Heirs of the Round Table: French Arthurian Fiction from 1977 to the Present
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2013 Heirs of the Round Table: French Arthurian Fiction from 1977 to the Present Anne N. Bornschein University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Medieval Studies Commons, Modern Literature Commons, and the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons Recommended Citation Bornschein, Anne N., "Heirs of the Round Table: French Arthurian Fiction from 1977 to the Present" (2013). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 836. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/836 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/836 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Heirs of the Round Table: French Arthurian Fiction from 1977 to the Present Abstract While the English-speaking tradition has dominated the production of Arthurian-themed materials since the nineteenth-century Arthurian Revival, there is evidence that the publication of modern Arthurian fiction in French has enjoyed a major upswing over the past few decades. Notable contributions include Michel Rio's Merlin-Morgane-Arthur trilogy, Jacques Roubaud and Florence Delay's ten-volume cycle Graal théâtre, a half-dozen fantasy novels about the origins of the Arthurian world by Jean-Louis Fetjaine, and medievalist Michel Zink's young adult novel Déodat, ou la transparence. Such texts are deeply anchored in the medieval tradition, invested in co-opting the flavor of medieval source texts at the level of narration as well as plot. Textual genealogies are frequently thematized in modern French Arthuriana by authors who credit a medieval parentage, whether through a narratorial intervention or paratexual references. As modern texts seek their own ground--whether as parodies, pastiches, entirely new adventures, or retellings of familiar stories from new perspectives--they continually draw upon the dozens of Arthurian works produced centuries before, presenting themselves as heirs to a literary tradition. With this implicit authorization, they continue its evolution. This paradigm replicates that which is already found in the medieval source material, whether in the Vulgate Cycle's transformation of the Grail Quest from the romance conceived by Chrétien de Troyes into a Christian work exhorting scriptural exegesis, or in Wace's appropriation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Brittaniae. Modern authors engage with the same process in ways that reflect a canny understanding of Arthurian literature, both its early iterations and its ongoing trajectory. Intertwined threads of genealogy, authority, legacy, and tradition in modern French Arthurian texts reveal an affinity between medieval and postmodern literary practice. As authors of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries appropriate Arthurian material, they adopt techniques and textual strategies closely associated with medieval literature, recycling them to advance postmodern agendas. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Romance Languages First Advisor Kevin Brownlee Keywords Arthurian, fiction, rF ench, modern, romance Subject Categories Medieval Studies | Modern Literature | Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/836 HEIRS OF THE ROUND TABLE: FRENCH ARTHURIAN FICTION FROM 1977 TO THE PRESENT Anne N. Bornschein A DISSERTATION in French For the Graduate Group in Romance Languages Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Supervisor of Dissertation ______________________________ Kevin Brownlee, Professor of Romance Languages Graduate Group Chairperson ______________________________ Kevin Brownlee, Professor of Romance Languages Dissertation Committee Gerald J. Prince, Professor of Romance Languages Andrea Goulet, Associate Professor of Romance Languages HEIRS OF THE ROUND TABLE: FRENCH ARTHURIAN FICTION FROM 1977 TO THE PRESENT COPYRIGHT 2013 Anne N. Bornschein iii for my godmother, Vickie Kendell (1955–2013) iv I would like to thank Professors Kevin Brownlee, Gerald Prince, and Andrea Goulet for their guidance and support throughout this project. I am also grateful to Lucy Swanson and Caroline Grubbs for their feedback at various stages of research and composition, and to my husband, Evan Jones, for being an indefatigable reader. Finally, I would like to thank those who encouraged and facilitated my development as a scholar of French over the years: Elizabeth Bunting, Joan Perkins, Daniel Desormeaux, and my parents, William and Virginia Bornschein. v ABSTRACT HEIRS OF THE ROUND TABLE: FRENCH ARTHURIAN FICTION FROM 1977 TO THE PRESENT Anne N. Bornschein Kevin