledging the reality around us. Poetic fame is illusory:

Where twenty ages gather o'er a name, ’Tis as a snowball which derives assistance From every flake, and yet rolls on the same, Even till an iceberg it may chance to grow, But after all 'tis nothing but cold snow. (IV. 100. 1-8) 163

And so great names are nothing more than nominal, And love of glory's but an airy lust, Too often in its fury overcoming all Who would as 'twere identify their dust From out the wide destruction, which, entombing all, Leaves nothing till the coming of the just Save change; I've stood upon Achilles' tomb, And heard Troy doubted; time will doubt of Rome. (IV. 101. 1-8)

If his contemporary poets aimed to present a realistic view of the world,

Byron claims, they could help people better themselves by what they read.

They would see the "Icebergs" in mighty men instead of idealistically fictionalizing them—they would see the self-love there. They would also see the "cannibalism" of those in charge of kingdoms. All people would be called

"by their right names." In advocating the ideas of a Society that is itself pretentious, these poets deny reality and thus deny poetry's significance. This is the literary "ribble rabble," the crowd he openly satirizes when he says,

Oh! ye great Authors luminous, voluminous! Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes, Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers illumine us! Whether you're paid by Government in bribes, To prove the public debt is not consuming us— Or, roughly treading on the "Courtier's kibes" With clownish heel, your popular circulation Feeds you by printing half the realm's Starvation. (IX. 35. 1-8)

His liberal political ideology strongly emerges at the base of his most vicious criticism, directed primarily against Robert Southey, England's poet-laureate, amd William Wordsworth. Both are political turncoats, he claims, in their 164

rejection of liberal attitudes and increasing conservatism. He feels they betray their compatriots through these political associations because the powerful conservative party denies human rights to all, a point he feels is evidenced in their opposition to Parliamentary reform and subsequent perpetuation of economic distinctions among England's population. Their works reflect this political climate, according to the poet, and rather than influencing readers to share just attitudes about all people, encourage idealized beliefs about human experience and the world itself. These poets actually deny reality, in the poet's perception, by removing themselves from it politically. He asserts in his Preface to the first Canto that all Southey's

latter writings have displayed the writhing of a weakly human creature conscious of owing it's worldly elevation to it's own debasement—(like a man who has made a fortune by the Slave-trade, or the retired keeper of a Gaming house or Brothel) and struggling convulsively to deceive others without the power of lying to himself. (Vol. II, p. 6)

In his Dedication, he claims both Southey and Wordsworth are debased individuals who pretentiously deem themselves poets. He contrasts them to

Milton, who "deign'd not to belie his soul in songs" (Ded. 10. 5) and died "the tyrant-hater he begun" (Ded. 10. 8). His political principles were, in the poet's eyes, intact, and his perspective was appropriately democratic and compassionate. Wordsworth is characterized as "a Gnatho in Politics" who

"may be met in print at some booksellers and several trunkmakers, and in person at dinner at Lord Lonsdale's" (Pref. to Cantos I and n, VoL II, p. 4). 165

Like Southey, he ultimately foregoes reality, in the poet's eyes, and thus retains political favor.

These poets are equally condemnable, he claims, in their philosophies of poetry. He satirizes their portrayal of a mystical world and exalted human experiences as trite and unreal. In Wordsworth's focus on describing the fundamentals of human life by contemplating its simplest forms, one can see the utopian idealism to which the poet objects.54 He undercuts it directly when he scoffs at Southey's and Coleridge's idea of founding a Pantisocratic society on the banks of the Susquehanna River. Idealized, "correct" human behavior is an aspiration destined to fail because the ideal itself is nonexistent. Humans are by nature imperfect and limited. Wordsworth himself is described as "a rustic Gongora and vulgar Marini,an overly affected poet who

has long abandoned a mind capable of better things to the production of such trash as may support the reveries which he would reduce into a System of prosaic raving that is to supersede all that has hitherto by the best & wisest of our fathers has isic ibeen deemed poetry;—and for his success . . . he may partly thank his absurdity—<5c partly his having lent his more downright and unmeasured prose' to the aid of a political party which acknowledges it's real weakness—though fenced with the whole armour of artificial Power and defended by all the ingenuity of purchased Talent, in liberally rewarding with praise & pay even the meanest of its advocates. (Pref. to Cantos I and H, Vol. H, p. 4)

He, together with numerous other contemporary poets, unrealistically exalts human behavior and experience. The poet mocks this tendency by quoting 166

romanticized lines from Thomas Campbell's poem, Gertrude of Wyoming, and commenting on them:

The Poet meant, no doubt, and thus appeals To the good sense and senses of mankind, The very thing which every body feels, As all have found on trial, or may find, That no one likes to be disturb'd at meals Or love .... (I. 89. 1-6)

According to the poet, common experiences are not metaphysical and unique in the way poets declare. When he describes Juan wandering by "glassy brooks" and "leafy nooks," he satirizes these poets by saying:

There poets find materials for their books, And every now and then we read them through, So that their plan and prosody are eligible, Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible. (I. 90. 5-8)

These kinds of metaphysical presumptions are akin to Inez's in the narrative—and we are encouraged to be critical for the same reasons. Both are pretentious in the unrealistic exaltation of people and their experiences.

He attacks Wordsworth's "Waggoneers" as a work stemming "from the bathos' vast abyss" (III. 100. 4). He fails, the poet claims, to see the world as the world—to perceive what is there and to portray it in his work. Nature itself is twisted and debased in his and other poets' renditions. Such an idea is more pointedly expressed in the Fifth Canto:

every fool describes in these bright days 167

His wond'rous journey to some foreign court, And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise— Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport; While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways, Resigns herself with exemplary patience To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, illustrations. (V. 52. 2-8)

Nature is not described for what it is. Byron mocks such poets in his parody of the Ten Commandments:

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey; Because the first is crazed beyond all hope, The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthey: With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope, And Campbell's Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy: Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor Commit—flirtation with the muse of Moore. (I. 205. 1-8)

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's Muse, His Pegasus, nor any thing that's his; Thou shalt not bear false witness like "the Blues." (I. 206. 1-3)

The real world, in the poet's perception, is unknowable, uncontrollable, and transient. "There's no such thing as certainty," he tells us,

that's plain As any of Mortality's Conditions: So little do we know what we're about in This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting. (IX. 17. 5-8)

It is very puzzling, he adds later, to be on the brink "Of what is called

Eternity, to stare, / And Know no more of what is here, than there" (X. 20. 7-

8). The one thing we do know is mortality, and we cannot even fully comprehend it. Death is the 168

sovereign’s Sovereign . .. who levels With his Agrarian laws, the high estate Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels, To one small grass-grown patch (which must await Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils Who never had a foot of land till now— Death's a reformer, all men must allow. (X. 25. 1-8)

As he does when he discusses the assassination of the commander outside his home, the poet invites the reader to contemplate with him the ambiguous nature of death. He questions what happens when it occurs and where those who die go. The change itself in death is described as very awe-inspiring, and he concludes,

I knew that nought was lasting, but now even Change grows too changeable, without being new: Nought's permanent among the human race. (XI. 82. 5-7)

Byron identifies the overwhelming nature of our world and the minor parts we actually play in it when he declares,

All present life is but an Interjection, An "Oh!" or "Ah!" of joy or misery, Or a "Ha! ha!" or "Bah!"—a yawn, or "Pooh!" Of which perhaps the latter is most true. (XV. 1. 5-8)

His perception of it is more fully characterized in the following verses:

But, more or less, the whole's a syncope 169

Or a singultus—emblems of Emotion, The grand Antithesis to great Ennui, Wherewith we break our bubbles on the ocean, That Watery Outline of Eternity, Or miniature at least, as is my notion, Which ministers unto the soul's delight, In seeing matters which are out of sight. (XV. 2. 1-8)

But all are better than the sigh supprest, Corroding in the cavern of the heart, Making the countenance a masque of rest, And turning human nature to an art. Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or best; Dissimulation always sets apart A corner for herself; and therefore Fiction Is that which passes with least contradiction. (XV. 3. 1-8)

He picks up this poignant metaphor comparing individual lives to bubbles on

the ocea to reinforce his point that we know so little of what we are and to

emphasize the universality of this ignorance:

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, 'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge: How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the graves Of Empires heave but like some passing waves. (XV. 99. 1-8)

The poet's descriptions of the relationship between human beings and the world they populate are designed to encourage readers to respond to others with compassion and tolerance for the limitations they share. In the face of life's overwhelming complexities, all people are equal. No one's beliefs about 170

the unknown sire superior to others'.

that same devilish doctrine of the Persian, Of the Two Principles, but leaves behind As many doubts as any other doctrine Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in. (XIII. 41. 5-8)

A qualification exists for every "truth," and since people cannot know all things in this world, they cannot realistically impose what they believe on others. Attempts to carve out certainties in life are understandable as responses to an overwhelming, threatening world, but they deny reality.

Human beings are universally limited in their knowledge of themselves and the significance of their existence.56 "Man's a strange animal," the poet says,

Man's a phenomenon, one knows not what, And wonderful beyond all wondrous measure; 'Tis pity though, in this sublime world, that Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure; Few mortals know what end they would be at, But whether glory, power, or love, or treasure, The path is through perplexing ways, and when The goal is gain'd, we die, you know—and then— (I. 133. 1-8)

"What then?—I do not know, no more than you—" (I. 124, 1)

The poet sympathizes with human beings in their unknowing state and affirms them for who they are, emphasizing the idea that his reality is positive.

Those who recognize and accept their limitations and view others with the same tolerance honestly dignify themselves.57 Real greatness is a human, 171

unidealized quality that stems from an unexalted view of oneself. People who possess this view are persistently unselfish and compassionate. "The drying up a single tear has more / Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore" (Vin. 3.

7-8), Byron explains,

And why! because it brings self-approbation; Whereas the other, after all its glare, Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation, Which (it may be) has not much left to spare, A higher title, or a loftier station, Though they may make Corruption gape or stare, Yet, in the end, except in freedom's battles, Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles. (VIIL 4. 1-8)

Reflecting on Juan's actions with Leila, he explains

That one life saved, especially if young Or pretty, is a thing to recollect Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung From the manure of human clay, though decked With all the praises ever said or sung: Though hymned by every harp, unless within Your Heart joins Chorus, Fame is but a din. (IX. 34. 1-8)

When people assume greatness lies in idealized behavior, they assume pretense. Real greatness, human greatness, is humble and quiet. The poet claims that "To set up vain pretences of being great, / 'Tis not so to be good; and be it stated, / The worthiest kings have ever loved least state" (X. 87. 3-

5).

The world itself offers many experiences that affirm human life. These experiences are not sinful, as those who attempt to idealize behavior suggest, 172

but humorous, positive responses to life's complexities. Humor itself is an important agent in uniting people because it helps them recognize the human nature they shared® Individuals who lack humor and perceive all aspects of the world in serious, moralistic terms deny themselves the opportunity to relieve the anxiety they feel about an unknowable world. They remain aloof from life, disconnected from many of the joys it offers. Byron ironically undercuts this sublime attitude and affirms humor when he says:

I now mean to be serious;—it is time, Since laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious. A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime, And critically held as deleterious. Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime, Although when long a little apt to weary us; And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn As an old temple dwindled to a column. (XIII. 1. 1-8)

In an extended section in the latter part of the first canto, he describes some of the more notable concrete experiences in life he affirms:

'Tis sweet to hear At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep; 'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear; 'Tis sweet to listen as the nightwinds creep From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. (I. 122. 1-8)

'Tis sweet to hear the watchdog's honest bark Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 'Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark, Or lull'd by falling waters; sweet the hum 173

Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and their earliest words. (I. 123. 1-8)

Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes From civic revelry to rural mirth; Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps, Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth, Sweet is revenge—especially to women— Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen. (I. 124. 1-8)

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet The unexpected death of some old lady Or gentleman of seventy years complete, Who've made "us youth" wait too—too long already For an estate, or cash, or country seat, Still breaking, but with stamina so steady, That all the Israelites are fit to mob its Next owner for their double-damn'd post-obits. (I. 125. 1-8)

'Tis sweet to win, no m atter how, one's laurels By blood or ink; 'tis sweet to put an end To strife; 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend; Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the schoolboy spot We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. (I. 126. 1-8)

Life itself is affirmed in the range of experiences it offers us. In them, one finds deep and meaningful satisfaction. None of them is glorious or exalted, none of them is heroic, and some are less positive than others. But they allow people to feel a kind of significance in life—a kind of moving meaningfulness that makes them glad to be alive—glad to be a part of the world. They are simple experiences that allow people to derive pleasure from others and from 174

themselves. The world as people come to know it gives them more than ample

occasion to praise it for its concrete beauty. Byron openly celebrates it in his

own life:

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour! The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirred with prayer. (III. 102. 1-8)

Sweet hour of twilight!—in the solitude Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, To where the last Cesarean fortress stood, Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How I have loved the twilight hour and thee! (III. 105. 1-8)

Oh Hesperus! thou bringest all good things— Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer; Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. (III. 107. 1-8)

His account of universal perceptions and experiences is moving, again, in its affirmation of beauty and of life's reassurances. He renders even more banal matters positively when he recalls the England of his experience through the account of Juan's arrival there. He refers to Dover as dear and proudly 175

recalls England's speed coaches and turnpike roads. He also does not forget

the pots of beer. These experiences are pleasureable and meaningful in

themselves and trigger feelings for companionship, love, self-appreciation,

and appreciation for the world that harbors all people. Affirmation of self

and of others through love is always to be celebrated in the poet's eyes. He

reflects on the occasion when Aurora arouses in Juan "some feelings he had

lately lost / Or hardened; feelings which, perhaps ideal, / Are so divine, that I

must deem them real:—" (XVI. 107. 6-8), and characterizes this experience in

universal, human terms:

The love of higher things and better days; The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance Of what is called the world, and the world's ways; The moments when we gather from a glance More joy than from all future pride or praise, Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance The heart in an existence of its own, Of which another's bosom is the zone. (XVI. 108. 1-8)

In our love and compassion for one another is the celebration of ourselves. Byron's focus on this compassion and on acceptance of human nature posits him as the real hero of this poem and renders it the moral work he claims it to be. 176

NOTES

Chapter 3. "Buffoonery with a Plan"

1 Andrew Rutherford, Byron: A Critical Study. (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1961), p. 15.

^ Robert Griffin, Ludovico Ariosto (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1974), p. 73.

^ John Clubbe and Ernest J. Lovell, Jr., English Romanticism: The Grounds of Belief (DeKalb. UL: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1983), p. 11 and p. 98. See also regarding Byron and the Fall George M. Ridenour's The Style of Don Juan. Yale Studies in English, VoL 144, ed. Benjamin Christie Nangle (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1960).

4 Clubbe and Lovell, Jr., p. 157.

® Clubbe and Lovell, Jr., p. 103.

® M.G. Cooke, The Blind Man Traces the Circle: On the Patterns and Philosophy of Byron's Poetry (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969), p. 175.

^ E.D. Hirsch, Jr., "Byron and the Terrestrial Paradise," in From Sensibility to Romanticism, ed. Frederick W. Hilles and Harold Bloom (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), p. 469. Hirsch cites William Rose (From Goethe to Byron: The Development of Weltschmerz in German Literature. London, 1924) in claiming that Byron's view of life is summed up in the term "Weltschmerz."

® Cooke, p. 173. 177

9 William H. Marshall, The Structure of Byron's Major Poems (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1962), p. 15.

Cooke, pp. 178-79. Cooke interestingly points out that skepticism "is not historically a dead end, but a difficulty for and at times an instrument of affirmation"—but that this is not the case with Byron.

^ Harold Bloom, The Visionary Company: .A Reading of English Romantic Poetry (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1961), p. 258.

12 Cooke, p. 174 and Bloom, p. 265, respectively.

13 Elizabeth French Boyd, Byron's Don Juan: A_ Critical Study (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1945), p. 161.

14 Hirsch, p. 472

Hirsch, p. 482. 1® Hirsch, p. 482.

^ Leslie A. Marchand, "Byron and the Modern Spirit," in The Major English Romantic Poets: A Symposium in Reappraisal, ed. Clarence D. Thorpe et aL (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1957, p. 164.

1® Ridenour, p. 49. 1Q Ernest J. Lovell, "Irony and Image in Byron's Don Juan," in The Major English Romantic Poets: A Symposium in Reappraisal, ed. Clarence D. Thorpe et aL (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1957), p. 131 and p. 148. Paul Graham Trueblood (The Flowering of Byron's Genius: Studies in Byron's Don Juan. Stanford Univ.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1945) sees Byron as primarily a satirist. Don Juan's early cantos are "sportive satire" that evolve, he says, into "serious social criticism" (vii). Don Juan, in his perception, is a "true illustration of Matthew Arnold's definition of poetry as a criticism of life" (171).

2® Marshall, p. 16.

21 Marshall, p. 177.

22 Claude M. Fuess, Lord Byron as a Satirist in Verse (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1912), p. 176.

22 Jerom e J. McGann, Don Juan in Context (Chicago: The Univ. of 178

Chicago Press, 1976), p. 82. 24 Hirsch, p. 477.

^5 Ridenour, p. 91. 26 John Lauber, "Don Juan as Anti-Epic," Studies in English Literature. VIII, No. 4 (1968), p. 619. Brian Wilke's Romantic Poets~and Epic Tradition (Madison and Milwaukee: The Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1965) also addresses the idea of the epic tradition in Don Juan. He claims, "Byron plays past and present against each other, denying that there has been greatness in the past, yet also evoking an illusory idea of earlier greatness as a judgment on his own uninspired age. Heroism, according to this view, cannot evolve; neither can the epic; nothing can come of nothing" (226). An excellent study to be consulted regarding generic consideration of Don Juan is Alvin B. Kernan's The Plot of Satire (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1965). 27 Cooke, p. 181 and p. 186. 28 Though Byron refuted Donna Inez's resemblence to Lady Byron, many of his contemporaries (including, and particularly, his publishers) recognized and were offended by the apparent identification. Connections between Inez and Byron's mother have also been made—particularly in reference to those passages where he describes Inez's rages. Truman Guy Steffan points out in his discussion of Don Juan (Byron's Don Juan: A Variorum Edition. 2nd. ed., Austin, Texas: Univ. of Texas Press, 1971, I, p. 92) that Byron also draws many parallels between himself and Don Jose.

OQ Truman Guy Steffan and Willis W. Pratt, eds., Byron's Don Juan: A_ Variorum Edition, 2nd. ed. (Austin, Texas: Univ. of Texas Press, 1971), U, p. 35, (I. 27. 2-4). H ereafter cited parenthetically by canto, stanza, and line. Lady Byron, like Inez, hired a physician to determine whether her husband was sane. 30 A fter her separation from Byron, Lady Byron wrote to Augusta Leigh, "I deem it my duty to God to act as I am acting" (February 14, 1816, cited in Steffan and Pratt, IV, p. 28, n. 27:7).

i l l Details of the actual battle are drawn from the Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau's Essai sur l'Histoire Ancienne et Moderne de la Nouvelle Russie. 32 These sections of Don Juan give rise to the idea that Byron sought to emphasize the inappropriateness of war and slaughter as subjects of any poetry—heroic or not. See Ridenour and Lauber. 179

33 Cf. Ariosto's similar, frequent discussions in Orlando Furioso. 34 It should be noted that the Dedication was suppressed during Byron's lifetime but quickly gained notoriety shortly after his death.

he Waddington opposed the war with France in 1795 and supported the French Revolution; Watson advocated communistic views. 36 Noted by Leslie A. Marchand, ed. Don Juan, by Lord Byron (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1958), p. 481, n. 1: 1. 37 See P ratt (Byron's Don Juan: A Variorum Edition), IV, p. 171, n. 18: 8, where he quotes from Byron's note: ~"A fact: see the Waterloo Gazettes. I recollect remarking at the time to a friend:—'There is fame! a man is killed, his name is Grose, and they print it Grove.' I was at college with the deceased, who was a very amiable and clever man. ..."

33 Noteworthy throughout Don Juan is Byron's recurrent return to the stomach—perhaps he does so to offset and therefore emphasize starvation among so many people who stand in contrast to those he mocks for their pretentiousness and blindness to the sufferings of others. His emphasis on feasts also serves his mock-heroic purpose—in the epic, according to C.M. Bowra (The Romantic Imagination. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1949), "the notice which poets take of food and drink is a tribute to the physical virtues of their heroes"—feasts are also a sign of "princely generosity and splendour" and are thus treated with style and dignity. Byron's attention to feasts directly undermines rather than elaborates his characters.

39 Cf. Ariosto's opening lines of his Orlando Furioso and also, as Pratt points out (Byron's Don Juan: A Variorum Edition. IV, p. 271, n. 25: 1), Frere's The Monks and the Giants and the opening line of the Aeneid.

4° Samuel Putman, in the Introduction to his translation and edition of Don Quixote (The Portable Cervantes. 1976; rpt. n.p.: Penguin Books, 1983), accuses Byron of popularizing "one of the most widespread misconceptions" of this work. He claims that Cervantes was not attacking the chivalry Byron says he "smiled away," but a "false and aestheticaUy repugnant variety of tale that had grown up around the subject of knighthood" (p. 29).

^ Steffan points out in his discussion of the poem that Adeline—and Henry—are "the most valid and credible individuals" in the work—"their development shows no decline of literary power, but a larger awareness of human complexity" (I, p. 273). I agree with him regarding Adeline, but not Henry, who is, I believe, consistently mocked. Clubbe and Lovell (English Romanticism: The Grounds of Belief) compare Byron, the man of mobilite 180

(the term he coined to characterize Adeline's behavior), to Adeline, seeing both as figures who play roles according to circumstances they confront. See also Edward E. Bostetter's The Romantic Ventriloquists (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1975) for a discussion of these characters as among the most complex in the poem.

^ Many critics have focused on Julia in their discussions. Ernest J. Lovell ("Irony and Image in Byron's Don Juan") very clearly addresses the ambiguity often apparent in Byron's presentation of characters. He points up the contradictory suggestions about Julia's situation—is she a "hypocritical self-deceiver" or a "woman betrayed . . . into marriage with an old man"—a "tragically pathetic figure or a comically shrew-tongued termagant" (p. 138). Jerome McGann (Don Juan in Context) sees Julia as "a special focus of Byron's sympathy because she must pay dearly for her Romantic desires" (p. 124). A somewhat less sympathetic view of her is presented by Ridenour, who writes that Julia moves from an innocent obviously trying to conceal passion to a hard, dishonest schemer (p. 78). Both Lovell ("Irony and Image in Byron's Don Juan") and Steffan (Byron's Don Juan: A_ Variorum Edition. I) very carefully take into account the contradictory suggestions inherent in Byron's characters (Steffan sees even Suwarrow as somewhat sympathetically posited). Bloom's comments about Julia, Adeline, and Gulbeyaz, in particular, are more often condemning.

43 Shelley praised Julia's letter for its display of human feelings and saw it as a "masterpiece," but Pratt points out that it may have had a specific source—Madame de Stael's De L'influence des passions (1796) and also her Corinne. Ch. 5. He adds that Alaric Watts (Literary Gazette. Feb. 24, 1821, p. 123) cites Byron's passage (I. 194. 1-8) as an example of plagiarism (Byron's Don Juan: A Variorum Edition. IV, p. 45, n. 194: 1-8). Even though it probably is a paraphrase of de Stael's moral essay rather than an altogether original piece, the letter does, nonetheless, as Shelley claims, suggest real, individual feelings and consequently creates a sympathetic portrayal of Julia. According to Andrew Rutherford (Byron: _A Critical Study), "Here Byron passes far beyond his man-of-the-world cynicism, for although he sees adulterous intrigue as comedy . . . he can also see the element of tragedy it may involve, and instead of treating this case merely as a joke, he shows what it had meant for the victim" (p. 154).

^ Steffan (Byron's Don Juan: _A Variorum Edition) says of Lambro: "Byron strives to complicate him, to make him a man of the world, yet out of it, and powerfully independent of it, a victim of his times but rebellious against them, a pirate and still a patriot, savage but self-controlled, a tough, prosperous merchant of special refinement and sensitivity" (I, p. 203).

45 Lovell ("Irony and Image in Byron's Don Juan") sees Zoe as an 181

important complement to Haidee, "enabling Byron to avoid overspiritualizing the romantic love of Juan and Haid&e" (p. 134). For a contrasting view, see Hirsch and Rutherford for discussions of Haidee as Byron's "tribute" to the ideal.

46 Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism : Four Essays (1957; rpt. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), p. 228.

4^ Jerome McGann (Fiery Dust: Byron's Poetic Development. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1968) discusses Byron's emphasis on the physical in terms of his distinguishing himself from his contemporaries. Because Byron's "principal adversaries are moralists who denigrate the flesh for the spirit, his pronouncements generally emphasize the corporeality of the spirit. So he speaks of love and beauty as subject to the dominion of purely biological urges, or knowledge and intellect to good or bad meals, or drinks. But {_the basic point is} that flesh and spirit are inseparable" (298).

4® For opposing views, see Cooke, Ridenour, and Kernan; all are more critical of Juan, particularly in these battle scenes, and overall as well.

49 Stef fan's view of the Duchess (Byron's Don Juan: A Variorum Edition) differs from that presented here—he sees her as representative of English Society, bearing its worst traits. She is, he says, "the most irresponsible and in some ways the most typical" (I, p. 271). Although she uses illusion as a cover, as a disguise for salvation, I do not see Byron's presentation of her as negative—she serves, in contrast to the others, in fact, to bring out the vitality and free-spiritedness they so obviously lack. This view is shared by Edward E. Bostetter, who says the Duchess, though she "represents the kind of Lustful Lady with whom he was altogether too well acquainted," i.e. Caroline Lamb, "she is presented with Chaucerian gusto and evident enjoyment. None of these (English) characters is a hypocrite" (249).

Robert F. Gleckner (Byron and the Ruins of Paradise. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967) posits Byron as a hero in Don Juan for a very different reason. He believes that the poem presents a desolate, ruined world incapable of being saved, and Byron, in response to such a world and to the absence of a solution to "heal the wounds of man, or of his own shattered being," assumed a voice more heroic than that of any of his heroes. (.This voice) sings neither dirge or triumph, but articulates the enduring agony of a residual humanity to whom the only courage is to endure the heart's continual shattering and to die a man, not an animal" (351).

