King Arthur As Transcendent Rhetoric of Anxiety

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KING ARTHUR AS TRANSCENDENT RHETORIC OF ANXIETY:

EXAMINING ARTHURIAN LEGENDS AS SOCIOPOLITICAL PARATEXTS

Thesis

Submitted to

The College of Arts and Sciences of the

UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

The Degree of

Master of Arts in English

Alexis Faith Ancona

Dayton, Ohio

May 2018

KING ARTHUR AS TRANSCENDENT RHETORIC OF ANXIETY:

EXAMINING ARTHURIAN LEGENDS AS SOCIOPOLITICAL PARATEXTS

Name: Ancona, Alexis Faith

APPROVED BY:

Miriamne A. Krummel, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor

Elizabeth A. Mackay, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor

Bobbi S. Sutherland, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor

Alexis Faith Ancona

2018

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ABSTRACT

KING ARTHUR AS TRANSCENDENT RHETORIC OF ANXIETY:

EXAMINING ARTHURIAN LEGENDS AS SOCIOPOLITICAL PARATEXTS

Name: Ancona, Alexis Faith University of Dayton

Advisor: Dr. Miramne A. Krummel

As a recurring figure representative of the institution of kingship, King Arthur presents a unique rhetorical opportunity to examine sociopolitical anxieties of the Middle

Ages. Because of his unique position, I propose Arthur himself is a text to be analyzed.

With Arthur established as a text, specifically one of rhetorical significance, I analyze his subsequent iterations (historical and literary) as paratexts. Traditionally, paratextual analysis has involved an investigation of the literal and physical artifacts surrounding a text; however, by examining Arthur-the-figure as a text, I apply paratextual analysis theoretically. Rather than examining book bindings or author’s notes, I argue Arthur’s paratexts involved genre and the sociopolitical rhetoric of his authors. Through this method, I argue that Arthur is a transcendent text onto which sociopolitical anxieties are imposed, making him more than a literary figure but rather a rhetorical device of cultural memory and anxiety, particularly an anxiety of belonging. The works of Geoffrey of

Monmouth, Geoffrey Chaucer, Marie de France, and Sir Thomas Malory afford both an illustration of Arthur’s transcendent temporality and insights into attempts at self-

iv actualization. Reading Arthur-the-figure as a text provides not only significant opportunities to recover marginalized narratives of medieval England, but also insight into present sociopolitical anxieties.

Dedicated to

Dad who took me to book sales and

Mom who bought me tea and teapots to enhance the reading experience

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This piece would not exist without the guidance and encouragement afforded by

Dr. Miriamne Krummel whose provision of books and cough drops have kept me thinking and speaking, ensuring that I exercise my mind and my voice.

It also seems appropriate to proclaim my appreciation to the support system of the

University of Dayton English Department teaching assistants and their director, Dr.

Jennifer Haan. They never tell you about the friendship and cupcakes that go into writing a thesis.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT……………………...……………………………………………………...iv

DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………...... vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………….vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………...... 1

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK………………………………………..4

CHAPTER 3: ILLUSTRATIVE ANALYSIS………………………………………..….16

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….….…37

WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………39

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Proposition: I’m a king, not a man.

-Camelot, 1967

The rain trickled down the back of my neck as I bounced on my toes, waiting in the line of strangers united through their love of books. The annual summer sale at the

Brunswick, Maine library promised the mildew smell of forgotten books and their intoxicating lure. I was thirteen and entirely oblivious that this day would mark the beginning of my professional career. Blindly excited, I smiled as the crowd started moving, clutching my bags that would soon be filled with stories of all shapes and sizes.

While carefully scanning the spines, fully intending to judge every book by its cover, a red hardcover with gold lettering caught my eye: Le Morte d’Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory.

Ignorant of French, I nevertheless recognized the name of that king that had filled my childhood imagination. Sword fights in my neighbor’s front yard flashed through my mind, and I reached almost desperately for the vibrant red tome. I held it reverently—I was not sure why—and marveled at the immaculate frontispiece, conveying romance and hope. As I flipped through the pages, something came loose into my hands: an old newspaper clipping left behind and undoubtedly long forgotten by the book’s previous reader. In bold newspaper print, the title enraptured me, King Arthur of the Round Table

May Square with Reality. In discovering this article, it brought about memories of and

1 fascinations from early childhood: who was Arthur? What made him the paragon of chivalry and kings?

The question of Arthur is not a new one; I certainly was not the first child to wonder at his existence marked by strength, romance, betrayal, drama, hope, and wonder.

In pursuing the question of who he was, I encountered musicals, films, and novels surrounding this legendary figure. Eventually, this quest brought me to academia, encountering ideas that sometimes mirrored my own and others that left me unsettled. It was during a viewing of the 1967 musical film Camelot that I began to understand Arthur for the complex figure—not man—that he was. In the climax of Arthur’s (Richard

Harris) downfall, he mourns the affair between Guinevere (Vanessa Redgrave) and

Lancelot (Franco Nero), vowing to take revenge. He rages, proclaiming that he demands

“a man’s vengeance,” but, he concludes, he is a king and not a man. It was this moment that I first began to interrogate the idea of Arthur as more than a character or figure; he is a representation of an institution. As I matured, so did my understanding of Arthur. He transformed from ideal to problem, symbol of righteousness to emblem of injustice. I ventured abroad to pour over books in the tower above Balliol College Library in Oxford, seeking out locations as romantic as Camelot to pursue Arthur’s identity, which grew in contradiction. I became disenchanted with his supposed moral character and knightly prowess, seeing his waning power in the words of Thomas Malory, a criminal-knight in the midst of one of the bloodiest wars England had known. Malory’s Arthur is a hero, king, criminal, nobleman, child, and so on seemingly ad infinitum. Arthur belonged to the romance of a nonexistent utopian past exhibited through the rhetoric of nostalgia

2 prevalent in the Middle Ages. Arthur persisted in cultural memory, hearkening to the past, but what did he offer for his present—the present of his numerous iterations?

The question continued to burn in my consciousness, and I encountered Arthur everywhere. I attended conferences on Victorian fiction or feminist rhetoric, learning of paratexts and Hispanic legends, and the question of Arthur remained; I studied manuscripts, archives, language, and theory. The once and future king was truly persistent: his presence among illustrated manuscripts with rich histories of conquest and destruction preserved him in my memory. Arthur has thus haunted me from the moment I slipped that newspaper article out of the red binding. His salvific image floated in and out of my personal and academic life, punctuated with the promise of his return when

England’s need—when my need—was greatest. Arthur was a mnemonic; he was the product of history blending myth and memory to shape a collective, and individual, truth.1 He haunts me, and now I am staring back at this specter of history, identifying him as character, institution, nexus: a text that promises insight into the history and literature that composes his paratext.

1 This particular idea of the rhetorical work of the collective mindset, while not first introduced, was made important to this project through the presentation of Miriam Fernandez’s “The Wailing of the Waters: Llorona Mythology and Collective Memory” presented at the 2017 Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference held at the University of Dayton. 3

CHAPTER 2

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Rex quondam rexque futurus.

-Thomas Malory (689), 1485

Introduction to Theory

Arthur’s position as text requires a comprehensive understanding of first how he can be considered a text and then what the implications of his textuality are.

