The Shift from Malory and Bakhtin's Grotesque Realism

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“Someone had Vomited Over the Round Table”: The Shift from Malory and Bakhtin’s Grotesque Realism in Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles

Master Thesis Literary Studies: Literature and Culture (English) University of Amsterdam

Samantha Warnaar Student number: 10211810 Supervisor: Dr. R.D. Eaton

June 30, 2016

Acknowledgement on Plagiarism

I hereby acknowledge to have read and understood the UvA guidelines on plagiarism, and I confirm that this thesis is my own work. I have also acknowledged all references and quotations from both primary and secondary sources.

Samantha Warnaar

June 30, 2016

Table of Contents

Abstract 4

Introduction 5  Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles 6

Chapter 1: Connections Between Cornwell and Malory 10  Physicality and Renown in Le Morte D’Arthur 10  Physicality and Renown in The Warlord Chronicles 12  Idealism and Oaths 15  Impulse and Passion 23  Conclusion 28

Chapter 2: Physicality and Grotesque Realism in The Warlord Chronicles 30  Grotesque Realism and Degradation 30  Ceremonies and the Feast 33  Grotesque Realism in The Warlord Chronicles 36  Arthur’s Physicality and Elevation 40  The Connection Between Physicality and the Ceremony 42  Conclusion 46

Chapter 3: The Idealization and Physicality of Women 49  Parallels Between Malory and Cornwell 50  The Grotesque Realism and Degradation of Women 54  Conclusion 60

Conclusion 63

Bibliography 66

Abstract

In comparison to the traditional Arthurian Romances that are influenced by Malory’s Le

Morte D’Arthur, Bernard Cornwell paints a completely different world in his grittier and historically-based The Warlord Chronicles. Though it is tempting to disregard these two

Arthurian texts as representing completely different worlds, Cornwell establishes connections with Malory that allow him to engage with familiar elements of the Arthurian Romances and subvert expectations, while simultaneously illustrating that these elements hold a universality even in contemporary Arthurian texts.

The primary manner in which Cornwell deviates from the Arthurian Romances is through employing physicality: he utilizes elements from Mikhail Bakhtin’s framework of grotesque realism. By degrading the trilogy’s characters to the physical realm, Cornwell undermines the idealization prevalent in the Romances. However, Bakhtin’s framework does not comfortably apply to The Warlord Chronicles. While Bakhtin analyzes grotesque realism and degradation to subvert class dichotomy and ceremonial practices through laughter,

Cornwell employs these elements in a different context. In The Warlord Chronicles, grotesque realism does not occur in a class dichotomy and is rarely utilized for laughter.

Cornwell portrays a physicality that is a necessary part of the lives of the characters in his trilogy – including their ceremonial practices. This different utilization of grotesque realism illustrates a shift in the perception of medieval society: though nonexistent in medieval Romances, physicality has changed from an element of subversion and laughter to being normalized as a part of life and the ceremony in contemporary Arthurian fiction.

The sole exception to this shift is Arthur himself. Cornwell’s Arthur is subject to the same flaws and idealism as his medieval counterpart. Though he displays a physicality, he holds an elevated and therefore idealized position compared to his grittier and more physical environment.

Introduction

The popularity of Arthurian fiction is evident through the constant visitations of the legend even in contemporary society. All of these re-engagements subscribe to certain expectations and traditions that define a work as Arthurian. Larrington states that all Arthurian texts participate in an Arthurian universe, arguing that “[a]lthough the characters have distinctive roles in the plot of any one tale, their actions and fates are, to some extent, constrained by tradition” (3). Nastali confirms this constraint in Arthurian fiction; a reader has “certain expectations” involving Arthurian works, which means there is “...the obligation to adhere to traditional themes, relationships among central characters, incidents, even the use of motifs and symbols”. As an example she names the Grail Quest and the love triangle between

Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, all of which “had their origins in the romance literature of the Middle Ages” (7). Despite the many visitations of Arthurian fiction, there are recurring elements that define a work as Arthurian.

However, in contemporary Arthurian fiction, a more historical approach to the traditional themes of the medieval Arthurian Romances seems to emerge, which portrays the medieval period differently than the Romances. As Raymond Thompson states: “Historical novels endeavor to recreate the spirit of the age of Arthur through attention to authentic detail.

Setting is carefully constructed, based upon the latest knowledge of the period....” (Qtd. in

Snyder 115). Snyder writes that this historical turn emphasizes “...representations of life in the

Briton age” (Snyder 119). This historical representation is in stark contrast with the universe in the Arthurian Romances, offering a completely different world that indicates a shift in how medieval society is perceived.

The more historically-based world requires a reworking of traditional Arthurian elements. “Traditional Arthurian themes, the Grail quest, the Round Table, even the Tristan and Iseult affair are recast here in Dark Age trappings” (Nastali 18). This means that, even 5 though the traditional Arthurian elements are represented in these contemporary novels, they are often reworked in different ways, bringing new elements to the table as well as

“...variations on traditional themes and characters, new interpretations of old incidents, and even radical revisionism” (Nastali 20). Zambreno argues that the ambiguity and variations in the Arthurian Romances allow for such reinterpretations (124). After all, even in the medieval

Romances there are a remarkable amount of differences among the texts. Though there is an obligation to include elements of the Arthurian tradition in contemporary Arthurian fiction, at the same time, the nature of the medieval romances allows room for re-engagement with its traditions.

Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles

In Le Morte D’Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory narrates the adventures of knights and their meetings with hermits, clergymen, or noble ladies. The text focuses on the higher classes and exemplifies certain expectations in regards to Arthurian fiction, defined by Nastali as follows:

Until the middle of this century, much of the historical fiction dealing with King

Arthur was inspired by the romanticized Middle Ages portrayed in Malory and was set

in the familiar world of questing knights, damsels on white palfreys, chivalric codes,

tournaments, and so forth (5).

This romanticized version of the middle ages is informed by a concern with knights and their quests and tournaments. This tradition, of which Malory is the most influential, inspired many

Arthurian works up to the middle of the 20th century, which also portrayed this chivalric world of knights.

Bernard Cornwell, on the other hand, paints a grittier version of medieval society through a more historical approach to Arthuriana and medieval society. According to Sanz

Mingo, Corwell portrays a Britain defined by religious and political tensions, which are based on assumptions of how the political and religious climate must have been like:

Britain was torn apart by religion in the fifth and sixth centuries. [...] [S]ome of these

religious differences in the Celtic kingdoms caused, in turn, political and social

problems which eventually led to their fragmentation and the ultimate Saxon success.

[...] Cornwell reflects in his characters the quarrels and strife common at that time due

to religious differences (“Dark Ages...”, 21).

The historically-based tensions between the different religions are reflected in the trilogy’s characters, which indicates that The Warlord Chronicles portrays a world that is different from the Romances. Nastali confirms this: “Cornwell [...] attempt[s] to evoke a sense of sub-

Roman Britain that is less idealized, more culturally diverse in both the native populations and invading peoples, and more intense in conflicting traditions” (18). By including post-Roman elements and cultural diversity, Cornwell attempts to portray a non-romanticized image of life in the middle ages that is completely different from Malory’s text. However, Cornwell engages with Malory through establishing parallels and twisting them in interesting ways.

This way, Cornwell displays a different perception of medieval society.

One major difference between the two works is the extent of physicality they portray.

Cornwell’s portrayed physicality not only deals with injury and death as a means to acquire renown, but also displays bodily functions such as eating, urinating, vomiting, and sweating.

Mikhail Bakhtin defines the concept of grotesque realism, which involves the lowering of the abstract to the physical realm through degradation and utilizing the lower stratum, usually to subvert the official ceremonial qualities of the higher classes. Due to the kind of physicality present in Cornwell’s text, Bakhtin’s framework becomes an interesting tool for analysis.

However, Bakhtin argues that degradation invokes the notion of laughter, which is for the most part not a connection present in Cornwell’s text. Moreover, The Warlord Chronicles is

7 not concerned with any class distinctions, featuring characters that are of nobility and common soldiers. In other words, Cornwell establishes both a link and a differentiation with

Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque realism; though degradation through physicality can certainly be applied to Cornwell’s text, it is utilized in a different context.