91 Steffan (Byron's Don Juan: A Variorum Edition) sees in Byron's satire a kind of attitude that does, however, call to mind Ariosto's less severe treatment of heroic ideals. He sees Byron as waxing "sentimental": "There 182

must be one good deed among the atrocities at Ismail, and so Juan rescues Leila. The mind must delight to lose itself in Haidee, in the prolonged dream idyl of natural love, and in Aurora, even while it knows that they will be smashed, and must linger tenderly over Julia's desolate letter, over dying sons and bereaved fathers, in the long boat, over Daniel Boone, and over the scarlet girl waiting with the constable for Lord Henry. So, too, Byron has to soften his most hardened souls. Lambro loves his homeland, music, the streams, and his daughter. Gulbeyaz, Suwarrow, and Johnson are given twinges of gentleness and kind sympathy" (I, p. 289). Brian Wilke (Romantic Poets and Epic Tradition) also presents a contrasting view to mine. He sees Byron as believing heroic ideals are dreams, but "although the dream was based on false values, it nevertheless could be bracing and invigorating. He could not nor would not abandon any of these conflicting views" (218). C. M. Bowra holds a similar view, believing that though ideals in Don Juan are presented as dreams, Byron remained devoted to them "despite the ordeal of facts and his own corroding skepticism" (172). See also Peter J. Manning's Byron and His Fictions (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1978), where he writes, "Don Juan shows that fictions are necessary to organize reality, and that they can do so only when seen as fictions" (332). In my view, Byron emphasizes the positive value of reality, as he perceives and defines it in the poem. He is not concerned, I argue, with reducing the effect of some of his harsher scenes by presenting heroic values somewhat positively, but strives, instead, to draw out those aspects of ordinary human existence that can reassure us, despite the fact that we live in an unknowable, mutable world. Thus, rather than indulging in sentimental fictions destined to give way to the harsh reality of the world, Byron emphasizes the positive—and tangible—in the reality itself.

CO Cf. Ariosto's discussion of love as less than ideal for both men and women as it is explored in Chapter Two. 53 Leslie A. Marchand, in his Byron's Poetry: A Critical Introduction, Riverside Studies in Literature, ed. Gordon N. Ray (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965), points out in his discussion of the Dedication of Don Juan that Byron was not so angry with the poets he criticized (particularly Southey and Wordsworth) not to play with them—he had fun, in other words, in the process of deflating them (p. 168). Most critics, however, argue that Byron's anger was very real and very seriously leveled against many of his contemporaries. Jerome J. McGann (Don Juan in Context) stresses this point most cogently. "Don Juan was begun as an assault upon the degenerate poetical manners of his age," he writes, and was intended first, "to correct the degenerate literary practices of the day; and second, to expose the social corruption which supports such practices" (p. 63 and p. 65). Byron's objection to his contemporary poets, then, specifically to the Lakers, was initially stylistic but led into a condemnation of the political, ethical debasement he felt grew out 183

of their literary practices. Specifically, according to McGann, the Lakers' "tendency to establish Imagination as a new absolute, the human possession of what was once thought a Divine Right, was the object of Byron's attack" (p. 148). Byron believed "the office of the poet is not divine, as the Lakers had suggested, but human" (p. 175, n. 19)—in his view, the individual must be a social being, not a Romantic isolationist (p. 149). Ernest J. Lovell, Jr. contends in his Byron: The Record of a Quest: Studies in a Poet's Concept and Treatment of Nature (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1949) that Byron was hostile to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and, to a lesser degree, Keats because he felt they were responsible for the "depreciation of Pope" (55), and M.G. Cooke claims that Byron's contempt for Wordsworth resulted from a conflict of power—"Byron is bidding for a new independence and authority as a poet, challenging alike poetic tradition and English social custom, and Wordsworth is the one he sees as the figure to reckon with" ("Byron and Wordsworth: The Complementarity of a Rock and the Sea," in Lord Byron and His Contemporaries: Essays from the Sixth International Byron Seminar, ed. Charles E. Robinson, London: Associated Univ. Presses, Inc., 1982), p. 22. See also Ridenour, Willis W. P ratt's "Byron and Some Current Patterns of Thought," in The Major English Romantic Poets: _A Symposium in Reappraisal, ed. Clarence D. Thorpe et al. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1957), and Rutherford for discussions of Byron's criticisms of the Lakers.

^ In fairness to Wordsworth, it should be pointed out that Byron's appraisal of him sometimes reveals his own "misreading" more than—or as well as—the fault for which he attacks his contemporary. Jerome McGann addresses this issue, however, and supports Byron in Fiery Dust: Byron's Poetic Development, where he writes, "English moralists . . . refuse to embrace {.the} corporeality {.of flesh and spirit}—Southey and Wordsworth are their poetic equivalents—and hence they too miss their humanity. Byron seeks to mediate these attitudes with a more comprehensive view" (297). Byron saw his "purpose and function as scientific (in complete contrast with the other Romantics)," according to Edward E. Bostetter; "he wanted to do as much by poesy as Newton by science through his scrupulous adherence to facts" (294).

Pratt writes (Byron's Don Juan: A Variorum Edition). "Luis de Gongora y Argote (1561-1627) introduced a highly affected type of diction and style into Spanish literature, hence Gongorism." Giovanni Battista Marini (1569-1625) was "a Neapolitan poet whose works are notable for their flamboyance and bad taste" (IV, p. 6, n. VoL II, p. 14). re Jerome J. McGann (Don Juan in Context) discusses well the incomprehensibility of the world in terms ofhow it is expressed in the poem's form. 184

See Willis W. Pratt's "Byron and Some Current Patterns of Thought" for a good discussion of this point. He says Byron "becomes more and more self-assertive and insistent that in the face of the 'irreconcilable complexities of life, to be honest is to admit how little we know of ultimate values, especially in relation to the ever-expanding truths of physical science" (p. 159). Similar views are expressed by Edward E. Bostetter, who writes that Byron was chiefly concerned with emphasizing the importance of an awareness and understanding of one's human nature as a means of addressing faults, and by Seamus Cooney ("Satire without Dogma: Byron's Don Juan," Ball State University Forum, IX, No. 2, 1968, 26-30), who asserts that "the intellectual principle of Don Juan is doubt, and its moral principle is thus the only one which a lack of dogma leaves secure—sincerity, fidelity to things as they are, to oneself as one is, good or bad" (27). Jerom e McGann (Fiery Dust) very clearly and convincingly elaborates on the idea of Byron's affirmation of tolerance and forgiveness. 58 Hirsch ("Byron and the Terrestrial Paradise" in From Sensibility to Romanticism) sees Byron's laughter in the poem as "an expression or his allegiance to the actual world in spite of its imperfections" (p. 484). William J. Calvert also emphasizes humor in Don Juan, seeing the poem as "fundamentally a humorous production" (Byron; Romantic Paradox, Chapel Hill: The Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1935, p. 189). I agree with many of his premises, though I do feel he tends to overemphasize humor as the basic characteristic of Byron's poem. On Byron's overall affirmation of life, see Ernest J. Lovell, Jr.'s Byron: The Record of a Quest, and Alvin B. Kernan's The Plot of Satire. Kernan's discussion is particularly insightful in its focus on the "flow" of life as the center of Don Juan. His distinctions between Juan and Byron and among comedy, satire, and tragedy are very persuasively argued. For a view that emphasizes the desolation of life as Byron's focus rather than its affirmation, see Robert F. Gleckner's Byron and the Ruins of Paradise. He feels the poem is not moral: "Fundamentally, it has to do not with morality or immorality but with nothingness, with a world devoid of value and humanity, a world in which even the "good" (in any sense) quickly destroys itself in its very effort to be what it is” (332). CHAPTER FOUR: THE QUEST BROUGHT HOME

I

Sir Thomas Malory, unlike Ludovico Ariosto in Orlando Furioso and Lord

Byron in Don Juan, does not overtly guide readers' responses to Le Morte

Darthur. As narrator, he appears almost to be absent from the work—he does not, as Ariosto and Byron do, frequently call attention to himself or to his views of the characters and actions he describes. It is thus difficult to place the work because we have no consistent, clearly defined basis on which to evaluate specific characters, their involvements, and their attitudes. 1 Of the th ree texts exaflnined, Le Morte Darthur participates most fully in the romance genre—it, more than Orlando Furioso, for example, is distinguished by courtoisie—the personal and absolute ideal that gives shape to a dreamlike, fairy world unqualified by historical, political reality. ^ Beautiful women appear spontaneously to see their lovers slain and lament their loss, hermits are conveniently located to respond to the needs of errant knights, "good men" interpret confusing visions and conjure, knights engage in numerous quests,

185 186

letters of gold and blood appear on tombs, ships, and even the chairs of the

Round Table, and characters are magically displaced from one location to an­

other. King Arthur's hall hosts marvelous deeds from unknown men and

women on feasts and holy days when quests originate, and castles transform

themselves before the eyes of the knights who dwell there or provide for them

a number of fantastic experiences, such as those encountered by Bors in the

Castle Adventures. Knights also confront the mythological questing beast and

witness the Lady of the Lake, Joseph of Arimathea, and the four-hundred year

old Evelake (Mordrains).

But Malory modifies the romance genre as well—not, as Ariosto does, by

openly playing with and mocking some of its conventions, but by creating a

world that eludes traditional characterization. No invocations or introductory

comments guide us, and the figures presented throughout the text are not

primarily one-dimensional, analogous to the "black and white chess pieces"

Northrop Frye compares romance figures to in order to emphasize their moral

opposition. Instead, they are recognizably human, confronting dilemmas in

more realistic, psychologically complete ways than conventional heroes and

heroines. Their conflicts are not easily defined or resolved, and their goals

not easily—or not ever—achieved. Although they strive to do well and to

uphold the chivalric ideals that give shape to a utopian world, they frequently

fail, and they are not consistently capable of controlling the events around

them. This inability is the source of extensive discussion among Malory's critics, who attempt to reconcile it with the romance genre Le Morte Darthur 187

evokes. Eugene Vinaver and Larry D. Benson both qualify tragic overtones

they identify in the work that result from characters' unrealized aspirations.

Vinaver states that the outcome of the Morte, the dominating theme of the

last book, is

a tragic conflict of two loyalties, both deeply rooted in the medieval conception of knightly service: on the one hand, the heroic loyalty of man to man . . . on the other, the blind devotion of the knight-lover to his lady.. . . The clash between these conceptions of human love and service is neither an accident nor a caprice of destiny; It is inherent in the very structure of medieval idealism.

But he diminishes the importance of the Grail Quest as the ultimate test of

knights' worth when he says that Malory's attitude to the French Queste del

Saint Graal was that

of a man to whom the quest of the Grail was primarily an Arthurian adventure and who regarded the intrusion of the Grail upon Arthur's kingdom not as a means of contrasting earthly and divine chivalry and condemning the former, but as an opportunity offered to the knights of the Round Table to achieve still greater glory in this w orld. . . .

He claims that Malory had little use for the interpretation of the Grail as the

"final and irrevocable test of good and evil and the triumph of heavenly over

earthly chivalry... . while (he) is perfectly serious about the nobility of

Lancelot and of Arthurian chivalry, he is simply not concerned with the yet higher law which cuts across the courtly world in the Grail books."5 188

Benson claims in his discussion of the last three tales in Le Morte

Darthur that they are "rich in historical causes for the final disaster, and so

long as we read them with an eye to historical cause and effect we find good

evidence for considering the Morte Darthur a tragedy, with Arthur and his

knights suffering the just consequences of their own sins."® But he adds that

"interwoven with the historical tragic narrative is a thematic 'comic'

narrative, one of 'joye and great solace,' that leads to the vindication of

Arthurian chivalry. .. . Arthur's fall is at once a punishment for his sins, true

to the history, and a 'worshipful' end, true to the chivalric ideal.He

concludes by pointing out that the tone of the last book is not only tragic but

one of

forgiveness, of final joy, and it shows the ultimate triumph of virtue over vice, if not in the world at large at least in the protagonists themselves. Arthur, Gawain, Guenevere, and Lancelot all bear part of the guilt for the tragic fall of the Round Table, yet all four are forgiven and we see each for the last time not as a sinful and flawed tragic figure but as an exemplar of virtue finally rewarded for faithfulness to love or chivalry.

The elements of tragedy, then, "are held in suspension, never quite coming Q together to produce a tragic effect."

Le Morte Darthur's complex tone is also addressed by Helaine Newstead, who writes in "Malory and Romance" that the "diversity of incident in the whole long work fails to obscure the outline of medieval tragedy in the rise and fall of the Arthurian world. Its values are embodied in the Round Table 189 fellowship in the secular virtues of prowess, loyalty, and honor expressed in terms of action and public significance."10 She emphasizes the loss of a

Golden Age as the central focus of Malory's work:

to be aware of the heroic strain in Malory is to understand much in his work that runs counter to the spirit of romance, for to Malory the story of Arthur had the dignity of history. Looking back upon the historic past, he conveys the truth of the experience as he understood it by expressing the sense of profound loss that is the only response to the passing of splendor.11

A view similar to hers in its focus on characters' failure to achieve the highest spiritual quest and consequent isolation from an idealized community is found in Richard Altick's discussion of Le Morte Darthur. which is, he says, "replete with 'open manslaughter and bold bawdry,' but there is no question that

Malory was also sincerely concerned to exalt the virtues of the Christian chivalric code."1^ He claims that we

can not doubt that under the spell of the books {_Malory} read and the tales he found coming to life again under his hand he was deeply stirred by the meaning of the ideals he had violated. He was great enough to know them as impossible in a frail and tempting world, but he also knew—who better than the man who could not follow them?—how truly the fact that we cannot follow them is the stuff of human tragedy. Lancelot caught to the very end in his unhappy tangle of divided loves, Guenevere afraid to accept a final kiss, Bedivere fumbling between love for Arthur and greed for Excaliber—these are the final pictures of a man whose vision of reality simply transcended the vulgar counsel of Caxton.1^ 190

Inherent in these critics' viewpoints of Le Morte Darthur is the idea that

Malory affirms heroic values and characters' aspirations to idealized exis­ tence. Benson, for example, asserts that "Malory and his contemporaries were convinced that there was indeed such a _chivalric code, a definite set of ideas and practices that defined what they called the High Order to Knight­ hood. "15 "Le Morte Darthur is in the tradition of other fifteenth-century ro­ mances . . . handbooks of noble conduct designed to instruct their readers in the ways of chivalry by means of examples of proper and improper con­ duct."!® Arthurian romance, as Vinaver sees it, was to Malory "a record of the heroic past of England."1^ Malory found no patriotic ambition in the

"French books" that were his sources, he explains, and thus supplemented them with his own comments on what he called "the high order of knight­ hood." The heroic ideal and heroic deeds were those "performed in the ser­ vice of a great kingdom."1® Malory

upholds knighthood, not as an ideal remote from re­ ality . . . but as an issue of immediate interest.. . IThus the work lacks} the light-heartedness of romance Jas well as} the doctrinal poise of a moral treatise: its dom­ inating feature is the kind of earnestness one usually as­ sociates with early epic. He was from first to last in earnest about knighthood as a fellowship controlled by the authority and the example of a great king, and out of his miscellaneous material he succeeded in extracting a tale of heroic chivalry . . .

Malory himself, in certain of the comments he does provide, seems to uphold exalted virtues. In the famous "lusty moneth of May" passage, for ex­ ample, he faults his contemporaries for their inability to behave according to 191

them:

But nowadayes men can nat love sevennyght but they muste have all their desyres. That love may nat endure by reson, for where they bethe sone accorded and hasty, heete sone keelyth. And ryght so faryth the love nowadayes, sone hote sone colde. Thys ys no stabylyte. But the olde love was nat so. For men and women coude love togydirs seven yerys, and no lycoures lustis was betwyxte them, and than was love trouthe and faythefulnes. And so in lyke wyse was used such love in kynge Arthurs dayes. Wherefore I lykken love nowadays unto sommer and wynter: for, lyke as the tone ys colde and the othir ys hote, so faryth love nowadayes. And therefore all ye that be lovers, calle unto youre remembraunce the monethe of May, lyke as ded quene Gwenyver, for whom I make here a lytyll mencion, that whyle she lyved she was a trew lover, and therefor she had a good ende.^O

Similarly, when speaking of the fickleness among Arthur's subjects he points out the folly among the present-day English:

Lo ye all Englysshemen, se ye nat what a myschyff here was? For he that was the moste kynge and nobelyst knyght of the worlde, and moste loved the felyshyp of noble knyghtes, and by hym they all were upholdyn, and yet myght nat thes Englyshemen holde them contente with hym. Lo thus was the olde custom and usayges of thys londe, and men say that we of thys londe have nat yet loste that custom. Alas! thys ys a greate defaughte of us Englysshemen, for there may no thynge us please no terme. (708)

He appeals to, and therefore appears to affirm, a higher power against which all human actions should be measured. In his requests for mercy, he suggests that all inabilities to lift oneself spiritually and morally are failures that 192

merit penance. The writing of Le Morte Darthur is itself a moral act aimed

at his own redemption and, implicitly, at the moral elevation of others: "WHO

THAT WOLL MAKE ONY MORE LETTE HYM SEKE OTHER BOOKIS OF

KYNGE ARTHURE OR OF SIR LAUNCELOT OR SIR TRYSTRAMS; FOR

THIS WAS DRAWYN BY A KNYGHT PRESONER, SIR THOMAS

MALLEORRE, THAT GOD SENDE HYM GOOD RECOVER. AMEN" (110). He

makes the same point again when he writes at the end of The Book of Sir

Tristram de Lyones;

BUT HERE FOLOWYTH THE NOBLE TALE OFF THE SANKEGREALL, WHYCHE CALLED YS THE HOLY VESSELL AND THE SYGNYFYCACION OF BLYSSED BLOODE OFF OURE LORDE JESU CRYSTE, WHYCHE WAS BROUGHT INTO THYS LONDE BY JOSEPH OFF ARAMATHYE. THEREFORE ON ALL SYNFULL, BLYSSED LORDE, HAVE ON THY KNYGHT MERCY. AMEN. (511)

Malory's focus on Christ and on the exaltation of spiritual values suggests that human behavior is most positive when it is most idealized, and that an individual's proper goal is redemption through this kind of spiritual elevation.

His conclusion to The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur saunz Guerdon encourages us to affirm idealized values and to see the work in their terms:

I PRAYE YOU ALL JENTYLMEN AND JENTYLWYMMEN THAT REDETH THIS BOOK OF ARTHUR AND HIS KNYGHTES FROM THE BEGYNNYNG TO THE ENDYNGE, PRAYE FOR ME WHYLE I AM ON LYVE THAT GOD SENDE ME GOOD DELYVERAUNCE. AND WHAN I AM DEED, I PRAYE YOU ALL PRAYE FOR MY SOULE. 193

FOR THIS BOOK WAS ENDED THE NINTH YERE OF THE REYGNE OF KYNG EDWARD THE FOURTH, BY SYR THOMAS MALEORfe, KNYGHT, AS JESU HELPE HYM FOR HYS GRETE MYGHT, AS HE IS THE SERVAUNT OF JESU BOTHE DAY AND NYGHT. (726)

The Grail section of Le Morte Darthur makes this emphasis on uplifted

behavior additionally apparent. Galahad, Percival, and Bors succeed in their

search for the Sankgrail despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles because

of their innate perfection. Their experiences suggest that the highest goal is

most appropriately identification with or emulation of the Creator, and the

completion of their quests appears to posit them as exalted figures whose

behavior and attitudes ought to be the focus of other characters' aspirations,

as weU as of our own. The stories about Gareth and Beau Maynes parallel the

Grail section in that they present chivalric ideals positively. Both characters

overcome the obstacles they encounter, endure the chastisements their ladies

burden them with on their quests, win the favor of their opponents , and gain

universal recognition for the noble, chivalrous knights they are. Their stories

end similarly, Gareth wedded to the beautiful Lyonesse, the object of his quest, and Brewnor to Malydysaunte. The comic society triumphs, establishing the new, innately noble and idealized community we affirm.

Caxton draws out this emphasis on idealized behavior in his Preface, of course, which has contributed to our expectations about the exalted nature of

Arthur in particular and of the work itself. He encourages readers to perceive

Arthur as a great and moral leader by naming him the most renowned 194

Christian king and the first of the three Christian worthies. His presentation

of Arthur borders on the mythical, though he does focus somewhat on why we

should perceive Arthur as a reality—"no man is acceptjed} for a prophete in

his owne contreye" (xiv). Caxton presents the work as a serious, moralistic

treatise when he writes: "But al is wryton for our doctryne, and for to beware

that we falle not to vyee ne synne, but t'exersyse and folowe vertu, by whyche

we may come and atteyne to good fa m e . . . and after thys shorte and

transytorye lyf to come unto everlastyng blysse in heven ..." (xv). He draws

out of Le Morte Darthur the exalted and uplifted values that tend to char­

acterize a straight romance and claims that Arthur, as a model of all virtue,

and his knights can teach us moral lessons by means of their experiences.

We can also see in Le Morte Darthur. however, a pull away from

upholding ideals as standards against which to measure characters' behavior.

Though the narrator is not defined as concretely or deliberately as those dom­

inating Orlando Furioso and Don Juan and therefore does not identify directly

with his characters in order to illuminate their positive traits, he does suggest

to us ways of responding to these figures. Occasional commentary,

modification of sources, and descriptions of the Round Table community

invite us to sympathize with his characters despite their failures and limitations. His descriptions of the love triangle among Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot make this positive view particularly apparent. He leads our attention away from the idea of sin and redirects it, implying we should be more benevolent and tolerant. We commiserate with Guinevere in the con­ 195 vent, for example, not because we are called on to approve of her penitence but because we are encouraged to perceive the painful nature of her sit­ uation. The narrator provokes this response in us through the dialogue he creates between Guinevere and Lancelot in their final scenes together. Guin­ evere beseeches her former lover "for all the love that ever was betwyxt

{.them}: . . . never to "se £her Jin the visayge. And {.she} commaunde[s Hhirn}, on Goddis behalff, Ito} forsakeCher} company" (720). The narrator guides our positive response to the couple when he comments: "And they departed; but there was never so harde an herted man but he wold have wepte to see the do­ lour that they made, for there was lamentacyon as they had be stungyn wyth sperys, and many tymes they swouned" (721). Our attention is also directed away from the issue of adultery by being focused, instead, on the villainy of

Aggravaine and Mordred. The narrator tells us,

so . . . hit befelle in the moneth of May a grete angur and unhappe that stynted nat tylle the floure of chyvalry of alle the worlde was destroyed and slayne. And all was longe uppon two unhappy knyghtis whych were named sir Aggravayne and sir Mordred, that were brethirn unto sir Gawayne. For thys sir Aggravayne and sir Mordred had ever a prevy hate unto the quene, dame Gwenyver, and to sir Launcelot; and dayly and nyghtly they ever wacched uppon sir Launcelot. (673)

This comment encourages us not to disapprove of Lancelot or Guinevere for moral transgressions but to perceive them, and Arthur as well, as victims of malevolent intentions. The narrator's emphasis at the end of the Morte on the conflict created among Lancelot, Gawain, and Arthur by Gareth's death 196

contributes to his less condemnatory presentation of the adulterous lovers.

The major complication to be dealt with in the final book is reconciliation

among these three knights, not reparation for the sin Lancelot and Guinevere

share. Malory elicits our sympathy for the characters in the love triangle at

this point when he comments,

the Freynsh booke seyth kynge Arthur wolde have takyn hys quene agayne and {.would} have bene accorded with sir Launcelot, but sir Gawayne wolde nat suffir hym by no maner of meane. And so sir Gawayne made many men to blow uppon sir Launcelot, and so all at onys they called hym 'false recrayed knyght.' (689-690)

Lancelot retains his honor, as we see when he willingly returns Guinevere to

the king, and is not presented negatively. The narrator describes him

favorably: "So whan sir Launcelot saw the kynge and sir Gawayne, than he lad

the quene by the arme, and than he kneled downe and the quene bothe. Wyte

you well, than was there many a bolde knyght wyth kynge Arthur that wepte

as tendirly as they had seyne all their kynne dede afore them!" (694).

Malory's descriptions of Palomides also lead us away from perceiving

him negatively for failing to maintain the chivalric, spiritual code. A Saracen

whose beliefs automatically exclude him from the community of affirmed

Christian knights, Palomides frequently cannot control his emotions and persistently and annoyingly picks at Tristram because of his jealousy over

Tristram's affair with La Beale Isode. At the Tournament at Lonezep, he is 197 severely rebuked by the other knights for unchivalrous conduct when he allows

Lancelot to take his place in battle against Tristram, knowing that Lancelot does not recognize his opponent. His betrayal of Tristram is clear to his companions, who call him "envyous" and to queen Guinevere, who claims,

"Than shall he never wynne worshyp. . . for and hyt happyn an envyous man onys to wynne worshyp, he shall be dishonoured twyse therefore. And for this cause all men of worshyp hate an envyous man and woll shewe hym no favoure, and he that ys curteyse and kynde and jantil hath favoure in every place" (466). But certain of the narrator's descriptions somewhat mollify our condemnation of Palomides for his failure to behave chivalrously. He tells us that after Palomides leaves Lonezep, he

rode wyth . . . two kynges, and ever he made the grettyst dole that ony man cowde thynke, for he was nat all only so dolorous for the departynge frome La Beall Isode, but he was as sorowful a parte to go frome the felyshyp of sir Trystram. For he was so kynde and so jantyll that whan sir Palomydes remembyrd hym thereof he myght never be myrry. (465)

The interactions Palomides shares with Tristram are complex, and Malory invites us to approach the Saracen somewhat compassionately as a character who perceives this complexity and genuinely suffers from his inability to overcome his emotional conflicts. Such a presentation of Palomides is apparent in the comments he makes about himself: 198

'the laste dayLof the Tournament, La Beale Isode}gaff me the grettyst rebuke that ever I had, whyche shall never go fro my harte. And yet I well deservyd that rebuke, for I ded nat knyghtly, and therefore I have loste the love of her and of sir Trystram for ever.. . . And alas! now have I loste all the worshyp that ever I wanne, for never shall befalle me suche proues as I had in the felyshyp of sir Trystram.1 (467)

We are not directed primarily to judge Palomides harshly because he fails to uphold the chivalrous code but to perceive him sympathetically because he recognizes his limitations and continually confronts them.

