Misbehaved Or Misunderstood: Sir Kay and His Audience in Four Arthurian Romances
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Misbehaved or Misunderstood: Sir Kay and His Audience in Four Arthurian Romances Sigrid Lussenburg (3659593) Master Thesis Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance studies Track Medieval Studies 27 June 2015 Supervisor: Frank Brandsma Second Reader: Geert Warnar TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 4 Introduction: Kay as Problematic Figure 5 Methodology and Set-up of the Thesis 8 Kay in Europe: the Corpus 10 Chapter 1: Kay at Court 13 Kay as Seneschal 13 Kay as Advisor 18 Kay as Significant Other 22 Kay as Mocker 28 Kay and Arthur at Court 35 Conclusion 43 Chapter 2: Kay on Quests 44 Kay as Leader of an Army 44 Kay in Jousts 44 Kay as Challenger 52 Kay as Aventiureritter 56 Kay and Arthur on Quests 62 Kay as Grail Knight 65 Conclusion 70 Chapter 3: Kay and Gawain 71 Kay and Gawain at Court 71 Kay and Gawain on Quests 76 Kay Mourning Gawain 79 Conclusion 85 Conclusion: Misbehaved or Misunderstood? 86 Kay in the Romances 86 2 Kay’s Audience 89 Appendix: Kay in Pre-Chrétien and Chrétien’s Works 91 The Welsh Kay 91 The ‘Historical’ Kay: Geoffrey, Wace and Layamon 96 The Latin Kay 99 Chrétien’s Kay 103 Bibliography 107 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis stems from a paper I wrote for a course I took at the University of Leiden, called Alles over Walewein (Everything about Gawain), and was taught by Geert Warnar. I am grateful for the opportunity to study the character of Kay, who has fascinated me ever since I wrote this paper, more in-depth. I would like to thank my supervisor Frank Brandsma for the support and suggestions, especially in the early stages of my thesis when my approach to Kay’s character changed every week, and for providing me access to unpublished work. I am also grateful to my parents, Otto and Yvonne Lussenburg, and everyone else who supported me throughout my studies. Lastly, my gratitude goes out to Bea Detnon, who has taken the time to read my thesis and correct my English. 4 INTRODUCTION KAY AS PROBLEMATIC FIGURE In medieval Arthurian literature, Sir Kay is a controversial character. Starting out as a hero and brave warrior in the Welsh and Latin traditions, the seneschal is transformed to a jesting, and sometimes even cruel, character in the works of Chrétien de Troyes and in the traditions following.1 Over time, the general image is that Kay’s character is changed and reduced from Arthur’s number one knight into a jester who hardly ever leaves the castle. In her book on the character of the seneschal, Linda Gowans describes the seneschal as follows: [Kay] becomes an over-confident, ineffective fighter whose frequent falls make him a figure of fun; an abusive seneschal who unleashes his sarcasm on those aspiring to knightly deeds, delivering verbal abuse even to Guinevere, and a more sinister character ready to attack at comparatively mild provocation, involved with murder attempted […], suspected and perpetrated […].2 It happens often in Arthurian romance that the (title) hero is mocked by Kay and then leaves the court to prove himself worthy. Often, Kay only makes an appearance in the opening scene or shortly after, and is reproached with the departure of the hero by Arthur and his courtiers. When the hero returns at the end of the story, Kay’s character is no longer needed for the storyline and, usually, he is not mentioned anymore, or only to be beaten by the hero. While the ‘revenge’ is important for the storyline, as it completes the plot of the story, it hardly shows Kay in a favourable light. Kay’s mockery does not spare anyone, not even the king and queen themselves. While Arthur is generally very fond of Kay, despite his behaviour, Kay does not always listen to the king when he is reprimanded. Gawain, on the other hand, usually has more control over the seneschal in later texts. Kay is often represented as a passive mocker, and when he comes into action, he generally fails. In many stories, he is thrown off his horse at the first attempt in a joust, or almost comically beaten otherwise. In stories as Perceval or Fergus, Kay being defeated by the title hero after he has insulted him is the proof of the hero’s prowess. Kay as a jesting, obnoxious knight who fails at every attempt to prove himself, is the image usually assumed by the general public, both contemporary and medieval, and scholars 1 See Appendix for a short overview of Kay in the Welsh, historical, and Latin traditions, and in Chrétien’s works. 