Arthurian Fictions

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Arthurian Fictions E. Jane Burns ARTHURIAN FICTIONS Rereading the Vulgate Cycle ARTHURIAN FICTIONS Rereading the Vulgate Cycle E.Jane Burns Professor Burns's rereading of the medieval French prose romance is to be understood in two senses of the term. She questions, in the first place, the premises that have shaped our understanding of the highly repetitive Arthurian tales of the five-story corpus known as the Vulgate Cycle, and suggests, in the second, a new model of reading based on precisely that repetition. To reread these prose texts, she points out, is to put aside considerations of narrative co­ herence, authorial control, and linear devel­ opment, and to embrace instead the digressive and often illogical narrative path suggested by the text's typed episodes. The Vulgate's individual tales are composed, in large measure, of narrative redundancies, elements that give the impression that the text is retelling itself constantly, always introduc­ ing new protagonists whose actions only re­ peat with some variation what other knights have already accomplished. In contrast to a more linear kind of reading that might at­ tempt to forge logical links of cause and effect among disparate aventures—thereby making sequential sense of what is essentially and per­ haps purposefully a nonlinear narrative structure—Professor Burns proposes a read­ ing that will do just the opposite. Reminding us that writing in the medieval period was, above all, a process of continual rewriting, and that the medieval "text," as a result, has little of the narrative autonomy and coherence that we ascribe to, and expect of, printed works by named authors, Pro­ fessor Burns advances an aesthetic for read­ ing the prose romance that relies precisely on what have heretofore been considered its defi­ ciencies: redundance, ellipsis, and self- contradiction. Once we accept these features of composi­ tion as given, as forms of repetition that par­ (Continiled on b<ickflapl_ Miami University, through an arrangement with the Ohio State University Press initiated in 1975, publishes works of original scholarship, fiction, and poetry. The responsibility for receiving and reviewing manuscripts is invested in an Editorial Board composed of Miami University faculty. ARTHURIAN FICTIONS E. Jane Burns ARTHURIAN FICTIONS Rereading the Vulgate Cycle Published for Miami University by the Ohio State University Press: Columbus Copyright C 1985 by the Ohio State University Press. All Rights Reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Burns, E. Jane, 1948­ Arthurian fictions. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Arthurian romances —History and criticism. 2. Grail- Legends—History and criticism. 3. Romances —History and critism. I. Title. PQ1472.B87 1985 843M'O9351 85-7325 ISBN 0-8142-0387-6 FOR ELIZABETH DILWORTH AND ELIZABETH MAROOTIAN MY MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 I / The Poetics of Rewriting 7 II / Fictions of Authorship and Authority 35 III / Fictions of Meaning and Interpretation 55 IV / Fictions of Representation 79 Part One: Repetition and the Detour of Metaphor 79 Part Two: Memory and the Deformation of History 113 V / Fictions of Closure 151 Conclusion 169 Notes 175 List of Works Consulted 197 Index 205 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank all those who read and reread this manuscript as it evolved through the successive stages of its own modern mouvance: Gene Vance above all for his dogged queries and uncompromising intellectual rigor; Paul Zumthor, Alexandre Leupin, and Rupert Pickens for their incisive and thorough readings of the text. Invaluable insights were provided over the years by Howard Bloch, Cynthia Brown, Matilda Bruckner, Jacqueline Cerquiglini, Carol Chase, Joe Duggan, Bonnie Krueger, Norris Lacy, Mary-Louise Oilier, Michele Perret, Nancy Regalado, and Bob Sturges. The comments of these contributors helped make the authorial voice that speaks from the following pages richer through its plurality. As their re­ marks occasioned numerous rewritings of this text, the editorial expertise of Sima Godfrey, Doug Kohn, and Susie Sutch en­ abled recasting of another sort. Special thanks are due to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of North Carolina Research Council whose generous support could be rivaled only by that of a bountiful medieval patron. Extra special thanks are due to Sarah Ryan of Oakland, California, and to Fred Burns whose rare intelligence, humor, and unfaltering support lie between the lines of this book. Portions of chapter 2 are taken from "The Teller in the Tale: The Anonymous Estoire del Saint Graal" which first appeared in Assays: Volume 3, 1985, copyrighted © by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Used by permission of the University of Pitts­ burgh Press. An earlier version of chapter 3, under the title "Feigned Allegory: Intertextuality in the Queste del Saint Graal" first appeared in Kentucky Romance Quarterly 29, 4 (1982). Portions of chapter 4, part one, under the title "Of Arthurian Bondage: Thematic Patterning in the Vulgate Romances," first appeared in Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 11 (1982). Introduction This study offers a rereading of the medieval French prose romance in two senses of the term: it first questions the premises that have shaped our understanding of the highly repetitive Arthurian tales of the five-story corpus known as the Vulgate Cycle,1 and then suggests a new model of reading based pre­ cisely on that repetition. To "reread" these prose texts is to put aside considerations of narrative coherence, authorial control, and linear development, and to embrace instead the digressive and often illogical narrative path suggested by the text's typed episodes. The Vulgate's individual tales are composed, in large measure, of narrative redundancies, elements that give the impression that the text is retelling itself constantly, always introducing new protagonists whose actions only repeat with variation what other knights have already accomplished. In contrast to a more linear kind of reading that might attempt to forge logical links of cause and effect or consequence between disparate aventures— making sequential sense of what is essen­ tially and perhaps purposefully a nonlinear narrative struc­ ture—the kind of reading I propose will do just the opposite. By rereading we can examine the ways in which the recit of the Vulgate Cycle is systematically displaced from a straightfor­ 2 / ARTHURIAN FICTIONS ward narrative path, exploring how this text constantly shifts our attention away from the narrative at hand to other portions of the tale. Here logical sequence is consistently undermined by many different kinds of repetition. The approach used in this study is conditioned by the nar­ rative framework of the tales in question and qualified by the processes of textual composition and transmission that pre­ vailed in the High Middle Ages. When we consider that the Arthurian prose romance was typically recorded in many manu­ script versions, that the story committed to writing was subse­ quently reproduced on multiple occasions by a reciter reading aloud before an audience, and that the written version of any tale was subject to frequent rewriting and recasting by different authors across several centuries, it becomes clear that the me­ dieval "text" shares little of the narrative autonomy and "coher­ ence1' that we ascribe to printed works by named authors. Writing, in the medieval period was, above all, a process of continual rewriting, and the kind of textuality that results from this literary system presents a special problem for the modern reader. The five lengthy and rambling tales that make up the Vulgate corpus all but defy the constraints of artful composi­ tion generally associated with the well-wrought tale. Yet it is clear, judging from the number of extant manuscripts, that these prose romances were immensely popular in the Middle Ages. If we accept the flagrant discontinuities of narrative se­ quence as given, as forms of repetition that accompany the fundamental pluralism of the manuscript tradition in the Mid­ dle Ages, we can then advance an aesthetic premise for reading the prose romance that relies precisely on what have heretofore been considered its deficiencies: redundance, ellipsis, and self- contradiction. However, the model of rereading proposed here is not guided by formalist concerns alone, for the Vulgate's pro­ nounced tendency toward narrative repetition raises signifi­ cant questions about the very nature and function of textuality in medieval vernacular romance. Within the broader cultural context of Neo-Platonic theology, repetition occupies a priv­ Introduction I 3 ileged place when it corresponds to the act of representation in the chain of being. Through a kind of vertical repetition the Divine Idea is made manifest; and each reenactment of an event is valued as a concrete revelation of the abstract form that precedes it. In vernacular romance, however, repetition oper­ ates on a horizontal plane generating a seemingly limitless number of narrative elements. Grounded in self-reference, this repetition necessarily undermines the hierarchy essential to Neo-Platonic thought.2 Indeed, the predominance of rewriting in the Vulgate romances bears witness to a longstanding me­ dieval controversy between Scripture and Rhetoric, a rivalry between two competing concepts of textuality that is played out on the field of Arthurian romance as the notion of the Divine text that copies sacred truth struggles against the tendency of literary texts to invent their own truths. Rather than suggesting the possibility of transcendence through literature, the Vulgate tales use repetition to under­ score the very immanence of the fictional text. In fact the cycle's abundant supply of narrative ressorts, which provides the most blatant example of literature's bold divergence from the theo­ logical model, is echoed in different volumes of the cycle through other aspects of rewriting. In the Estoire del Saint Graal and the Estoire de Merlin* multiple authorial voices generate overlapping narratives which echo and augment one another; as the tale is constantly recast, so too is the voice that recounts it.
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