Malory's characterizations throughout the text—his use of dialogue—together with his comments and source revisions, provoke from readers complex, sometimes contradictory responses to the Arthurian community.21 Through these means, he suggests certain psychological depth and motivations among his characters, a point very well demonstrated by

Peter R. Schroeder in "Hidden Depths: Dialogue and Characterization in

Chaucer and Malory."22 Malory's descriptions of characters render them less removed from the world of our own experience by calling up recognizably human attitudes and feelings among them, and thus draw upon us to empathize with these figures. Yet his attention to their inabilities to live up to heroic ideals leads us to ask some of the same questions we confront in Orlando

Furioso and Don Juan. While it is true he does not undercut his characters as openly as Ariosto and Byron do, he does expose their limited capabilities and perceptions and focus on the complications that result in their lives because of them. In contrast to the two poems, the mock heroic is largely suggested 199 in Malory's text, but it is nonetheless frequently elicited. As in Orlando

Furioso and Don Juan, however, though indicated more indirectly, Malory appears to undermine the apparent heroic natures of the characters, not to mock them for their failure to maintain exalted statures but to emphasize throughout that their aspirations to be exalted do not meet the realities of their world. They tend continually to expect to exceed human limitations, and they fail. We see these failures, but the work does not ask us to condemn the characters because of them. Instead, we are asked to see that the ideals to which they aspire are not always valid goals or standards, that the world these characters populate is ambiguous and arbitrary, and that they are most powerful and more empathetic when they recognize, as we do, their human limitations. Thus the human quality associated with them, so frequently cited as the source of their failure, is, in fact, the quality for which they are celebrated. Imperfect, Gawain, Arthur, and Lancelot, in particular, engage us more directly and sympathetically than the successful Grail knights, who represent the spiritual ideals we might assume are the affirmed center of

Malory's narrative. We are led to uphold these characters because they redirect their perceptions—not primarily because they are good characters in spite of their spiritual limitations by having been chivalrous knights. Malory's comments and descriptions invite us to consider characters in these terms rather than to evaluate them according to how well they uphold heroic and spiritual ideals and thus create a tension between affirming their exalted attitudes and actions and questioning the validity of their aspirations toward 200

idealized behavior.

In the discussion that follows, Malory's modification of the romance as a

genre that affirms idealized existence is demonstrated first as it occurs in the

Grail section of Le Morte Darthur. Succeeding sections of the chapter focus

on two groups of characters who make evident the ironic/affirming pattern

distinguishing Orlando Furioso and Don Juan. After discussing them in the

context of romance, these characters are presented initially according to

Malory's apparent undermining and then by his sympathetic portrayal of them

despite their inability to live exalted lives. He shows us characters who are

forced into situations where they seem to recognize that the only solid base

they have to depend on is themselves and that self-knowledge, which implies

an awareness of both self-limitations and faults, is the most important

accomplishment. In so doing, he uplifts characters who, like us, grapple with

a mutable, unknowable world.

II

The Grail section provides us with an excellent starting point for identifying the tension that characterizes Malory's narrative. Galahad,

Percival, and Bors are all described by the narrator as idealized knights whose spiritual purity (except for Bors' one unchaste spot) enables them to succeed in the Grail quest. They are presented through these descriptions and comments and through Christ's address to them as the most exalted figures in 201

the narrative. Galahad is a saint-like figure capable of performing miracles

and is the long awaited fulfillment of a p r o p h e c y .23 He dispels the fiend in a

churchyard, demonstrates the power of his virginity by submerging his hand in

and therefore quieting the boiling water of a well, and pieces together through

his touch the broken sword by which Joseph of Arimathea was stricken

through the thigh. Percival, too, is idealized early on in the narrative. He is

"the noble knyght and Goddes knyght" (377) whose exalted nature is evident,

as it is in Galahad, in his encounters and adventures and through the narrator's

overt comments. When Percival and Ector fight, wounding each other

gravely, the narrator says, "And than he kneled downe and made hys prayer

devoutely unto Allmyghty Jesu, for he was one of the beste knyghtes of the

worlde at that tyme, in whom the verrey fayth stoode moste in" (495).

Percival and Bors also successfully contend with the fiend. After being

tempted by a "jantillwoman" who was "the mayster fyende of helle" (551),

Percival saves himself through making the sign of the cross and immediately

the pavilion turns upside down and changes into black cloud and smoke. Bors

has a similar experience when after blessing himself he hears a tremendous

noise "as all the fyndys of helle had bene aboute hym" (571). The tower,

woman, and the chapel to which he brought his brother all disappear, and he

exclaims, "Fayre swete Lorde Fadir and God in hevyn, I am grevously ascaped!" (571). The narrator affirms Percival by telling us: " ... as the tale

tellith, he was at that tyme, one of the men of the worlde whych moste beleved in oure Lorde Jesu Cryste, for in tho dayes there was but fewe folkes 202 at that tyme that beleved perfitely; for in tho dayes the sonne spared nat the fadir no more than a straunger" (546). Set aside and above others around him,

Percival is distinguished as being special in times when being different in a positive way was, as the narrator tells it, not the commonplace. Bors is described as equally distinct. A good man instructs him he will fulfill the

Grail quest but that there "shall be but fewe of (his) felowis with{ him}"

(564). The narrator adds, "And thys good man founde hym in so m ervales a lyffe and so stable that he felte he was never gretly correpete in fleysshly lustes but in one tyme that he begat Elyan le Blanke" (564).

All three knights are blessed with religious visions accompanied by voices that clarify what they see. When they are finally allowed to witness the Grail, they encounter the most profound spiritual mystery. They wateh an old man, clothed like a bishop, enter, a cross in his hand, accompanied by four angels from heaven, who bear him up in a chair and set him down before the table of silver where the Sankgreal is. In the middle of his forehead are the letters: "Se you here Joseph, the firste bysshop of Crystendom, the same which oure Lorde succoured in the cite of Sarras in the spirituall palleys"

(602). The chamber door opens, and angels enter, two bearing wax candles, the third a towel, and the fourth a bleeding spear, the drops falling into a box he holds with the other hand. The knights witness a man

com oute of the holy vessell that had all the sygnes of the Passion of Jesu Cryste bledynge all opynly, and {say} 'My knyghtes and my servauntes and my trew chyldren which bene com oute of dedly lyff into the 203

spirituall lyff, I woll no lenger cover me frome you, but ye shall se now a parte of my secretes and of my hydde thynges. Now holdith and resseyvith the hyghe order and mete whych ye have so much desired.' (603)

All receive their Savior, and then Christ says to them,

'Thys y s . . . the holy dysshe wherein I ete the lambe on Estir Day, and now hast thou sene that thou moste desired to se. But yet hast thou nat sene hit so opynly as thou shalt se hit in the cite of Sarras, in the spirituall paleyse. Therefore thou must go hense and beare with the thys holy vessell, for this nyght hit shall departe frome the realme of Logrus, and hit shall nevermore be sene here. And knowyst thou wherefore? For he ys nat served nother worshipped to hys ryght by hem of thys londe, for they be turned to evyll lyvyng, and therefore I shall disherite them of the honoure whych I have done them. And therefore go ye three .. . . ' (604)

Galahad then fulfills his destiny—he takes the blood from the spear and heals the maimed knight.

Christ's censure of the Round Table community for their "evyll lyvyng" sets them apart from the Grail knights as depraved figures who fail to uphold spiritual ideals. Their chivalrous preoccupations so thoroughly distract their attention from appropriate goals of behavior that they no longer even merit being in the same realm as the Grail. None of them can hope to be successful in the spiritual quest because their souls are defiled with sin. Their corrupt nature is made apparent in Gawain's dream about a "rake of bullis" (558), which is interpreted by a hermit: 204

. . the fayre medow and the rak therein oughte to be undirstonde the Rounde Table, and by the medow oughte to be undirstonde humility and paciens; For that men mowe no tyme overcom humility and pacience, therefore was the Rounde Table founden, and the shevalry hath ben at all tymes so hyghe by the fraternite which was there that she myght nat be overcom: for men seyde she was founded in paciens and in humilitd. At the rack ete an hondred and fyffty bullys, but they ete nat in the medowe, for if they had, their hartes sholde have bene sette in humilitd and paciens; and the bullis were proude and blacke. ... for their synne and their wyckednesse . . . blackenes ys as much to sey withoute good vertues or workes.' (561)

Galahad, Percival, and Bors are represented by the three bulls that are not black, and they are "tyed by the neckes" because they are "three knyghtes in

virginite and chastite, and there ys no pryde smytten in them"( 5 6 2 ) . In that spiritual purity is the highest aim of the Christian knight, Christ's comments about Arthur's followers seem well founded. Chivalrous concerns detract

from the ultimate quest because they are earth-bound—honor for honor's s a k e . 2 4 The best knights renounce secular aspirations and give themselves over to the will of God. Their highest goal is to adore their Creator by living lives totally devoted to the purification of their souls. Malory's affirmation of spiritually idealized behavior is not, however, so absolute. His comments about and descriptions of the Round Table knights as they pursue chivalrous goals—and do not always succeed in meeting them—frequently do not condemn them. By presenting these figures in a more positive light, he leads us away from accepting the behavior of the Grail knights as the only appropriate measuring stick against which to evaluate Arthur's followers. Through him we 205 are somewhat detached from the ideal the Grail knights represent and made to see the positive interest the narrative holds in human compassion and fellowship and the community that springs up among characters who are visibly imperfect. Bors' return to the Round Table knights after he has seen the Sankgreal creates a connection to them that focuses our attention on their laudable features and directs it away from the Grail quest itself and the perfection it demands of its successful participants. Malory emphasizes Bors1 attachment to Lancelot beyond their familial ties, distinguishing his account somewhat from his sources, and thus suggests the humanness that characterizes Arthurs knights is sympathetic and their acquired self-knowledge affirmed.

Bor^ own humanness, his one unchaste spot, is clearly not a damning trait because he is one of the chosen few to view the Grail. In th at we have been directed by the narrator through Chrises comments to uphold him, we are inclined to accept his evaluations of other characters. Bors frequently and overtly guides our response to them, particularly to Guinevere and

Lancelot. When Galahad joins him and Percival on a blessed ship during their search for the Grail, Bors says to him: "A, sir Galahad . . . if sir Launcelot, your fadir, were here, than were we well at ease, for than mesemed we fayled nothynge" (579). Bors perceives Lancelot positively, and his interactions with him and the queen following the Grail quest indicate even more clearly how much he values Galahad^ father in spite of the latter^ spiritual failings. He does not insist, as we might expect a holy knight to do, that Lancelot end his 206

relationship with Guinevere. Instead, he directs the lovers to see their

behavior accurately and to understand what it implies. He often reprimands

Guinevere for her treatment of Lancelot by pointing out the inconcistencies in her perception of him. When, having banished Lancelot from her company, she beseeches Bors to defend her against the accusation of having murdered

Patrice at her banquet, he responds,

'now mysse ye sir Launcelot, for he wolde nat a fayled you in youre ryght nother in youre wronge, for whan ye have bene in ryght grete daungers he hath succoured you. And now ye have drevyn hym oute of thys contrey by whom ye and all we were dayly worshipped by. Therefore, madame, I mervayle how ye dare for shame to requyre me to do onythynge for you, insomuche ye have enchaced oute of your courte by whom we were up borne and honoured.' (616)

The only reason he finally does agree to do battle for the queen is because of his dedication to Lancelot. This devotion repeatedly motivates him to uphold the knight publicly and to defend him privately to Guinevere. When she hears that Lancelot carried the red sleeve of Elaine of Astolat at the joust at

Wynchester and exclaims to Bors that her lover is a "false, traytoure knyght," he replies,

'I pray you sey ye no more so, for wyte you well I may nat here no such langayge of hym. . . . that slyeve-berynge repentes me, but I dare say he dud beare hit to none evyll entent, but for thys cause he bare the rede slyve that none of hys blood shold know hym. For or than we nother none of us all never knew that ever he bare tokyn or sygne of maydyn, lady, nothir jantillwoman.' (632) 207

Bors supports and consoles Lancelot after the queen banishes him by

instructing him,

'ye shall not departe oute of thys londe by myne advyce, for ye muste remembir you what ye ar, and renomed the moste nobelyst knyght of the worlde, and many grete maters ye have in honde. And women in their hastynesse woll do oftyntymes that aftir hem sore repentith. . . . for many tymys or this {.Guinevere} hath bene wroth with you, and aftir that she was the first that repented hit.' (612)

Bors upholds Lancelot throughout the narrative, and his dedication and

repeated, clear defense of him leads us to affirm him as welL His emphasis

on reconciliation between the knight and queen and on their more accurate,

honest appraisals of each other's behavior draws our attention away from

seeing the affair as a "sin" and focuses it instead upon the sympathetic nature

of their relationship. Bors so profoundly respects and looks up to his cousin

that it is difficult for us to perceive Lancelot as spiritually flawed. The

knight's chivalrous preoccupations do not deter Bors from uplifting him, but,

in fact, enable him to do so. He even encourages Lancelot to become more

"worldly" by allowing himself to become fuUy involved with Elaine. When

Lancelot feels he ought to distance himself from her, Bors says, "Why sholde ye put her frome you? . . . For she ys a passyng fayre damesell, and well besayne and well taught. And God wolde, fayre cousyn . . . that ye eowde love her, but as to that I may nat nother dare nat counceyle you. But I se 208

w e ll. . . by her dyligence aboute you that she lovith you intyerly" (635). Bors'

words emphasize the idea of how little Lancelot knows himself at times and

how little he knows genuine love offered to him. His love for Guinevere is

also upheld, however, in Bors1 characterization of him as a "trew knyght" to

the queen (637). As indicated earlier, the n arrato r himself affirm s Guinevere

for genuinely loving Lancelot when he says, "all ye that be lovers, calle unto

youre remembraunce the monethe of May, lyke as ded quene Gwenyver, for

whom I make here a lytyll mencion, that whyle she lyved she was a trew lover,

and therefor she had a good ende" (649).

Presented in these more positive term s through Malory's comments and

particularly through his characterization of Bors, the relationship between

Lancelot and Guinevere is not primarily an object of condemnation. It is, instead, a means by which Malory can suggest the value of love and community among characters who share and often struggle with human limitations.^ It also invites us to consider self-knowledge as the source of open and honest feelings for others. Such an emphasis on the involvement of characters with one another modifies our affirm ation of the Grail knights as the exalted center of the work because it calls into question the isolation that characterizes them. As well as seeing them as figures who remain separate because they alone are distinguished by spiritual purity, we can also see that their isolation prevents them from actively engaging a community around them. Bors affirms Lancelot as his spiritual guide, a gesture that more directly pulls us away from evaluating A rthur's followers by the absolute 209

spiritual standard represented in the Grail knights, particularly in Galahad and

Percival.26 The narrator tells us, "whan syr Bors sawe sir Launcelot in

{.religious robes}, than he preyed the Bysshop that he myght be in the same

sewte. And so there was an habyte put upon hym, and there he lyved in

prayers and fastyng” (722). Taking on the robes he refused earlier when in the

company of Galahad, Bors calls upon us through Malory's description of him to

recognize the importance of human fellowship and love. He appeals to and

affirms the relationship Lancelot defined between the two when he welcomes

Bors back from the Grail quest:

'Cousyn, ye ar ryght wellcom to me! For all that ever I may do for you and for yours, ye shall fynde my poure body redy atte all tymes whyle the spyryte is in hit, and that I promyse you feythfully, and never to fayle. And wete ye well, gentyl cousyn sir Bors, ye and I shall never departe in sundir whylis oure lyvys may laste." (608)

Bors' behavior with Lancelot fulfills his response to his cousin's welcome: "as

ye woll, so woll I" (608).^

Ill

The value Malory places on relationships and self-knowledge is apparent

throughout the narrative in his descriptions of and comments about two groups of characters. These figures confront and accept the illusory nature of idealized existence in a mutable, uncontrollable world that indiscriminantly 210

victimizes all, and their ability to do so encourages us to perceive them

favorably. Their evolving clear-sighted views of themselves in relation to others and to their surroundings liberate them into a world where they strive

to build a community upon realistic, tangible foundations. They look to one another for compassion and understanding and find strength and reassurance in shared perceptions of their limitations. The first group is comprised of

Dinadan, Merlin, and Palomides, characters who clearly acknowledge, to varying degrees, certain truths about their individual behavior and attitudes.

Through his descriptions of them and their dialogue with other characters,

Malory draws our attention away from perceiving ideals as proper standards of judgment against which to evaluate characters' behavior. He encourages us, instead, to see the positive worth of their acceptance of human limitations and of the world's fickle nature. These characters serve as models for a discussion of Gawain, Arthur, and Lancelot, those in the second group, who appear to be much more psychologically complex and confront the most complicated, difficult experiences in Le Morte Darthur.

Dinadan's actions with his comrades, as they are described by the narrator, plainly suggest Malory's positive attitude toward human nature and the acceptance of human imperfection. Frye explains in his discussion of romance in The Anatomy of Criticism that one of the four poles of characterization is a figure corresponding to the agroikos type in comedy, the refuser of festivity or the rustic clown. "Such a character ... califs } attention to fthe) realistic aspects of life, like fear in the presence of danger, 211

which threaten the unity of the romantic mood."2® The dwarf with St. George

and Una in Spenser is "fearful" and urges retreat—representing, "in the dream

world of romance, the shrunken and wizened form of practical waking

reality: the more realistic the story, the more important such a figure would become, until, when we reach the opposite pole in Don Quixote, he achieves

his apotheosis as Sancho Panza. In other romances we find fools and jesters

who are licensed to show fear or make realistic comments, and who provide a localized safety valve for realism without allowing it to disrupt the conventions of romance. In Malory {.such a } role is assumed by Sir

Dinadan. .. ."^9 Malory's descriptions of Dinadan make it clear, however, that he is not simply a "safety valve for realism," but a means by which his companions can approach the discontinuities of their world and express their own humanness. Dinadan is an accomplished knight who frequently distinguishes himself in battle, but his practical nature, when contrasted against the more overtly chivalrous natures of others, subtly calls into question the appropriateness of aspirations toward idealized behavior. Praised by the narrator as a knight of "pure strengthe" (379) who does "passynge welle" (312) in battle and is so esteemed by his companions that "there was none that hated Qiim } but tho that ever were called murtherers" (379),

Dinadan differs from them in that he does not aspire to lofty behavior for its own sake. He defends chivalrous values, as we see when he repeatedly berates

King Mark for his villainy, but on other occasions he questions the validity of heroic pursuits. When he and Tristram come to a castle, for example, where 212 lodging is contingent upon jousting with two knights, he refuses to participate in the custom. Tristram chastises him, exclaiming, "Fye for shame! . . . ar ye nat a knyght of the Table Rounde? Wherefore ye may nat with your worship reffuse your lodgynge" (312). The narrator intrudes, commenting, "Than sir

Dynadan wolde nat lodge there in no manner but as sir Trystramys requyred hym of hys knyghthode, and so they rode thydir. And to make shorte tale, sir

Trystram and sir Dynadan smote hem downe bothe, and so they entirde into the castell and had good chere as they cowde thynke or devyse" (312). The situation becomes more aggravating for Dinadan, however, when his rest is interrupted by Tristram's announcement that they, too, must defend the castle's custom as its present lords. Dinadan responds, "In the devyls name . . . cam I into youre company!" and goes on to denounce his companion as "a man that were oute of hys mynde that wold caste hymselff away. And I may curse the tyme that ever I sye you, for in all the worlde ar nat such two knyghtes that ar so wood as ys sir Launcelot and ye, sir Trystram!" (313).

Dinadan eventually refuses to remain in the castle and departs, and Tristram later joins him in a lodging "two myle thens, with a good man in a pryory; and there they were well at ease" (313). While some of Dinadan's comments may be perceived humorously, particularly because of their frank and complaining nature, Malory's presentation of the knight in this scene does not call on us to mock him or to scoff at his assertions. On the contrary, Malory describes Dinadan's involvements with the knights in ways to show how well-respected and 213 appreciated he is despite his complaints. His companions choose to rejoin him after he leaves the castle, an action that points up the positive attitude they have toward him and invites us to approve of him as well He is not presented as a figure of condescension through either the narrator's descriptions or the other characters' comments but as a knight who, fully capable of succeeding in battle, chooses not to create conflict where conflict does not actually exist except for the sake of custom and heroic ritual. When genuine need for chivalrous action is apparent, Dinadan does not hestiate. Such a willingness is demonstrated in one of his comments to Tristram: "Sir Trystram, my lorde, ye ar so sore wounded that ye may nat have ado with { Palomide^. Therefore I woll ryde agaynste hym and do to hym what I may, and yf I be slayne ye may pray for my soule" (327). The fact that Dinadan is not discredited by the narrator through comments made by the other characters and, therefore, that we are not led to fault him for failing to uphold all chivalrous traditions allows us the possibility of seeing validity in his viewpoints.^ His antagonism toward what he considers unnecessary chivalrous ritual subtly invites us to question the appropriateness of affirming idealized behavior for its own sake. The more pragmatic view he holds of knightly interactions gains credibility.

Malory encourages us more openly to see the value of self-knowledge and acceptance of human limitations in his descriptions of Dinadan's interactions with Tristram and Palomides. In one scene, Dinadan is particularly perceptive of Palomides' feelings, and he knows th at La Beale 214

Isode is his inspiration for doing well in battle. He tells Tristram, who cannot

understand Palomides' success, "Sir, hit is his day" and remarks to himself,

"And sir Trystram knew for whos love he doth all this dedys of armys, sone he

wolde abate his corrage" (448). Tristram is not criticized because he cannot

accurately perceive Palomides' actions, but his inability contrasts sharply with

Dinadan's clear-sightedness. Malory acknowledges and confirms the value of

Dinadan's clearer perceptions of behavior when he explains the reason behind

the knights' chastisement of Tristram. Dinadan asserts: "What the devyll ys

uppon the this day? For sir Palomydes strengthe fyeblede never this day, but

ever he doubled. And sir Trystram fared all this day as he had bene on slepe, and therefore I calle hym a coward" (450). The narrator comments,

all this langayge sir Dynadan sayde because he wolde angur sir Trystram for to cause hym to wake hys speretes, for well knew sir Dynadan that, and sir Trystram were thorowly wrothe, sir Palomydes shulde wynne no worship uppon the morne. And for thys entente sir Dynadan seyde all this raylynge langage ayenste sir Trystram." (451)

Dinadan's awareness of Tristram's nature and his accurate perception of the activity around them grant him the ability to motivate his companion out of lethargy. His power does not derive from heroic prowess but from an understanding of human nature with all its idiosyncracies.

In another comment Dinadan makes to Tristram, we are led to see the worthiness of characters despite their limitations, an idea that is again reinforced directly by the narrator. Taken by surprise as he dresses to 215

revenge himself upon Palomides, Tristram is knocked off his horse by his

opponent, made "wrothe oute of mesure, and sore ashamed of that falle"

(318). Palomides refuses to joust with him again, and Tristram remains

enraged. Dinadan consoles him by saying "Lo, sir Trystram, here may a man

preve, be he never so good yet may he have a falle; and he was never so wyse

but he myght be oversayne, and he rydyth well that never felle" (318).

Inherent in Dinadan's comment is the notion that individuals can never fully

rise above their limitations despite their aspirations to idealized behavior.

Malory encourages us not to fault characters for this inability when, in

describing Palomides galloping after the Questing Beast and sweeping both

Tristram and Lamorak off their horses with one spear, he addresses the

unpredictability of human encounters. He explains, "Here men may

undirstonde that bene men of worshyp that man was never fourmed that all

tymes myght attayne, but somtyme he was put to the worse by malefortune

and at som tyme the wayker knyght put the byggar knyght to a rebuke" (296).

These comments underscore the uncontrollable nature of the world populated

by Malory's characters. In their suggestion that consistently successful

idealized behavior is impossible, they cause us to question ideals as

appropriate goals and standards of judgment against which to evaluate knights' behavior. Dinadan emphasizes the positive value of acknowledging imperfect human behavior when he responds to Mark's condemnation of him for refusing to joust with an opponent: "Thynke ye that a shame? .. . Nay, sir, hit is ever worshyp to a knyght to refuse that thynge that he may nat attayne" (356). 216

The humor associated with Dinadan, particularly as he demonstrates his

wit and playfulness at the tournament at Surluse, encourages a fellowship among characters that the narrator presents approvingly in spite of the fact that it is not based on aspirations toward idealized behavior. Instead, characters value Dinadan for diverting them from heroic pursuits and engaging them in play. They find him "a grete skoffer and a gaper, and the meryste knyght amonge felyship that was that tyme lyvynge" (407). Their relationship with him is characterized by mutual affection: "he loved every good knyght and every good knyght loved hym" (407). Much of what his companions find humorous about Dinadan is his effrontery. He reduces the court to laughter through his comments about Lancelot, who has defeated him in a joust, "yet have I no shame, for the olde shrew sir Launcelot smote me downe" (407); he amuses the Haute Prince in his disgust at having been served fish; and he entertains Tristram and La Beale Isode by dismissing the importance of being a lover. These instances do not directly lead us to question the validity of affirming idealized behavior, but they do encourage us to see the importance of relationships that are human more than idealized.