Cornwell does not only engage with Malory through the establishment of relationships and differences; there is also both an overlap and a divergence with Bakhtin’s framework on grotesque realism and degradation. These differences and overlaps between the three texts represent a shift in value systems – through its analysis on physicality, Bakhtin provides a bridge between the two Arthurian texts. After all, Le Morte D’Arthur was written in the 15th century, while Bakhtin’s Rabelais and his World was published in 1965 and analyzes late medieval and Renaissance society. Cornwell’s trilogy, on the other hand, has been published between 1995 and 1997. The shift in perception of physicality between the texts illuminates a significant change in the portrayal of characters and the perception of medieval society.

Through exposing the connections and differences of Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles in comparison to both Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of grotesque realism, this thesis will illuminate the shift in the perception of medieval society, and by extension, Arthuriana.

The first chapter of this thesis will illuminate the connections between Cornwell’s trilogy and Malory’s work. Through establishing these connections, Cornwell is able to engage with Arthurian traditions, signifying that issues prevalent in Malory’s Le Morte

D’Arthur are still relevant to contemporary Arthurian literature. The second chapter of this thesis will firstly explore Cornwell’s overlap with Bakhtin’s theory on grotesque realism, but also illuminate their differences in regards to the perception of medieval society. Secondly, this chapter will utilize aspects of Bakhtin’s theory to analyze the differences between

Cornwell and Malory in regards to physicality and grotesque realism, thereby arguing that

Cornwell undermines the idealized Arthurian Romances. The final chapter will apply the connections and differences between Cornwell’s trilogy and the works of Malory and Bakhtin to female characters, which will offer a gendered perspective on physicality. In this manner, this thesis will illuminate how Cornwell applies and deviates from elements of both Malory and Bakhtin’s grotesque realism, indicating a shift in the perception of medieval society and, by extension, Arthuriana.

Chapter 1:

Connections Between Cornwell and Malory

This chapter will argue that, despite their different retellings of Arthuriana, Cornwell is able to engage with Malory’s text through establishing connections. Moreover, this common ground signifies that issues of the medieval Romances are still relevant to contemporary

Arthurian retellings. Though the worlds portrayed in Le Morte D’Arthur and The Warlord

Chronicles are wildly different, Cornwell still engages with expectations of Arthuriana through drawing connections. It is, after all, tempting to disregard Cornwell’s trilogy as something different and incomparable, yet this chapter will illustrate that The Warlord

Chronicles is Arthurian in more than just including a few characters, which allows Cornwell to engage and undermine the Romances. The first section of this chapter will examine the treatment of physicality in relation to renown in both texts. The second section will examine the value systems present in both texts and determine how they are problematized. Finally, through utilizing Coetzee’s notion of the ethical impulse, the third section will illuminate the passion and impulsiveness of characters that, in both texts, lead to disastrous consequences.

Physicality and Renown in Le Morte D’Arthur

A physicality present in both Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles and Malory’s Le Morte

D’Arthur is the risk of injury and death to which the characters subject themselves. In both texts, the descriptions of the injuries are quite bloody and graphic. Nonetheless, in both cases risking the physical body is necessary to gain renown, which makes physicality a vital element to their value systems.

The crucial aspect of knighthood in Le Morte D’Arthur is chivalry. This is the basic value system that all knights are to adhere to. Keen describes chivalry as “a way of life” that has three basic elements: “the military, the noble, and the religious” (Qtd. in Lupack 85).

Lupack continues to illuminate the chivalric code by describing The Book of the Ordre of

Chyvalry published by William Caxton: “...it is the duty of the knight to defend the Church and to support his lord and his land. In order to do this, the knight needs physical skills, which are to be maintained by jousting, participating in tournaments, and hunting” (85). Through this physical element, the body plays a crucial role in the maintenance of chivalry. Knights risk their body to attain renown through tournaments and jousting. The physical element to knighthood becomes especially apparent in battle; in Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, the fights are bloody. For instance, in Book X Lancelot and Tristram unknowingly fight one another:

“...and either wounded other wonderly sore, that the blood ran out upon the grass” (II, 10) and

“...of their harness they had hewn off many pieces” (11). In another fight, Tristram injures his opponent so badly that “the blood brast out at the ventails of his helm, and so he lay still, likely to be dead” (II, 123). During his battle against Sir Mador in Book XVIII, Lancelot becomes so injured in his thigh “...that the blood ran out fiercely” (II, 385). In the same book,

Lancelot fights anonymously in a tournament and suffers an injury in his side that leaves in a spear head (II, 394). The description in which Lavaine removes the spear head is physical and bloody, and it becomes obvious that Lancelot is in great pain:

...and forthwithal Sir Lavaine drew the truncheon out of his side, and gave great shriek

and a marvellous grisly groan, and the blood brast out nigh a pint at once, that at the

last he sank down upon his buttocks, and so swooned pale and deadly (II, 396).

These examples indicate that battles between knights in Le Morte D’Arthur are physical in nature.

This kind of physicality is necessary for the acquisition of renown. As becomes evident at the conclusion of the tournament, Lancelot’s risking of his body leads to acquiring renown when the group he has been fighting for approaches him and says: “Fair knight, God thee bless, for much have ye done this day for us, therefore we pray you that ye come with us that ye may receive the honour and the prize as you worshipfully deserved it” (396). Through his actions, Lancelot has acquired honour and a prize. Interestingly, Lancelot’s injuries force him to decline his prize, yet he has still acquired his honour – though disguised, Arthur still recognized him (394). Risking the body to acquire renown is not exclusive to Lancelot. In

Book X, Sir Galahaut organizes a tournament in Sourlouse lasting eight days. This tournament not only draws the knights of Guinevere’s1 court, but those of many other places as well (II, 85-86). On the fourth day, Sir Lamorak “...stood among thirty knights; and well was him that might reach him a buffet, and ever he smote again mightily” (88). Lamorak fights well in this tournament which leads to renown: “...all the heralds gave Sir Lamorak the prize” (II, 88). However, the only manner in which Lamorak was able to acquire renown was through risking his body in a tournament. The injuries are not only evidence of the risks to which knights expose their body during tournaments and quests to attain renown, but these bloody descriptions underline a physicality that is essential to the knight’s existence.

Physicality and Renown in The Warlord Chronicles

In The Warlord Chronicles, most of the battles are fought through shield-walls. Cornwell portrays these struggles as intense; the clashing of shields during the battle in Lugg Vale is described as a “clash of thunder exploding in the valley’s mouth” (The Winter King, 458). The struggle involves a significant amount of pushing and grinding of shields with both allies and enemies in close proximity (458), “crammed so close to the enemy line that I could smell the

1 Malory and Cornwell use different spellings for this character’s name (Guenever and Guinevere respectively). With the exception of quotations, this thesis will use Guinevere as the default spelling. 12 mead on their breath” (460). Despite the difficulty in performing battle in these circumstances, injuries and even death occur: “...the worst injuries are caused by men thrusting blades beneath the shields”. Not only is partaking in a shield-wall a physical act that requires pushing, it also involves risking the body by placing it in close proximity to other bodies. This is also evident in Derfel’s narration during the battle of Camlann in Excalibur:

Battle is a matter of inches, not miles. The inches that separate a man from his enemy.

You smell the mead on their breath, hear the breath in their throats, hear their grunts,

feel them shift their weight, feel their spittle on your eyes, and you look for danger,

look back into the eyes of the next man you must kill [...] you work and push and stab

to make an opening in their shield wall, and then you grunt and lunge and slash to

widen the gap (467).

This passage emphasizes the close proximity of bodies and the intensity of partaking in a shield-wall, which is further underlined by being able to smell an enemy’s breath. The risk of subjecting the body to death becomes evident when a shield-wall finally breaks. As Derfel describes when his side breaks the shield-wall of his opponent in the battle of Lugg Vale:

“The vale had not seen much death that day, but now it saw outright massacre for nothing makes for easy killing like a broken shield-wall. Arthur tried to stop the slaughter, but nothing could have checked the pent-up release of savagery...” (The Winter King, 478). Through this close proximity of bodies, as well as the risk to injury and death, Cornwell emphasizes the physicality of battle. Though physicality is far more emphasized in The Warlord Chronicles, when it comes to battle and injury there is little difference between Malory and Cornwell.