2 L. Gowans, Cei and the Arthurian Legend (Cambridge: Brewer, 1988), 1 5 alike. In her dissertation on Walewein ende Keye, which I shall discuss later on, Marjolein Hogenbirk is likewise biased. She barely takes time to discuss his character and when she does, she gives a distorted image, conveniently leaving out parts that could be explained neutrally or positively, or purposely explaining them negatively. This ‘anti-Kay’ attitude is something I want to address in this thesis. Hogenbirk is not the only one with this opinion, however.3 In his discussion of The Avowying of Arthur, which I will discuss as well, John Burrow states: “No reader of Arthurian stories would expect Kay to match his words with his deeds”.4 While there is some truth to this claim, as Kay is known to fail often in combat in the Chrétien and post-Chrétien traditions, it implies that this always has been, and is, the case. In the introduction of their translation of Le mantel mautaillié, Glyn Burgess and Leslie Brook say about the conclusions Kay draws: “For once the acerbic nature of his observations seems justified”,5 implying that this is the only story in which this is the case. Thomas Hahn describes Kay’s character from the Middle English Gawain-stories,6 amongst them Avowing, as follows: “[H]e appears ambivalently aligned to both the older generation of King Arthur, and the reckless younger generation of Gawain, and is made to embody the worst tendencies of both.”7 Midred Day notes that in the Latin texts, “[Kay] is not the clumsy buffoon that he becomes in later romance.”8 While all these scholars are right in part, they are jumping to conclusions, and neglect to take in to account Kay’s whole character as described by the authors. One of the aims of my thesis is to disprove the claim that Kay is always represented as a failure, and to prove that there is more to his character than previously thought. I am certainly not the first to attempt this. Harold Herman has dedicated his dissertation to the way Kay is portrayed in Chrétien’s stories and their Welsh counterparts. He comes to the conclusion that: the transmitters of Arthurian legend, seeking to please their audience, ignored the traditional character of Kay (derived from the Welsh Kei) and bestowed upon Arthur’s seneschal numerous unworthy attributes, principally by contrasting Kay with the hero of the tale 3 In her edition of the text of WeK from 2011, Hogenbirk has a more nuanced approach. (M. Hogenbirk (ed.), Walewein ende Keye. Een dertiende-eeuwse Arturroman, overgeleverd in de Lancelotcompilatie (Hilversum: Verloren, 2011)) 4 J.A. Burrow, “The Avowing of King Arthur”, in M. Stokes and T.L. Burton (eds.), Medieval Literature and Antiquities. Studies in Honour of Basil Cottle (Cambridge: Brewer, 1987), 101 5 G. S. Burgess and L.C. Brook, “Introduction”, in G.S. Burgess and L.C. Brook (eds. and transl.), French Arthurian Literature V. The Lay of Mantel (Cambridge: Brewer, 2013), 32 6 For instance, Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, The Greene Knight, etcetera. 7 T. Hahn, “Introduction”, in T. Hahn (ed.), Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995), 25 8 M.L. Day, “Introduction”, in M.L. Day (ed. and transl.). Latin Arthurian Literature (Cambridge: Brewer, 2005), 6 6 (including Gawain) who, by placing Kay in a most humiliating position, would be applauded by the conteur’s audience.9 Jürgen Haupt has written about Kay in the Chrétien-stories, and their German translations by Hartmann von Aue and Wolfram von Eschenbach. He concludes that two qualities (“Grundeigenschaften”)10 are essential for the image of Kay, which contradict each other: malignancy and competence/bravery (“Bosheit und Tüchtigkeit (Tapferkeit)”)11. Moreover, the figure of Kay has a function of criticism at court. Haupt sees three steps in the development of Kay: in the pre-courtly time, his character was positive and brave; later, his character became that or the ‘evil seneschal’, as a criticism on the office of seneschal; and finally, it developed a comical aspect.12 Lastly, Gowans has published a monograph on Kay’s character, focusing mostly on the Welsh, French and English traditions. She analyses the figure of Kay in many romances from all over Europe, starting with the oldest Arthurian stories known, from Wales, and ending with Scotland in the nineteenth century. In Celtic literature, Kay is a warrior-hero, seen by the narrators as a positive figure. However, in the Chrétien and post-Chrétien works, “Cei’s positive function is reduced to that of an irritant, though in many cases he still achieves results and retains a certain strength of personality.”13 Most of these stories she only touches upon, sometimes not giving them more than one paragraph for analysis. She concludes: “Cei the hero is always in the background, and once this is accepted it is possible to bring a new understanding to bear on many of the ambiguities created by Continental writers’ use of their sources – and to carry out a reappraisal of what the sources may have been.” While the efforts of the above-mentioned scholars have undoubtedly not been in vain, the general image of Kay has not changed in the eyes of scholars, as they still view him as a negative character by default.