Dinadan is a trusted and highly esteemed companion because he encourages such relationships. Malory informs us it was the knight's "maner to be prevy with all good knyghtes," and Lancelot tells Dinadan "ye ar a trusty knyght, and for grete truste I woll shewe you my counceyle" (381). Dinadan invites his companions to express the human nature Malory suggests positively characterizes them. 217

Merlin is presented in Le Morte Darthur as a godlike figure who

effectively guides Arthur through difficult conflicts in the early stages of his

realm and who accurately forecasts the future of many in the Round Table community. He often controls the events in the battles during Arthur's wars

with the other kings, as he does, for example, with King Lot. Malory encourages us to respond favorably to Merlin as a defender of chivalry when he explains the wizard's position on Lot's death:

All that dud Merlion, for he knew well that and kynge Lotte had bene with hys body at the first batayle, kynge Arthure had be slayne and all hys peple distressed. And well Merlion knew that one of the kynges sholde be dede that day; and lothe was Merlion that ony of them bothe sholde be slayne, but of the tweyne he had levir kyng Lotte of Orkeney had be slayne than Arthure. (48)

His regret at the death of either indicates his respect for both as heroic knights, and his own actions are guided by chivalrous loyalty to Arthur and his followers. Merlin upholds idealized behavior when he upbraids the king for failing to act honorably. He gallops toward Arthur during the battles with the eleven kings, for example, and angrily declares,

'Thou hast never done. Hast thou nat done inow? Of three score thousande thys day hast thou leffte on lyve but fyftene thousand! Therefore hit ys tyme to sey "Who!" for God ys wroth with the for thou woll never have done. For yondir a eleven kynges at thys tyme woll nat be overthrowyn, but and thou tary on them ony lenger thy fortune woll turne and they shall encres. And therefore withdraw you unto youre lodgynge and reste you as sone as ye may, and rewarde youre good knyghtes with golde and with sylver, for they have well deserved hit.' (24) 218

Merlin chastises Arthur at his wedding for again not appropriately fulfilling

his kingly obligations. A lady with a white brackett has appeared suddenly,

only to be quickly carried away by a knight who also suddenly appears. Arthur

is "gladde" when they depart, "for she made such a noyse" (63). Merlin reprimands him: "Nay. . .ye may nat leve hit so, thys adventure, so lyghtly, for thes adventures muste be brought to an ende, other ellis hit woll be disworshyp to you and to youre feste" (63). Presenting Merlin as an advisor who possesses unequalled supernatural powers in the narrative and who persistently calls upon Arthur to uplift himself, Malory suggests that ideals are appropriate goals of behavior among his characters. Merlin's ability to predict accurately the outcome of characters and the consequences of their activities lends a credibility to his authority.

But Malory's descriptions of Merlin also appear to emphasize the wizard's limitations as well. In contrast to the chivalrous attitude Merlin demonstrates toward Lot in the scene cited earlier, for example, he bids

Arthur to set against him "fiersly" (12) when Lot calls him a "dreme-reder"

(12). He responds on this occasion with a vengeance simply for the sake of vengeance because he has been offended. When he looks at Balyn's sword after the knight is buried, he laughs and says to those around him: "there shall never man handyll thys swerde but the beste knyght of the worlde, and that shall be sir Launcelot other ellis Galahad, hys sonne. And Launcelot with thys 219

swerde shall sle the man in the worlde that he lovith beste: that shall be sir

Gawayne" (58). This comment suggests that Merlin laughs at the folly of man,

but the laughter itself is dark, and a kind of laughter with which we do not

feel comfortable. It is unsympathetic, and nothing in the behavior of these

other knights suggests that they should be abandoned through this kind of dark

irony. They may be limited in their awareness, but Merlin's laughter is

somewhat cruel. Malory more overtly presents Merlin as a character whose

behavior is not idealized and that thus might elicit our negative judgment

when he describes how the wizard falls "in dotage" on Nenyve:

But Merlion wolde nat lette her have no reste, but allwayes he wolde be wyth her. And ever she made Merlion good chere tylle sche had lerned of hym all maner of thynges that sche desyred; and he was assoted uppon hir, that he myght nat be from hir.

And allwayes he lay aboute to have hir maydynhode, and she was ever passynge wery of hym and wolde have bene delyverde of hym, for she was aferde of hym for cause he was a devyls son, and she cowde not be skyfte of hym by no meane . . . So by hir subtyle worchyng she made Merlyon to go undir that stone . . . but she wrought so there for hym that he come never oute for all the craufte he coude do, and so she departed and leffte thim}. (76-77)

Merlin succumbs to the same desires for which he condemns Arthur and is incapable of overcoming them.

In that Merlin has upheld idealized behavior, particularly for the king, it seems right that we could criticize him for failing to meet his own high standards, but Malory does not call on us to do so. Instead, he presents Merlin 220

as a character who, because of his self-knowledge, retains his dignity.

Throug dialogue between Merlin and Arthur, he emphasizes that the wizard is

fully aware of his imminent downfall. In the scene where Merlin tells Arthur

God is displeased with him because of his incest, he acknowledges the

miserable outcome he himself must face: "for hit ys Goddis wylle that youre

body sholde be punysshed for your fowle dedis. But I ought ever to be

hevy. . . for I shall dye a shamefull dethe, to be putte in the erthe quycke;

and ye shall dey a worshipfull dethe" (29). Arthur comments to him on

another occasion, "syn ye knowe of youre evil adventure, purvey for hit, and

putt hit away by youre crauftes, that mysseadventure." Merlin responds,

"Nay . . . hit woll not be" (76). His accurate perception of the boundaries of his power allows us to see that he accepts his limitations and the responsibility for his actions. The narrator does not overtly vindicate Merlin's behavior with Nenyve, but by focusing primarily on Merlin's acceptance of his outcome rather than on his failure to overcome his lust, he does not target the wizard primarily as an object of criticism. The absence of disparaging comments, (in contrast, interestingly, to their presence in Orlando Furioso and

Don Juan), either his own or the character's, and the infrequency of unflattering descriptions direct us away from judging Merlin negatively or from perceiving his actions as failures. Malory does suggest, however, that in spite of Merlin's inability to uplift himself, he can be viewed sympathetically. His clear-sightedness enables him to retain his authority—and thus his dignity—because it reduces his vulnerability. No 221

charge can be leveled against him that he does not already know—he is not

open to attack because he acknowledges and confronts his weakness and the

consequence of his behavior. Placing positive emphasis on such

self-knowledge, Malory implies that there is merit in recognizing and

accepting human limitations. He does not encourage us to condemn them.

One of the more complex characters in Le Morte Darthur is Palomides.

Presented as a noble, powerful knight, he rightfully commands respect and

fear and frequently outdoes his companions. But Palomides engages us not

primarily because he is a chivalrous knight but because he is so individualized,

so human. Through his description of Palomides interacting with himself and

his companions and through dialogue, Malory renders him more complete

psychologically than many of the other characters in Le Morte Darthur. We

refrain from judging him harshly because the agony Palomides experiences due

to his central conflict—his loyalty to Tristram and love for La Beale Isolde—is

so carefully portrayed. In one scene, for example, the narrator tells us that

Sir Palomydes rode tyll that he cam to the castell. And at a wyndow La Beale Isode saw sir Palomydes, than she made the yatys to be shutte strongely. And whan he sawe he myght nat entir into the castell he put of his horse brydyll and his sadyll, and so put his horse to pasture and sette hymselff downe at the gate, lyke a man that was oute of his wytt that recked nat of hymselff. ( 2 6 5 )

Palomides' rejection is as overt and as harsh as any, and even though we can appreciate La Beale Isode's perspective, we also cannot help feeling some sort 222

of compassionate response for the knight who so clearly suffers. Malory

engages us further with Palomides by clarifying through his descriptions that

he is not simply a weak, sniveling knight but a figure who genuinely agonizes

because of his behavior. He loves both La Beale Isode and Tristram, but

because she rejects him, he continually struggles with anger, revenge, sorrow,

repentence, and overwhelming guilt. His complicated feelings for Tristram

force him to fluctuate, sometimes uncontrollably, in his relationship with

him. When they are both held in Darras' prison, for example, Palomides

speaks out against him every day, but when Tristram becomes seriously ill, he

weeps and is very sorrowfuL At one point later in the work, Palomides actually defends Tristram to Dinandan by saying, "Be myhede... sir

Trystram ys farre bygger than is sir Launcelot, and the hardyer knyght"

(366). He makes clear the love he feels for Tristram and his need for their fellowship when he begs forgiveness, as he does often, for his hostile behavior:

'forgyff me all my evyll wyll! And yf I lyve I shall do you servyse afore all the knyghtes that bene lyvynge. And thereas I have owed you evyll wyll me sore repentes. I wote nat what eylyth me, for mesemyth that ye ar a good knyght; and that ony other knyght that namyth hymselff a good knyght sholde hate you, me sore mervaylyth. And there I requyre you, sir Trystram, take none displaysure at myne unkynde wordis.1 (426)

Such scenes draw upon our sympathy for Palomides because they illustrate how sincerely he regrets his unchivalrous behavior. The fact that his opponents, particularly Tristram, uphold him by persistently drawing him into 223 their community despite his failings emphasizes the appropriateness of this response. Palomides strives to rise above his limitations, and his efforts present hirn positively. The narrator's characterization of him in these scenes encourages us to direct attention to these efforts rather than to the failures that elicit them. He overtly guides our favorable response to Palomides, for example, even though he is not a baptized Christian:

And though he were nat crystynde, yet he belyved in the beste maner and was full faythefull and trew of his promyse, and well-condyssyonde; and bycause he made his avow that he wolde never be crystynde unto the tyme that he had enchyeved the beste glatysaunte, the whyche was a full wondirfull beyste and a grete sygnyfycasion; for Merlyon prophesyed muche of that byeste. And also sir Palomydes avowed never to take full Crystyndom untyll that he had done seven batayles within lystys. (436)

We are thus invited to uphold Palomides because he strives to uplift himself—both chivalrously and spiritually.

Yet Palomides appears as a positive character not simply because he aspires to idealized behavior but because his self-knowledge allows him to confront and accept his limitations and the incongruities of his world.

Through his honest self-appraisal, he enables himself to resolve many of the conflicts that plague him. Lonely, irreconcilable at times, isolated from others, incapable of being consoled by those around him who genuinely want to help, he is forced to deal with reality and to accept it for what it is. He must come to this realization before he can be at peace with himself, and we watch 224

this transformation in him slowly evolve throughout Le Morte Darthur in the

narrator's description of him. After he banishes himself from his companions

at Lonezep, Palomides weeps for both La Beale Isode and Tristram because he

misses them. As he wanes weaker and weaker because of his conflict and

isolation, he chances to look in a well and see his own visage. He addresses

his reflection in the water: "A, Palomydes, Palomydes! Why arte thou thus

defaded, and ever was wonte to be called one of the fayrest knyghtes of the

worlde? Forsothe, I woll no more lyve this lyff, for I love that I may never

gete nor recover" (473). He proceeds to compose a lay about his feelings for

La Beale Isode, which Tristram chances to overhear. Malory tells us that

when the Cornish knight heard this song, "he was wrothe oute of mesure, and

thought for to sle {.Palomides) thereas he lay" (474). Tristram restrains

himself by remembering that Palomides is unarmed and that both of them bear noble names, but he confronts the knight by saying, "Sir Palomydes, I

have harde youre complaynte and of youre treson that ye have owed me longe, and wyte you well, therefore ye shall dye!" (474). Palomides' response to

Tristram is impressive because he states his feelings and the real nature of

the situation among the three characters so succinctly. After acknowledging that Le Beale Isode has always been his inspiration but that she realizes she is out of his reach and ardently loved by Tristram, he defends himself against the charge of treason:

'Sir, 1 have done to you no treson . . . for love is fre for all men, and thoughe I have loved your lady, she ys my 225

lady as well as youres. Howbehyt that I have wronge, if ony wronge be, for ye rejoyse her and have youre desyre of her; and so had I nevir, nor never am lyke to have, and yet shall I love her to the uttermuste dayes of my lyff as well as ye.' (474)

His explanation of the legitimacy of his feelings and the benevolent nature of

his love for La Beale Isode contrasts sharply with the impulsive anger and

invitation to do battle offered by Tristram. His viewpoints appear more

appropriate than Tristram's because they gauge their relationships accurately

and reinforce the idea that he is not actually a threat to his opponent. They

also seem more fairminded and honorable and thus lead us away from

upholding Tristram's condemnation of his actions. Though he does proceed to

fight with Tristram and ultimately loses his advantage, he continues to call upon our sympathy through his clear-sightedness. Choosing to end their battle, he says:

'myne offence ys to you nat so grete but that we may be fryendys, for all that I have offended ys and was for the love of La Beall Isode. And as for her, I dare say she ys pyerles of all othir ladyes, and also I profyrd her never no maner of dyshonoure, and by her I have getyn the moste parte of my worshyp. And sytthyn I had offended never as to her owne persone, and as for the offence that I have done, hyt was ayenste youre owne persone, and for that offence ye have gyvyn me thys day many sad strokys . . . wherefore I requyre you, my lorde, forgyff me all that I have offended unto you! And thys same day have me to the nexte churche, and fyrste lat me be clene conffessed, and aftir that se youreselff that I be truly baptysed. And than woll we all ryde togydyrs unto the courte of kynge Arthure, that we may be there at the nexte hyghe feste folowynge.' (510) 226

Palomides1 ability to perceive his feelings toward and involvement with

Tristram honestly and accurately strengthens the positive image of him represented in his conversion. He becomes more completely a member of the

Round Table community not simply because he adopts their spiritual creed but because his self-knowledge draws out of him an integrity we see is actually inherent. By confronting himself pragmatically, he can overcome the conflicts that force him to behave unchivalrously and reconcile himself with the fact that some things in life are not reconcilable. Motivated by his own sense of self, he is capable of introspection that enables him to change an action or an attitude. Such an ability is apparent, for example, in his fight to save the Red City. Hearing all the people weep around him, he says to himself, "A, fye for shame, sir Palomydes! Why hange ye youre hede so lowe?" (438). He then manages to strike out successfully. In describing

Palomides as a human, complex character and focusing on his internal battles,

Malory encourages us to sympathize with him as a figure who genuinely strives to uplift himself. The knight's self-awareness, and his ability to accept situations as they actually exist, help him to do so. He seems in search of himself throughout Le Morte Darthur. a quest with which we can all identify, and in many ways he finds himself, not only in the Christian ideology he finally embraces, but in his acceptance of his human nature and of a world filled with struggles. 227

IV

The affirmed, imperfect human nature and increasing self-knowledge characterizing Dinadan, Merlin, and Palomides are more overtly illustrated in

Malory's presentation of Gawain, Arthur, and Lancelot, the second group of characters demonstrating the ironic/affirming pattern that modifies trad­ itional romance in Le Morte Darthur. These characters are distinguished from those in the first group by being celebrated for their self-knowledge. Malory's comments and descriptions not only encourage us to support these knights for their attempts to be the best at what they can be in spite of their failures to meet idealized goals of behavior along the way, they also praise them for their clear-sighted self perceptions. He presents all three figures, part­ icularly in their final scenes, as great and noble characters—not because of chivalrous behavior but because each, in his own way, overcomes his li­ mitations by acknowledging them. His treatment of these characters differs from the accounts in his sources by being more emphatically and dramatically focused on the complex interplay among them in the last book, and consequent transformations the three are forced to undergo. Their recognition of shared vulnerability in a world that is ambiguous and capricious enables them to ap­ proach one another—as well as themselves—with more compassion and understanding. Their lives thus become exemplary, and each knight is openly approved and commemorated. 228

The pattern by which this celebration becomes clear closely parallels

that presented in the preceding section concerning Malory's modification of

our judgments among the first group of characters. Gawain, Arthur, and

Lancelot ail merit praise as heroic, honorable knights but evidence char­

acteristics that conflict with such exalted stature. Rather than perceiving

these figures negatively for their failings, we are led, as we are with char­

acters in the first group, toward more favorable responses. This qualification

is more complex and dramatic, however, in portrayals of the king, his favorite

companion, and his nephew. Gawain, somewhat idealized in traditional ro­

mance terms in that he has a secret ability during the morning hours to in­

crease his strength, often upholds chivalry, as he demonstrates in his response

to Arthur, who is upset about the wounds Gawayne suffers following an attack

and wants to present him with the heads of his potential slayers: "That were

lytyll avayle . . . for theire hedys had they lorne, and I had wolde myself, and

hit were shame to sle knyghtes whan they be yolden" (126). He frequently

fails, nonetheless, to behave heroically, and Malory sometimes suggests

through his descriptions of events and through characters' comments that

Gawain be faulted for his unchivalrous acts. In one instance, while off chasing

the white hart for the adventure of Arthur's wedding day, Gawain sees his

hounds slain by a knight for whom he ultimately has no mercy. His anger ex­

ceeds the crime itself, and Malory tells us, "But sir Gawayne wolde no mercy have, but unlaced hys helme to have strekyn of (the knight's} hede. Ryght so com hys lady oute of a chambir and felle over hym, and so he smote of hir hede by myssefortune" (66). We are encouraged to view this act negatively 229

through the commentary provided by the other characters: " 'Alas,' seyde

Gaherys, ’that ys fowle and shamefully done, for that shame shall never frome you. Also ye sholde gyff mercy unto them that aske mercy, for a knyght

withoute mercy ys withoute worship" (66). Arthur and Guinevere are equally distraught, and the ladies, by order of the queen, "juged hym for ever whyle he lyved to be with all ladyes and to fyght for hir quarels; and ever that he sholde be curteyse, and never to refuse mercy to hym that askith mercy" (67). The fact that Gawain slew a woman was an accident, but one brought on by serious folly—a refusal to grant mercy as a true and virtuous knight should in a case where it is merited.

Another occasion revolving around a woman causes him additional trouble. He decides to help Pelleas, who submits to Ettarde's constant rejections, but Gawain, in fact, finally betrays him by sleeping with Ettarde himself. Our sympathies are with Pelleas in these scenes, who not only suffers incredibly harsh treatment out of love for Ettarde but who unwittingly trusts someone who is not ultimately trustworthy. Pelleas finds the two together in their pavilion, and decides not to slay Gawain because he does not want to "dystroy the hyghe Ordir of Knyghthode" (103). Instead, he lays a sword at their throats. Malory's characterization of Pelleas as a figure concerned with the order of knighthood effectively contrasts with his portrayal of Gawain, whose lack of concern and respect for this order is blatant. Our sympathies are with Pelleas not only because he has been betrayed, but because he seems to uphold values we feel are worthwhile, and 230

Gawain seems not to care whom he hurts as long as his own desires are satisfied. The contrast between the two in this scene and the fact that other characters, who are not themselves presented negatively, condemn Gawain so outrightly prompt us to see his actions as reprehensible.

We are also guided toward viewing Gawain unfavorably because of his penchant for revenge. His participation in the attempt to slay Lamorak, a knight generally upheld by his companions, is the source of much ill will among his companions. Gareth refuses to associate with him because, as the narrator informs us, "For evir aftir sir Gareth had aspyed sir Gawaynes conducions, he wythdrewe hymself fro his brother sir Gawaynes felyshyp, for he was evir vengeable, and where he hated he wolde be avenged with murther: and that hated sir Gareth" (224). Tristram tells Aggravaine that it is a shame that he, Gawain, and their brothers come of "so grete blood . . . for ye be called the grettyste distroyers and murtherars of good knyghtes that is now in the realme of Ingelonde" (422). In the Grail quest, Bors learns from

Pelles that Gawain "gate lytyll worshyp here. For I lat you wyte . . . here shall no knyght wynne worshyp but yf he be of worshyp hymselff and of good lyvynge, and that lovyth God and dredyth God" (483). Gawain himself hears his own condemnation from a hermit, who tells him,

'whan ye were made first knyght ye sholde have takyn you to knyghtly dedys and vertuous lyvyng. And ye have done the contrary, for ye have lyved myschevously many wyntirs. And sir Galahad ys a mayde and synned never, and that ys the cause he shall enchyve where he goth that ye nor none suche shall never attayne, nother none 231

in youre felyship, for ye have used the moste untrewyst lyff that ever I herd knyght lyve. For sertes, had ye nat bene so wycked as ye ar, never had the seven brethirne be slayne by you and youre two felowys: for sir Galahad hymself alone bete hem all seven the day toforne, but hys lyvyng ys such that he shall sle no man lyghtly (535).

Gawain's unchivalrous actions alienate him to some degree from the community, and Malory appears to ask us to see the rightness of this alienation, to accept the notion that Gawain has done something wrong or that he bears an attitude that is unacceptable. This suggestion is reinforced because Gawain has a negative effect on others around him—his misfortunes often inflict pain and suffering. He, nonetheless, rarely reflects on the repercussions of his actions.

An absolute condemnation of Gawain is difficult to make, however, because Malory does not focus singly on his failures to uphold chivalrous and spiritual ideals. He also presents him as a character whose accurate perception of himself enables him to see and accept this effect he has on others, and to reengage himself with those from whom he has been most alienated. Gawain perceives these characters from a deeper, more profound sensibility—a sensibility that accepts the realities of life, considering them in every judgment he makes. His honest self-appraisal and subsequent acceptance of his human limitations allow him in the final book of Le Morte

Darthur to approach Arthur and Lancelot more compassionately and to reestablish their fellowship. Malory's presentation of him as a holy, revered figure who seeks to protect Arthur in his impending battle openly celebrates 232 both the knight and his renewed friendship with his uncle.

Gawain's interactions with Aggravaine and Arthur regarding the relationship between Lancelot and the queen make apparent his sympathetic nature. He behaves with more discretion and understanding than either his uncle or brother, both of whom appear unjustly impulsive in contrast. After

Aggravaine announces the affair openly before the other knights, Gawain reprimands him, aware of the fact that Aggravaine seeks primarily to cause trouble. His perception of the complexity of the love triangle is evident as he counsels Arthur not to be over hasty but to "put hit in respite, thys jougemente" of Guinevere, for many reasons" (682). He defends Lancelot and

Guinevere by saying,

'And peradventure she sente for hym for goodnes and for none evyll, to rewarde hym for his good dedys that he had done to her in tymes past. And peraventure my lady the quene sente for hym to that entente . . . for oftyntymys we do many thynges that we wene for the beste be, and yet peradventure hit turnyth to the warste. For I dare sey... my lady, your quene, ys to you both good and trew. And as for sir Launcelot, I dare say he woll make hit good uppon ony knyght lyvyng that woll put uppon hym vylany or shame, and in lyke wyse he woll make good for my lady the quene.' (682)

Arthur questions Gawain's defense of Lancelot, reminding him that Lancelot slew Aggravaine and nearly killed Mordred, and also killed Florens and Lovell, two of Gawain's sons. Gawain responds, however, with a fairminded description of these events: 233

'insomuch as I gaff hem warnynge {jabout} what wolde falle on the ende, and insomuche as they wolde nat do be my counceyle, I woll nat meddy 11 me thereof f, nor revenge me nothynge of their dethys . . . Howbehit I am sory of the deth of my brothir and of my two sunnes, but they ar the causars of their owne dethe; for oftyntymes I warned my brothir sir Aggravayne, and I told hym of the perellis . . (683)

He refuses to bring the Queen to the fire, and denies Arthur the assistance of

Gaharis and Gareth, who are, he says, "yonge and ithus} full unable to say you

nay" (683). Gawain's comments show him as a character who is remarkably

patient and practical. He applies both traits to a potentially disastrous

situation to encourage the king to see it in rational, positive terms. He speaks

the truth when he claims that both Lancelot and Guinevere remain loyal and loving to the king. The situation in the love triangle is so complex that it cannot be simply reduced into a deceitful affair. Each individual in the triangle loves and is devoted to the other two by strong ties of loyalty.

Gawain tries to elicit this recognition from his uncle, and he is right when he says that we often tend to do what we think is best, making decisions rashly in times of crisis, but that these decisions inevitably turn out for the worse.

Gawain himself knows from experience that this maxim is true, and when he speaks it to Arthur we know that he is speaking with a kind of authority only he can bring to it. The narrator's characterization of him through these comments calls upon us to trust him and to appreciate his point of view as the one that is most beneficial to all, and the most reasonable under these difficult circumstances. 234

Malory's celebration of Gawain tak es shape through a series of events in which he describes him as a character capable of overcoming his human limitations by accepting them. Driven to fight Lancelot and to override

Arthur's desire for reconciliation among the three, Gawain is forced to confront himself more honestly and m ore profoundly than he has before and thus to accept responsibility for himself and his actions. Malory makes this transformation clear through dialogue, particularly through the speech Gawain recites as he lies dying, an addition to the account Malory found in his sources of the knight's death. After the battle with Mordred, Arthur discovers Gawain lying half dead and cries out,

'Alas! sir Gawayne. . . the man in the worlde that I loved m oste. And now ys my joy gone! For now . . . I woll discover me unto you, th a t in youre person and in sir Launcelot I moste had my joy and myne affyaunce. And now have I loste my joy of you bothe, wherefore all myne erthely joy ys gone fro me!' (709)

Gawain responds with an excellent sense of self and clarity of vision:

'A, myn u n c le . . . now I woll that ye wyte that my deth-dayes be com! And all I may wyte myne owne hastynes and my wylfulnesse, for thorow my wylfulnes I was causer of myne owne dethe; for I was thys day hurte and sm ytten uppon myne olde wounde that sir Launcelot gaff me, and I fele myselff that I muste nedis be dede by the owre of noone. And thorow me and my pryde ye have all thys shame and disease, for had that noble knyght, sir Launcelot, ben with you, as he was and wolde have ben, thys unhappy warre had never ben begunne; for he, thorow hys noble knyghthode and hys noble bloode, hylde all youre cankyrde enemyes in subjeccion and daungere. And now . . . ye shall mysse sir Launcelot. But alas that 235

I wolde nat accorde with hym!' (709)

Gawain seems primarily to reproach himself, to dwell on the shortcomings of

his nature that so seriously affect actions around him, but he moves beyond

self castigation. Having acknowledged honestly the responsibility he bears, he

reaches out to his uncle and to Lancelot in sincere compassion and love. His

acceptance of who he is enables him to see others as they are as well. He

writes to Lancelot, appealing to him not only to pray for him but to aid the

king:

'I beseche the, sir Launcelot, to returne agayne unto thys realme and se my toumbe and pray som prayer more other les for my soule.. . . Also, sir Launcelot, for all the love that ever was betwyxte us, make no taryyng, but com over the see in all the goodly haste that ye may, wyth youre noble knyghtes, and rescow that noble kynge that made the knyght, for he ys full straytely bestad wyth an false traytoure whych ys my halff-brothir, sir Mordred.' (710)

Malory's addition of this speech and the characterization of Gawain that results from it emphasize the idea that the knight's clear-sighted self perception permits him to see and to uphold the value of devotion and love among friends in a world characterized by mutability. Gawain calls upon Arthur to do the same, beseeching "the kynge for to sende for sir Launcelot and to cherysshe hym aboven all othir knyghtes" (710). 236

Malory openly celebrates Gawain for his self-knowledge and consequent re­ cognition of the importance of the relationships among the three companions by describing him in terms that emphasize redemption. He places Gawain with a number of beautiful women in a vision granted to Arthur to warn him of his im­ pending death. We appreciate the humor of this scene because we know that in life, women were often the source of Gawain's difficulty with others, his repu­ tation with women consistently negative. He tells the king, "Sir . . . all thes be ladyes for whom I have foughten for, whan I was man lyvynge. And all thes ar tho that I ded batayle fore in ryghteuous quarels, and God hath gyvyn hem that grace at their grete prayer, bycause I ded batayle for them for their ryght, that they shulde brynge me hydder unto you" (711). The focus here is completely di­ vergent from the focus we saw emphasized throughout the narrative, where most of Gawain's actions with women were none too praiseworthy. The narrator suc­ ceeds through this scene in reorienting our perception of Gawain, a perception that is already positive because of his recognition of self before death, but a per­ ception that is strengthened even more by replacing previous negative ex­ periences with a different version representing them as positive. We feel some joy, in fact, in Gawain's being rewarded in this way, and feel a kind of righteousness associated with it. He continues, in his appearance to King Arthur, by saying:

'Thus much hath gyvyn me leve God for to warne you of youre dethe: for and ye fyght as to-morne with sir Mordred, as ye bothe have assygned, doute ye nat ye shall be slayne.. . . God hath sente me to you of Hys 237

speciall grace to gyff you warnyng th at in no wyse ye do batayle as to-morne, but that ye take a tretyse for a moneth-day.' (711-12)

In a month, Lancelot, Gawain reminds Arthur, could come and slay Mordred

himself. Not only is Gawain a special messenger of God, a privilege attri­

buted only to those whose goodness merits it, but he is also the special

protector of the king. In this role, he calls attention to the real and devoted

bonds that exist among him, Arthur, and Lancelot. He even further redeems

himself, balancing out his earlier impetuousness and control of Arthur with a

loving, heaven-sent concern for him and desire to protect him at all costs.