Honour and renown can be acquired through battle in The Warlord Chronicles. This is evident through Derfel’s nickname ‘Cadarn’, meaning ‘the mighty’ (22), which he has acquired through his accomplishments in battle. It is also through his accomplishments that

Derfel not only acquires Arthur’s friendship, but receives a lordship and becomes the king’s

13 champion. In the case of Arthur himself, his victory in Lugg Vale at the end of The Winter

King solidifies peace in Britain for many years; the victory gave him his reputation which, in turn, kept the peace. Furthermore, it is through renown acquired in battle that a warrior can be initiated in the mystery cult of Mithras – the soldier’s god – which is only possible through recommendation by an already initiated warrior (23). Finally, the men who joined Derfel on

Cornwell’s equivalent of the Grail Quest, the Quest of the Cauldron, in Enemy of God are allowed to paint a five-pointed star on their shields. By contrast, the elderly knight Cavan, who did not partake in this quest, was not allowed to do so because Derfel believed his men deserved the additional recognition (Enemy of God, 150-151). This recognition is important when Cavan is fatally injured and expresses his regret of not joining Derfel on his quest before he dies (191, 202). Despite the lack of knights in The Warlord Chronicles, warriors still acquire renown through battle. However, they must still risk their bodies in order to gain this renown, which places these soldiers on the same position as Malory’s knights who risk their bodies in jousts and quests.

However, The Warlord Chronicles includes an exception to the idea of gaining renown through battle. In the trilogy, Lancelot subverts the idea through gaining renown by not partaking in battles: he bribes the bards and poets to paint him in a positive light (The

Winter King, 261). During the continuous harassment by the Franks on Ynys Trebes, Lancelot lingers behind during battle and is the first to bring news of ‘his’ victory back to the city, which creates a distorted version of the truth. Moreover, during the fall of Ynys Trebes he is the first to flee with his family (277-278). After Derfel and his men reach Dumnonia they hear an inaccurate version that attempts to shift the blame of the city’s fall to Derfel and his men

(295-298). Despite the failure of Lancelot’s betrayal in Enemy of God, Lancelot’s fabrications of his own heroism still live on:

And thus Lancelot died, though the songs he had paid for lived on, and to this day he

is celebrated as a hero equal to Arthur. Arthur is remembered as a ruler, but Lancelot

is called the warrior. In truth he was the King without land, a coward, and the greatest

traitor of Britain... (304).

Lancelot is successful in gaining renown, which not only defies expectations of what the character is usually like, but, more importantly, it deconstructs the notion that it can only be acquired through battle. However, Lancelot is the sole character to whom this deconstruction applies. There are more than enough examples of physicality in battle as a means to gain renown and nobility in Cornwell to fashion common ground between him and Malory.

Idealism and Oaths

In The Warlord Chronicles, Arthur represents a strong ideal of what a warrior should be, which fashions a connection with the chivalry represented in Malory’s text. In The Winter

King, Arthur asks Derfel what he believes a soldier’s job entails, to which Derfel responds that it is to “fight battles” (165). Arthur’s corrects him; his statement is rather close to that of the chivalrous ideal of showing mercy and defending the weak:

‘To fight battles, Derfel, [...] on behalf of people who can’t fight for themselves [...]

This miserable world is full of weak people, powerless people, hungry people, sad

people, sick people, poor people, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to despise the

weak, especially if you’re a soldier. [...] But the truth is, Derfel, [...] that we are only

soldiers because that weak man makes us soldiers. He grows the grain that feeds us, he

tans the leather that protects us and he polls the ash trees that make our spear-shafts.

We owe him our service (165).

Arthur expects the men in his service to uphold a value system, which underlines the notion that being a soldier does not solely revolve around physical prowess and battle but celebrates

15 protection of the weak. Moreover, it presents the ‘weak’ as essential to a soldier and thus, does not elevate the soldier in comparison to the farmer. Interestingly, kings are not exempt from Arthur’s idealism, stating that: “I learned that a king is only as good as the poorest man under his rule” (370). Though Arthur is no king, he fashions himself as the temporary ruler of

Britain until Mordred comes of age. His rule is defined by maintaining justice even to the poor. This is especially evident in Arthur’s ideals and his conception of what a soldier is supposed to represent. Moreover, he wishes to unite Britain and enforce a system of justice.

This is, for example, prevalent in his challenge to Owain, who is responsible for the slaughter of helpless miners (The Winter King, 168). Though Owain’s demise would also be convenient in his plan to unite Britain, Arthur is primarily concerned with offering Tristan justice (170).

Arthur upholds a value system not only to himself, but also to those who serve him.

Arthur’s expectations are reminiscent of the chivalric ideal in Malory’s Le Morte

D’Arthur. In Malory’s text, chivalry and knighthood do not solely revolve around physical prowess; chivalrous ideals are equally important to knighthood: “A knight must also have a range of virtues; and his ‘inner courage’ is as important as his physical prowess” (Lupack 85).

Cohen describes the difficulty of defining chivalry in concrete terms due to its plurality, but he writes that: “[t]he code of values it embodied represented ‘abstract universal ideals such as generosity, justice and courage’” (315). These virtues are vague and abstract, but they are underlined by a knight’s duties: “defend the women and the weak [...], show mercy and pity,

[and] punish the wicked” (Lupack 85). Showing mercy as well as being loyal, courteous, and courageous are examples of virtues that a knight must possess in order to maintain their chivalric code.

In Malory, Arthur establishes the chivalric ideal after the three quests that appeared during Arthur’s wedding with Guinevere. These quests are undertaken by Gawain, Tor, and

Pellinore; the problems they encounter during these quests lie at the basis of the chivalric code

(Bedwell 5-6). Arthur’s chivalric ideal is explained in the following passage:

...then the king stablished all his knights, and gave them that were of lands not rich, he

gave them lands, and charged them never to do outrageousity nor murder, and always

to flee of treason; also, by no mean to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asketh

mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of their worship and lordship of King Arthur for ever

more; and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succour, upon pain of

death. Also, that no man take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law, ne for no

world’s goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round, both old and

young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of pentecost (I, 115-116).

However, Bedwell points out that the lack of hierarchy established in these guidelines makes the oaths flawed, as it is difficult to see which part of the oath takes precedence in case of conflict (7). This leads to the feasibility of the ideal being problematized further on in the story. Bedwell suggests that this is the reason behind the inability of knights to keep their oath, which has a negative effect on Arthur’s justice (7-8). The feasibility of the oath, and by extension the chivalrous ideal, is already problematized at its establishment, which foreshadows its failure.

The concern with idealism and what exactly defines a chivalrous knight is further exemplified by the Grail Quest. Despite Lancelot being described as the best knight, Galahad,

Percival, and Bors are the ones who complete the Grail Quest. When explaining Gawain’s dream involving the bulls and the meadow, a hermit defines how a knight should act:

...and by the meadow ought to be understand humility and patience, those be the things

be always green and quick; for men may no time overcome humility and patience,

therefore was the Round Table founden; and the chivalry hath been at all times to by

the fraternity which was there that she might not be overcomen (II, 306).

The man defines the purpose of the Round Table to be promoting chivalry. He continues to liken the bulls in Gawain’s dream to the knights of the Table; all the bulls are described as black for they are “wicked”, with the exception of the two bulls with a white coat, and the one white bull with a black spot. The two white ones signify Percival and Galahad “for they be maidens clean and without spot;”. The third represents Bors “the third that had a spot signifieth Sir Bors de Ganis, which trespassed but once in his virginity, but sithen he kept himself so well in chastity that all is forgiven him and his misdeeds” (306). The spot represents his trespassing, but his chastity afterwards is represented by the white coat. The purity of these knights lies in their virginity, or in Bors’s case, his abstinence from sexual intercourse.

In addition to the virtue of virginity symbolized by the bulls, the hermit cites humility and patience as the primary virtues that are vital for completing the Grail Quest. These virtues set Galahad, Percival, and Bors apart from other knights who are unable to complete the

Quest. As pointed out by Lupack, this is further underlined by the fact that these three knights are the only ones able to complete any quests, while the other knights of the Round Table return unsuccessful from their attempts to gain renown for the duration of the Holy Grail

Quest (141). Moreover, Galahad proves to be more chivalrous than Lancelot, elevating him even above the best knight of the world. Due to his purity, Galahad is able to accomplish what his father cannot:

Because he is single-focused, Galahad is successful where Lancelot is not. Galahad is

concerned only with the spiritual and does not have the conflicting demands of the

codes of chivalry and love to distract him. He has not been diverted from his quest by

earthly pleasures or the demands of becoming part of a society (Lupack 141).

Because of their virtues, Galahad, Percival, and Bors are elevated above the other knights of the Round Table, including even Lancelot, who are too concerned with the physical pleasures.

This signifies that, even in Malory’s text, the feasibility of the chivalric ideal is already questioned when most knights are unable to attain it.