Incorporating taxonomic, literary, rhetorical, and medieval political theory, reveals that

Arthur truly is a dense focus of collective anxieties. Taxonomic analysis foreshadows the importance of how Arthur is portrayed in his position as text; borrowing from Foucault, literary theory begins the question of what a text is—something informed by outside parts; rhetorical theory connects the idea of text as something used by the collective and the individual; finally, medieval political theory cements Arthur’s position as a truly transcendent sociopolitical figure. By transcendent, I mean that Arthur ideologically exists outside of his temporality. He exists in a time outside of time—a “nowhere” as

Karma Lochrie identifies it—where “the past functions in tandem with a ‘critique of the present’ that forms the necessary basis for imagining a future” (Lochrie 2).2 By proving he is text, Arthur is understood to be a figure representative of the coalescing thoughts— or as I argue later, memories—of the cultures in which he appears. In tapping into the

2 Lochrie specifically discuss utopia, which is an idea closely linked with Arthur’s idyllic Camelot and nostalgic rule. 4

Arthurian legend, authors, statesmen, and societies collectively reach for the salvific,

“providing what Caxton calls ‘beneurte’ (‘blessedness’),” simultaneously displacing their fears onto that salvation (Fradenburg and Freccero xiii).3

Taxonomic Analysis and the Question of Text

Taxonomic analysis provides an epistemological lens through which to view texts. I begin with this idea as it was the beginning of this project itself. Taxonomic analysis explores the implications of “the way information is presented,” which is “nearly as important as the information itself” (Steiner 1). Examining a text taxonomically affords insight not only into how the information is organized, but why it is organized that way. The how of information presentation thus potentially reveals driving epistemologies and influences on both author and text. Scholars such as Emily Steiner and Lynn Ransom and those featured in their collection of essays applying taxonomic analysis apply this analysis literally to medieval manuscripts. In examining the way information is presented—through rubrication, paleography, chronology, etc.—they argue that much can be learned about the culture represented in the manuscript. In reading this collection, the question arose: if Arthur is text, can he be read taxonomically? If so, he must be examined holistically not only for what he says but for how he is presented. The influence, then, of Steiner and Ransom’s Taxonomies is in conceiving of Arthur himself as a text—the order of his narrative, his highlighted characteristics, and his relationship with his context as significant factors in understanding sociopolitical epistemologies.4 To discover the taxonomy Arthur reveals, we must first understand his identity as text.

3 Fradenburg and Freccero reference Caxton’s opinions on history in this passage. For more on the connection between Arthur and this history, see further references to Fradenburg and Freccero below. 4 Steiner and Ransom’s mission in Taxonomies, when applied to Arthur as text, additionally raises the question of physical medium, begging an analysis of the manuscripts in which Arthur appears. 5

Arthur as Author and Text

The definition of Arthur as text owes recognition to literary and rhetorical theory, and the subsequent understanding of that text as a mode of recovery draws largely from social feminist theory. The question of Arthur as a transcendent figure relates to

Foucault’s question of the author. Composed and influenced by discursive elements, the author inhabits a near mythological existence that problematizes the relationship between text and author. The text exists in conjunction with “this figure [the author] that, at least in appearance, is outside it and antecedes it” (Foucault 205). Arthur’s textuality is inextricably linked to this idea of author, but as a representation of transcendence, Arthur is authorless; perhaps, even, Arthur is his own author—the originator of his own story, which finds fulfillment through those historical and literary iterations constructed by and indicative of sociopolitical anxieties, expectations, and potential realities. Possessing the interiority of self and the exteriority of representative culture, Arthur is in part this

“interplay of signs” Foucault describes (205). Pertinently, Foucault offers criticism of the

“primal status” offered to a text as “a way of retranslating, in transcendental terms, both the theological affirmation of its sacred character and the critical affirmation of its creative character” (206). Arthur, understood as originator and text becomes this mythic, transcendental figure Foucault identifies. Arthur represents, in perpetuity, himself, and his self is a constructed text developed from collective memory and the anxiety of the culture in which he exists, being, for the sake of this project, Britain. Consequently, the questions Foucault poses at the end of his essay beg to be answered, namely: “What are

Unfortunately, the scope of this project does not allow for such an analysis, but it should not be ignored and is a point for potential expansion in the future. 6 the modes of existence of this discourse [in this case, Arthur]? Where has it been used, how can it circulate, and who can appropriate it for himself?” (221).

Social and rhetorical theory potentially provides answers to Foucault’s question of mode and appropriation. Adapted from classical philosophies, rhetoric was slowly adopted into English practice with the art of medieval rhetoric as an echo of “pedagogical technique—a means of teaching boys to speak and write eloquently” (Mann 9). Scott

Troyan laments that the “legacy” inherent in medieval rhetoric has been ignored, promoting an effort in uncovering medieval hermeneutic practices (217). According to

Troyan, medieval rhetoric is layered with meaning due to its emphasis on religious and literary tradition and its preservation. This medieval notion of interpretation is not so different from rhetoric now, which is “a defining mode of intellectual inquiry, knowledge production, and social negotiation,” making it “possible to analyze rhetorical forms … not only as vehicles of local literary effects but also as instruments of wider cultural significance” (Mann 9, 10). As a culturally-utilized text, Arthur exists as one of these

“figures of rhetoric” (11). Perhaps not wholly aware of the semantically rhetorical implications, medieval writers of Arthuriana, nevertheless, participated in this exercise of rhetorical figures. As a production of society, Arthur thus potentially reveals social marginalization and anxiety.

That legendary nationalist figures are used rhetorically is not a new idea. Due to the layered meanings of medieval rhetorical efforts in literature, rhetoric must be considered “through its relationship with a single subject” (219). Therefore, considering

Arthur as the singular subject, it is vital to understand his position in relationship to his various iterations. In her provocatively titled Outlaw Rhetoric, Jenny C. Mann seeks to

7 explore the “union of rhetoric and Robin Hood” used “to make classical rhetoric an

English art” (2). Mann investigates Richard Sherry’s A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes in which he makes reference to “a tale of Robynhoode” in his discussion of classical rhetoric (1). Sherry’s treatise echoes this idea of space—that these figures represent a transcendental manifestation of a physical nation—as his mention of Robin Hood

“implicitly locates his vernacular rhetoric in the imagined space of the English countryside” (3). In this sense, Robin Hood for Sherry, and Arthur in this context, represent the imagined and the real, allowing for that appropriation of which Foucault is aware. What Sherry does actively, which is to use Robin Hood as a means to situate rhetorically the art of rhetoric within English nationalism, so implicitly do authors like

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chaucer, Marie de France, and Thomas Malory.5

Rhetorical figures, such as Arthur, possess inherent notions of metaphor or displacement. Patricia Parker legitimizes such strategies in her exploration of female literary figures and their rhetorical resonances. Parker establishes her analysis of rhetorical figures in a complex theoretical mosaic, drawing on numerous thinkers and authors; most notably for this conversation, she works with Foucauldian notions of text,

Derridean notions of différance, and Lockean notions of literary identity. Parker argues, in part, that specific figures’ “textuality” works to “recontextualize” a stereotypical object

(32).6 In looking to Arthur’s textuality, then, his exteriority must be recontextualized and

5 In her book, Mann does reference Arthur, commenting, “Unlike King Arthur, who enjoyed a comparable [to Robin Hood] kind of folkloric circulation in England and on the Continent, Robin Hood was a figure of entirely British construction” (6). Therefore, it is worth noting that I am not advocating for Arthur to be either an exclusively English rhetorical figure or an entirely universal rhetorical figure. Rather, he represents that cultural tendency to impose or displace onto a figure. 6 In her discussion of recontextualization, Parker refers specifically to the female stereotype as reconstructed through the character of Pamela in Samuel Richardson’s novel. While Parker’s argument specifically regards gender and property, her notions of textualization motivating recontextualization— themselves founded in the theorists previously mentioned—I believe can be applied in other circumstances. 8 re-understood, providing potential new historicist opportunities for understanding medieval sociopolitical ideology and situation. Invoking Cicero, Parker also establishes metaphor as a rhetorical device of displacement—“deviation, borrowing, and the ‘in the place of’ substitution” (36). For a thing to possess textuality, it has the potential for metaphor; it is transcendent—outside—and therefore necessitates translation. The application of such translation quite nicely promotes metaphor—substitution. In other words, to participate in metaphor is to participate in the irony of attempting to understand a thing by removing it to a different context. This displacement often involves substitution—or perhaps joining—with another text, promoting the recontextualization

Parker, Foucault, and others have noted naturally occurs. As a thing already constructed and thus removed, yet joined, to the origin (author), a text fittingly promotes this idea of metaphor.