Gawain is a character we have watched alienate himself from the community,

reintegrate himself, and now finally, genuinely and unselfishly relate to others

around him.31 He is no longer alienated, but has discovered, in discovering

himself, the bonds that connect him to others in an unpredictable, often

painful world. Arthur is also a character Malory presents heroically but who fails to

meet idealized goals of behavior consistently. He is described as a "lyon" (19), as one who "dud so mervaylesly in armys that all men had wondir" (19), and as a fighter who "alweyes. . . on horsback leyd on with a swerd and dyd

merveillous dedes of armes. . (12). In the later books, Malory appears to exalt him directly as a heroic figure in his description of him in battle against

Mordred: "But kynge Arthur was so currageous that there myght no maner of knyght lette IMordred} to lande, and hys knyghtes fyersely folowed hym"

(709). Arthur's subjects eventually draw to him again, forsaking their briefly 238 acclaimed leader, Mordred, thus reinforcing the narrator's postive, affirming view of him as the appropriate and sympathetic hero. Arthur continues to render himself gallantly in battle with his opponents, displaying his prowess and honor, and Malory tells us that he "ded full nobely, as a noble kynge shulde do, and at all tymes he faynted never. . (713). Arthur's uplifted stature is equally represented in the comments made about him by the other characters. Two knights from the north, both spies on Arthur's court, comment to each other that "there ys such a felyship that they may never be brokyn, and well-nyghe all the world holdith with Arthure, for there ysthe floure of chevalry" (74). His virtue distinguishes him so much from others around him that both his followers and his enemies recognize his great worth and pay him proper homage. When Lucius' messengers return to him after finding out more about the young king who seeks to be Emperor, they tell him that Arthur is the "gastfullyst man that ever they on loked. . . . the royallyst kynge that lyvyth on erthe" (116). The fact that Lucius' own senators praise

Arthur in these terms inspires us to recognize him as a significant figure—as someone who rightfully possesses the throne he assumes through both his heritage and the prowess of lifting the sword from the stone. He supports chivalrous ideals and expects that his knights will

'never do "outerage nothir mourthir, and {.that they will} allwayes. . . fie treson, and (be inclined} to gyff mercy unto hym that askith mercy, uppon payne of forfiture of their worship and lordship of kynge Arthure for evirmore; and allwayes to do ladyes, damesels, and jantilwomen and wydowes socour: strengthe hem in hir ryghtes, and never 239

to enforce them, uppon payne of dethe. JHe also expects }that no man take no batayles in a wrongefull quarell for no love ne for no worldis goodis.' (75)

Arthur himself is merciful, as we see when he forgives Accolon his treason and protects the interests of those he conquers. He is a king who always tries to take care of his knights—of those who follow and support him. He does so not only by justly rewarding them following battles, but also in the way he tries to keep them together as a group, entertaining and hosting all of them, providing them a sure center from which to operate. He does not try to usurp power for its own sake, but perceives himself as a sharer of power—as one among a community, equaUy interested in the good of this community, as are those who are members of it. His actions with them are generaUy fair and merciful, and in almost all cases they are genuinely respectful. He is not a king who needs to see himself as a figure standing above others—he is a king who works hard to create a positive, chivalrous, enjoyable and honorable world for his community and thus for himself. Arthur is not a selfish or a self-centered king.

Malory presents us with another picture of Arthur, however, that conflicts with this exalted characterization. Directed primarily through other characters' perceptions of him and through the narrator's own descriptions of his activities, we see instead a king who falls short of this uplifted role. His youth provides the narrator an occasion for modifying the more traditional view of Arthur we might be inclined to hold. When the young king calls a 240 large feast to be held at Pentecost following his coronation at the city of

Carlyon, all the kings come and Arthur is glad,

for he wende that al the kynges and knyghtes had come for grete love and to have done hym worship at his feste, wherfor. . .{JieJ sente the kynges and knyghtes grete presentes. But the kynges wold none receyve, but rebuked the messagers shamefully and said they had no joye to receyve no yeftes of a berdles boye that was come of lowe blood. . . . (11)

While we know the error of the king's ways and appreciate the youthful

vitality and innocence Arthur brings to his role, we also recognize his inability

to appreciate the complexities working among so many powerful and

established leaders and their followings. It is true that we must, to be fair,

attribute Arthur's naivetb in these early sections to inexperience, but his

tendency to look at events simplistically extends into his adulthood. Arthur's

inability to see the whole picture spread out before him—indeed, to see what

is spread out before him—is emphasized in Malory's descriptions of his

interactions with Merlin, many of which appear deliberately staged to show up

Arthur as a somewhat simple-minded young man. Merlin disguises himself,

and Arthur does not know him—a fact we do not find inherently negative

except that other characters can easily identify him, even though they are not

as closely involved with him. Arthur is made to look somewhat foolish again

when he endeavors to take over the Questing Beast from Pellinor and thus

loses his horse to him. The narrator suggests we see the king somewhat

humorously when he says, "ThenneLhe) sat in a study..." (29) and follows his 241

comment with a description of Merlin disguised as a child of fourteen who

tells Arthur he is "a foole to take thought for hit that woll nat amende

the... (29). The contrast between Merlin and Arthur at this point works

effectively to undermine the king, to show him as the real child in the

situation, a character who proceeds on whim and impulse and who therefore

humorously when he says, "Thenne he sat in a study..." (29) and follows his

comment with a description of Merlin disguised as a child of fourteen who

tells Arthur he is "a foole to take thought for hit that woll nat amende

the.. . . " (29). The contrast between Merlin and Arthur at this point works

effectively to undermine the king, to show him as the real child in the situation, a character who proceeds on whim and impulse and who therefore

pays the price.

More blatant instances of Arthur's naivete-, as it extends into his adulthood, are provided through narrative description, plot, and comments from other characters. When Arthur receives the sword from the Lady of the

Lake, for example, Merlin asks him if he likes the sword or the scabbard better, and the king answers the "sword." Merlin, as we might expect, points out the king's mistaken perception: "Ye ar the more unwyse, for the scawberde ys worth ten of the swerde; for whyles ye have the scawberde uppon you ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded. Therefore kepe well the scawberde allwyes with you" (36). Arthur is persistently naive about the intentions and activities of his sister Morgan le Fay and continually trusts her after being repeatedly warned that he cannot. He falls prey to her 242

treachery again after being set up for murder through Accolon's hands by

almost accepting the mantle she extends to him. Malory succeeds in

modifying our perception of Arthur, in addition, by emphasizing his

dependency on others. This dependence is most notably apparent, of course,

in his relationship with Merlin. While it is true that Arthur is only a young boy

when he assumes the throne, the narrator's suggestion throughout is that

Arthur's dependence on Merlin stems not just from youth, but from a deeper

need. He tells us that "the moste party dayes of hys lyff he was ruled by the

counceile of Merlyon" (59) , and our sense of this relationship is that it is

necessary in order for the young king to survive—particularly because he has

so often such a limited and simplistic view of the activities and community around him. Merlin in some ways enables him to be a leader—because these guiding qualities are not always inherent in the character we see portrayed.

Through him, Arthur can be in charge, a point which clearly suggests the contrary—that alone, he cannot be. On those occasions when he deviates from

Merlin's advice, Arthur immediately gets into trouble. One such incident involves Guinevere. The narrator informs us that Merlin "warned the kyng covertly that Gwenyver was nat holsom for hym to take to wyff. For he warned hym that Launcelot scholde love hir, and sche hym agayne" (59). We perceive from past experience that Merlin is right and that Arthur is headed for certain trouble in the long run, guided by his impulsiveness rather than by the counsel that has served him thus far. 243

The effect of Athur's dependency on others is to diminish him somewhat in our eyes—we see a king who frequently lacks sufficient ability to preserve his court and must rely on others to do so for him, and whose perceptions of events involving him and his comraderie are often painfully limited and naive—as well as generally impulsive. Malory makes clear this limitation of

Arthur's in his description of how he turns to Lancelot when Merlin is no long­ er available to him. The king's dependence on Lancelot is most apparent regarding Guinevere. He always expects and counts on him to rescue

Guinevere from the accusations that are leveled against her in court. While it is true that as sovereign he must abstain from defending Guinevere himself, one senses that his primary concern, regardless of circumstances, is only to resolve a touchy situation for the moment and prevent it from rearing its ugly head again even though the source of the problem, the relationship between

Lancelot and Guinevere, is not ever dealt with squarely and honestly. Arthur's major concern seems to be to keep the Round Table community running smoothly—to see it as a community that sustains life through entertainment and utopian civility, where the complexity of real situations confronting the knights is sacrificed in order to maintain more idealized appearances. It is not even that Arthur deliberately tries to cover up what really goes on, but that he almost cannot accept the fact—or plainly chooses not to comprehend the fact—that more complex, difficult issues are at hand than he is willing to acknowledge. His overall tendency to bad, often merely impulsive judgments, is apparent when he appoints Mordred chief ruler of England before he strikes out for Lancelot's land. We learn this point after Lancelot voices his suspicion 244

of Mordred, and even if we did not already know the outcome of this maneuver, we would tend to give more credence to what Lancelot feels simply because he has generally been more perceptive and correct than Arthur in matters of the state and in matters affecting other knights.

Arthur's need for Lancelot becomes more dramatically evident in situations where Lancelot must deliberately guide or correct the king's actions and attitudes. When Arthur weeps about those slain in his battle with Lucius and says to the remaining knights of his community: "Youre corrage and youre hardynesse nerehande had you destroyed, for and ye had turned agayne ye had loste no worshyp, for I calle hit but foly to abyde whan knyghtes bene overmacched," Lancelot corrrects him, "Not so. .. the shame sholde ever have bene oures." Sir Clegis and Sir Bors agree with Lancelot, adding, "That is trouthe.. . . for knyghtes ons shamed recoverys hit never" (130). Arthur's grief here is a point well-taken, and it is true we can sympathize with his point of view, but what is noticeable is that Lancelot and other Round Table followers must right their king regarding matters of chivalry to which all are supposedly bound. The effect of such a scene, even though we do commiserate with Arthur's perception of the events around him, is to undermine his authority and nobility as a leader by suggesting that he is not capable of performing this role. His perceptions and decisions regarding others are most severely rebuked when he deals with King Mark and Sir

Tristram. When Mark plans to return to Cornwall and is to be accompanied by

Tristram, Arthur asks Mark to "be good lorde unto sir Trystram, for he is a 245

man of grete honoure, and that ye woll take hym with you into Cornwayle and

lat him se his fryndis, and there eherysh hym for my sake" (375). Mark, of

course, promises to do so—a promise that rings hollow in our ears as well as in

those of the other Round Table characters. Arthur accepts his commitment

when he adds, "and I woll forgyff you all the evyll wyll that ever I ought you,

and ye swere that uppon a booke afore me" (375). Mark and Tristram take

each other by the hand, and Mark swears, but Malory guides us through his

direct commentary to see the situation more realistically: "But for all this

kynge Marke thought falsely, as hit preved aftir; for he put sir Trystram in

preson, and cowardly wolde have slayne hym" (375). We are not surprised by

Mark's treachery, and the narrator's comment works to undermine Arthur's

actions with Mark and to show again that Arthur's perceptions are too

simplistic and limited. The responses of the other characters also add to this

undermining. When Mark and Tristram prepare to depart, "the moste party of

the Rounde Table were wrothe and hevy. And in especiall sir Launcelot and

sir Lameroke and sir Dynadan were wrothe oute of mesure, for well they

wyste that kynge Marke wolde sle or destroy sir Trystram" (375). The most serious rebuke comes from Lancelot, who declares, "Alas! . . . what have ye done? For ye shall lose the man of moste worshyp that ever cam into youre courte" (375). While it is true that Tristram, as Arthur pointed out, is his own agent and will do what he chooses regardless of what others around him say, the king's position is not made ultimately sympathetic because he believes that he has reconciled the knight with his king. We know that reconciliation is 246

impossible, as does Lancelot, who proclaims, "Acorde? . . . Now fye on that

accorde! For ye shall here that he shall destroy sir Trystram other put hym

into preson, for he is the moste cowarde and the vylaunste kynge and knyght

that is now lyvynge" (376) and thus an effective foil to Arthur.

On those occasions when Arthur deviates from the counsel he is given,

he is exposed as an impulsive, almost childish figure who moves ahead in ways

not to benefit either himself or, often, those around him. When he hears that

Tristram is rescued and is at Joyous Garde, for example, he declares that on

Mayday there shall be a big joust at the castle of Lonezep, near Joyous

Garde. Lancelot reminds him that this announcement would put all those

around him in jeopardy because many knights envy them. Arthur replies,

revealing again his narrow perceptions and impulsiveness at the risk of hurting

others: "As for that. . . I care nat. There shall we preve whoo shall be beste

of his hondis" (416). Arthur's impulsiveness is disclosed most specifically, and

in a way that asks us to perceive him more critically, when he decides he

wants to go off into the forest to see La Beale Isode to ascertain whether or not she really is as beautiful as everyone says. Lancelot again serves as the counselor, telling Arthur that it is a bad idea: "... hit is nat good that ye go

to nyghe them, for wyte you well there ar two as good knyghtes as ony now ar lyvynge. And therefore, sir, I pray you, be nat to hasty; for peradventure there woll be som knyghtes that woll be displeased and we com suddeynly uppon them." Arthur responds in kind, as we have seen before, with "As for that. . . I woll se her, for I take no forse whom I gryeve" (452). He does, in 247

fact, view La Beale Isode, but Palomides knocks him off his horse, and

Lancelot, against his will because he does not really want to fight with

Tristram, knocks down Palomides to defend Arthur. He then helps Arthur back up onto his horse and the two depart. Though Tristram rebukes

Palomides and defends Arthur by emphasizing his exalted nature, we question this nobility throughout the scene and see the king more from Palomides' perspective—a perspective that is given credibility through Malory's description of the manner in which Lancelot handles his erring sovereign. We are not surprised that Palomides defends the queen, and feel, in fact, that he behaved appropriately, while King Arthur, in contrast, has clearly misbehaved and had to be corrected—rescued—by Lancelot, and by an understanding

Tristram. Malory's presentation of him in these terms encourages us to view

Arthur from an omniscient perspective.^ As audience, we know more of

Arthur than he knows himself—we align ourselves with both the narrator and the characters advising him and see him from this vantage point rather than look up to him with full admiration.

Malory draws us away from seeing Arthur negatively because of his limitations, however, through characterizations, dialogue, comments, and modifications of his sources that emphasize the complex nature of the king's feelings and actions. This complexity prevents us from viewing Arthur's behavior as polarized between good and bad. The narrator directs us not to condemn the king, for example, for sleeping with his sister, Margawse.

Although there are clearly sanctions against such a relationship, he tells us: 248

"(But all thys tyme kynge Arthure knew n a t that kynge Lottis wyff was his sister)" (28). Later, Arthur attempts to save Merlin from the churls who chase him but is ultimately chastised for his actions: "... I cowde a saved myselffe and I had wolde. But thou arte more nere thy deth than I am, for thou goste to thy dethe warde and God be nat thy frende" (33). Merlin's comment seems unfairly harsh, particularly when the young king has attempted to save him.

Although according to the law Merlin is right and Arthur has trespassed in a grievous way with Margawse, he is not aw are of how or why and did not intentionally sin. We are not, then, led to view Arthur's a c t as being as blameworthy as it really is.

Malory also elicits our sympathy for A rthur in spite of his shortcomings in numerous scenes where the king demonstrates clearly thought out perceptions and complex feelings. He is not always daft, but often a rational, thinking character who attempts to work things out on his own. We see him described by the narrator in these terms when he receives the letter from

Mark warning him to concern himself with Guinevere and his knights. The narrator tells us,

Whan kynge Arthure undirstode th e lettir, he mused of many thynges, and thought of his systyrs wordys, quene Morgan le Fay, that she had seyde betwyxte quene Gwenyver and sir Launcelot, and in this thought he studyed a grete whyle. Than he bethought hym agayne how his owne sistir was his enemy, and that she hated the quene and sir Launcelot to the deth, and so he put that all oute of his thought. (381) 249

Though we realize Mark's warning is, in fact, valid and though we know that

Arthur should also be more aware of what oceurs in his own kingdom,

particularly because many of his knights see situations there more fully, we

also know that his perception about his sister is absolutely correct, and we can

easily understand why he would think what he does about the contents of

Mark's letter. The scene calls on us to react to the irony of Arthur's finally having an accurate awareness of his sister at the expense of seeing the situation closest to him incorrectly. His sanction of the relationship between

Tristram and La Beale Isode also ironically foreshadows the complicated feelings he experiences for his queen and favorite knight.33 He says about

Tristram and La Beale Isode that both are very fair and "therefore mesemyth ye ar well besett togydir" (461). Part of the reason this attitude is sympathetic in our eyes is because we are not encouraged overall to approve of Mark. Arthur's perception of the two reveals a general kind of goodwill he has toward everyone—a sympathetic view of others that is often somewhat simplistic but that is always benevolent. We approve of him for it.

Through dialogue and descriptions of Arthur as a character who genuinely suffers at the threat of losing his companions, Malory encourages us not to criticize him for his dependence on others. The king tells Gawain, who vows to find the Grail and inspires all others to follow him, "ye have nygh slayne me for the avow that ye have made, for thorow you ye have berauffte me the fayryst and the trewyest of knyghthode that ever was sene togydir in ony realme of the worlde" (522). Tears fall from his eyes and Lancelot 250

consoles him with, "A, sir . . . comforte yourseself! For hit shall be unto us a grete honoure, and much more than we dyed in other placis, for of dethe we by syker" (522). The community has meant everything to Arthur, and we sense in this scene that his dependence upon them has been for him a matter of survival in this world—that it has been a way for him to garner a corner of utopia. The narrator provokes our compassion for Arthur through the king's anguished dialogue: "A, Gawayne, Gawayne! Ye have betrayed me, for never shall my courte be amended by you. But ye woll never be so sory for me as I am for you!", and the tears run down his face (523). He asks for Lancelot's counsel outright, and when they all leave, he turns away his face and "myght nat speke for wepyng" (524). Malory's characterization of Arthur moves the reader in these sections, and our sense throughout is that very much is at stake—Arthur is about to lose his footing in the world, and he cannot do anything about the turn of events. He has lost a kind of control he never reaUy possessed, but its illusory presence sustained him throughout the time preceding this final, major quest. He is genuinely threatened and grief-stricken at the idea of losing his companions and at the fact of life's changes. He cannot contain and shape a reality forever—he cannot control the world's fluctuations or even the fluctuations among his followers. Arthur wants to creat a utopia in an imperfect world, to believe in it faithfully and forcefuUy, and to deny that it is an impossibility—both in being a constant and in his ability to shape and control it. His profound grief calls forth our sympathy and thus directs us away from judging him criticaUy for his naivete 251

and restricted understanding.

His fears for the community are again aroused when Lancelot has

unknowingly slain Gareth and Gaheris. After Arthur hears of this event, he

frets it will cause the greatest mortal war that ever was—he is sure that

Gawain will not rest until Arthur has destroyed Lancelot's kin and himself both or else he destroys them. Arthur says to his knights,

'wyte you well, my harte was never so hevy as hit ys now. And much more I am soryar for my good knyghtes losse than for the losse of my fayre quene; for quenys I myght have inow, but such a felyship of good knyghtes shall never be togydirs in no company. And now I dare sey.. . there was never Crystyn kynge that ever hylde such a felyshyp togydyrs. And alas, that ever sir Launcelot and I shulde be at debate! A, Aggravayne, Aggravayne!. . . Jesu forgyff hit thy soule, for thyne evyll wyll that thou haddist and sir Mordred, thy brothir, unto sir Launcelot hath caused all this sorow.' (685)

We see through this comment that Arthur grasps the significance of this event in regards to the community itself, but that he does not attribute responsible cause to the right source. We can forgive him this fault, or at least comprehend it, because the complexity of the situation and his involvement in it through the other two members of the love triangle are both overwhelming.*^ In that Malory has not focused negatively on the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere or on Arthur's inability to confront it but has emphasized, instead, the deep love all feel for one another, we are led to commiserate with Arthur for his perceptions and behavior. This sympathy is directly provoked in the narrator's characterization of Arthur when he faces 252

the final breakdown of the Round Table community and actually does

challenge Lancelot for his relationship with Guinevere. When he sees

Lancelot in the field and hears him declare he does not want to encounter

with the most noble king who made him knight, Arthur angrily replies,

'Now, fye uppon thy fayre langayge! . . . for wyte thou well and truste hit, I am thy mortall foo and ever woll to my dethday; for thou haste slayne my good knyghtes and full noble men of my blood, that shall I never recover agayne. Also thou haste layne be my quene and holdyn her many wynters, and sytthyn, lyke a traytoure, taken her away fro me by fors.1 (688)

It is refreshing to hear Arthur finally articulate these ideas with so much authority, but the anger he legitimately feels gives way to the love he also feels. When Lancelot helps him back onto his horse, the "teerys braste oute of

{Arthur's }yen, thynkyng of the grete curtesy that was in sir Launcelot more than in ony other man. And therewith the kynge rod hys way and myght no lenger beholde hym, saying to hymselif, 'Alas, alas, that ever yet thys warre began!" (691). The pathos in these scenes stems not only from convincingly painful dialogue and interplay among characters, but from the fact that

Malory, more than his sources, draws out the king's suffering and agonized hesitation to fight against his favorite knight. Arthur honestly recognizes at this point the futility of the battle he has helped to launch. He is capable of looking at Lancelot with compassion—of seeing the situation from a perspective with till its ambiguities and contradictions. In response to these growing feelings in him and to the Pope's interdict to reunite with both the 253

queen and with Lancelot, Arthur wants to be realigned with them, but "sir

Gawayn wolde nat suffir hym" (692). Arthur is out of control at the worst possible time here. His dependence on Gawain is not surprising in that we have seen Arthur's dependence on others, including Gawain, before, so we acknowledge the power Gawain actually wields when the narrator tells us that

Arthur would have taken Guinevere again and been accorded with Sir

Lancelot: "but sir Gawayne wolde nat suffir hym by no maner of meane. And so sir Gawayne made many men to blow uppon sir Launcelot, so all at onys they called hym 'false recrayed knyght' " (690). But the narrator's emphasis on the overwhelming complexity of the events and on Arthur's anguish and love—as well as Lancelot's suffering—provokes our sympathy rather than our condemnation for Arthur, despite his failure to assume full authority as sovereign.

Malory's presentation of Arthur in more overt human terms narrows the gap that exists between Arthur's perception of himself and ours and inclines us to see the king from a shared vantage point. He outrightly affirms Arthur in his characterization of him in the final book of Le Morte Darthur as one who redeems himself—who is not merely doomed to fall in the face of major conflict and who is not simply passive. Arthur is presented as a figure who can take control of his life—who can understand the events around him and accept them for what they are. Malory uplifts the king not as the "true embodiment of heroic knighthood," but as a character with limitations who is distinguished by insightful perceptions, tremendous patience, and sincere 254

devotion to those he loves.

Arthur's capacity for the self-knowledge that ultimately redeems him is apparent in the scene where he challenges Tristram to battle for carrying the shield bearing th e three unknown figures. The king is seriously wounded, but he honorably recoups when he accepts responsibility for his actions: "We have now as we have deservyd, for thorowe oure owne orgulyte we demaunded batayle of you" (344). Arthur's assessment of the situation is correct, and we heartily approve of the way he handles it. Malory comments directly on

Arthur's clear-sightedness in a later scene when Aggravaine tells the king that

Lancelot "holdith { his} quene, and hathe done longe. . ." (674). Arthur responds carefully,

'But I wolde be lothe to begyn such a thynge but I myght have prevys of hit, for sir Launcelot ys an hardy knyght, and all ye know that he ys the beste knyght amonge us all, and but if he be takyn with the dede he woll fyght with hym that bryngith up the noyse, and I know no knyght th at ys able to macch hym.' (674)

While Arthur's answ er seems not to address the situation directly, or in the appropriate vein, Malory's does and thus outrightly defends the king's behavior:

For, as the Freynshe booke seyth, the kynge was full lothe th at such a noyse shulde be uppon sir Launcelot and his quene; for the kynge had a demyng of hit, but he wold nat here thereoff, for sir Launcelot had done so much for hym and for the quene so many tymes that wyte you well the kynge loved hym passyngly welL (674) 255

This comment makes clear that Arthur is not merely a naive figure, but a

character who, because of the situation's intricacy and his genuine affection

for both Guinevere and Lancelot, does not want to sacrifice everything to the

fact that they are having an affair.