In The Warlord Chronicles, Cornwell likewise illustrates a tension between idealism and its feasibility. This is accomplished through Arthur’s belief in the inherent good of people that is repeatedly proven wrong as he is betrayed by those he trusts. This is especially evident in Arthur’s habit of granting mercy to his enemies, as will be discussed later in this section.

Moreover, Cornwell problematizes idealism through portraying the conflicts between different oaths. Through these examples, The Warlord Chronicles reveals that adhering to idealism does not always lead to good results.

Arthur’s idealism is problematized through his consistent habit of granting mercy to his enemies. Characters to whom Arthur has granted mercy, such as Grundleus, backstab

Arthur once the opportunity arises. Ailleann, Arthur’s former lover, even defines Arthur’s mercy as a problem. She states that Arthur is driven by both his ambition and his conscience:

“he’ll win, but then the horse of conscience will tug at its reins and Arthur will make the usual mistake of forgiving his enemies” (The Winter King, 385). According to Ailleann, not granting mercy is not “a question of bad or good, but of practicality” (385). Arthur’s habit is further questioned by Merlin, who comments that, if you wish to live, it would be best to become Arthur’s enemy (Excalibur, 7). Through his comment, Merlin explicitly critiques

Arthur for his mercifulness. These critiques suggests that, if Arthur had not been so merciful, he would be more successful in realizing his ambitions and maintaining peace in Britain. In

Cornwell, mercifulness is defined as a problem through its negative consequences.

Cornwell further problematizes idealism through portraying the conflict between different oaths. Throughout the course of The Warlord Chronicles, Arthur finds his oaths to be in conflict with one another. “All these oaths that bind us! I am oath-bound to Uther to put his grandson on the throne, oath-bound to Leodegan to retake Henis Wyren” (Enemy of God,

380-381). He was also oath-bound to help Ban in time of need, an oath that was in conflict with his oath to Uther to protect Mordred’s claim to kingship. This conflict between different oaths is underlined by Arthur who is forced to break one to keep another: “‘Yet of all men,’

Arthur said miserably, ‘I break oaths so easily. I broke the oath to Ban and I broke my oath to

Ceinwyn’”. This conflict between oaths, which resulted in breaking one oath to keep another, agonizes Arthur: “The agony of remorse was biting at him and he was seeking a way out of that tangle of conscience and duty” (381). The conflict of oaths indicates an impossibility to his moral code and value system, which is emphasized when Arthur puts his agony aside for practical reasons: in order to accomplish his dream of uniting Britain, some oaths need to be broken.

However, this practicality raises the problem of defining which oath takes precedence over another. Moreover, it questions the necessity of oaths if they are broken anyway.

Arthur’s reasoning on the restrictions of oaths and the necessity of living by them becomes evident in the following discussion between him and Derfel:

‘I have lived my life, Derfel [...] according to oaths. I know no other way. I resent

oaths, and so should all men, for oaths bind us, they hobble our freedom, and who

among us doesn’t want to be free? But if we abandon oaths, we abandon guidance. We

fall into chaos. We just fall. We become no better than beasts.’

‘Suppose, [...] that the oath is a mistake?’

‘Sometimes, an oath cannot be kept. [...] If an oath is a mistake you are still obligated

because you are sworn to it (Enemy of God, 297-298).

They continue to question the clashing of oaths, and, if that happens, which oath would take precedence. The conclusion is that “...your oath to the King [...] is above all other oaths, and your duty is to him” (298). Arthur insists that the King is the “keeper of our oaths. Without a

King, there is nothing but a tangle of conflicting oaths” (298) which leads to chaos. In other

20 words, not only are oaths necessary to maintain order, but the oaths to kings take precedence over other oaths to maintain this order, despite its consequences.

The oath is further problematized in Arthur’s promise to place Mordred on the throne.

Mordred is described as an unpleasant person: he rapes peasant women and indulges in cruelty; even as a child, he attempted to harm Ceinwyn and Derfel’s daughter (Enemy of God,

244). Mordred’s unsuitability is further confirmed through his failure to maintain peace in

Britain when Lancelot attempts to usurp the throne, a failure that Derfel harshly reminds him of by striking him across the face with a belt: “...and this’ – I struck him again, much harder –

‘...is for your failure to keep your oath to guard your kingdom” (412), a notion Arthur enforces by stripping Mordred of his political power. Finally, in Excalibur Mordred finally betrays Arthur through slaughtering Derfel’s men and attempting to eliminate Arthur and his allies, leading to the battle of Camlann (364, 386, 426). Arthur’s adherence to his value system allows an unsuitable and cruel king to rule over Dumnonia, and undoes all that Arthur has achieved.

Cornwell further explores the negative consequences that stem from oaths by involving the killing of innocents through the adherence to these ideals. The first example occurs in The Winter King, when Derfel is a soldier under Owain’s command. Due to his oath,

Derfel is forced to slaughter a village of innocents: “I dreaded my turn, but knew it would come and knew, too, that I dared not disobey the command. I was oath-bound to this bloody work and to refuse it would have been my death warrant” (140). Derfel’s predicament not only indicates that an oath takes precedence over one’s conscience, but that he must slaughter innocents to keep his oath.

Another example of the obligations stemming from oaths even when they result in morally condemnable actions occurs in Enemy of God. Arthur’s ally Tristan has eloped with

Iseult from King Mark, Iseult’s husband and Tristan’s father. Arthur reluctantly dooms

Tristan to fight against Mark’s champion, a battle that he cannot win and which results in his death. Moreover, he returns Iseult to Mark, knowing that she will be executed, to offer him justice; both Tristan and Iseult had broken an oath to their king. “I must support kings, for without them there would be chaos and so I have told Tristan and Iseult that they must stand trial [...] They are accused of [...] theft. They are accused of breaking oaths. They are accused of fornication” (299-300). However, Derfel describes Iseult as a child due to her young age and delicate built, and argues against the execution of a young girl for breaking one oath for the sake of love. Unfortunately, it is an argument that Derfel loses, underlining that the oath takes precedence over everything else.

Both examples are indications of an oath leading to the unnecessary killing of innocents. The connection is emphasized when the killing of Iseult forces Derfel to face his actions under Owain’s command in the first book: “...and that was when I confessed to

Ceinwyn about the old massacre on the moor when I had killed the innocent to keep an oath. I told her about Iseult burning. Burning and screaming while her husband watched [...] a child killed for a King, by law, in Camelot” (306-307). These examples indicate that oaths do not always have noble consequences in the world that Cornwell portrays.

Moreover, these examples illustrate that keeping oaths requires ruthlessness; even if its obligations are unpleasant, the oath must still be kept. When Derfel confesses his own sin and the execution of Tristan and Iseult to Ceinwyn, she remarks that: “Did you not know that hardness in Arthur? [...] He is all that stands between us and horror [...] how could he be anything but hard?” (306-307). Not only do oaths require practicality, but also ruthlessness in order to be kept. This is contrary to Malory’s virtues of mercy, which illustrates the new light that Cornwell sheds upon the notion of oaths.

The Warlord Chronicles portrays a tension between practicality and idealism; due to

Arthur’s idealism, he is portrayed as the best choice to lead Britain. After all, other characters

22 such as Grundleus, Sansum, Lancelot, Meurig, and Mordred attempt to acquire power for themselves while Arthur maintains his oath. It is through Arthur’s concern with justice and his prowess as a warlord that Britain knows periods of peace. Though Cornwell questions

Arthur’s rigid adherence to oaths and justice, he also portrays Arthur as capable of ruling

Britain, which facilitates a contradiction between the values The Warlord Chronicles presents.

Though Cornwell questions the feasibility of oaths and Arthur’s idealism, Arthur is a necessary element of stability and justice for the kingdom; a contradiction that represents a tension. This concern with idealism and oaths fashions a connection between Malory’s portrayal of chivalrous ideals – after all, the feasibility of the chivalrous ideal is questionable, but the ideal is nonetheless celebrated as a goal to which all knights should strife. Despite undermining the chivalrous ideal, The Warlord Chronicles still portrays an ideal to strife after.

Impulse and Passion

Another connection between the two texts is established in the impulsiveness and passion of the characters, as well as their attempts to justify their actions. On the topic of impulses, J.M.

Coetzee writes that “...it is worth saying that our ethical impulses are prerational, [...] and that all that a rational ethics can achieve is to articulate and give form to ethical impulses” (121).