The identification of Arthur as text thus convenes at these points between taxonomy, literature, rhetoric, and society. For Arthur to be specifically a transcendent text is for Arthur to be intersectional—sign and signifier, author and text, device and strategy. Therefore, if we are to accept Arthur himself (or itself) as text, the documents or memories in which he appears are themselves iterations. It is this language I will continue to use throughout this essay, with text referring either specifically to Arthur or to that meta-notion of displaced existence—something real and imagined all at once—and with iteration referring to literature, history, or other physical and linguistic manifestations of

Arthur’s textuality.

Paratextual Analysis

With Arthur as text, these iterations in which he appears become paratexts. Gerard

Genette proposes the significance of paratextual analysis in his seminal work, Paratexts:

Thresholds of Interpretation. Genette identifies text in the literal sense as the words that appear within a book or manuscript (2). Genette posits that no text can exist without a paratext, which is “empirically made up of a heterogeneous group of practices and discourses of all kinds and dating from all periods” (2). Possessing both peritext and epitext, a paratext is any aspect that appears in conjunction with the text, yet it stands apart from the text itself: binding, numeration, rubrication, etc. Peritext involves the internal elements such as author’s notes while the epitext is the external elements such as the binding (8). Assuming Arthur is a text, and thus must possess paratexts, I propose his peritexts include the genre or iteration in which he appears such as lai, history, epic, etc., revealing a semblance of interiority as is implied in Genette’s literal definition, and the sociopolitical rhetoric of his authors as the epitext, reflecting exteriority. Genette qualifies paratext saying, “By definition, something is not a paratext unless the author or one of his associates accepts responsibility for it, although the degree of responsibility may vary” (9). Genette distinguishes between the official and unofficial, or “semiofficial” paratexts—those sanctioned by the author and associates and those that are not. The temporal and spatial transcendence of Arthur necessitates an inclusion of all paratexts as there is no sole author or group to approve his various manifestations. Viewing his actual character as a text, those elements of production and narrative become his paratexts, which can be read taxonomically. If the literary and historical iterations in which Arthur

10 appears are his paratexts, then Arthur must exist outside of those iterations; he must transcend the physical iteration for that physical text to be tangential to his character.

Mnemonic Recovery through Sociopolitical Textuality

This understanding of Arthur as a rhetorical text provides opportunity for recovery of the rhetorical situations and strategies he represents. As specifically a rhetorical figure, he possesses a “mutually reflective relation” between his “particular trope” and “the orders [it exemplifies]” (Parker 99). As Jacqueline Jones Royster identifies with writing, and thus text, Arthur “is an expression of self, of society, and of self in society” (5). In the pursuit of contextualization, Royster advocates for an intersectionalist—or “kaleidoscopic” to use her words—perspective in the effort to recover the voices of the oppressed (6). This transdisciplinary attitude likewise must be applied here, for to understand the nexus Arthur provides, we must comprehend the vast number of influences, occurrences, ideologies, individuals, and societies that worked to form him. Regrettably, the scope of this project does not allow for a comprehensive analysis of the specific—something for which Royster nobly advocates7—rather, still in the spirit of Royster, I seek to establish a “landscape” from which to understand Arthur’s actual nature and, irrevocably related, his persistence namely in English cultural memory.

Existing in this rhetorical mode and allowing for recovery through potential appropriation, Arthur persists in collective memory, commenting on culture, and demanding himself to be recovered. In recovering Arthur as text and his subsequent paratexts he may reveal what is to be recovered of his context. In his exploration of “how

7 “We need a sense of the landscape, certainly, but simultaneously we also need closeup views from different standpoints on the landscape. It has been crucial to this analysis, in fact, that I do not remain focused solely on generalities” (Royster 6). 11 the memories of some particular times and places have become embodied in and through performances,” Joseph Roach defines culture as a “social process,” identifying it as something that “reproduces and re-creates itself by a process that can best be described by the word surrogation” (xi, 2). This culture operates in a “selective” and “imaginative” collective memory, which performs through various rituals such as death (2). Drawing on the works of Victor Turner, Roach claims “that celebrations of death function as rites of social renewal, especially when the decedents occupy positions to which intense collective attention is due, such as those of leaders or kings” (37). Roach links this cultural preoccupation with the death of leaders to the enduring notion that those divinely appointed kings inhabit a duality—a “paradox of immortality and physical decay,” which

“symbolically asserts the divinely authorized continuity of human institutions while recognizing their inherent fragility” (38). Roach directly references the enduring philosophy, founded in medieval Christendom, that a king possesses two bodies—“the body natural and the body politic” (38).8

Arthur’s recovery as a text necessitates an understanding of his duality and, because of the close link between death and a king’s duality, the enduring repercussions of his demise. Arthur’s dual-centeredness is founded in the notion of “absolute perfection of this royal persona ficta,” which is itself “the result of a fiction within a fiction: it is inseparable from a peculiar aspect of corporational concepts, the corporation sole”

(Kantorowicz 5). Referencing English legal historian Frederic William Maitland,

8 For more specifically on the relationship between the king’s “two bodies” and continuity, see Kantorowicz’s chapter “On Continuity and Corporations.” “The revival of the doctrine of the eternity of the world, which captivated Western minds after the middle of the thirteenth century, coincided with analogous, if independent, tendencies towards ‘continuity’ in the constitutional and legal-political spheres” (273). 12

Kantorowicz identifies that the two bodies “theorem … provided an important heuristic fiction which served … to bring into agreement the personal with the more impersonal concepts of the government” (5). The “twin born majesty” thus reiterates Arthur’s intersectionality not only through his construction as a literary figure but also his construction as a political institution (5). Arthur’s kingship contained a plural consciousness of the institution: “the God-man, … the ideas of justice and law, … the corporate bodies of political collectives or institutional dignities,” and “of which MAN, pure and simple, was the center and standard” (451). Kantorowicz explains that this final duality—that of humanity—is the role of the poet; whereas philosophers, statesmen, lawyers, theologians, and others pontificated on the relationship between the king and faith and law and order, the poet9 could explore man. Crucially, Kantorowicz corroborates the notion that kingship itself appears in different iterations—those being historical and literary. With Arthur as an indisputable representation of that kingship, as I see it, he necessarily inhabits those iterations.

Returning to the important role death plays in the performance of collective memory, Arthur’s apparent eternal slumber in Avalon presents a pertinent framework for his transcendent representation of sociopolitical thought.10 As it is performed throughout cultural history, death and its cultural construction “by surrogacy, cannot be understood as a moment, a point in time: it is a process” (Roach 39). Having two bodies, the medieval king existed in perpetuity—rex qui nunquam moritur—a characteristic

9 Kantorowicz concerns himself specifically with Dante the poet, and his exploration of political philosophy in his fiction. 10 Roach, of course, identifies several performances of cultural identity—theatre, carnivals, etc.—but the consistent connection between Arthur and death, demise, and collapse lends itself to a particular discussion about this cultural performance of the funeral. 13 dependent “mainly on the interplay of three factors: the perpetuity of the Dynasty, the corporate character of the Crown, and the immortality of the royal Dignity” (Kantorowicz

316).11 Arthur is a unique embodiment of this notion of perpetual continuity in which he literally is the rex qui nunquam moritur or the rex quondam rexque futurus as Malory identifies him. He does not die but is rather secluded in Avalon, promising to return again. Arthur becomes a performance of collective memory through his position as the actual manifestation of this duality—mortal and immortal—that is the metaphor of kings.