Facing Lancelot in battle, the king is capable of recognizing the love

that persistently underlies their relationship and can acknowledge Lancelot's sincere devotion to him: "For ever sir Launcelot forbearyth me in all placis, and in lyke wyse my kynne, and that ys sene well thys day, what curtesy he shewed my neveawe, sir Gawayne" (705). Arthur's self-knowledge is most apparent in the final book of Le Morte Darthur, where Malory overtly celebrates him because of his acknowledgement and acceptance of his human, fallible nature. When the battle starts because of the knight's raised sword against the adder and Arthur is mortally wounded, he squarely faces his situation and announces truthfully and with calmness: "I am com to myne ende" (713). His language itself is more precise than it has been before—he perceives situations more and more as they really are and accepts them.35

Determined to confront Mordred himself despite Lucan's counsel not to, he says, "Now tyde me dethe, tyde me lyff" (713). He accepts the painful reality of his pending death, and he is truly in control in these scenes. When he cries out for Lancelot, saying, "thys day have I sore myssed the! And alas, that ever I was ayenste the!" (714), we see both his love for Lancelot and his own realized ability to fight for himself. 256

Arthur's self awareness is poignantly evidenced, as is his redemption, in

the final scenes of The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur saunz Guerdon.

where he interacts with Bedevere. In contrast to the French Mort Artu, which

presents a similar scene between Arthur and Girflet, but one where Girflet

asks only if he will see the king again, Malory's scenes emphasize the

transformation occurring in Arthur toward self-realization. In his

characterizations of the two, Malory ingeniously switches their

roles—Bedevere becomes the fearful, hesitant figure we have often seen in

Arthur—fearful of loneliness and isolation—and Arthur becomes the sure-footed character many of his advisers were, stating accurately that

Bedevere should not put full hope in him. Arthur tells him following Lucan's death,

'Now leve thys mournynge and wepyng, jantyll knyght. . . for all thys woll nat avayle me. For wyte thou well, and I myght lyve myselff, the dethe of sir Lucan wolde greve me evermore. But my tyme passyth on faste .... Therefore . . . take thou here Excaliber, my good swerde, and go wyth hit to yondir watirs syde; and whan thou commyste there, I charge the throw my swerde in that water, and com agayne and telle me what thou syeste there.' (715)

These comments contrast effectively with those Arthur uttered when his knights were about to leave for the Grail quest. He can now separate himself from them and deal with the realities of a mutable, painful world—accepting this anguish as part of being alive. Earlier, he was dependent on his knights for the sustenance of his own life. Now, he depends on himself. He can 257

become effectively forceful with Bedevere, who then ultimately complies

with his command. Arthur's independence, his redemption of self, occurs

when he talks with Bedevere for the last time. The knight cries out to him,

"A, my lorde Arthur, what shall becom of me, now ye go frome me and leve

me here alone amonge myne enemyes?" "Comforte thyselff," Arthur

responds, "and do as well as thou mayste, for in me ys no truste for to truste

in. For I muste into the vale of Avylyon to hele me of my grevous wounde.

And if thou here nevermore of me, pray for my soule!" (716). Arthur

acknowledges for Bedevere the ambiguity and uncontrollable nature of the

world—the inability of all to comprehend it fully or to shape its realities as we

would have them shaped. Bedevere has assumed in many ways the nature we

saw in Arthur intermittently earlier, and the contrast between him and the

present Arthur is striking. Arthur is self-possessed and accepting in a way

that completely differs from what we see in Bedevere, though we can sympathize with the knight in his solitary, lonely, painful plight where his world has collapsed around him and he has nowhere, it seems, to turn.

Arthur's world has collapsed as well, but he has risen up out of it, a movement the narrator emphasizes and expresses when he comments directly about

Arthur's outcome:

Yet som men say in many partys of Inglonde that kynge Arthure ys nat dede, but had by the wyll of oure Lorde Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall com agayne, and he shall wynne the Holy Crosse. Yet I woll nat say that hit shall be so, but rather I wolde sey: here in thys worlde he chaunged hys lyff. (717) 258

Malory's focus on Arthur in "thys world" encourages us to see the value of

human fellowship shared among imperfect characters who approach one

another with sincere compassion and love. His presentation of Arthur in these

terms draws us away from affirming ideals as absolute standards against

which to measure knights' behavior and invites us to see instead that

perfection in this world is not possible. Arthur's limitations thus do not

necessarily condemn him. His recognition and acceptance both of who he is

and of conditions as they really are become a means of uplifting him.

In his portrayal of Lancelot, who is the most human, psychologically complex character of all those presented in the Morte. Malory makes clear his affirmation of imperfect characters and celebration of human nature despite its imperfections. Unlike his other characterizations, however, he does not sharply distinguish between a traditional, chivalric description of Lancelot and that which ironically undermines him as a heroic figure. Lancelot is not overtly undercut, as Arthur and Gawain are so much more plainly. The difficulty of trying to place him in the work stems, in fact, from our having very little clear direction from the narrator and from our seeing Lancelot in situations with a broad range. There are moments, nonetheless, when we do smile at Lancelot because we see the full implications of his attitudes and actions when he does not. He is not distinguished by the glaring lapses or faults that other characters have—his are more buried, more complex weavings of a human psyche that cannot comprehend or deal with everything 259

it faces at once. Lancelot's "fault" is that he cannot look at himself r.jus.cely

and truthfully.37 Unlike Arthur, who clearly strives to create an idealized

world, Lancelot tends to believe in and accept ideals as if they were the

realities of his world. He cannot perceive the distinction between what he

says and what he does. His impulse to be ideal in many ways alienates him

from his community. We are not encouraged, in all cases, for example, to

look down upon the other members or to discard their viewpoints in favor of

his. Lancelot's alienation is representative of something more profound—and

more subtle—his alienation from himself—his inability to face the things about

himself that he cannot accept.

Malory presents Lancelot as a traditional, heroic figure primarily

through his overall descriptions and occasional comments. He inspires us to

take Lancelot seriously as a fierce and honorable knight when he says:

in all turnementes, justys, and dedys of armys, both for lyff and deth, {.Lancelot} passed all other knyghtes, and at no tyme was he ovircom but yf hit were by treson other inchauntement. So this sir Launcelot encresed so mervaylously in worship and honoure; therefore he is the fyrste knyght that the Freynsh booke makyth mencion of aftir kynge Arthure com frome Rome. Wherefore quene Gwenyvere had hym in grete favoure aboven all other knyghtis, and so he loved the quene agayne aboven all other ladyes dayes of his lyff, and for hir he dud many dedys of armys and saved herfrome the fyre thorow his noble chevalry. (149)

He also tells us that Lancelot was "that tyme named for the mervaylyste knyght of the worlde" (233) and is held up with Tristram as the knights most 260

"of clyere knyghthode and of pure strengthe and of bounte and of curtesy"

(451). We are prompted to uphold Lancelot as a traditional romance hero as

well because other characters look up to him as the epitome of chivalry and

goodness. Sir Cador claims: "... of the knyghthode of sir Launcelot hit were

mervayle to telle. And of his bolde cosyns ar proved full noble knyghtes, but

of wyse wytte and of grete strengthe of his ayge sir Launcelot hath no felowe"

(130). Bleoberis calls him "one of the beste knyghtes of the worlde," and

Tristram says he is "pereles of curtesy and of knyghthode..." (250). Malory

describes Lancelot as a knight who repeatedly has others' best interests at

heart. He looks out for his comrades, and he frequently shares his honor with

them by forsaking tournament prizes and extolling their virtues and talents in place of his own. He always protects them from danger and graciously offers his services to anyone who requires them. His generosity is apparent, for example, when he rescues a woman who has been boiling in water for five years because Morgan Le Fay is jealous of her beauty. Only "the beste knyght of the worlde" (478) could deliver her, and Lancelot succeeds as well in rescuing the people in this kingdom from a serpent in a tomb. These descriptions appear to posit Lancelot as a godlike figure, upheld throughout the narrative because of his chivalrous nature.

We are led to see Lancelot ironically, however, in Malory's descriptions of scenes that show us the knight takes himself too seriously. Lancelot's perceptions of these events remain narrower than our own, and in recognizing more about him than he does himself, we see him from a higher vantage point 261

and align ourselves with the narrator. In two of these scenes, the situation

presented is ultimately funny, but Lancelot does not share in its humor. His

inability to do so reveals the strain that is often apparent in him between

adhering to his vision of idealized behavior and remaining part of the

community. The first of these occasions occurs when he stops by an

unfamiliar pavilion for rest at night. Belleus, the pavilion's owner, later

enters it, thinks his lover is awaiting him in bed, "and so he leyde hym adowne

by sir Launcelot and toke hym in his armys and began to kysse hym. And whan

sir Launcelot felte a rough berde kyssyng hym he sterte oute of the bedde

lyghtly, and the othir knyght after hym" (153). Lancelot ultimately

apologizes, explains he had been afraid of treason, and helps to control the

surprised knight's bleeding.^® The humor in this scene stems from Lancelot's

vulnerability in a very peculiar situation and the extreme way he reacts, to

the shock of a totally innocent knight. On another occasion, we respond

humorously to Lancelot's fortune because he is again undone by a peculiar turn

of events that reduces his apparent exalted position dramatically. In

preparation for the Great Tournament, Lancelot stays with the hermit

Brastias, where he often goes to a well to rest. On one day, a hunteress

overshoots the hind she is pursuing and "so by myssefortune the arow smote sir

Launcelot in the thycke of the buttok over the barbys" (643). He cries out:

"Lady, or damesell, whatsomever ye be, in an evyll tyme bare ye thys bowe.

The devyll made you a shoter!" (643). Bleeding extensively, he mourns to himself, "A, mercy Jesu!. . . I may calle myselff the moste unhappy man that 262

lyvyth, for ever whan I wolde have faynyst worshyp there befallyth me ever

som unhappy thynge. Now, so Jesu me helpe .. . and if no man wolde but God,

I shall be in the fylde on Candilmas day at the justys whatsomever falle of hit"

(644).

It is not that we laugh at Lancelot's fortune in these two scenes—we see

their potential seriousness—but we also, in contrast to Lancelot, see the irony

of their origins. Lancelot's responses to these scenes remain so consistently

serious and single-minded that they clearly contrast with this irony and

suggested humor. He seems in his soberness to exalt himself unnecessarily—to

deny his vulnerability. The gap between his perception of an event and that of

others, including our own, dramatically appears in the scene where he rescues

Guinevere from Mellyagaunt. Bereft of his horse, he proceeds on this rescue

mission on foot, eventually overtaking Mellyagaunt's cowherd, who takes him

to the castle in a chariot. When Mellyagaunt knows Lancelot is on his way he

begs the queen's mercy, which she grants, so when Lancelot bursts in on the

scene, Guinevere tactlessly comments, "Sir Launcelot, why be ye so

amoved?" He responds, as we might expect him to, "A! madame . . . why aske

ye me that questyon? For mesemyth ye oughte to be more wrotther than I

am, for ye have the hurte and the dishonour .... and I had wyste that ye

wolde have bene so lyghtly accorded with hym I wolde nat a made such haste unto you" (655). While it is true we may sympathize with Lancelot because of

the behavior of the queen, the scene is somewhat humorous in that Lancelot responds to it so seriously, so chivalrously, when the event, and the other 263

characters, do not demand it.39 To exaggerate the situation even further, he

identifies himself as "le Shyvalere de Charyotte" (656), assuming he possesses

negative characteristics. He often absorbs this responsibility when it is clear

he is not guilty of any offense. With Elaine, for example, he renames himself

"Le Shyvalere 111 Mafeete" and threatens to injure Castor, Pelles' nephew, if

he presumes to correct him by saying his name should be Launcelot du Lake

(501). In this situation, as in others, Lancelot adheres vigorously to idealized

codes of behavior. He sets himself apart from others, not because he thinks

better of himself than they do, like so many characters, for example, in

Byron's Don Juan, but because he looks at himself with so much reproach.

Not only does Lancelot not often recognize that he ought not to accept

full responsibility for an event, he also does not recognize his real virtues.

The narrator suggests in his descriptions of the knight in conflict that this

blindness results from Lancelot's desire to avoid confronting who he really is.

Such is the case in the healing of Sir Urre. Lancelot, when the turn to help

the sick knight falls to him, exclaims, "Jesu defende m e. . . whyle so many

noble kyngis and knyghtes have fayled, that I shulde presume uppon me to enchyve that all ye, my lordis, myght nat enchyve" (667). Arthur commands him to proceed, telling him that he "shall nat do hit for no presumpcion, but for to beare us felyshyp. . . " (668), but Lancelot continues to resist Urrd, though the sick knight comments that he already feels better in Lancelot's company. Lancelot says, "For I shame sore with myselff that I shulde be thus requyred, for never was I able in worthynes to do so hyghe a thynge" (668). 264

Appealing to the Trinity, he heals Urre, of course, and all kneel down in thanksgiving, Lancelot weeping, the narrator tells us, "as he had bene a chylde that had bene beatyn!" (668). What is notable about this scene is that

Lancelot so clearly does not perceive his proven potential or his communal relationship with the others. He cannot see that he is called on simply because he is the only one in the community who has not yet tried. He is alienated from himself in a way that prevents him from seeing his true capabilities, and his extreme humility widens and perpetuates that gap. It seems almost, in fact, that he fears discovering his powers—hesitates to know himself. Urre is healed by "the beste knyght" (663), who is ironically undermined not because he is a comic character, but because he does not know himself.

That Lancelot could recognize his vulnerability and see himself from a less idealized perspective is evident in his capacity for humor. Malory presents him as a realistic human figure in scenes where he is a sympathetic joker and trickster. When Gaheris tells Lancelot about his and Kay's fight with Mark and Andred and Mark's eventual yielding, he smiles and says:

"Harde hit ys to take oute off the fleysshe that ys bredde in the boone!" (337) and thoroughly delights his comrades, who all then "made hem myrry togydirs"

(337). At the end of the tournament at Surluse, he plays openly with Uinadan, and the effect of such scenes is to show us how genuinely human Lancelot really is. They emphasize, additionally, the strain that exists between this part of Lancelot and the behavior he idealizes. This strain is the source of 265

Lancelot's alienation from not only himself but from others in his community as well, a point made symbolically and directly in his role as anonymous antagonist to the Round Table knights. Ultimately, he identifies himself and takes responsibility (352), but his behavior in such scenes is emblematic of

Lancelot's behavior throughout—he can be among and part of the community he loves, but there is something in him that always separates them from him as welL He often rides alone, and what he fails to confront is himself.

Lancelot's biggest obstacle to looking at himself squarely is Guinevere.

Malory's characterization of him through the comments of others in the Round

Table Community make it clear that Lancelot fails to see throughout most of the narrative the true nature of his involvement with her and that she, in addition to the chivalrous codes to which he adheres, dictates much of his life. One of the earliest occasions where we realize that Lancelot is not in touch with the actual nature of this situation is when, after killing a knight whose aim was to distress ladies, a "jantylwoman" says to him:

'Allmyghty Jesu preserve you wheresomever ye ryde or goo, for the curteyst knyght thou arte, and mekyste unto all ladyes and jantylwomen that no lyvyth. But one thyng, sir knyght, methynkes ye lak, ye that ar a knyght wyveles, that ye woll nat love som mayden other jantylwoman. For I cowde never here sey that ever ye loved ony of no maner of degrfe, and that is grete pyte. But hit is noysed that ye love quene Guenyvere, and that she hath ordeyned by enchauntemente that ye shall never love none other but hir, nother none other damesell ne lady shall rejoyce you; wherefore there be many in this londe, of hyghe astate and lowe, that make grete sorow.' (160) 266

Lancelot responds to her:

*Fayre dam esell. . . I may nat warne peple to speke of me what hit pleasyth hem. But for to be a weddyd man, I thynke hit nat, for than I muste couche with hir and leve armys and turnamentis, batellys and adventures. And as for to sey to take my pleasaunce with peramours, that woll I refuse: in prencipall for drede of God, for knyghtes that bene adventures sholde nat be advoutrers nothir lecherous, for than they be nat happy nother fortunate unto the werrys; for other they shall be overcom with a sympler knyght than they be hemself, other ellys they shall sle by unhappe and hir cursednesse bettir men than they be hemself. And so who that usyth peramours shall be unhappy, and all thynge unhappy that is aboute them.' (161)

This conversation, as Vinaver has pointed out, is an addition of Malory's to his sources, and it has the effect of providing readers with a keener insight into

Lancelot's feelings about love and about the conflicts he wishes to avoid.

These attitudes are emphasized by being echoed again in the knight's conversations with the queen and king about Elaine of Astolat's death.

Lancelot defends himself to the king by saying, "My lorde Arthur, wyte you well I am ryght hevy of the deth of thys fayre lady. . . . but she loved me oute of mesure" (641). He tells Guinevere: "For, madame ... I love nat to be constrayned" (641). In agreeing with Lancelot and adding, "That ys trouth, sir . . . and with many knyghtes love ys fre in hymselffe, and never woll be bonde; for where he ys bonden he lowsith hymselff" (641), Arthur reflects the nature of Lancelot's real situation. Though he may not like to be constrained,

Lancelot is bound to Guinevere, and, in the process, does lose himself. He 267

does not recognize the irony of his own words in that what he says differs very

markedly from what he feels and from the way he behaves. Such irony is

apparent when the sorceress Hallewes, who desires Lancelot, proves the

extent of his devotion to Guinevere rather than to God when she tells him at

Chapel Perelous to leave his sword behind or he will die. He refuses, but when

she says, "and thou dyddyste leve that swerde quene Gwenyvere sholde thou

never se," he responds, "Than were I a foole and I wolde leve this swerde."

Hallewes then asks him to kiss her, but he replies, "that God me forbede"

(168). His remark is ironic in that it is not God who dictates behavior to

Lancelot but his love for Guinevere. She is more of a power over him than

any other source, and he fails to realize to what extent she wields it.

Malory's characterization of Lancelot through the remarks of other

figures in a scene where he loses control of his chivalrous posture and lets out

his true feelings, again without comprehending their actual meaning,

emphasizes the knight's obsession. Lamorak, overhearing Mellyagaunt praise

Guinevere, confronts him and claims Margawse of Orkenay is the superior

woman. Lancelot discovers them arguing and admonishes them: "Hit ys nat

thy parte to disprayse thy prynces that thou arte undir obeysaunce and we

all... . And therefore make the redy, for I woll preve uppon the that quene

Guenyver ys the fayryst lady and most of bounte in the worlde" (298). We become aware of the real nature of Lancelot's objection through the response

Malory ascribes to Lamorak, which presents a good defense: 268

'I am lothe to have ado with you in thys quarell, for every man thynkith hys owne lady fayryste, and thoughe I prayse the lady that I love moste, ye sholde nat be wrothe. For thoughe my lady quene Gwenyver be fayryst in youre eye, wyte you well quene Morgause of Orkeney ys fayryst in myne eye, and so every knyght thynkith hys owne lady fayryste. And wyte you well, sir, ye ar the man in the worlde excepte sir Trystramys that I am moste lothyst to have ado withall, but and ye woll nedys have ado with me, I shall endure you as longe as I may.' (298)

Bleoberis' comment encourages us to see the reality of the situation even

further:

'I wyste you never so mysseadvysed as ye be at thys tyme, for sir Lamerok seyth to you but reson and knyghtly. For I warne you, I have a lady, and methynkith that she ys the fayryst lady of the worlde. Were thys a grete reson that ye sholde be wrothe with me for such langage? And well ye wote that sir Lamorak ys a noble knyght as I know ony lyvynge, and he hath oughte you and all us ever good wyll. Therefore I pray you, be fryndis!1 (299)

Chivalry is clearly at stake here in Lancelot's estimation, but we are aware

through the comments of his companions of a more intense, personal, secret

motivation behind his behavior—one that he is not in touch with himself. ^0

Both Bleoberis and Lamorak speak fairly and realistically and are necessary to

combat Lancelot's powerful urge to defend the woman he loves more than he

admits to himself. Scenes such as these emphasize Lancelot's blindness to himself. 269

When we contrast Lancelot to Elaine, Pelles' daughter, and Elaine of

Astolat, we can perceive the blindness itself in even clearer and more exag­

gerated terms. Both characters speak frankly and openly of their love for

Lancelot, and both accept their feelings completely. They are as devoted to

him as he is to Guinevere, but they own their commitment to him as it really

exists. It is true, of course, that there are limits to what Lancelot can say

publicly about his feelings for Guinevere, but we often sense that he struggles

to avoid confronting the real nature and the depth of his love for her. We can approve of Elaine, Galahad's mother, as a very positive influence in Lancelot's

life in that she genuinely puts him before herself and understands him, but he

cannot recognize her value and cannot learn about himself through her because of his blind devotion to the queen. His withheld acknowledgement of the depth of his love for Guinevere contrasts sharply with the openness in

Elaine of Astolat's monologue, a speech added by Malory:

'Why sholde I leve such thoughtes? Am I nat an erthely woman? And all the whyle the brethe ys in my body I may complayne me, for my belyve ys that I do none offence, though I love an erthely man, unto God, for He fourmed me thereto, and all maner of good love comyth of God. And othir than good love loved I never sir Launcelot du Lake. And I take God to recorde, I loved never none but hym, nor never shaU, of erthely creature; and a clene maydyn I am for hym and for all othir. And sitthyn hit ys the sufferaunce of God that I shall dye for so noble a knyght, I beseche The, Hyghe Fadir of Hevyn, have mercy uppon me and my soule, and uppon myne unnumerable paynys that I suffir may be alygeaunce of parte of my synnes. For, Swete Lorde Jesu... I take God to recorde I was never to The grete offenser nother ayenste Thy lawis but that I loved thys noble knyght, sir 270

Launcelot, oute of mesure. And of myselff, Good Lorde, I had no myght to withstonde the fervent love, wherefore I have my deth!" (639-640)

Malory's addition of this declaration to his Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen

Guinevere, because Elaine engages our sympathy in so eloquently owning and expressing her feelings, invites us to see, in comparison, how out of touch with himself Lancelot actually is. His promise to provide a dowry for Elaine re­ veals an insensitivity that derives from his failure to apprehend or appreciate the depth and sincerity of her feelings—an inabililty Malory clearly suggests in his overall characterization of him that he has with his own feelings as well.

Lancelot, unlike Elaine, disguises his feelings—to himself as well as to those around him—in an effort to sublimate the human nature that Elaine so touch­ ingly places in a positive light. Her frankness is unsettling and commendable in that it contrasts so vividly and so persuasively with all that goes on around her, making Lancelot's blindness and inability to accept the full nature of his love for Guinevere clearer than it could have been expressed in any other way.

Malory's affirmation of Lancelot as a positive, sympathetic character despite his limitations becomes evident in his portrayal of him throughout the

Grail section and in his descriptions of him following this quest. It is true that

Lancelot "sins" in a traditional sense in that he is involved in an adulterous affair, but the narrator does not present the situation so simplistically and therefore does not directly attempt to elicit our condemnation. He minimizes the significance of Lancelot's "sinful" nature, in fact, by not dwelling on it, a 271 tendency of his that achieves a similar effect as (but contrasts with) Ariosto's and Byron's more overt deflation of what is sinful in Orlando Furioso and Don

Juan. Malory deflects attention away from Lancelot to encourage us not to fault him. Following Tristram's discussion with Morgan to persuade her to identify the figure of the knight on the shield, Malory tells us, for example:

But, as the Freynshe booke seyde, quene Morgan loved sir Launcelot beste, and ever she desired hym, and he wolde never love her nor do nothynge at her rekeyste, and therefore she hylde many knyghtes togydir to have takyn hym by strengthe. And bycause that she demed that sir Launcelot loved quene Gwenyver paramour and she hym agayne, therefore dame Morgan ordayned that shylde to put sir Launcelot to a rebuke, to that entente, that kynge Arthure myght undirstonde the love betwene them. (340)

He upholds Lancelot by redirecting our attention away from the suggested wrongdoing on his part to the duplicity of the queen herself. Fault is attributed to her more than to Lancelot, and the narrator leaves Lancelot's tailing somewhat undefined so that we are not motivated to focus on the meaning of the shield itself or on the correctness of Morgan's assumption about the relationship among these three characters. The downfall of the

Round Table community is a condition Malory ascribes to Aggravaine, deflecting focus, again, away from adultery and the complicated relationships among the three characters involved. Thus, when we finally enter the Grail section with Lancelot, we are not prepared totally for the degree of condemnation he receives. In spite of his blindness, we are aware of his many positive features—his concern and compassion for his comrades, his joy in 272

Galahad, his love for Arthur, and his hatred of injustice—and these make it difficult for us to acquiesce in the judgments made against him. We feel a protectiveness for him because we have not been encouraged to disengage ourselves from him as a character defiled with sin, as a very "rotten branch."

Lancelot's experiences and reprimands in this section are so contradictory that we feel inclined to discredit the condemnations levelled against him more readily than we discredit the knight himself. He hears on the one hand, for example, how greatly he is blessed in being a superior knight. A hermit tells him:

'ye ought to thanke God more than ony knyght lyvynge, for He hath caused you to have more worldly worship than ony knyght that ys now lyvynge.... And there is no knyght now lyvynge that ought to yelde God so grete thanke os ye, for He hath yevyn you beaute, bownte, semelynes, and grete strengthe over all other knyghtes. And therefore ye ar the more beholdyn unto God than ony other man to love Hym and drede Hym, for youre strengthe and your manhode woll litill avayle you and God be agaynste you.' (538)

He appears to uphold Lancelot when he adds:

'hit semyth well God lovith you.... in all the worlde men shall nat fynde one knyght to whom oure Lorde hath yevyn so much of grace as He hath lente the, for He hathe yeffyn the fayrenes with semelynes; also He hath yevyn the wytte and discression to know good frome ille. He hath also yevyn prouesse and hardinesse, and gevyn the to worke so largely that thou hast had the bettir all thy dayes of thy lyff wheresomever thou cam. And now oure Lorde wolde suffir the no lenger but that thou shalt know Hym whether thou wolt other nylt.' (539) 273

But Lancelot also hears that he is evil and without hope for redemption. The

herm it who has so eloquently pointed out his blessings emphasizes as well that

Christ "woll nat appere where such synners bene but if hit be unto their grete

hurte other unto their shame" (538). He insists that Lancelot is "more harder

than ony stone" (539), and that the voice compared him to the fig tree because

"whan the Holy Grayle was brought before {him}, He founde in{_him} no fruyte, nother good thought nother good wylle, and defouled with lechory" (540).