Brownlee While the English-speaking tradition has dominated the production of Arthurian- themed materials since the nineteenth-century Arthurian Revival, there is evidence that the publication of modern Arthurian fiction in French has enjoyed a major upswing over the past few decades. Notable contributions include Michel Rio’s Merlin-Morgane- Arthur trilogy, Jacques Roubaud and Florence Delay’s ten-volume cycle Graal théâtre, a half-dozen fantasy novels about the origins of the Arthurian world by Jean-Louis Fetjaine, and medievalist Michel Zink’s young adult novel Déodat, ou la transparence. Such texts are deeply anchored in the medieval tradition, invested in co-opting the flavor of medieval source texts at the level of narration as well as plot. Textual genealogies are frequently thematized in modern French Arthuriana by authors who credit a medieval parentage, whether through a narratorial intervention or paratexual references. As modern texts seek their own ground—whether as parodies, pastiches, entirely new adventures, or retellings of familiar stories from new perspectives—they continually draw upon the dozens of Arthurian works produced centuries before, presenting themselves as heirs to a literary tradition. With this implicit authorization, they continue its evolution. This vi paradigm replicates that which is already found in the medieval source material, whether in the Vulgate Cycle’s transformation of the Grail Quest from the romance conceived by Chrétien de Troyes into a Christian work exhorting scriptural exegesis, or in Wace’s appropriation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Brittaniae. Modern authors engage with the same process in ways that reflect a canny understanding of Arthurian literature, both its early iterations and its ongoing trajectory. Intertwined threads of genealogy, authority, legacy, and tradition in modern French Arthurian texts reveal an affinity between medieval and postmodern literary practice. As authors of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries appropriate Arthurian material, they adopt techniques and textual strategies closely associated with medieval literature, recycling them to advance postmodern agendas. vii CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter 1: A Millennium of Questing for Arthur 18 Merlin 21 Arthur 35 The Round Table and its Knights 46 The Grail Quest 67 Heroines of the Arthurian World 77 Chapter 2: Arthur’s Scribes-Errant 90 Paratexts 95 Stylistic Techniques (Micro-medievalisms) 106 Genre, Structure, and Outside Works 118 Authorial personae 131 Chapter 3: The Once and Future Camelot 140 Bulldozers and Canned Goods 148 Arthur’s Back in the U.S.S.R. 159 The Hobo of Brocéliande Station 175 Le degré zéro du mythe? 181 The Logres of Elves and Dwarfs 192 To the Antipodes and Beyond 202 Chapter 4: Arthur’s Twisted Family Trees 215 Arthurian Heritage: A Lost and Found 218 Queering Camelot 233 viii Ersatz Parents and Arthurian Bromance 242 All in the Family 250 Conclusion 257 Bibliography 264 1 1 INTRODUCTION : A CALL TO ARMOR Although Arthurian legends originated more than a millennium ago, they remain vivid in the contemporary imagination. One need look no further than Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Avalon bestsellers (1979–2009) or the recently concluded British television series Merlin (2008–2012) to confirm that the stories of Arthur and his court are alive and well. Generations of children have grown up on either T.H. White’s series The Once and Future King (1958) or the animated Disney adaptation, The Sword in the Stone (1963), and films ranging from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) have made the Arthurian Grail a familiar term on both sides of the Atlantic. While the Anglophone tradition has dominated the production of Arthurian- themed materials since the beginning of the Arthurian Revival in the early nineteenth century, the French-language claim on the matière de Bretagne is far from insignificant. Dozens of works in French have appeared in the past three decades. Some of their authors, such as René Barjavel and Jean-Louis Fetjaine, are firmly ensconced in the niche of speculative fiction.2 Others, including Michel Zink, author of Déodat, ou La 1 Since the orthography of Arthurian names varies widely, I strive to remain faithful to the texts while avoiding confusion. When refering to an Arthurian character or place name outside the context of a particular book, I follow a standard modern French spelling (e.g., Gauvain, Guenièvre, Galaad, Bohort). In analyses specific to a text, I use the spelling favored by its author. For characters whose provenance lies outside