In other words, according to Coetzee, the impulse occurs before any rationalization can be applied. Coetzee uses this in the context of ethical actions, but as Derek Attridge discussed in a lecture, these actions do not necessarily have to be ethical. Attridge cites the example of

Kant, which involves Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son to God. This represents the fact that, according to Kant, it can be dangerous to apply ethics without applying reason.

In other words, the impulse can have negative consequences, which makes its ethics questionable despite any reasoning applied to it. However, even reason cannot prevent

23 negative actions as a result from the impulse, as it can be used to justify less desirable actions after they have occurred.

Knights struggle with their impulses and the consequences that stem from their actions. Though they are concerned with their moral code due to the importance of chivalry, even the best knights in Le Morte D’Arthur are passionate and subject to their emotions. One example is Arthur himself, who – when the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere has been made public – is described to burn his wife “in his heat” (Malory, II, 466), which illustrates that Arthur’s response is devoid of reason and is instead an emotional response. Finally, despite having been warned against it, Arthur attacks a weakened Mordred at the battle of

Camlann, which leads to his demise (II, 511). Gawain is also a knight subject to his emotions.

On his first quest, he attempts to slay a knight for the death of his hound, yet slays a lady when she jumps in to protect her lover (I, 101-102). When Gareth is accidently killed by

Lancelot, Gawain encourages the war against Lancelot for the sake of revenge. On his death bed, Gawain finally rationalizes and begs Lancelot to help Arthur (II, 508-509). Though knights are obligated to their moral code, their impulses do not always lead to positive consequences. Rather than ethics and the chivalrous ideals of mercy and courteousness, these impulses are driven by emotion and passion.

As Robeson argues, these impulses have public consequences. “The emotion of the broken private relationship infuses the disintegration of the public government” (16). Arthur’s pursuit of Lancelot who has taken Guinevere and Gawain’s encouragement of war for the perceived wrongs to his family are examples of situations where their impulses lead to war and the fall of the Round Table. Robeson states that, through these examples, Malory places the blame of the demise of chivalry on the actions of individuals (23). It might be argued that

Arthur and Gawain are negative examples of knights, yet Lancelot is not exempt from impulsive actions. Though he is defined as the best knight of the world, his actions are

24 motivated by his love for Guinevere. When reprimanded for unknowingly sleeping with

Elaine by Guinevere, he runs off in madness (II, 202). Moreover, his impulse to sleep with

Guinevere during their stay at Meliagaunt’s castle results in Meliagaunt accusing the queen of adultery, which overshadows his own kidnapping of her (II, 438-438). All of this nearly leads to Guinevere’s death. Even though Malory frequently describes him as the best knight of the world, Lancelot is still subject to his impulses. Considering the knights engage in impulses that have undesirable results, these impulses are non-ethical and contrary to chivalry. After all, chivalry dictates courteousness and mercifulness (Malory, I, 104). These three knights, even including Lancelot, are unable to uphold their value system despite taking on adventures to acquire renown. Instead, their impulses have public consequences that lead to the fall of the

Round Table.

The only knights exempt from these impulses are the three knights of the Grail Quest.

For example, when Bors attempts to save his brother Lionel, he meets a lady about to be raped by another knight. Though his impulse is to continue saving Lionel, “[f]or if I let my brother be in adventure he must be slain, and that would I not for all the Earth”, he reluctantly chooses to save the lady to prevent her from “being shamed for ever, and also she shall lose her virginity the which she shall never get again” (Malory, II, 315). Bors’s decision is portrayed as the better one, as the lady was not yet sinful unlike Lionel (II, 322). Moreover,

Bors rationalizes his decision before taking action, which illustrates that, through using reason, he came to the right decision. However, the three knights of the Grail Quest differ from their fellow knights in their purity and virtue; the majority of the knights – even

Lancelot and Arthur – are unable to keep control of their impulses. Though this suggests that, in Le Morte D’Arthur, impulses are unethical, the majority of the knights are unable to restrain themselves and instead allow their emotions to run free.

A similar example of impulsiveness leading to negative public consequences occurs in

The Warlord Chronicles. Reminiscent of Le Morte D’Arthur, Arthur is described as an impulsive man, especially concerning Guinevere; his actions forego logic or rationalization.

In The Winter King, Arthur’s goal is to unite Britain against the threat of the Saxons through establishing peace between the warring nations. Arranging a truce with the Gorfyddyd, the main instigator of the wars dividing Britain, by promising to marry his daughter Ceinwyn would realize Arthur’s goals of peace. Unfortunately, immediately after his betrothal Arthur falls in love with Guinevere and, to the astonishment of his men, he escapes Powys and marries her. Arthur breaks the oath and offends Gorfyddyd, so his impulsive actions ruin his plans for peace.

The love Arthur experiences for Guinevere is defined by passion and impulse, lacking the application of reason. Derfel describes Arthur’s love as madness: “It was a madness that love” (The Winter King, 200). Furthermore, Derfel characterizes Arthur as a passionate and impulsive man:

There was nothing we could have done to stop this consummation of our Lord’s

madness, but the haste of it seemed as indecent as it was deceitful. Arthur, we knew,

was a man of impulse and enthusiasm, but he had taken our breath away by the speed

of his decision (207).

Even though Derfel is unable to prevent Arthur’s actions, he defines it as “madness”, which illustrates that Arthur not only acts contrary to his goal, but that his actions are beyond rationalization and therefore stem from impulse and passion.

Arthur attempts to rationalize his decision to marry Guinevere. Though the haste of his marriage to Guinevere suggests that Arthur himself is somewhat aware of the potential negative outcome of his actions, he firmly insists that his decision will not have any far- reaching consequences for Britain:

But Arthur believed the time of his happiness had come. There would be no war, he

insisted, for Gorfyddyd had already lost one arm and would not risk the other.

Cuneglas’s good sense, Arthur claimed, would ensure peace. For a time, he said, there

would be grudges and mistrust, but it would all pass. He thought his happiness must

embrace the world (209).

Arthur justifies his marriage to Guinevere and his offense to Gorfyddyd through denying the threat of war, disregarding the political tensions between Dumnonia and Powys. Despite

Arthur’s attempt at rationalization, however, mere pages later it becomes evident that “Britain was at war” (213). Not only does Arthur’s attempt to rationalize his decision fail, but his impulsive actions results in war. This is not only contrary to his goals, but has severe consequences for Britain as it cannot face the Saxons while internally divided.

Moreover, Arthur is capable of killing on impulse. When he discovers Guinevere’s betrayal when barging into one of his wife’s rituals of Isis, he kills the cult’s defenceless priestesses in rage (Enemy of God, 449). Afterwards, he admits that he should not have killed them, but he argues that his actions are justified due to the “dead having witnessed his wife’s shame” (449). However, his wife’s shame proves to be wildly known despite the slaughter of the priestesses, as even the Saxon king Aelle comments on Guinevere’s adultery with

Lancelot (Excalibur, 58). Arthur’s justification for his abominable actions stemming from rage fails. Furthermore, though Arthur attempts to justify his actions, the fact remains that he has killed out of impulse.

In both texts, the portrayal of Arthur as a man of impulse and passion facilitates a connection between Malory and Cornwell’s works. In both examples, Arthur’s impulsiveness leads to severe consequences for not only his personal situation, but also to war in Britain.

Similar to Malory, the personal impulse has severe public consequences that lead to the fall of the Round Table.

Conclusion

The worlds portrayed by Malory and Cornwell are informed by different values. Where

Malory’s Arthurian world is romanticized, Cornwell’s is gritty. However, despite their differences, Cornwell frequently engages with the Romantic tradition through establishing parallels with common Arthurian tropes that can be located in Malory’s work.

The first parallel is the role of the body in the acquisition of renown. The knights in

Malory’s world are occupied with jousting and adventures, thereby risking injury and death to acquire renown. This means that a knight’s physicality is a significant part of their value system. Cornwell, by contrast, employs the use of soldiers who fight through shield-walls.

Though Cornwell emphasizes close physical proximity in tandem with injury, the link between risking the body and acquiring renown is evident through the accomplishments of

Arthur and Derfel. Moreover, someone can be initiated into the Cult of Mithras only through accomplishments in battle. In both texts, the characters risk their bodies to injury and death to acquire renown, which illustrates the crucial role of their physicality in maintaining the chivalrous ideal.