These “performances in general and funerals in particular are so rich in revealing contradictions,” making “publicly visible through symbolic action … the tangible existence of social boundaries,” producing “anxiety-inducing instability” (Roach 39).

Kantorowicz describes the ritual deaths of French kings, explaining the development of the famous maxim, “Le roi est mort! … Vive le roi!” This chant, echoed at the funerals of kings, further emphasizes the memorialization and performance Roach identifies in funeral rights. Arthur’s death transformed—re-performed—this cry. His continuation did not occur dynastically, but it was rather promised. His continual presence thus identifies him as a perpetual text, demanding that if we are to understand his iterations and paratexts—the actual people and cultures surrounding him—we would be tragically remiss to ignore him.

Arthur, thus, exists as a transcendent rhetorical figure, operating as a focus for sociopolitical ideology and anxiety. His iterations reflect, to borrow Royster’s words, a

11 Kantorowicz explains that this “famous device, Le roi ne meurt jamais” in the French, “descended in direct succession from the legal maxim Dignitas non moritur” in which the court was concerned with preserving the Dignities—the reputation—of the institution itself (409). In the eventual conflation of the mortal and the immortal, this translated to the king’s physical body itself as evidenced in the extreme in the case of Arthur. 14

“use of language for sociopolitical action,” a strategy she identifies in implementing rhetorical figures (10). This identification makes him more than a literary character but rather a rhetorical figure and device of cultural memory. Reading Arthur as such provides not only significant opportunities to recover marginalized narratives of medieval

England, but also considering his continuing and continuous iterations, insight into present sociopolitical anxieties. Medieval writers thus use Arthur as text to create a space for cultural self-actualization, imposing their personal and societal experiences onto the text that is Arthur. Arthur’s paratexts, then, are the various aspects of these narratives produced by real individuals. To illustrate this theoretical framework, I turn to a selection of historical and literary iterations in the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Geoffrey

Chaucer, Marie de France, and Thomas Malory to provide a glimpse into English iterations of Arthur. The situations of both author and character allow for a method of recovery as authors appropriate Arthur’s text, displacing their own lives through the metaphor of Arthuriana. This displacement of their own experiences onto the text of

Arthur provides relief from the pressures they experience through the sociopolitical anxieties of their times.

CHAPTER 3

ILLUSTRATIVE ANALYSIS

Le roi est mort! … Vive le roi!

-Ernst Kantorowicz (411), 1957

Introduction

Arthur’s particular iterations in medieval England provide insight into ideas of romantic history and its problematic pattern of marginalization. Reading Arthur as text allows for a paratextual analysis of these iterations potentially to recover medieval writers’ voices, which in their implicit portrayals of Arthur express anxieties about cultural self-actualization through sociopolitical doubts. I have selected from among the representations of Arthur the following authors and texts: Geoffrey of Monmouth’s

Historia Regum Britanæ, Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Marie de

France’s “Lanval,” and Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur.12 I have selected these texts for their spanning of time and their representation of various historical and literary genres: history, framework narrative, lai, and romance. The multiplicity of forms provides a means to investigate specifically sociopolitical anxieties—accounting for the positions of the authors and the climate in which they wrote. These texts represent varied seemingly deviant voices through nationality, sexuality, gender, and criminality. The authors are able to—consciously or unconsciously—impose these anxieties of belonging

12 I will refer to each text in by an abridged title for the remainder of the piece: Historia, “The Wife of Bath,” and Morte. 16 onto the transcendent text of Arthur. As a text told and retold, the authors’ unique perspectives on Arthur’s position as king reflect not only various critiques on the institution he represents, but also through those critiques, a space for self-actualization within their societies.

The order of discussion of each Arthurian iteration additionally reflects this framework of romantic history and literary recovery. As the theoretical framework suggests, first we see Arthur’s transcendent temporality, then his provision for the recovery of social voices, and his representation of sociopolitical anxieties through those voices. Geoffrey of Monmouth establishes Arthur’s enduring transcendence through his positioning in, an albeit fictive, history that Chaucer romanticizes through the setting of his tale in this ideal past; both “The Wife of Bath” and Lanval provide gendered perspectives into kingship that allow for a recovery of marginalized voices; finally, the

Morte echoes anxieties of a utopian king in the context of a criminal-knight in a nation torn by war. In the following sections I will first establish Arthur within romantic history, confirming his position as a rhetorical figure in collective memory. Second, after understanding Arthur’s salvific image as a space of displacement for marginalization, we can better understand these sociopolitical anxieties of belonging.

Romantic History

Medievalist’s conceptions of history are closely linked with notions of romance or fantasy. For decades, medievalists have worked to unpack this prevailing ideology that

C.S. Lewis identifies as a nostalgia for an idealized past—that “things were once better than they are now” (184); or perhaps what Patricia Ingham, referencing Jacques Le Goff, recognizes generally as “history’s special claim to the material and embodied,” which

“comes not merely from facts about the past, but from what an imagination does with those facts” (1). A medievalist’s understanding of what Lewis, then, might call romantic history, and Ingham identifies as a history marked by fantasy, contains an inherent

“imaginative faculty” (1). 13 History is thus not inflexible or static—but dynamic, living, transformative—as Caxton himself would identify, history “is a site of intersection and mutual transformation between suffering … and life, and between the wound that is alterity (‘other and strange men’s hurts’) and ‘a man’ himself” (Fradenburg and Freccero xiii).14 As a point of intersection, medieval history thus demands an examination through plural lenses, perspectives, understandings, and because that medieval history coincides with fiction—literature, art—its fluidity and dialogic nature are exacerbated. Ironically as the Middle Ages progressed in its process of decentralization,15 Arthur as text was a centralizing narrative, a nexus of this imaginative history. Arthur’s prominent position within this imagined—but wholly real—historical legend emphasizes his temporal and spatial transcendence as a text.

Arthur’s presence in national and historical documents reifies his position in

British romantic history and collective memory. His mention in the Annales Cambriæ16 and popularization in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniæ illustrate not

13 Ingham’s use of “the term fantasy is meant to signal an interest in how these [Arthurian] romances work both subjectively and culturally, that is, both for exploring the desires of particular subjects and for encoding broad contests concerning a British ‘imagined community’” (7). 14 “For certayne [history] … is a greet beneurte unto a man that can be reformed by other and strange mennes hurtes and scathes/and by the same to knowe/what is requysyte and prouffytable for hys lyf …. Therefore the counseylls of auncyent & whyte heeryd men in whom olde age hath engendryd wysedom been gretely praysed of yonge men/And yet hystoryes soo moche more excelle them/as the dyuturnyte or length of tyme includeth moo ensamples of thynges & laudable actes than thage of one man may suffyse to see” (Caxton 1928, qtd. in Fradenburg and Freccero xiii). 15 See Karma Lochrie’s text for more on the myth of unified utopia and Patricia Ingham’s on the decentralizing reality motivating the desire for and belief in mythic union. 16 XCIII. Annus. Gueith Camlann, in qua Arthur et Medraut corruere; et mortalitas in Britania et in Hibernia fuit. 18 only Arthur’s enduring presence but the reality of the history he represents. Annales