Visited by strange visions, Lancelot confronts his apparent alienation from the spiritual world in one particular dream where an old man descends through the clouds with the company of angels and alights among several kings and knights, blessing them aU. The old man then approaches one of the knights and says, "I have loste aU that I have b e sette in the, for thou hast ruled the ayenste me as a warryoure and used wronge warris with vayneglory for the pleasure of the worlde more than to please me, therefore thou shalt be confounded withoute thou yelde me my tresoure" (554). Lancelot learns through a hermit that the dream "signyfieth that the angels seydef.he Jwere none of the seven felysship" (555).

The messages th at Lancelot receives in this section are repeatedly mixed and suggest on the one hand that he can be redeemed but on the other that he will be permanently rejected from the spiritual world. Malory's descriptions of him posit the knight sympathetically, however, as a character who accepts his vulnerability and who sincerely attempts to understand the 274 world around him. Pierced to the heart by the judgments against him,

Lancelot repents and accepts responsibility for his worldliness when he says:

'My synne and my wyckednes hath brought me unto grete dishonoure! For whan I sought worldly adventures for worldely desyres I ever encheved them and had the bettir in every place, and never was I discomfite in no quarell, were hit ryght were hit wronge. And now I take uppon me the adventures to seke of holy thynges, now I se and undirstonde that myne olde synne hyndryth me and shamyth me, that I had no power to stirre nother speke whan the holy bloode appered before me.' (538)

He confesses to a good man:

'all my grete dedis of armys that I have done for the moste party was for the quenys sake, and for hir sake wolde I do batayle were hit ryght other wronge. And never dud I batayle all only for Goddis sake, but for to wynne worship and to cause me the bettir to be beloved, and litill or nought I thanked never God of hit.' (539)

The hermit counsels Lancelot not to come into so much fellowship with the queen as he did before and Lancelot promises not to "by the fay the of hys body." The hermit responds, "Sir, loke that your harte and youe mowth accorde . . . and I shall ensure you ye shall have the more worship than ever ye had" (539).

In spite of his repentence and sincere anguish and guilt, Lancelot appears, nonetheless, to remain unfairly opposed and chastised by those who voice the spiritual ideal. We sympathize with him in his confusion and disorientation because we recognize the benevolence of his intentions. He is 275 inclined, for example, to help the weaker party in a battle he encounters but learns later that the knights he wanted to assist represented "synnes not confessed" (557). We also commiserate with him because Malory overtly characterizes him as a positive figure when he shows him living with Galahad for half a year. Both "served God dayly and nyghtly with all their power"

(595). They are divinely sustained for over a month: "He that fedde the peple of Israel with manna in deserte, so was he fedde; for every day, whan he had seyde hys prayers, he was susteyned with the grace of the Holy Goste" (594).

When Galahad leaves to continue his quest for the Grail, he says to his father,

"Sir . . . no prayer avaylith so much as youres" (595). Such a comment serves to reinforce a positive image of Lancelot and to confirm for us that his is not a soul totally foul with sin. Eventually, of course, he is granted a partial vision of the Grail, though he is smitten down and loses his sight and hearing for attempting to enter the chamber to help the priest. He concludes that the twenty-four days he remained unconscious symbolized the twenty-four years he had been a sinner and that the Lord made him suffer this penance. His honorable existence among the Round Table knights leads us away, however, as does Malory's reduction and consequent de-emphasis of his sources' doctrinal commentary, from perceiving him as an overall sinful knight.

Lancelot has been distinguished among his companions as a generous, devoted figure, and the narrator's attention to this characterization calls into question the appropriateness of evaluating Lancelot negatively because of his failure to uphold idealized standards consistently.^* 276

Malory directly upholds Lancelot as a positive character because of his human nature following the Grail quest, when Bors decides not to remain apart from the Round Table comrades he misses and returns to him. Bors looks up to and emulates Lancelot, an act that in itself affirms Lancelot's value.42 The narrator also uplifts him by effectively undermining the seriousness of his sin with Guinevere, as has been demonstrated before, through his descriptions of their final interactions. He focuses, more than we find in the French prose Mort Artu or the English stanzaic Le Morte Arthur, his probable sources for The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur saunz

Guerdon, on the intricate, emotionally-entangled, and sympathetic nature of their relationship. In presenting their renewed involvement following the

Grail Quest, for example, he does not draw attention to its rightness or wrongness:

as the booke seyth, sir Launcelot began to resorte unto quene Gwenivere agayne and forgate the promyse and the perfeceion that he made in the queste; for, as the booke seyth, had nat sir Launcelot bene in his prevy though tes and in hys myndis so sette inwardly to the quene as he was in semynge outewarde to God, there had no knyght passed hym in the queste of the Sankgreall. But ever his thoughtis prevyly were on the quene, and so they loved togydirs more hotter than they dud toforehonde, and had many such prevy draughtis togydir that many in the courte spake of hit, and in especiall sir Aggravayne, sir Gawaynes brothir, for he was ever opynne-mowthed. (611)

Indirectly, the narrator prevents our making clear judgments against the couple because he deflects the fault of the situation onto another character, 277

encouraging us to forego a moral focus on either Lancelot or Guinevere.43

Aggravaine is the negative figure here, bent on destruction. Similarly, Malory

faults Mellyagaunt in a later scene where the knight discovers L ancelot has

slept with Guinevere when he comments that Mellyagaunt was "passyng glad

he had Iher} at suche a avauntayge, for he demed by that to hyde hys owne

treson" (658). The real villain in this scene is Mellyagaunt, not Lancelot, and

our attention is focused more on Mellyagaunt's trickery than on the adulterous

relationship between the knight and the queen. The narrator's own comments

more directly qualify Lancelot in positive terms when he calls him " th a t noble

knyght" who put himself in great jeopardy with the queen and goes on to say,

"For, as the Freynshhe booke seyth, the quene and sir Launcelot were

togydirs. And whether they were abed other at other maner of disportis, me

lyste nat thereof make no mencion, for love that tyme was nat as love ys

nowadayes" (676). Aggravaine and Mordred succeed in catching th em , but

Malory directs our favorable attitudes toward the couple and against the

others, a move that suggests we cannot perceive this relationship in simple,

contemporary ways—that we cannot really evaluate it at all.

In the final books of Le Morte Darthur, Malory's celebration of Lancelot becomes clear in his characterization of him as a figure who, a c c e p t i n ghis lim itations and acknowledging the mutability of his world, becomes t h e center of the Round Table community. His clear-sightedness and compassion—his awakened awareness of the value of human feelings and relationships-_attract others to him and are evoked in his consoling words to Bors, who has 278

unknowingly wounded him:

'ye be ryght wellcom . . . for I wolde with pryde have overcom you all. And there in my pryde I was nere slayne, and that was in myne owne defaughte; for I myght have gyffen you warnynge of my beynge there, and than had I had no hurte. For hit ys an olde-seyde sawe, "there ys harde batayle thereas kynne and frendys doth batayle ayther ayenst other," for there may be no mercy, but mortall warre. Therefore, fayre cousyn... lat thys langage overpasse, and all shall be wellcom that God sendith. And latte us leve of thys m ater and speke of som rejoysynge, for thys that ys done may nat be undone; and lat us fynde a remedy how sone th a t I may be hole.' (634)

Lancelot's approach is very practical and direct—he is refreshingly down to

earth, and we appreciate him for it. We also appreciate him for the ability

Malory suggests he has gained in of recognizing not only his own attributes but

Guinevere's shortcomings with him. In response to her doubts about his love

for her when he returns from the Grail quest, he honestly explains,

'And if that I had nat had my prevy thoughtis to returne to youre love agayne as I do, I had sene as grete mysteryes as ever saw my sonne sir Galahad, Percivale, other sir Bors. And therefore, madam, I was but late in that queste, and wyte you well, madam, hit may nat by yet lyghtly forgotyn, the hyghe servyse in whom I dud my dyligente laboure.' (611)

When Guinevere finally summons him to apologize for her wrath at his disguising him self with Elaine's sleeve in battle, he appropriately tells her,

"Thys ys nat the firste tyme. . . that ye have ben displese with me causeles.

But, madame, ever I muste suffir you, but what sorow that I endure, ye take 279

no forse" (642). We know that Lancelot is correct, and we see as positive the

fact that he speaks so honestly to Guinevere. His love for her is no longer so

blind that he simply absorbs all her accusations and fails to present himself to

her accurately or correct her assumptions. He accepts his feelings for the queen and shares them frankly—in direct contrast to his attempt earlier to convince those around them that he loved "nat to be constrayned."

The self-knowledge and more honest estimation of his relationship with the queen Malory's descriptions and dialogues imply Lancelot possesses become even more apparent when the knight responds to Guinevere's declaration that she is not sure she can believe him—that she is suspicious he will return to the world:

'Well, m adam e. . . ye say as hit pleasith you, for yet wyste ye me never false of my promyse. And God deffende but that I shulde forsake the worlde as ye have done! For in the queste of the Sankgreall I had that tyme forsakyn the vanytees of the worlde, had nat youre love bene. And if I had done so at that tyme with my harte, wylle, and thought, I had passed all the knyghtes that ever were in the Sankgreall excepte syr Galahad, my sone. And therfore, lady, sythen ye have taken you to perfeccion, I must nedys take me to perfection, of ryght. For I take recorde of God, in you I have had myn erthly joye, and yf I had founden you now so dysposed, I had caste me to have had you into myn owne royame. But sythen I fynde you thus desposed, I ensure you faythfully, I wyl ever take me to penaunce and praye whyle my lyf lasteth, yf that I may fynde ony heremyte, other graye or whyte, that wyl receyve me.' (720-721)

Lancelot's imitation of Guinevere's lifestyle, his desire to "take ihimself ho perfection," is somewhat ironic in that it derives primarily from his awareness 280

of being very deeply bound to her and consequent need to be aligned with her

in whatever way possible. By becoming a monk, he actually acknowledges the

real nature of their relationship.44 He, like Arthur, learns to speak a

different language—one based on perceptions drawn from the realities of their

mutable world.45 He is uplifted and celebrated in the narrative not only

because of his more spiritual demeanor but because he does so openly accept

and articulate his feelings. He confronts the depths of his love—and thus

confronts himself.

The humanness that characterizes Lancelot, his recognition of himself as he really is and his compassionate acceptance of his own and others' imperfections is most specifically upheld when Malory describes the knight's final actions with Arthur. He depicts him as an especially benevolent figure who charges his followers always to save Arthur and Gawain and who does what he can to save those on Arthur's side. Directly calling attention to this trait, he says, "And ever was kynge Arthur aboute sir Launcelot to have slayne hym, and ever sir Launcelot suffird hym and wolde nat stryke agayne" (691).

Lancelot actually rehorses Arthur, in fact, when Bors strikes him down. The scene elicits our sympathy for the characters, caught, as humans so often are, in the painful ambiguity of contradictions. Lancelot tells Arthur that he has listened to liars and that these untruths cause the great debate between them. He also reminds the king of his former happiness in Lancelot's protection of the queen, and that therefore he saved her from the fire (694).

These poignant scenes provoke from us genuine feelings of dismay for the 281

condition of the characters, a condition Malory's additions to his sources and

forbearance in offering or implying negative judgments emphasize is the

result of complex, conflicting human emotions, and thus draw us away from

perceiving and evaluating these figures according to idealized principles of

behavior. Much of what Lancelot says to the king is true, and much of it can

be construed ironically—we know that Guinevere is no traitor to Arthur in

that she has not forsaken his love, but we also know that she is an adulterer.

The situation is continually larger than that, however, a complexity the

narrator insists on by refusing to dwell on the triangle in moral, idealized

terms. He asks us, instead, by focusing and drawing out their anguish, to

sympathize with all members involved, seeing the unfortunate, painful nature

of their experience. He calls upon us to celebrate them by showing that these

relationships are ultimately positive because they force a clarification or redefinition of who these characters are. Compelled to recognize the uncontrollable nature of his world as Arthur and Gawain have done before him, Lancelot repents th at he ever came into Arthur's realm to be so shamefully banished, but recognizes that "fortune ys so varyaunte, and the wheele so mutable, that there ys no constaunte abydynge. And that may be preved by many olde cronycles, as of noble Ector of Troy and Alysaunder . . ." (697). In acknowledging the world's incomprehensible mutability, he comes to know himself better—he knows that in the face of this complexity, he has done the best he could: "Howbehit I wote well that in me was nat all the stabilite of thys realme, but in that I myght I ded my dever" (699). He 232

directly confronts the overwhelming nature of his world when he discovers

A rthur’s death: his "hert almost braste for sorowe, and jhe} threwe hys arm es

abrode, and sayd, 'Alas! Who may truste thys world?"1 (721). Lancelot rightly

recognizes that, in its fickleness, the world victimizes all people in its

arbitrariness. It is simply unknowable.

Malory's most direct celebration of Lancelot occurs in his

characterization of him as the spiritual leader among the Round Table

community. In contrast to the way he is depicted in the French prose Mort

Artu, where he does not, by his example, lead his companions to join him in his

religious life but joins them instead when he meets up with them, he is

portrayed by the narrator as the center of the final community. Lancelot, not

Galahad, who is too aloof and inaccessible to be ultimately effective, takes in

and guides lost knights.4® We sense that he is a more credible, attractive

leader because he has seen the world as it is and can still live in it, and

because he has accepted his imperfections. Malory focuses on Lancelot's

influence among his companions when he tells us: "And soo their horses w ente

where they wolde, for they toke no regarde of no worldly rychesses; for whan

they sawe syr Launcelot endure suche penaunce in prayers and fastynges they

toke no force what payne they endured, for to see the nobleste knyght of the

world take such abstynaunce that he waxed ful lene" (722). Lancelot does n o t

remove himself from the earthly world, however, but learns to embrace it

fully. When his initial restrained response to Guinevere's death gives way to swooning as her body is lowered into the earth, he reasonably and justly 283

defends his position to the Bishop, who com plains, "Ye be to blame, for ye dysplese God with suche maner of sorow-makyng" (723). He accepts his human frailty and feelings and declares:

'Truly, I trust I do not dysplese God, for He knoweth myn entente: for my sorow was not, nor is not, for ony rejoysyng of synne, but my sorow m ay never have ende. For whan I remembre of hir beaulte and of hir noblesse, that was bothe wyth hyr kyng and wyth hyr, so whan I sawe his corps and hir corps so lye togyders, truly myn herte wold not serve to susteyne my careful body. Also whan I remembre me how by my defaute and myn orgule and my pryde that they were bothe layed ful lowe, th at were pereles that ever was lyvyng of Cristen people, wyt you w e l. . . this remembred, of th e ir kyndenes and myn unkyndenes, sanke so to myn herte that I myght not susteyne myself.' (723)

In Malory's amplification of Lancelot's grief over the queen and king, he creates the possibility of our seeing him as a figure who has changed and grown. Like Gawain, Lancelot does not dwell on self-reproach but moves on through a clear-sighted perception of himself to acknowledge openly the grief he feels for the two people he loves most.47 His behavior is honest and sympathetic. We find that his embracing these feelings—actively owning and defending them—does not alienate him from the spiritual world—as his feelings for Guinevere did earlier in the Grail section—but in fact initiates him into a life that is ultimately one of the most spiritually celebrated in the work.48 Malory emphasizes the goodness of his soul not only by positing him as a more effective leader than Galahad, but also in rendering his death a joyous occasion through the Bishop's dream. Awakened by his companions, the 284

Bishop cries, "A, Jesu m ercy!. . . why dyd ye awake me? I was never in al my lyf so mery and so wel at ease. . . . here was syr Launcelot with me, with mo angellis than ever I sawe men in one day. And I sawe the angellys heve up syr

Launcelot unto heven, and the yates of heven opened ayenst hym" (724).49

IV

In calling up the question similarly provoked in Orlando Furioso and Don

Juan of the validity of measuring characters' behavior against idealized standards, Le Morte Darthur prompts us, as both poems do, to consider the positive value of human nature despite its limitations and to see the importance of compassionate, tolerant fellowship. We are not guided by the sam e clear, overt commentary provided by Ariosto and particularly by Byron, but Malory's deliberate tendency to deflect attention away from the moral implications of his characters' involvements and to focus, instead, on the complexity of their feelings invites us to see that they are sympathetic and deserving of our approval. His characterizations of these figures, particularly in the last books, suggest they grow in their ability to perceive the human nature that distinguishes and unites them . The choice to be made between delusion and actuality is not as directly elicited as it is in Orlando Furioso and to a greater degree in Don Juan—Malory's representation of delusion is itself not plain—but we are led to perceive th at what "used to be" for these characters is no longer—and that it never was the sure foundation or outcome 285

of their aspirations. Their goals are unobtainable, and in Malory's

presentation of these figures in the last books as characters who gain in

self-knowledge and who share sympathetic relationships with one another, he

minimizes the tragedy so often emphasized in discussions of his work. His

characters are not consistently posited as traditional tragic figures, falling

because of the capriciousness of Forture or the flaw of hamartia. Rather than

calling attention to their suffering as the "just consequence of their sins" or

portraying them as victims, Malory uplifts them by exhibiting and emphasizing

their complexity and ability to carve out meaning in a mutable, intangible

world through loving relationships with one another. The sense of loss is more

pervasive in our experience of Le Morte Darthur than in Orlando Furioso or

Don Juan because this affirmation of characters is not as direct, but we are left, nonetheless, with a concluding sense of something positive in the self-knowledge characters gain. They are enabled to move beyond their imperfections by confronting who they are and to reconcile themselves to an unknowable world. In this achievement, which he persistently calls our attention to, Malory suggests his characters ought not to be condemned for their flawed human nature, but upheld because of the acuity of vision that springs from it. 286

NOTES

Chapter 4. The Quest Brought Home

Much discussion has centered around the appropriateness of perceiving Le Morte Darthur as a single work as opposed to eight separate narratives, and thus the question should be addressed here. As Vinaver points out, Malory called the work "the whole book of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the Round Table" (1971, p. vi). Caxton, of course, printed the work under its present title. Vinaver claims that Malory's adaptation "was far from possessing or even attempting the unity which is claimed for it by critics. He never tried to reduce his French romances to 'one story'; the method he used was both more subtle and more drastic. With great consistency, though with varying degrees of success, he endeavored to break up the complex structure of his sources and replace their slowly unfolding canvas of recurrent themes by a series of self-contained stories" (1971, pp. vii-viii). In Volume I of his 1967 Works, he expands on these points, explaining that the discovery of the Winchester MS establishes the fact that the Morte is reaUy a coUection of separate tales. His discussion of Lumiansky's edition (Malory's Originality, A_ Critical Study of Le Morte Darthur. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1964) is directed against the theory of a single work, and he says, appropriately, "The view th at Malory wrote eight separate romances does not imply that there are any serious discrepancies in their portrayal of characters or that there are no links and similarities to be found between them. All it means is that the eight romances are not structurally unified, either in the way in which a thirteenth-century cycle normally was by its 'tapestry' technique or in the manner of a play or novel built on the Horatian principle of simplex e t unus; and that in so far as there was a principle of 'singleness' in the composition of these romances it operated within the limits of each individual romance, not for Le Morte Darthur as a whole. Unity of characterization and even unity of moral purpose there may well be" (pp. xlii-xliii). 287

Larry D. Benson also reasonably and persuasively clarifies the eight versus one theory regarding Malory's work (Malory's Morte Darthur. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1976). He explains that arguments for and against the theory are based on the assumption that if Malory's work is "one story, one book," it must resem ble the modern novel. The "internal contradictions, digressions, and temporal inconsistencies prove that the eight tales lack the unity we demand of modern fictional narrative; yet, the opponents reply, consistency of characterization, the use of foreshadowings, and a continuing concern with th e history of the Round Table prove th at Morte Darthur is a continuous narrative. The Morte Darthur is both eight separate tales and one continuous narrative, for it is a brief prose cycle. The tradition on which Malory drew was not a 'jumble of stories' but a tradition of cyclic narrative, and all the romances he knew were parts of 'one story, one book,' though not in our sense of those words. At the time Malory w rote it would have been surprising if he had written anything but a Morte Darthur organized as one continuous narrative" (p. 4). The problem of unity is not one a t issue here, and does not a ffect the overall nature of my analysis. My own position on the m atter is in agreem ent with Vinaver's, which is expertly defined, and Benson's. For views opposing those expressed, however, see in Malory's Originality: A Critical Study of Le Morte D arthur (ed. R.M. Lumiansky) Thomas L. Wright's " 'The Tale of King Arthur': Beginning and Foreshadowing"; Mary E. Dick man's " 'The Tale of King Arthur and the Emperor Lucius': The Rise of Lancelot"; R.M. Lumiansky's " 'The Tale of Lancelot': Prelude to Adultery" and " 'The Tale of Lancelot and Guinevere': Suspense"; Wilfred L. Guerin's " 'The Tale of Gareth': The Chivalric Flowering" and " 'The Tale of the Death of Arthur': Catastrophe and Resolution"; Thomas C. Rumble's " 'The Tale of Tristram ': Development by Analogy"; and C harles Moorman's " 'The Tale of the Sankgreall': Human Frailty." See also D.S. Brewer's " 'the hoole booke' " in Essays on Malory, ed. J.A.W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, pp. 41- 63) and "Form in the Morte D arthur." Medium Aevum, 21 (1952), 14-24; Charles Moorman's The Book of King Arthur: The Unity of Malory's Morte Darthur (n.p.: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1965); and R.M. Lumiansky's "The Question of Unity in Malory's M orte Darthur." Tulane Studies in English. 5 (1955), 29-39. Stephen Knight's The Structure of Sir Thomas Malory's Arthuriad (Australian Humanities Research Council, No. 14, Sydney, Australia: Sydney Univ. Press, 1969) provides a very detailed discussion of both Vinaver's and the "Lumiansky school's" views regarding the unity of Le Morte Darthur. Knight's own perception of the work is that it bears two distinct styles—the episodic and the structural style of a coherent narrative—and he concludes: "The Arthuriad may well have unified qualities—in being printed between two covers it has some tenous unity—but the existence of the two structural styles makes the idea of a 'hoole book' little more than a fantasy" (94). 288

2 The one connection Frye does make between history and romance in his Anatomy of Criticism (1957; rpt. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1971) is that in "every age the ruling social or intellectual class tends to project its ideals in some form" of the genre (p. 186). For a view of Le Morte Darthur opposing the one suggested here, see Arthur B. Ferguson's The Indian Summer of English Chivalry: Studies in the Decline and Transformation of Chivalric Idealism (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1960). Ferguson believes that the chivalry presented in Le Morte Darthur is "strictly of an agrarian and military caste. . . . It is not the chivalry of courtoisie, a tradition both too decadent by Malory's day to enlist his loyalty amd too sophisticated for him fully to appreciate" (46-47). Malory initially intended Arthurian chivalry "as a valid political model," according to Elizabeth T. Pochoda (Arthurian Propaganda: Le Morte D arthur as an Historical Ideal of Life, Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 19707 and hence one "to be im itated in actual life" (29). She dem onstrates in her discussion how the Arthurian model ultimately fails, a point taken up by several other studies as well that focus on the political ramifications of Arthurian chivalry for Malory's own day. An additional example of such a study is Charles Moorman's "Malory's Tragic Knights," Medieval Studies. 27 (1965), 117-27. Regarding the romance genre itself, Larry D. Benson ("Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur," in Critical Approaches to Six Major English Works: Beowolf through Paradise Lost, ed. R.M. Lumiansky and Herschel Baker, Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1968) draws a very interesting comparison between Le Morte Darthur and Orlando Furioso. He points out that a "remarkable similarity" appears between the description of Ariosto's poem provided by Geraldi Cinthio, a sixteenth century critic, and that of Caxton's in his Preface to Malory's tales. The two descriptions "coincide," Benson concludes, "because they describe essentially similar works" (121). 3 Eugene Vinaver, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), p. xcvi.

* Vinaver, 1971, p. 758. This view is similarly found in C.S. Lewis' "The English Prose Morte," in Essays on Malory, ed. J.A.W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, pp. 7-28) and P.E. Tucker's "Chivalry in the Morte" in Essays on Malory, ed. J.A.W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, pp. 64- 103).

® Vinaver, 1967, p. xc.

6 Benson, p. 208.

^ Benson, p. 209. 289

8 Benson, p. 235. g Benson, p. 248. He takes th is idea from Stephen J. Miko, who calls the pattern a "tragic emulsion" in his article, "Malory and the Chivalric Order," Medium Aevum, 35 (1966), 214. Miko's emphasis is somewhat bleaker than Benson's, however—he explains his notion of "trag ic emulsion" by saying "There is no dramatic resolution, no peripeteia, merely a defeat. Man is defeated, chaos wins. Religion picks up the pieces, but there is little, if any, implication that religion solves the problems involved. . . . I use the word 'emulsion' because in an emulsion the elements remain intact and suspended. So do Malory's 'goods' remain suspended, even while certain inadequacies become strikingly evident" (Medium Aevum. 35, p. 214).

10 Helaine Newstead, "Malory and Romance," in Four Essays on Romance, ed., Herschel Baker (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1971), p. 14.

11 Newstead, p. 14. See also Elizabeth T. Pochoda (Arthurian Propaganda: Le Morte Darthur as an Historical Ideal of Life. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1971), who w rites, "The final tragedy of Malory's Morte is its picture o f Arthur desolate and cut off; this vignette speaks also for Malory's times, because his rendering of the story has cu t his contemporaries o ff from the m ost precious of their illusions about the redemptive fo rce and promise o f their past" (34). A similar view is found in Thomas L. Wright's " 'The Tale of King Arthur': Beginnings and Foreshadowings,” in Malory's Originality: A Critical Study of Le Morte Darthur. ed. R.M. Lumiansky (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1964): "When one looks forward to the remaining sections of Le Morte Darthur . . . he can see that w hat will endue th e Morte Darthur w ith its tragic ch aracter is the sense of w asted potential; w hat will relieve it o f mere futility is th e idea, urged by Malory, th a t even in the smoke of ruin th e men and women involved understand what they have lost" (65). 1 9 Richard D. Altick, The Scholar Adventurers (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 83. His quote is from R oger Ascham's description of the work. 13 Altick, p* 83. Charles Moorman presents a contrasting view in "Malory's Tragic Knights" (Medieval Studies. 27, 1965): the Morte Darthur ends "in despair and w ith the burial of th e chivalric ideal. . . . {_Maloryl is not in the 'hoole book' either defending(_chivalry) or attempting to revive it as a p anacea for his own troubled times" (126).