The second parallel lies in how both texts portray their respective value systems of ideals and oaths. In Le Morte D’Arthur, chivalry consists of virtues that are nearly unattainable by the majority of the knights. This is partly because of the potential of conflict due to the lack of clarity in determining which oath would take precedence over the other in case of a clash. In Cornwell’s text, Arthur’s value system is established in his ideal of soldiers and kings, along with his adherence to oaths. However, this value system is problematized through questioning the nature of oaths. Through the course of the trilogy, Arthur must break oaths to keep other oaths, and the rigid adherence to his oath of keeping Mordred on the throne has severe negative consequences for Britain. Finally, in the cases of Arthur and

Derfel, their oaths lead to morally condemnable actions involving the slaughter of innocents.

Simultaneously, Cornwell argues that, without oaths, there would be chaos. Arthur is portrayed as the best candidate for ruling Britain due to his concern with keeping justice. Both texts convey a concern with oaths, but in both cases it is nearly impossible to adhere to one oath without breaking another. In the case of Cornwell, however, there is an explicit tension between the adherence to oaths and the necessity of their existence.

Finally, Cornwell established a connection with Malory through the impulsive and passionate actions of his characters, most notably in Arthur. In The Warlord Chronicles,

Arthur indulges in a number of impulsive actions that have disastrous consequences for

Britain, all of which he attempts but fails to justify. Impulsive actions that have negative consequences is also a recurring issue in Malory’s text: the actions of Arthur, Gawain, and

Lancelot lead to war and the fall of the Round Table. In both texts, impulsive and passionate behaviour leads to negative consequences for not only those involved, but also the public.

Despite the differences between the worlds portrayed in Malory and Cornwell’s texts,

Cornwell engages with Malory through establishing connections. Through these connections,

Cornwell conveys the notion that the gritty soldiers in his contemporary work struggle with the same issues as their Romantic counterparts, suggesting that there is a universal element to the Arthurian Romances that is still relevant to contemporary texts.

Chapter 2: Physicality and Grotesque Realism in The

Warlord Chronicles

Despite the common ground between Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and Bernard

Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles, the latter offers a portrayal of medieval society that is completely different from the world portrayed in Malory’s text. This difference primarily lies in Cornwell’s emphasis of the physicality of the characters, which brings them to the physical level and undermines their traditional romanticized portrayal. The manner in which Cornwell portrays this physicality has significant overlaps with Bakhtin’s theory on grotesque realism and degradation, therefore, the first section of this chapter will explain this theoretical framework. The succeeding sections will apply Bakhtin’s framework to Cornwell’s trilogy and compare it to recurring elements in Malory: the feast, the portrayals of characters and nobility, and the portrayal of Arthur himself. The last section will look at the ceremonial aspect of physicality present in the trilogy. Moreover, these sections will illustrate how

Cornwell’s application of physicality deviates from Bakhtin’s theory by applying it outside the context of class and laughter. This difference illustrates that the contemporary perception of physicality in medieval society has shifted in meaning: it is a normalized part of life.

Grotesque Realism and Degradation

A significant aspect in Cornwell’s portrayal of medieval society is the focus on the physical.

As has become evident in the previous chapter, both works illustrate the physicality of battle as a means to gain renown. However, unlike Malory’s portrayal of medieval society,

30 physicality in Cornwell’s text extends beyond battle: he portrays the characters as explicitly possessing the bodily functions of eating, sweating, and urinating no matter their social class

– facets of physicality that do not exist in Le Morte D’Arthur.

In analyzing the nature of physicality in Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles, the

Bakhtinian framework of physicality and degradation is useful. In Rabelais and His World,

Bakhtin illuminates the dominant presence of laughter and the topsy-turvy notion of carnival in the novels by François Rabelais by investigating popular humour and folk culture in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For his analysis, Bakhtin utilizes the concept of grotesque realism, which is closely related to the material body:

The essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, that is, the lowering of all

that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a transfer to the material level, to the sphere

of earth and body in their indissoluble unity (19-20).

Bakhtin continues to define the material body as a principle ascribing to “...images of the human body with its food, drink, defecation, and sexual life” (18). Moreover, grotesque realism also includes “....the lower stratum of the body, the life of the belly and the reproductive organs” (21). Grotesque realism is defined by degradation, which constitutes the subversion of the ceremonial, the official, and the abstract by bringing it from the spiritual realm towards the physical level. This physicality involves the lower stratum of the body: the digestive system and the genitals.

Humour and folk culture of the lower classes is informed by the physicality and degradation inherent in grotesque realism, which subverts the official and ceremonial practices of the higher classes. As Elliot writes: “[t]he grotesque expresses a pointed reversal of moral and logical expectations” (130), an instance of ‘topsy-turvy’ which is inherent in carnival. Consequently, according to Bakhtin, the reversal of expectations through grotesque realism is accomplished through laughter: “‘Official’ authority is subverted most of all by

31 laughter” (Elliott 130). Moreover, Bakhtin’s notion of the carnivalesque is informed by the erasure of boundaries (Pal 71), which reinforces the grotesque realism utilized in folk humour.

Degradation employs not only the physicality associated by grotesque realism to invoke laughter, but undermines the ceremonial, the spiritual, and the official.

Grotesque realism involves a class dichotomy which associates this physicality with the lower classes. This is, for example, illustrated in “The Miller’s Tale” in Geoffrey

Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which deals with humour based on the kissing of Alison’s bottom and Nicolas’s farting. Many of the pilgrims consider this subject matter indecent.

The fabliaux are attributed to "churls" because of their somewhat indecent subject-

matter. This is not a true social placing but a moral comment, part of that general

movement in human society, or at least in European society, to impute vice to lower-

classes and virtue to upper-classes (Brewer 301).

According to Brewer, the subject matter of “The Miller’s Tale” is attributed to the lower classes due its association with vice. By contrast, virtue is associated with the higher classes, which, in Chaucer’s text, can be found in “The Knight’s Tale” or “The Pardoner’s Tale”. The

Canterbury Tales represents both the lower and the higher classes of medieval society, linking the Bakhtinian associations to the class dichotomy in Chaucer’s text.

Cornwell uses elements of grotesque realism and applies them to Arthurian characters to undermine their romanticized counterparts. Through the process of degradation Cornwell subverts and deconstructs the romanticized world of Malory. However, in The Warlord

Chronicles, this grotesque realism is not necessarily associated with the lower classes, but simultaneously applies to the nobility and even kings. Moreover, Cornwell differs from his portrayal of physicality in the sense that, in his trilogy, grotesque realism and degradation are not necessarily applied for the sake of humour. This difference in the meaning of grotesque realism represents a shift in perception: in Malory’s world, grotesque realism is nonexistent,

32 because Bakhtin grotesque realism is intertwined with humour and class, yet in Cornwell it is normalized. Physicality is part of life as well as the ceremony, which indicates a shift in perception of how grotesque realism interrelates with medieval society.

Ceremonies and the Feast

Due to its preoccupation with chivalry and its ceremonial aspect, the feast is an important element of the Arthurian Romances. In Malory’s text, the feast occurs during both celebrative occasions such as the wedding between Arthur and Guinevere and during annual events such as Pentecost. Aisling Byrne draws attention to Arthur’s refusal to eat before hearing of an adventure, and the subsequent interruption from outside (63). This interruption signifies the beginning of a quest, as is for instance the case with Gareth’s first quest: Lynette appears during a feast and requests the aid of a knight, which allows Gareth the opportunity to gain renown through embarking on a quest (Malory, I, 235). Another example occurs during the feast after King Arthur’s wedding to Guinevere: a white female hound, a white hart chased by hounds, and a lady who is kidnapped by a knight enter the hall in quick succession, an event that Arthur commands his knights to investigate. This leaves an opportunity for knights to follow the code of chivalry and embark on an adventure. Gawain, Tor, and Pellinor are to complete these quests (Malory, I, 98), which they do with varying results. Moreover, as stated in the previous chapter, the adventures resulting from this disruption of the feast leads to the creation of the Round Table and its chivalric ideals. In both of these cases, the interrupted feast is an element which allows knights to embark on a journey to gain renown and retain their chivalric code.

In its ceremonial aspect, the feast represents control over the outside world and the earthly. Byrne argues that there is also a tension in what the feast represents. On the one hand, the feast is closely associated with religion, taking place after Mass and exemplifying order

33 and control. This is underlined by Arthur’s refusal to eat before the appearance of a marvel.