Cambriæ and Historia represent the earliest mentions of Arthurian tradition on the British

Isles, and both are Welsh in origin, emphasizing Arthur’s “association … with a conquered Welsh ‘native’ tradition marks his story as a particular scene of such literary and historiographic engagements” (Ingham 11). That Arthur as a Welsh figure has been adopted or appropriated into the greater British legendary compendium reiterates his participation in an actual history, regardless of how “imagined” his existence is. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia, in particular, underscores the unifying nationalism that pervades both Arthurian legend and British history. Geoffrey of Monmouth highlights the totius insulae monarchia, “which King Arthur, after having obtained it by right of inheritance, had to defend against the infidel: Saxons, Scots, and Picts” (Kantorowicz

240). Arthur, then, was a direct representation of this colonial rhetoric still apparent in

Britain today as Ingham points out, “Wales remains a colony of England to the present”

(12). The Arthur of Historia has been foremost a kingly hero with Geoffrey of

Monmouth recording such battles where Arthur “slew with a single blow every man that he struck with Caliburn, until no less than four hundred and seventy Saxons lay dead from his hand alone” (Geoffrey 76). Understanding Arthur as a dynamic text problematizes this heroic history, allowing medievalists to examine “what traumas, losses, imaginary fragments, or contradictions fuel historic medieval legends” (Ingham

2). In expressing these feats of strength and nationalism through a Welsh narrative, this iteration of Arthur makes space for the British to exist by absorbing Welsh tradition into the British one, justifying that national occupation. Arthur’s position in this fantasy history thus establishes the framework with which literary iterations can participate,

19 exhibiting awareness of Arthur’s transcendent existence that reaches not only to the idyllic past but also to the promised future.

“The Wife of Bath’s Tale”

Chaucer and his tales present a significant awareness of the transcendent temporality Arthur occupies as a participant in this romantic history. Chaucer expresses his awareness through his play with time and its movements. Chaucer’s Introduction to

“The Man of Law’s Tale” exhibits his playful awareness of temporality: “That Chaucer, thogh he kan but lewedly / On metres and on rymyng craftily, / Hath seyd hem in swich

Englissh as he kan / Of olde tyme, as knoweth many a man” (ll. 47-50). Chaucer not only situates himself within the present of his Tales but also within the “olde tyme,” hearkening back to antiquated tales and language, and he is an active participant in that double-edged temporality. In declaring his very language is anachronistic, Chaucer coyly creates a time out of time—a place, that like the romantic history of the Middle Ages, exists outside its nonexistence. Chaucer’s “olde tyme” is not ill-defined but rather ambiguous by nature, transcending empirical conceptions of what is real. Chaucer’s entirely real fiction is thus a natural place for the textual Arthur to appear, for as a transcendent rhetorical figure, Arthur is anachronistic in his situation in “olde tyme,” his persistence in the present, and his promise of future reincarnation; he is eternally perpetual. In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Chaucer thus creates a story within a story, forming a transcendent framework through Arthurian narrative in which the Wife is active. This narrative within the constructed temporality of Arthur operates as the paratext to Arthur’s text, providing insight into the strategies of both Chaucer and the

Wife to express their identities.

Regarded now as a prominent figure both in the development of English language and its literature, Chaucer’s use of Arthurian narrative highlights a prominent moment in

English literary history. Chaucer, like the following authors discussed here, potentially represents an individual in crisis. Born to the rising mercantile class, Chaucer nevertheless entered prominence in court due to his education in court, connection to the monarchy, and skill with words. Most notably, Chaucer was a participant in a number of sexual scandals, providing pertinent context for his notoriously sexualized Wife of Bath.

In particular, Cecily Champain accused Chaucer of raptus—rape—in 1380 (Howard

317). Debate continues to surround the mystery of these circumstances, resulting in questions about Chaucer’s guilt or innocence, for medieval rape could simply imply kidnapping (Studies 103). Regardless of the actual occurrences, the accusation was made, besmirching Chaucer’s character. This occupation of a space of anxiety provides an intriguing backdrop against which to understand Chaucer’s use of Arthurian narrative, especially one that is so marked by sexuality.

The Wife of Bath as a woman additionally occupies this bizarre temporality, telling us her story through arguably deliberate misapplication of cultural narrative.17 As a member of this “olde tyme” that Chaucer previously identifies, the Wife lives both presently and in “th’olde dayes of Kyng Arthour” when “al was this land fulfild of fairye” (ll. 857, 859). The Wife’s story within Chaucer’s greater story continually plays with this temporality, positioning her in this realm of fantasy. As “fantasies can have the power to remake the social realities in which we live and desire,” the Wife chooses

17 In her “Fulfild of fairye’ essay, Fradenburg asks the question about the Wife of Bath’s “temporality— over whether, when and how she lives and addresses us?” (205). See this essay for a deeper exploration of The Wife herself and her temporality. 21 particularly the fantasy of Arthur to deliver her critique (Fradenburg 208). She participates in a cultural reminiscing on “th’olde dayes of Kyng Arthour / Of which that

Britons speken greet honour” (Chaucer ll. 857-58). Coupling “olde days” with “fairye” deconstructs notions of empirical linearity—the Wife speaks of both history and romance. Though critical thought often positions “romance fantasy” as “distinct from, even opposed to, the real world,” the Wife’s tale is one that transcends both, reveling in at least an attempt at this greater presence (Fradenburg 210). Arthur himself helps to provide the means of the Wife’s transcendence of time. By invoking Arthur, the Wife invokes nationalist memory. Similarly, the Wife of Bath references Christian scripture in her introduction and Ovid throughout her tale. By applying “th’apostel” and his writings, she borrows that transcendent narrative of Scripture as a counter-argument to justify her sexual activity. She invokes and subsequently subverts these narratives to create a space for her own. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” thus occurs in both the past and the present—just as Arthur and even the Wife herself do. Arthur, too, is a part of this time that existed and is existing, though never truly occurring, which is why (like Scripture), his story can be transformed into different iterations. This is the rhetorical strategy in which the Wife participates, using the collective memory of Arthur to communicate anxieties of deviance and belonging expressed through a critical view of the ideal Arthur.18

King Arthur occupies a past apparently not unlike the Wife of Bath’s present, further conflating temporalities in the construction of one that stands outside of linear, historical time. Although “Al was this land fulfild of fairye” where elves and incubi

18 The anxieties that I discuss here in this paper are by no means a comprehensive analysis of what The Wife herself has to offer in terms of commentary. As Fradenburg’s “Fulfild of fairye” essay suggests, the Wife’s tale is rich with discussion. Rather, I hope to provide a few pertinent examples of the ways the Wife exposes some specific sociopolitical critiques on her surroundings by displacing them onto Arthur. 22 roamed the land, these creatures have merely been replaced by men like the “lymytour” who are able to pray/prey, fulfilling the roles of the long-gone enchanted creatures (l.

859). Where elves sang, friars pray, and while the evil spirits who preyed on women are gone, “ther is noon oother incubus but [the friar]” (l. 880). Apparently both the past and the present contain men pray/prey, seeking to impose their will upon women, stealing women’s virginity. Such wickedness is found even in the presence of the king. The Wife reveals, “And so it bifel that this Kyng Arthour / Hadde in house a lusty bachelor” (ll.