14 Altick, p. 84.

Benson, p. 148. 290

18 Benson, p. 199. Arthur B. Ferguson (The Indian Summer of English Chivalry: Studies in the Decline and Transformation of Chivalric Idealism) emphasizes the same point: "It would seem that Malory shared with Caxton a desire to make the traditions of chivalry serve a didactic purpose and one rather closely related to the fortunes of England" (43). 17 Vinaver, 1971, p. vii.

18 Vinaver, 1971, p. vii.

1 9 Vinaver, 1967, p. xxxiv. 20 Eugene Vinaver, ed., Malory Works (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971), p. 649. This edition includes revisions and corrections made from the 1967 edition and thus, according to Vinaver, "approximates more than any I have so far published to a definitive edition" (ix). All subsequent references to this text are cited parenthetically.

91 Vinaver draws attention to the fact th a t Malory's style typically substitutes dialogue for narrative. Peter R. Schroeder ("Hidden Depths: Dialogue and Characterization in Chaucer and Malory," PMLA, 98, 1983, 377) points out this technique was very unusual at the time when Malory was writing. He also remarks that Malory's "technique of presenting characters from the outside, through action and dialogue, allow s him to suggest, though perhaps unwittingly, some of the latent ambiguity and inscrutability of human behavior" (375).

92Larry D. Benson and P.J.C. Field also clearly address the "suggestions" inherent in Malory's style. Benson ("Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur," in Critical Approaches to Six Major English Works: Beowulf through Paradise Lost, ed. R.M. Lumiansky and Herschel Baker, Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1968) w rites: "We rightly prize Malory's narrative skill. . .. his occasional realism, his sometimes telling descriptions, and his often impressive psychological insights. But these are the 'accidentals' of Malory's art" (111). Field qualifies his analysis in Romance and Chronicle: Study of Malory's Prose Style (Bloomington and London: Indiana Univ. Press, 1971) by stating he has "often been compelled to speak as if the literary characteristics of the Morte D arthur were the resu lt of conscious a rt. This has saved many a series of clumsy periphrases. The reader must accept as the price of this convenience 'devices' which were not devised, and 'effects' which become effective by being tested on Malory's pulses rather than his judgment. It is no part of my contention that he was a conscious artist: rather the reverse" (7). I tend to disagree with many of the conclusions Field's study presents, but I appreciate the sentiment expressed here. My own view, in emphasizing the suggestive n atu re of Malory's m ethod of narration, is that 291

though his motives must remain unknown, certain effects of his choices are pronounced. 23 For a particularly insightful and interesting perception of Galahad's nature as it is manifested in Malory's source, the French Quest of the Holy Grail, see the chapter, "The Quest of Narrative" in Tzvetan Todorov's The Poetics of Prose (Trans. Richard Howard, Foreward Jonathan Culler, Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1977). Todorov believes the Quest "is built on the tension between . . . two kinds of logic: narrative and ritual, or . . . the profane and the religious. . . . Galahad's appearance and the decision to go on the quest. . . relate to ritual logic. . . . The articulation of these two kinds of logic derives from two contrary conceptions of time . . . Narrative logic implies, ideally, a temporality we might call the 'perpetual present.' . . . On the other hand, ritual logic is based on a conception of time which is that of the 'eternal return .... In both cases, time is suspended, but conversely: in the first instance by the hypertrophy of the present, in the second by its disappearance" (132-32). 24 Cf. the apparent similar treatment of Orlando in Orlando Furioso. It seems, as many critics have pointed out, that Orlando goes mad because he replaces his more honorable and spiritually-uplifted quest in the service of Charlemagne with amorous, chivalrous pursuits.

OC Vinaver sees in Le Morte Darthur Malory's emphasis, "with remarkable consistency," on the "ties of friendship and affection among his protagonists" (The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. 2nd. ed., Ill, p. 1621).

2® For a view opposing that presented here see Charles Moorman (" 'The Tale of the Sankgreall': Human Frailty" in Malory's Originality: A Critical Study of Le Morte Darthur, ed. R.M. Lumiansky, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1964): "Bors devotes himself to the service of God. He soon denies the courtly system entirely. . . . Bors' constancy to God is just the quality which Lancelot lacks, and Malory makes an effort to present the two knights in paraHel fashion in order to demonstrate their differences" (199).

27 Sandra Ness Ihle offers a convincing account of this scene in Malory's Grail Quest: Invention and Adaptation in Medieval Prose Romance (Madison: The Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1983). She compares Malory's text to th a t of his source and concludes that "Malory{by abbreviating his source}clears away the mists surrounding an ineffable Grail and allows us to see it as comprehensible and attainable by good men" (53). The Grail, rather than being the mystical symbol of the Queste, is "a religious object, a means of communion between God and men and available to all who prove themselves worthy according to ordinary standards of Christian morality. . . . The adventures encountered by the knights are not shadows of transcendent reality but are real adventures 292

that prove their mettle ...... It is action th at counts with ivlalory, spiritual condition; or rather, action is an indicator of spiritual condition or worthiness to achieve the Grail" (163). With these "revised standards," we are led to see that "Lancelot is indeed flawed but far less so than in the Queste, and he em erges from his quest aware of what he has achieved and exhibiting the same nobility of spirit which characterizes him in all of Malory's tales. Malory's addition at the end of the Sankgreal. in which Lancelot expresses to Bors his undying friendship and loyalty, makes Lancelot the agent for what can almost be termed a happy ending. Through him the Round Table has to a great degree proved its worth and viability, rather than as in the Queste having been held up to celestial standards and found sadly wanting" (164).

28 Frye, p. 197.

29 Frye, p. 197.

on Eugene Vinaver (The Works of Sir Thomas Malory), Charles Moorman ("Malory's Tragic Knights," in Medieval Studies, 27, 1965) and Arthur B. Ferguson (The Indian Summer of English Chivalry: Studies in the Decline and Transformation of Chivalric Idealism) all point out Malory's suppression of Dinadan's anti-chivalric comments found in his source, the French prose Tristan. Ferguson, as do the others, reaches a conclusion about Oinadan that opposes the one presented in my reading: Malory "found Dinadan's humorous, satirical, slightly cynical sallies unquestionably embarrassing. He endeavored to pass him off as a scoffer and 'japer,' not to be taken seriously; but he could not entirely rid his remarks of their anti-chivalric venom" (47). 31 Barbara Gray Bartholomew ("The Them atic Function of Malory's Gawain," College English. 24, No. 4, 1963) also calls attention to Gawain's redemption. She sees the knight as a focal figure in Le Morte Darthur who "provides a basis for Malory's judgment upon the failure of the ideal"—"On the whole, Malory's judgment on the ideal as expressed in the Round Table is neither harsh nor pessimistic. Malory does not condemn Gawain for his humanity, even when he pictures Gawain in his most grievous wrong" (266).

82 This vantage point, which we experience also with Lancelot (illustrated later in this chapter), is an example, in my view, of what D.H. Green calls "dramatic irony" in his "Irony and Medieval Romance," in Arthurian Romance: Seven Essays, ed. D.D.R. Owen (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1970, pp. 49-64) and, in an expanded discussion, in his Irony in the Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1979).

88 Both Thomas C. Rumble (" 'The Tale of Tristram': Development by Analogy." in Malory's Originality: A Critical Study of Le Morte Darthur, ed. 293

R.M. Lumiansky, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1964) and Charles Moorman (The Book of King Arthur: The Unity of Malory’s Morte Darthur, n.p.: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1965) discuss the Tristram section of Le Morte Darthur as one of Malory's means, by comparison and allusion, of stressing the negative nature of Lancelot's relationship with the queen. Rumble writes: "the Arthurian story was . . . to IMalory} a moral tragedy. . . . And it is just this sense of causality that is underscored, through implicitly rather than explicitly, by the addition of the Tristram' m aterial.. . . compare £Guinevere, Lancelot, and Arthur)with Isoud, Tristram, and King Mark, and many things come clear. Murder, it seems, will out; and so, apparently, will intrigue, adultery, incest, and all of the other promiscuities that have come to infect the whole dissolute Arthurian world. . . . The very symbol of this degeneracy is the Lancelot-Guinevere-Arthur triangle" (145-46). Moorman, in addition to seeing a similar function of the Tristram story, sees the Gareth story as providing a comparable commentary on the adulterous affairs of Lancelot and the Cornish Knight. My own view is considerably different, of course, in that it emphasizes the sympathy evident even in Arthur's perception of the complexity of these relationships.

■*4 R.T. Davies also focuses on Arthur's complaints against Agravaine rather than Lancelot and finds that "Ultimately. . . Arthur's attitude is more than unsuspiciousness. When he knows of his betrayal, it becomes, rather, tolerance for the sal e of peace. It is also, probably, tolerance for the sake of his love for Launcelot and Gwenyver. Then, when all is public, it is forgiveness" ("Malory's Launcelot and the Noble Way of the World," Review of English Studies. n.s. 6, 1955, p. 360). D.S. Brewer defends Arthur in The Morte Darthur: Parts Seven and Eight (Elizabeth Salter and Derek Pearsall, ed., York Medieval Texts, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1968) by saying: "Arthur is not a fool. He has a 'deeming,1 but he does not want to know" (30). In Malory's view, Brewer claims, "Honour and shame progressively throughout these final pages live more and more in men's mouths, less and less in relation to the actual state of affairs" (30).

^ An excellent description of the transformation of romance diction in Malory's Le Morte Darthur occurs in Joyce Coleman's "Diction and Contradiction: Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur," The Arthurian Cycle, The First Annual Mythos Institute Conference, Cambridge, England, 1-5 Sept. 1980. She explains that Malory organizes traditional romance diction in the first half of the work into "a relatively closed sociolinguistic system;" but that as conflicts within this "tight little community" begin to erupt, the diction opens out "into a new, more complex and individual entity." Lancelot's statements in the second half of the work "become dialectical and precise"—he "manages to transform {.the diction }into an elaborated code, 'a vehicle for analytical thought processes.' " 294

Vinaver points out in his Notes to the last book that "Malory departs from both his sources to give his own account of Arthur's death and of the legend of his survival, with an expression of scepticism about the way in which Arthur 'chaunged hys lyff' (L 33). The probable meaning," he adds, "is th at he changed his form of life" (1971, p. 778, n. 717).

017 Stephen J. Miko ("Malory and the Chivalric Order," Medium Aevum, 35, 1966), in contrast to my view, sees this "fault" from a different perspective: "What is magnificent about Lancelot is that he never falters. He may have to lie to himself and everybody else to remain steady, but he does it, and we are impressed that he does it" (223).

Vinaver points out in his Commentary (The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon, 1967, HI) that in the original French, Lancelot kills the knight who kisses him. He concludes that Malory, "clearly in order to acquit Launcelot of the charge of brutality . . . alters the original account" (p. 1417).

OQ It should be noted that most of the negative associations with the c a rt do not find their way into Malory's account of this scene. For another view of the scene, however, see Schroeder's article. He perceives Lancelot as a typical figure in medieval romance: "As a standard and untroublesome example of the noble knight and faithful lover, Lancelot is straightforward, predictable, intelligible, and fundamentally simple; his words scarcely ever puzzle us, and what 'depth' he has comes from our sense that he is constantly being driven to the lim its of his patience" (377). Coleman's discussion of Lancelot provides an interesting counter argument to Schroeder's thesis.

40 Charles Moorman (The Book of King Arthur: The Unity of Malory's Morte Darthur) sees this scene in very different terms. Lamorak's complaint, he argues, is "a parody of I'amour courtois" and, like those scenes where Mark and Tristram rival one another for the affections of Segwarides' wife, is an ironic commentary on a degraded courtly affair (27).

Vinaver comments about this point in The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, (2nd. ed., Ill), that "Malory takes it upon himself to protect Lancelot against (humiliation )in the Grail story. Not only does he omit important passages which might reflect discredit upon his hero, but he insists on his past greatness, and assigns to him a role which he could never have played in the original version. In Malory, as in the Queste, Lancelot is a repentent sinner; but he is far less conscious of his ultimate failure to achieve the quest than of his relative success in it" (pp. 1536-1537).

AO In voL III of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. 2nd ed., Vinaver cites 295

R.M. Laumiansky's (Tulane Studies in English. VIII) view of the relationship between Lancelot and Bors. There is "hope," Lumiansky writes, at the end of the Grail Story, that Lancelot "will exhibit sufficient steadfastness, of the sort Bors had earlier exhibited, to avoid recommencing the adultery and thus to cleanse himself of sin. Bors takes direct responsibility to aid Lancelot in this effo rt, and the final passage of (the G rail story} shows the inseparability of purpose which now characterizes the relationship between these two knights" (p- 1584). I would argue, however, that Bors' involvement with Lancelot is not because of what Bors has to offer, but because of what Lancelot has to offer.

4® This view directly opposes Charles Moorman's in The Book of King Arthur; The Unity of Malory's Morte Darthur, where he writes that Malory felt "the adulterous courtly love of his sources was an evil" (15). Somewhat similar perceptions are presented by P.E. Tucker ("Chivalry in the Morte," in Essays on Malory, ed. J.A.W . Bennett), who believes that Malory condemned the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere "as unworthy of Lancelot's knighthood" (72) and by John Stevens (Medieval Romance; Themes and Approaches. English Literature, ed. John Lawlor, London: Hutchinson Univ. L ibrary, 1973). Stevens' view is somewhat curious in th at he says, "We have never been conscious of {^Lancelot's love for Guinevere } as a special personal experience for Lancelot, the sort of experience that springs from a moment o f radiance and constitutes a 'way of life.' Malory is at his unhappiest when describing this sexual attachm ent" (47). Stevens sees Guinevere a s behaving "like a woman in love. . . . But Lancelot is more like a respectable married man who has got deeper involved than he should have with his employer's wife" (47).

44 For a contrasting view , see Stephen J. Miko ("Malory and the Chivalric Order," jVledium Aevum. 35, 1966): "Lancelot . . . never confronts his own limitations- He feels guilty over his pride . . . and he becomes a monk, but both these reactions are more escapes than they are tragic recognitions. In so far as he is tragically conscious he realizes (rather mysteriously, as is true of them all) the inevitability of doom and what of fundamental human values must be lo st" (229).

45 In th e Introduction to his 1967 edition of Malory's Works. Vinaver explains th a t in the last tw o books, we "no longer see Arthur's companions perform endless feats of bravery; we hear less of their glorious record, of their u ltim a te reward. L ancelot is still the g reatest of all knights; but with each new episode he seems to lose something o f his early enthusiasm, of his faith in th e glory of knight-errantry" (p. xcv).

4® C harles Moorman sees Galahad differently in his The Book of King Arthur; T he Unity of Malory's Morte Darthur, where he states th a t the holy 296

knight is sent on a mission to reveal "by example . . . the inadequacies of the other knights and of the secular civilization which they represent. For this reason, Malory regularly elevates and dehumanizes Galahad in his adaptation of the French book" (41). 47 For an opposing view, see P.E. Tucker ("Chivalry in the Morte," in Essays on Malory, ed. J.A.W . Bennett), who believes Guinevere's death trees Lancelot to renounce the world. F. Whitehead offers a perception somewhat similar to mine in "Lancelot's Penance," in Essays on Malory, ed. J.A.W. Bennett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, pp. 104-113): Lancelot's displays of emotion at the very end "are not in keeping with the monastic way of life he has adopted, and represent the introduction into the calm of the cloister of those worldly affections he is supposed to have renounced. . . . Malory perverts the message Lin the Mort Artu, where penance and mortification are emphasized} by allowing two things to rem ain while all else changes: the power of human affection and the remembrance of the past" (113).

48 This point is made emphatically, as well, in Malory's addition to his book of Lancelot's vision of Guinevere's death and Hector's threnody. Several critics see the outcome of Lancelot in Malory's Le Morte Darthur in very different terms. They see the knight "redeemed" though his denial of his earthly life. R.T. Davies ("Malory's Launcelot and the Noble Way of the World," RES, n.s. 6, 1955) concludes that "Launcelot's renunciation is not only of a transient and sinful world, but also of a way of life that tried to make it fine and noble .... He has attempted this renunciation before. It was in quest of the Grail.. . . He now looks God-ward, to truth and goodness, and away from himself, away from the earthly goddess, Gwenyver, and away from the pursuit of honour" (363). Wilfred L. Guerin (" 'The Tale of the Death of Arthur': Conflict and Resolution," in Malory's Originality: A Critical Study of Le Morte Darthur. ed. R.M. Lumiansky, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1964) finds both Guinevere and Lancelot renouncing the world: both "die as ascetics; they are the embodiments a t the end of Le Morte Darthur of the same spiritual forces which Galahad represents during the 'G rail'" (268). Guerin believes that Malory can conclude his "story of a tragic dichotomy" with "a positive, reassuring view of existence" because of the spirituality that "permits man to envision and aspire"—Malory's "protagonists look ahead to the next world" (233).

49 Vinaver stresses that only in Le Morte Darthur is Lancelot's death attributable to grief (The Works of SirThomas Malory, 2nd. ed., III). In the French prose Mort Artu, though its emphasis is not on Lancelot's repentence for spiritual trespass, the Bishop remarks after his vision that he now recognizes the importance of penitence above sill else. This focus differs dramatically from Malory's, where Lancelot is uplifted and effective among his peers because of the hum an nature the Bishop implies, in Mort Artu. is a fault. CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION

Characters affirmed because of their human natures are not, of course, unique to Orlando Furioso. Don Juan, and Le Morte Darthur. Literature, in general, by reflecting our perceptions of our world, asks us to contemplate in a number of complex, diverse ways what it means to be human and what the limits of that experience are. Works exemplifying specific literary genres identify and respond to these questions differently, as Northrop Frye so well describes in The Anatomy of Criticism, and generic conventions, though they are not absolute classifications, help us to place a narrator's view of human nature as it is expressed in his or her work. Graham Hough writes in his

Preface to the Faerie Queene that

the idea of a fixed number of pre-ordained poetic types, each with its own laws, has been too rigid a scheme to accommodate the actual diversity of poetry since the later eighteenth century. However, regarded not prescriptively but heuristically, not as a framework but as a map, it can still be extremely usefuL

These words can be equally applied to generic studies of all literature extending back beyond the eighteenth century, and are particularly

297 298

appropriate in a discussion of Orlando Furioso. Don Juan, and Le

Morte D arthur because all three tex ts elude definitive characterization. They derive their meaning from the tensions and contradictions expressed within the fram ework of the genres they evoke, "inverting" or modifying our expectations. Thus, they lead us away from upholding the heroic values giving shape to the mock heroic and rom ance and toward affirming the human nature appearing to be so much less th an the ideal. By focusing specifically on how we are engaged by and detached from the figures in each text, we are led to consider, in an unusual way, the discrepancy existing at the heart of all literature between appearance and reality.

This discrepancy is a com plicated one in the works examined here. Each appears to present us with contradictory experiences, to expose the bleakness of life as well as its satisfactions. Orlando Furioso and Don Juan are frequently discussed in terms of their authors' "despair," for example, and

Le Morte D arthur is seen predominantly as a tragedy. Inherent in these darker views of the works is th e idea of the lost Golden Age, the earthly paradise A. B artlett Giammati characterizes as

a beautiful place because {it} is the best symbol for man's inner need and desire for peace and harmony; it is lost or far away or fortified or . . . false, because that is the only way to convey man's daily awareness of the impossibility of obtaining his ideal. (Thematically, it expresses} yearning and nonpossession, desire and inaccesibility.2 299

But a ll three works, a t the same time they appear, in varying degrees, to

mourn the unobtainability of an age of perfection, acknowledge in positive

terms the multitude of experiences in life as it is, the richness of human love

and relationships. Ariosto, Byron, and Malory use the mock heroic and

romance genres they call up to show that desire for idealized existence

conflicts with actual experience, which pushes us to recognize, and eventually

to accept, the impossibility of living exalted lives. The delusion of believing

we are capable of being greater than we are is the source of despair and

alienation, not the limitations of human nature itself. These works call upon

the conventions of the mock heroic or romance, rather than deny them, to

expose and explore the conflict that gives them meaning.

In their attention to the positive value of being human, Ariosto, Byron

and Malory go beyond the darker suggestions of their texts and illustrate a kind of harmony obtainable in this world. A concept frequently associated

with Ariosto, who, as creator over a vast poetic cosmos brings together

multitudinous strands of story and leads them all to resolution, it can be seen

as w e l l in Byron's "recognition of disorder where it has been blinked or denied, and {exploration of} the terms of a truer fidelity to the demands and

O interdictions of our knowledge or judgment, our aspirations." Vinaver em phasizes Malory's "harmonization" of fictive heroic and realistic psychological elements in Le Morte Darthur's characters. Each author shows, in varying degrees of clarity, that a certain reconciliation with our world can be made if we accept who were really are. Individuals aspire to different 300

"places of being," metaphorically expressed in Ariosto's voyage at the end of

Orlando Furioso. but return to where they began, not, as the true satirist

would claim, because their innate depravity deprives them of the ability, but

because the voyage itself cannot actually be made. "There is no certainty in

life," Byron tells us. Yet, for the characters he affirms in Don Juan and those

upheld in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Malory's Le Morte Darthur, there is, in

an ever-changing, elusive world, the integrity of self.

The ironic/affirm ing pattern used to discuss these three works helps us

to avoid, then, perceiving them from the often polarized views expressed in

the criticism cited at the beginning of the preceding chapters. Since tensions

within these texts are themselves the source of meaning, focusing directly on

apparent contradictions rather than attempting to reconcile them opens up

the possibility of a valuable interpretation. Thus, the fact that each work is difficult to characterize—that it does not fit into the specific traditions it e- vokes—leads us not to attempt to "make" it fit in some way. Perceiving these texts in historical, biographical (particularly in the case of Byron's Don Juan), theological, and sociological terms—"projections," as Tzvetan Todorov would call them—gives way to an examination of conflict expressed in the narratives themselves, and we derive meaning from this center rather than from the

"outside."4 Hence, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, as well as Byron's Don Juan and

Malory's Le Morte Darthur are not texts where our primary concern is—or ought to be—reconciling oppositions that present themselves to us. The works do not themselves lead us—if we explore them from this generic, 301

ironic/affirming perspective—to seek such a resolution. "Attractive fictions"

in Orlando Furioso ask us to see idealized aspirations both mocked and

upheld—the work cannot be viewed primarily from one or the other

perspective. It does not dwell for the most part on either awakening in

Ariosto's contemporary audience a desire for idealized existence, with its

implied, uplifted morality, or satirizing them for their deficiencies through

ironic representations and comments that suggest they move in a chaotic,

meaningless world, the contemplation of which elicits despair. Don Juan

"comes to terms" with its world not through a resolution of what critics have called Byron's "paradoxical view" of life but in his emphasis on such a view.

Human nature, as he presents it in the poem, involves both positive and negative tendencies. Dualities are at the heart of Byron's text and thus prevent us from seeing it as primarily evoking the emptiness of life—the

Weltschmerz often associated with Byron—or as demonstrating a Romantic

(spiritual) faith in its capacity to resurrect itself. Malory's much more subtle interplay between a fictive and an actual world does not allow us to see the work as either primarily a denunciation of chivalric values and adherence to the spiritual or as a tragedy brought on by conflicts inherent in an approved but flawed chivalric order where characters are not overtly condemned for their failings. Morality cannot simply be defined according to chivalric or spiritual values but involves a consideration of complex factors relative to specific situations arising among the figures in Malory's text. The actual world posited in each of these works contrasts with its fictive world, in 302

varying degrees of obviousness, by exposing "truth" as a multiplicity—a

combination of the known and unknown, of complicated oppositions and

variations. The "harmony" often suggested in criticism of these texts is not a

coherence wrought from this multiplicity but a focus on the many different

aspects of the world that cannot be literally brought into some definable order. Edward E. Bostetter's perception of Byron applies to all three

C authors: they explore and record "human life's infinite variety."

In this variety, in each of the work's complex, apparently divergent tendencies, we find an ironic/affirming pattern that can serve, then, as Susan

Wittig fittingly says of her own theoretical model in Stylistic and Narrative

Structures in the Middle English Romances, as "a point of departure for discussions of literary works that intentionally violate or call into question the generic patterns of conventional forms."® Orlando Furioso. Don Juan, and

Le Morte Darthur invite us to look in a new way at the complexity and value of being human. Often oppressive and painful, life, as these works make clear, offers us deeply meaningful and satisfying experiences as well, through which we can be affirmed. Like the Poet with Orlando in Ariosto's poem, we can "excuse" one another our human failings and "rejoice to have in tour) defect" the companionship of others who do the best they can in confronting an unknowable world—who, like us, in coming to recognize the illusoriness of their world, come to know themselves. 303

NOTES

Chapter 5. Conclusion

* Graham Hough, A Preface to the Faerie Queene (New York: Norton, 1962), p. 11. See as well Northrop Frye's chapter, "Rhetorical Criticism: Theory of Genres," in The Anatomy of Criticism (1957; rp t. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), where he stresses that "the purpose of criticism by genre is not so much to classify as to clarify such traditions and affinities, thereby bringing out a large number of literary relationships that would not be noticed as long as there were no context established for them" (pp. 247-48).

2 A. Bartlett Giammati, The Earthly Paradise and the Renaissance Epic (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966). p. 84.

3 M. G. Cooke, The Blind Man Traces the Circle: On the Patterns and Philosophy of Byron's Poetry (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1969),p. 173.

4 Jonathan Culler, Foreward, The Poetics of Prose, by Tzvetan Todorov, trans. Richard Howard (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1977), p. 10. Todorov, of course, discusses projection in the context of poetics.

5 Edward E. Bostetter, The Romantic Ventriloquists (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1975), p. 291.

£ Susan Wittig, Stylistic and Narrative Structures in the Middle English Romance (Austin and London: Univ. of Texas Press, 1978)Tp. 6 304

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