Byrne argues that Arthur’s refusal invites the appearance of an adventure, which on itself is an element of exercising control over the chaos of the outside world (71). After all, if the feast would be interrupted without the prior invitation of adventure, Arthur’s control of his kingdom – and his feast – would be undermined. However, by inviting an adventure, Arthur solidifies his control over the feast. Moreover, Arthur’s abstinence from food until the appearance of a marvel adds a ceremonial element to the feast. Byrne argues, however, that due to its presence of food, the feast represents a risk of excess which could potentially lead to sin and a loss of self-control (64). A feast involves an abundance of food, which presents the risk of overindulgence. However, the ceremonial element of the feast generates a control over what could otherwise lead to overindulgence. The chaos and the risk of excess is controlled through Arthur’s initial abstinence of food, allowing these elements to exist within certain bounds.

By contrast, Cornwell utilizes the ceremonial feast as a means to undermine chivalry by degrading this abstract ideal to the physical realm, thereby foreshadowing its ineffectiveness. In Enemy of God, Arthur initiates a ceremony which requires every notable warrior to take an oath and become part of the Brotherhood of Britain, which is nicknamed the Round Table Oath. “[Arthur]’s notion was that we would all swear peace and friendship to one another, and thus heal our enmities and bind each other in oaths that would forbid any in the Brotherhood of Britain from ever raising a spear against another” (252). Derfel confesses that the ceremony is embarrassing (252) and is even sceptical of its effectiveness (257), which is underlined by the begrudging embracing of several characters during the process of the ceremony – though Derfel admits that the oath was kept the first few years. The ceremony indicates a desire for control, which is reminiscent of Malory’s version of the feast as a means to exercise control.

The ceremony takes a chaotic turn, however, when due to all the reconciliations that delay the feast, mead is served to the waiting but hungry warriors. Though it can be argued that this is similar to the insistence of the marvel occurring before the feast in Malory, in the end, the ceremony spins out of control. Many warriors become drunk, resulting in what was first a solemn ceremony growing into a “garden reeling with drunk men” who jokingly embrace one another, wrestle, and perform mock-battles with flowers (261-2). The ceremony meant to embody chivalry has not only spiralled out of control, but the abstract notion of oaths make place for wrestling and mock fights with flower stems (262). Through the escalation of chaos, the ceremonial aspect has been subverted by ridicule, rendering a comic aspect to the event that ascribes to Bakhtin’s notion of laughter through degradation.

The Round Table itself is degraded when it is covered in vomit, which further underlines the loss of control and ridicules the chivalric ideal it represents. Amidst the fighting men, Derfel describes that: “Someone else had vomited onto the round table” (262).

This exposure to the contents of someone’s stomach connects with the Bakhtin’s notion of the body’s lower stratum. Normally associated with the lower classes, this degradation is reminiscent of folk humour. According to Bakhtin, the lower classes used folk humour to subvert the official ceremonial practices of the higher classes (82). In Cornwell, however, the degradation underlines the loss of control during the ceremony, which illustrates a subversion that does not occur in the lower classes but rather among the visitors meant to take the oath: the higher classes. Considering the Table represents the oath, and the ones that are to take it vomit over the table, the situation represents the value – or rather, the lack thereof – these characters place on this oath.

The lack of seriousness attributed to the ceremony foreshadows the fact that the characters do not take their oath seriously. For example, the Round Table Oath is shown to be ineffective when Lancelot breaks the peace and attempts to usurp the throne from Arthur in

Enemy of God. Meurig, who has also sworn the oath, does not help Arthur in Excalibur during both the Saxon invasion and Mordred’s rebellion; he is more interested in maintaining his lands than keeping his oath. The degradation of the Round Table and the lacking control of the ceremony foreshadows its ineffectiveness, as the men take the oath as seriously as the ceremony has been.

The degradation and the lack of control represented in The Warlord Chronicles juxtaposes the ceremonial feast as represented by Malory. Cornwell subverts the ceremonial feast through lowering the ceremony and the Round Table to the physical realm, a practice reminiscent of the folk culture Bakhtin describes. After all, according to Bakhtin, the lower classes utilized grotesque realism to subvert the ceremonial control of the higher classes.

Cornwell, however, uses this to deconstruct the ceremony of oaths, and therefore, the chivalric ideal, by emphasizing its ineffectiveness. Moreover, this situation is most certainly meant as a humorous one, therefore subscribing to the Bakhtinian notion of laughter.

However, as will become evident, the element of laughter in this situation is an exception rather than the norm; Cornwell does not utilize grotesque realism often for the sake of humour.

Grotesque Realism in The Warlord Chronicles

In The Warlord Chronicles, Cornwell places heavy emphasis on physicality that is not meant to invoke humour. This is, for instance, evident in the attention Cornwell spares to wearing armour. In The Winter King, Derfel temporarily wears Arthur’s armour to deceive their enemies. Accustomed to wearing lighter armour, Derfel complains about the weight of the suit: “The scale armour was appallingly heavy, bearing down on my shoulders” (446). This description emphasizes the weight of the armour and goes on to say that: “[e]ven lifting my sword arm was hard”, which is underlined by Derfel’s lack of speed during battle. The helmet

36 is “constricting” (447); the armour is described to be fit for battle on horseback, but not on foot as “spearmen depended on agility and quickness” (447). This sequence emphasizes the weight of wearing armour, creating a physical aspect in The Warlord Chronicles that does not exist in Le Morte D’Arthur.

Another physical aspect Cornwell exhibits through the characters is the concern with bodily functions, a notion that is absent in Malory’s text. Culhwch, before the battle against

Aelle in Enemy of God, complains of an empty stomach (193), Bors belches (51), and

Galahad has “sinned” with a woman (The Winter King, 264). Relieving oneself is also included: Sansum, a traitorous clergymen, “...has pain when he passes urine” (Excalibur,

133), and when he and Derfel are captured, the description of their prison includes them having relief themselves in a corner (366). When Derfel, Guinevere, and Ceinwyn are besieged on the hill of Mynydd Baddon, Cornwell describes the grotesque realism of being part of an army:

I woke cold, early and shivering. Dew lay thick. Men were grunting and coughing,

pissing and groaning. The hill stank, for although we had dug latrines there was no

stream to carry the dirt away. ‘The smell and sound of men,’ Guinevere’s wry voice

spoke from the shadow of her shelter (Excalibur, 250).

All these examples not only concern physicality, but also explicitly exhibit the lower stratum.

This is a striking difference with the world in Malory, where this concern with the physical does not exist. Cornwell illustrates a different perception of medieval society in comparison to the Romances that includes grotesque realism. Moreover, these situations clearly do not invoke humour or a class dichotomy – for the characters in The Warlord Chronicles, this is simply a part of life.

The kings are no exception to Cornwell’s grotesque realism; their degradation paints a grotesque image of them rather than leaving them as an abstract entity. The descriptions of

37 monarchs emphasizes their physicality and even degrades them through their grotesque bodies. For instance, the High King Uther is described to be “sick and bloated” (7) at the beginning of The Winter King, which worsens as the novel progresses. Before his death,

“Uther looked gross and ill; his body was swollen with fluid, his face was yellowing and slack, his breathing laboured” (51). The physical description underlines the fact that even the

High King himself is not spared from a physicality and is subject to illness, ugliness, and physical decay. The emphasis on the swollen body and the fluids causing this state illustrate a grotesqueness of the body even present in kings. Another example includes Uther’s urination in the middle of a meeting, which explicitly refers to the lower stratum of the body that is publically displayed (64). Judging by the lack of response, none of the present characters consider this remarkable which normalizes this physicality. Through these explicit references of Uther’s physicality and emphasizing his bodily functions, Cornwell utilizes grotesque realism to illustrate the physicality of to a king, which does not occur in Malory’s text.

King Mark of Kernow is also described in a physically grotesque manner. In Enemy of

God, Derfel describes him as follows: “King Mark was a huge man [...] [, h]e was so fat he could not climb Halcwm’s hills unaided” (295). Mark is not only fat, but grotesquely so; he is unable to climb a hill due to his size. This extreme body size connects with Bakhtin’s notion of the physically grotesque. The description of Mark continues to say that “[t]he King of

Kernow had a jowly face blotched by broken veins. His beard was thin and white, his shallow breath rasped in his fat throat and his small eyes seeped rheum” (295). This passage makes

Mark even further physically unappealing; his face underlines the grotesque shape of his body as it is primarily defined by sagging folds of flesh. The broken veins make Mark’s face elderly, which is supported by the thinning white beard. The description of the throat further emphasizes the man’s size. Finally, the rheum-seeping eyes not only indicate that Mark is not in good health, but also underlines a grotesque physicality that incorporates bodily functions.