882-83). The lusty knight, situated within Arthur’s household, exposes Arthur’s failures as a king. In his De regimine principum, Giles of Rome provides specific instructions through the instructional genre of the mirrors for princes. Giles divides his three volumes into the principal parts of kingship: “how a king should rule himself, how he should rule his household, and how he should rule his kingdom” (Sutton 110). The Wife exposes

Arthur as apparently impotent in the rule of his very household, calling into question his capabilities to rule his kingdom. The Wife reveals that corruption pervades these “olde days” and subsequently figures in Arthur himself, demanding criticism and doubt in the idealized institution Arthur represents while simultaneously allowing for her voice to be heard despite its deviance from normativity.

Therefore, the Wife emphasizes this sociopolitical anxiety through the apparent absence of Arthur. Though these “olde days” are those of Arthur, he is listed in name only, lacking dialogue or engagement with other characters. Arthur condemns the knight to death for his rape of the maiden in the beginning of the tale (ll. 890-93). However, without even hearing his words on this execution of justice, Arthur is seemingly overridden. In his absence and inaction, Guinevere supplants Arthur as representative of

23 mercy and justice. As women, the Wife and Guinevere potentially reveal this gendered critique of Arthur’s kingship. Arthur enacts his wife’s demands, which is the bestowal of mercy on the lusty knight, allowing him to begin a quest to discover what it is women most desire. Interestingly, Arthur provides the woman’s greatest desire to his wife through his acquiescence to her request, for “Wommen desiren have sovereynetee / As wel over hir housbond as hir love / and for to been in maistrie hym above” (ll. 1038-40).

It is the queen rather than Arthur who features most prominently in the court. During the final trial of the lusty knight, “The queene hirself sittynge as justice” (l. 1028). She is judge, causing the lusty knight to recognize her as his “lige lady,” and he requests that she “dooth as yow list. I am at youre wille” (ll. 1037, 1042). Both Arthur and the lusty knight thus submit themselves to the queen, fulfilling her deepest desires as a woman.

Arthur’s narrative often involves “putatively disordered, even destructive, female desires, rendered through figures like Guinevere” that “prove powerful enough to threaten, if not entirely dismantle, sovereign community” (Ingham 14). The Wife engages with this tradition by rendering Arthur virtually silent and effectively impotent. Instead, the Wife’s underscoring vivacious sexuality in conjunction with Guinevere’s benevolent and effective rule imply a sociopolitical power vector comprised of feminine agency, calling the very institution of kingship into question. By questioning this transcendent figure,

Chaucer uses Arthur’s temporality to create a space in which both he and the Wife can express nonnormative identities, potentially enacting a catharsis.

“Lanval”

In her “Lanval,” Marie de France demonstrates similar strategies in temporality as the Wife of Bath. Like Chaucer’s tale, Marie situates her lais as the perpetual past,

24 reinforcing the transcendent narrative. Aware of what she considers her duty to translate and document the old tales, Marie begs for her readers’ attentions, “Listen, lords, to what

Marie says, / who does not forget her duty in her time” (Guigemar ll. 3-4).19 Conscious of her tens, or time, Marie is crucially aware of her cultural moment, and the collective memory in which she communicates. As Chaucer constructs his framework of temporality through “olde days” of King Arthur, allowing the Wife to utilize Arthur’s transcendence to communicate anxieties about belonging and critiques of kingship, so

Marie draws on tens ancienur, olden times, to demonstrate similar themes. In the introduction to Guigemar, Marie expounds on her duty to these old tales, addressing her readers, “I will show you an adventure / that happened in Brittany / in olden times” (ll.

24-6).20 Here Marie makes clear the mission of all her lais through her “commitment to the remembrance and reception of these stories” (Waters 39). Like Chaucer, Marie constructs a temporal framework in which her lais operate, emphasizing perpetuation, using that which transcends to communicate the experiences of the physical. By constructing this time out of time framework, Marie uses Arthur in Lanval as a text onto which she can project anxieties similarly to the way the Wife does in her tale. Simply by naming Arthur, Marie invokes the same “olde days” explicitly referenced in “The Wife of

Bath’s Tale,” making space for her similarly gendered perspective. Arthur’s paratext thus becomes Marie’s individual and cultural moment, which she expresses through the established paratext of Arthur as national legend.

As one of the first women western writers, Marie herself potentially is an individual in crisis, implementing Arthur to reflect or cope with her current anxieties.

19 Translations provided by Claire M. Waters. “Oez, seignurs, ke dit Marie, / Ki en sun tens pas ne s’oblie.” 20 “Vos mosterai un aventure / Ki en Bretaigne la menur / Avint al tens ancienur.” 25

Though her identity is still uncertain, Marie operates somewhat as an outside voice in the

English nationalist canon. Likely from the present Parisian area, Marie nevertheless moved within English court, and her lais themselves serve to situate her among the

English nobles. Marie was evidently familiar with English language and tradition and claims many of her tales come from the fables of King Alfred the Great, further positioning herself amongst the English historical and national canon. Furthermore,

Marie dedicates her lais to the Angevin King Henry II. As an Angevin king, Henry needs to position himself among the English; Marie fulfills this need for him through her nationalist tales while simultaneously using that narrative space to position herself in

Henry and Eleanor’s court. Like Chaucer’s alleged sexual immorality, his sexualized and individuated Wife of Bath, or the later presumptively criminalized Malory, Marie seeks identity or expression in the ultimately transcendent figure of Arthur. As Henry II attempts to write himself into the mythos of England, which ironically builds on that appropriation of the Welsh, Marie uses that space to seek self-actualization through an expression of sociopolitical anxieties. These voices have been historically covered or appropriated into a convenient rhetoric of normativity, diminishing or at certain moments ignoring the nuances and corruption of the institution represented by Arthur. Marie’s context clearly reflects the opportunity for such a situation, allowing for Marie’s Arthur as text potentially to reveal or echo certain anxieties of the king’s unquestioned authority and subsequent ability to enact justice for all his subjects.

In Lanval, Marie invokes the “olde days” or tens ancienur of King Arthur, setting the lay in the time of “King Arthur, the valiant and courteous” and his idyllic realm (l.

5).21 Arthur is apparently benevolent and generous, reveling in his wealth through the distribution of “many rich gifts / both to counts and to barons, / To members of the

Round Table” (ll. 13-15).22 Marie’s initial image of Arthur reflects the romantic hero of

Welsh origin found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia—perhaps not a warrior but a noble king and the paragon of chivalry. While Marie constructs this expected and foundational image of Arthur and his cornucopia, she consistently calls that very image into question throughout the rest of the lai. By setting this heroic tone, Marie is able to subvert these expectations of Arthur by directly contradicting his seemingly beneficent existence. With Arthur as text, Marie can shape him to reflect national and individual anxieties of belonging—the king belonging to the English and the woman belonging in that court.

However, Lanval’s experiences actually reveal an impotent King Arthur who defers entirely to both his council and his wife. Though Arthur is supposedly generous, he entirely forgets Lanval, despite Lanval’s being “of the king’s household” (l. 29).23 The code of chivalry itself demands a reciprocal loyalty between kings, lords, and vassals.24

The king would elicit respect and undying loyalty through his bestowal of favors and wealth, yet Arthur neglects one of his own household. Arthur is an oblivious king who cannot control his own kingdom, which contains a neglected knight, adulterous queen, and a mystical woman who treats that loyal knight better than his king. In neglecting

Lanval, Arthur thus not only fails in his loyal generosity, he mirrors the failure of the

21 “Artur, li pruz e li curteis.” 22 “Asez i duna riches duns / E as cuntes e as baruns. / A ceus de la table runde.” 23 “De la meisné le rei fu” 24 Malory documents this relationship in his repetition of the Order of the Bath: “Than the Kynge stablyssed all the knyghtes and gaff them rychesse and londys” (Malory 77). In return for these favors, the knights would act uprightly, perpetuating chivalry. 27

Arthur in “The Wife of Bath” as he lacks complete control over his own household.

Additionally, Arthur’s very wealth that would enable his generosity is called into question. When Lanval encounters the mysterious woman in the woods, Marie implicitly highlights Arthur’s failure as king. Marie’s opening sentiments on Arthur’s great wealth emphasize that wealth as one of Arthur’s chief attributes of power. However, as Lanval explores his lady’s tent, Marie concludes that “no king under heaven could buy them / for any wealth he might offer” (ll. 91-92).25 The mystical woman, like Marie, is a resident alien who acts justly and authoritatively where Arthur does not. Presumably from

Avalon, this nonnaturalized woman possesses wealth, influence, and consequently power, emphasizing Marie’s focus on maintaining identity despite being foreign or other.

Through these expressions of alien wealth in this woman’s forest residence, Marie renders obsolete that defining characteristic of Arthur’s reign.

Marie’s Arthur, then is hardly portrayed as valiant or courteous but rather impotent, domesticated, and diminished similarly to the Wife’s Arthur. Arthur is largely absent from most of Marie’s lay. His absence, in itself, is not necessarily an indication of

Arthur’s impotence, for he frequently appears as a distant noble figure to which knights and gentlemen aspire. However, in “Lanval,” Arthur barely speaks, neglects one of his knights, and is cuckolded while he spends his time hunting, which is his only means of asserting poewr and nobility. Marie portrays a masculinized court that is inherently flawed and unable to enact true justice. In Arthur’s inaction and absence, the queen

Guinevere seeks satisfaction from other men. Guinevere tempts Lanval, “I grant you my love; / you should be delighted with me” (ll. 268-9).26 In spurning Guinevere’s advances,

25 “Suz ciel n’ad rei ki[s] esligast / Pur nul aver k’il i donast.” 26 “Ma druerie vus otrei; / Mut devez estre lié de mei.” 28

Lanval proves loyal to his fairy mistress, emphasizing Arthur’s failure in loyalty and the failure of his marriage. Marie notes that Arthur “returned from the woods” after having

“a very pleasant day” (ll. 311-12).27 Arthur once again exhibits little control over his household, being made the blind fool unaware of the occurrences within not only his own court but also within his own family whereas the fairy lady knows all and is able to enact appropriate authority, justice, and mercy.

Marie further expresses anxiety in Arthur’s alleged utopia by revealing that it actually operates contrary to the expected norms. In the middle of the lai, Marie includes a moment of homosexual anxiety, implying not only a societal but also a gender subversion. As Lanval spurns the queen’s advances, she conveys apparent rumors that

Lanval “ha[s] no desire for women,” but rather “shapely young men” (ll. 280-81).28 This moment of homosexual anxiety29 highlights that this supposed ideal world of chivalry is upside down. By inverting and subverting the normative expectations, Marie widens the space in which she can express these anxieties through Arthur’s narrative. “Lanval” becomes more than simply a tale of Arthur; it is an Arthurian narrative appropriated to express certain social anxieties about normativities. In the midst of that doubt, Marie allows for a space in which she, the woman foreigner, might be accepted.

Arthur is hardly involved in the subsequent judicial action taken against Lanval, revealing a critical bastardization of the traditional role expected of a council. Giles of

Rome’s De regimine principum instructs that a ruler should “encourage wise men and

27 “Li reis fu del bois repeiriez; / Mut out le jur esté haitiez.” 28 “Asez le m’ad humme dit sovent / Que des femmez n’avez talent.” 29 For a deeper exposition on the performance of homosexual presence in the Middle Ages, see: Palmer, Barton R. “Queering the Lionheart.” Queer Movie Medievalisms, edited by Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh, Ashgate Publishing, 2009, pp. 19-44. 29 priests and choose the best councilors from among them for their practical qualities and truthfulness,” heeding that wise counsel yet maintaining ultimate authority as king

(Sutton 111). Arthur, however, requires his council to come to a decision about how to punish Lanval for the accusations of homosexuality and assault made against him by the queen. Despite his position as king, Arthur takes no active part in the council’s deliberations or decisions aside from becoming angry at their delay, seeking to rush the judicial process to appease his wife (l. 325). Arthur speaks for the first of only two times to pass judgment on Lanval for his “great wrong,” (l. 361). 30 However, Arthur’s first words are untrue, revealing his cuckoldry (l. 363). Even if his words were true, then it reveals his lack of control on Lanval, a member of his household. Arthur is rendered the fool as he is deceived by his wife and rendered ignorant and powerless in his own court.

Marie implicitly exacerbates this point by contrasting Arthur’s apparent unhappy and unsuccessful marriage with the pure romantic bliss Lanval experiences with his mysterious lady, for “no emperor, count, or king / ever had such joy or good fortune” (ll.

114-15).31 Marie’s textual Arthur reveals an ineffective king, unable to fulfill his duties as husband and ruler. If Marie truly believed her duty was to perpetuate these legends of

English canon through her lais, as previously quoted in Guigemar, then her message is a decidedly problematic one, revealing cultural fears of institutional failure through the communication and continuation of collective memory. Marie’s subversive mission thus becomes clearer: in appropriating Arthur as text to appease a foreign king, she implicitly calls the utopia of Arthur into question, allowing for the thought that her society could include and embrace foreign women like herself.

30 “Vassal, vus me avez mut mesfait!” 31 “Emperere ne quenz ne reis / N’ot unkes tant joie ne bien.” 30

Le Morte d’Arthur

Like Chaucer, the Wife, and Marie, Malory represents another covered voice utilizing the story of Arthur in the pursuit of identity and belonging. Unlike perhaps “The

Wife of Bath,” Malory’s Morte has not been historically accepted and canonized in

Arthurian legend as a treatise on chivalry.32 However, Malory undermines this utopian ideal through a subversive sleight of hand, using Arthur as text as a rhetorical strategy similar to the previously discussed authors. Malory moves toward agency as a critic of a world where a new king usurps the throne—a world that closely mirrors his own.

Criminalized largely for his participation in the Wars of the Roses, Malory and his Morte provide potential for understanding the sociopolitical anxieties of an individual caught in national crisis. Traditionally, scholars accept Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel as the Malory of the Morte, yet his criminal record continues to raise questions among critics. Many believe Malory’s “career [to be] morally discordant with the book”

(Matthews 73). Some justify Malory’s crimes by mitigating the seriousness of the charges, claiming that Malory was not as immoral as we perceive. Such scholars argue that contemporary definitions distort the severity of the crimes: for example, like in the question of Chaucer’s raptus, rape could merely mean kidnapping. However, even if this were the case, Malory’s extensive criminal history, “cattle-lifting, theft, extortion, sacrilegious robbery, attempted murder, and rape,” hardly seems in keeping with how the

Morte has traditionally been canonized as a chivalric ideal (104). The question of

32 This is not necessarily the case for all criticism as several scholars have recognized the problematic portrayal of the ideal within the Morte. C.S. Lewis, Kylie Murray, P.J.C. Field, and more have acknowledged the disconnect with Malory’s criminality and the supposed utopia he represents, challenging the notion that Camelot is a utopia at all. It is to this conversation I wish to add the individual examination of Malory’s potential connection to that dystopia through his criminality. 31

Malory’s crimes is not necessarily one of ethics or exoneration, but an exposition on the sociopolitical contradictions in which he participated, resulting in his punishment for the sake of the preservation of the kingship.

Like Chaucer and Marie, Malory exhibits an awareness of the transcendence of

Arthur as text—that Arthur operates in a time out of time—by inserting himself into the narrative. Malory frequently interrupts the narrative with instructions of an emotional nature, setting up how the reader should feel and react to his story. At the end of his section “Sir Launcelot and Quene Gwenyvere,” he prepares his readers for the following portion and writes, “here I go unto the Morte Arthur--and that caused Sir Aggravayne.

And here on the othir syde folowyth the moste pyteuous tale of the Morte Arthure”

(Shepherd 645). Malory thus acts as a moral guide for his audience, dictating how they should respond to Arthur’s tale of woe. Malory concludes his narrative by addressing his readers directly. Malory makes a plea to the “jentylmen and jemtylwymmen that redeth this book of Arthur and his knyghtes from the begynyng to the endynge” (Shepherd 697).

He says to them, “pray 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” (698). This conclusion underscores the entirety of Malory’s Arthurian iteration, exhibiting a potential awareness of Arthur’s rhetorical existence, which can be utilized to make space for one’s own identity. By actively participating in his iteration of Arthur’s text, Malory makes himself yet another paratext, operating within the transcendent temporality of Arthur. Like

Chaucer, the Wife, and Marie, Malory thus pursues an opportunity for self-actualization afforded to him by Arthur as text. Malory uses Arthur and consistently undermines the

32 nationalist mythologies and agendas by critiquing and creating questions to make a negative space where he can operate and participate in the narrative itself.

As the “knyght presoner,” Malory is displaced, requiring rhetorical efforts to convey his actual identity rather than the assumed identity imposed upon him through imprisonment (112). Through the Morte, Malory upsets literary expectations of what should be a moral and patriotic text, performing a literary sleight of hand; he portrays an outward goodness that often masks the corrupt underbelly of the idealized institution of kingship. Malory conducts this critique through several episodes throughout the narrative, but he particularly highlights the problematic sexualization in his iteration of Arthur, revealing another telling link between texts. As Chaucer was accused of rape, so was

Lanval through the alleged attempted seizure of his king’s wife. Likewise, rape was among Malory’s numerous charges that resulted in his imprisonment. Interestingly,

Malory highlights this theme of raptus throughout the Morte. He uses raptus first to destabilize Arthur as text, requiring him to then justify Arthur as king. This simple act of attempted justification further calls Arthur the figure and the national culture he represents into question. Arthur as text thus allows for Malory’s ironic justification to create space for his identity that, as mentioned above, he imposes on the text that is

Arthur.

Malory uses his constructed paratext to destabilize the textual Arthur’s position of ideal ruler, enacting his ironic justification. Conceived through raptus, Arthur and his kingship are called into question. Through the assistance of Merlin, Uther Pendragon uses magic to trick Igrayne, the wife of another man. He successfully beds her without her true consent. Merlin’s participation in the event implies the wickedness of the raptus as he is

33 the spawn of a demon, created to “trick” humans, for he could “foretell things that were to come about and be said soon and far in the future, so that he would be believed by everybody” (705). Merlin thus acts as the accessory to Uther’s rape of Igrayne—a woman who initially rejected him. Malory justifies Arthur’s position on the throne through the

Sword in the Stone episode of the story. While the lords and barons doubt Arthur’s initial ability to pull the sword from the stone, delaying his coronation until Pentecost, they finally acknowledge that “it is Goddes wille that he shalle be our kynge” (11). Therefore, divine right supersedes Arthur’s potential status as a bastard being born out of wedlock and of rape through the trickery of demonic influence. Rosemary Morris confirms that

Malory “wishes to purge Arthur’s origins of the faintest taint of irregularity and crime, whether they affect his political career or not” (Morris 32). While Malory conducts this defense of Arthur’s character, the very need for the defense destabilizes the morality of the institution of kingship. By potentially imposing his own narrative—that of accusations of raptus—onto Arthur as text, he destabilizes the transcendent institution

Arthur represents, equalizing the participants in his cultural moment, whether kings or knights, which allows for an attempt at self-actualization.

Thus, Malory exudes that historical, literary, and moral sleight of hand in which he reapplies source materials, illustrating both the complexity and corruption of his context. Such justification of Arthur’s legitimate ascent to the throne calls even

Mordred’s right into question. Mordred is born of Arthur’s incestuous relations with

Morgause: half-sister through his mother, Igrayne. Such a conception also further questions Arthur’s place as king as he struggles against the sins of his father who took another man’s wife for his own. Likewise, Arthur begets the bastard Mordred who Merlin

34 predicts is “a childe that shall destroy you [Arthur] and all the knyghtes of youre realme”

(32). Arthur enacts what was done to him through the ancestral repetition of raptus.

Mordred, then, is as innocent as Arthur in that they both are products of their father’s transgressions. Malory’s Arthur reflects the king’s loss of power, especially in enacting justice, specifically in his following of biblical tropes through murder of all boys of

Mordred’s age in an attempt to prevent the prophecy of his doom from coming to pass.

Malory further exonerates Mordred in this Herodian collapse when Arthur “sende for all the children that were borne in May Day, begotyn of lordis and borne of ladyes….

Wherefore he sente for hem all, in payne of dethe...som were foure wekis olde and som lesse” (39). Such an act relates Mordred to Moses in Egypt or even Christ himself, allowing him to dismantle Arthur and his kingdom of Camelot. In exonerating Mordred,

Malory continues to impose the chaos of his experiences onto the text of Arthur, further equalizing the society in which he lives.

Through the process of ironic justification, Malory’s Morte enacts that performance of cultural memory like Chaucer and Marie before him, creating another paratext of anxiety—a space to explore his identity outside of the canon. Historians lament that “there is none of the psychological insight and acute analysis of events to be found in earlier histories” (Carpenter 5). The textual Arthur of Malory, Chaucer, and

Marie perhaps reveals this psychological insight. Malory, like the other authors, uses

Arthur rhetorically, strategically arguing his experiences into existence. Without the salvific, transcendent Arthur, the words of a criminal knight, sexually deviant merchant’s son, or a foreign woman would be ignored. Malory’s death of Arthur is a catharsis in the midst of a nation torn by war. Malory, Chaucer, and Marie are historical and literary

35 participants in the continuing text of Arthur, contributing their voices and experiences to the once and future king’s ever-present yet ever-changing existence.

CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSION

“The voices of the dead may speak freely now

only through the bodies of the living.”

-Joseph Roach (xiii), 1996

Understanding Arthur as text reveals a multiplicity of opportunities in which to read both him and his paratexts. This study could move well beyond the confines placed within this piece, exploring the implications of physical medium—manuscripts, print, digital media—as well as more Arthurian narratives themselves. The voices of Chaucer and his Wife of Bath, Marie and her Lanval, and Malory and his Arthur reflect only a fraction of the cultural memory in which Arthur operates. Performing as that text, Arthur persists in numerous iterations and genres that should be explored—some still within that

British narrative and some outside of it. Each of these authors were able to—consciously or unconsciously—use Arthur as text as a means of reaching outside of their cultural boundaries, which limited them in various ways. Ironically, the performance of that cultural memory through Arthur relieved them of that sociopolitical raptus of their identities. This raptus is a key aspect of sociopolitical influences as Foucault identifies through his notion of the constructed author—the constructed self. However, reading

Arthur as text to identify these hidden narratives and identities provides an optimistic look underneath that constructed self. Arthur’s transcendence allows for these narratives

37 themselves to exist in that time out of time, promising an enduring presence whether we recognize it or not. But perhaps, as Marie proclaimed her duty to recovering stories, it is ours to recognize the voices of the dead in what is living, and, as promised, Arthur is living—always ready to rise when the need is greatest.

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