Neither Uther nor Mark are exempt from the bodily descriptions illustrating their deterioration related to age. These descriptions degrade a monarch to the physical realm in a grotesque manner.

Aelle, one of the two Saxon kings, is also subjected to grotesque realism. It might be argued that he is degraded due to his status as an enemy of the Britons. However, he is not only Derfel’s father, but he is also portrayed as a decent person despite his Sais heritage. This makes the presence of his physicality all the more striking, as he urinates in Derfel’s presence:

“...while he walked to the far end of the chamber, loosened his drawers, and urinated into a sink hole in the earthen floor. ‘Liofa’s fast’ he said to me as he pissed” (Excalibur, 49). The inclusion of this explicit reference to the lower stratum places Aelle on the physical level.

Derfel himself is also not exempt from exhibiting the bodily functions: “I lifted the skirts of mail and leather to piss down the hill towards the Saxons” (204). Another example is Derfel’s seasickness: “I vomited over the boat’s quarter” (436). Both of these characters, though of the higher classes, exhibit the lower stratum of the body that degrades them to the physical realm.

A significant difference with Bakhtin’s notion of grotesque realism is that, in these instances of degradation, it is not applied for the sake of humour or subverting class dichotomy. In Cornwell’s trilogy, grotesque realism is not meant to be humorous and it is, through its application to kings and soldiers, utilized outside the context of class. The multiple examples of kings lowered to the physical realm through either grotesque bodily descriptions or the inclusion of the lower stratum deconstructs the Romantic portrayals of these characters that can be found in Malory. In other words, Cornwell subverts the idealism inherently tied to

Arthurian romances by normalizing their physicality in the context of their world. Moreover, the normalizing of physicality also diverges from Bakhtin’s framework, indicating a shift: the display of the bodily functions is normalized in contemporary perception of medieval society.

Arthur’s Physicality and Elevation

In terms of physicality, Arthur’s portrayal in the trilogy is more idealized in comparison with other characters. In The Winter King, he initially appears as a literal rendition of a knight in shining armour. His first appearance is at the head of a mounted cavalry unit about to save the precarious situation in which Derfel and a number of other refugees find themselves. Arthur and his unit are likened to the “new bright sun”, and though it is immediately followed by an admission that it was the sun light reflecting off a polished shield, it nonetheless signifies an idealism to Arthur that associates him with light and the sun. The following passage is reminiscent of an ideal knight:

But that shield was held by such a man as I had never seen before; a man magnificent,

a man lifted high on a great horse and accompanied by other such men; a horde of

wondrous men, plumed men, armoured men, men sprung from the dreams of the Gods

to come to this murderous field (107).

This trend is continued in the description of Arthur himself, which starts with an elaborate description of his horse, weapons and armour. Overall, the description makes for a polished yet intimidating impression. The horses are large and armoured, the weapons are heavy yet polished, and the armour makes an impression of being shiny yet intimidating. Though his cloak and the feathered plume on his helmet are white, and the scale armour “shimmers” due to hours of polishing, the helmet is described as “fearsome” and “deathly” with a “skull-like appearance” (115-116). These descriptions strike a balance between intimidation and idealism, which allows for Arthur to appear simultaneously threatening and an icon of justice.

When Arthur removes his helmet, the description becomes physical. “In truth my first impression was of sweat, lots of sweat come from wearing metal armour on a summer’s day, but after the sweat I noticed how kind he looked” (117). The fact that sweat was the first element mentioned does not only underline the physical aspect of wearing armour, but also

40 brings Arthur to the physical realm and makes his portrayal more human in contrast to the intimidating yet just figure in armour described in the previous paragraph. However, the passage still refers to his kindness, which balances the physical and the ideal.

It might be argued that Arthur is degraded in Enemy of God; during a hunt in which

Arthur attempts to kill a boar, he is buried under its body and is subsequently covered in its bodily fluids. “The boar suddenly pissed on Arthur, gave one desperate lunge of its huge neck and then abruptly slumped down. Arthur was awash in its blood and urine...” (47). Though the situation is humorous and certainly degrading for Arthur, the bodily fluids involved are not his own. Moreover, the situation is an isolated example of laughter. Arthur laughs at the situation, which strengthens the idealized portrayal he receives in the trilogy. The fact that this is an isolated example that does not even involve Arthur’s own physicality makes it a dubious example for grotesque realism.

It is difficult to find explicit examples of Arthur’s physicality in The Warlord

Chronicles. Though Arthur ascribes to the physicality of battle, there are no instances of degradation. The only examples of physicality involve the common cold in Excalibur:

“Arthur was sneezing and shivering with the last of the winter’s colds” (332), or a concern with food: “It was Arthur who broke the tension. ‘Food’, he said gruffly. ‘If we have to wait six hours, we might as well eat” (94). Though these examples exhibit Arthur’s physicality, they do not include the degradation present in other characters. Moreover, though the situation with the boar is certainly degrading and even humorous, it does not involve Arthur’s own bodily fluids. When one considers his ideals and adherence to oaths, this lack of physicality in comparison to other characters elevates Arthur above the others. Contrary to what Cornwell accomplishes with the other characters, Arthur’s portrayal is still idealized. The minor physicality attributed to Arthur serves to enforce a positive portrayal that emphasizes his likability and humanity, only strengthening his elevation.

The Connection Between Physicality and the Ceremony

Though degradation has its presence in the physicality portrayed by Cornwell, several of the physical descriptions present in The Warlord Chronicles are informed by a ceremonial aspect.

Through this connection between the ceremonial and the physical, Cornwell differs from

Bakhtin’s portrayal of grotesque realism: after all, Bakhtin argues that grotesque realism and degradation undermine the ceremonial practices of the higher classes. In The Warlord

Chronicles, however, physicality is frequently informed by ceremonial or ritualized aspects.

One such example is the habit of spitting to avert evil, which many characters frequently exhibit. For example, when Aelle is urinating in the presence of his son; Derfel tells his father to spit in “it”, which leads his father to question in what he should be spitting:

“Your urine. To prevent bad luck” (Excalibur, 49). Uther similarly exhibits the habit of spitting in his urine during the aforementioned example of his urination (The Winter King,

64). However, spitting also occurs numerous times throughout the trilogy when a character voices a negative scenario, to avoid bad luck. This continuous habit displayed by multiple characters connects physicality and saliva with superstition, therefore ritualizing the act of spitting.

The lower stratum can also be connected to ceremonial events. One example occurs during Mordred’s birth in The Winter King, which involves Nimue urinating:

Nimue crouched in the door and urinated on the threshold to keep the evil fairies away

from the hall, then she cupped some of her urine and carried it to Norwenna’s bed

where she sprinkled it on the straw as a further precaution against the child’s soul

being stolen away at the moment of birth (10).

Nimue does not urinate to display a natural part of the human body, but for its ceremonial value. Though an act of superstition, the lower stratum serves a clear purpose within a

42 ritualistic event. As the lower stratum is connected with the ceremony, this example is a clear deviation from Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque realism.

Another occasion of the lower stratum being involved in ritualistic actions are displayed by the trilogy’s druids. For example, when Grundleus visits the Tor at the beginning of The Winter King, his druid Tanaburs performs a ritual to counter any supposed magic left by the absent Merlin. This ritual involves the lower stratum of the body: “Tanaburs looked angry. He barked like a fox, touched his genitals, made the evil sign, and then began hopping on one leg towards the hall. [...] ‘It is safe!’ Tanaburs called. ‘Come, Lord King, come!’”

(27). The touching of the genitals, the lower stratum, is part of a ritual to counter Merlin’s charms and secure safe passage in the Tor. Touching the genitals occurs in a ceremonial context, which is contrary to Bakhtin’s framework that the lower stratum is utilized to subvert the ceremony. In this case, the genitals are essential in the ritual, which signifies a change in the relationship between physicality and the ceremony.

Furthermore, Guinevere’s worship of Isis requires physicality within the context of a ceremony. Though the sexual intercourse is never described graphically, it is explicitly referenced that the act has taken place:

This wasn’t the first night they did this. [...] It seems they did it often. All of them.

Whenever the moon is right. Except Guinevere. She just did it with the twins or with

Lancelot. [...] For years now, Derfel, she’s been sleeping with Lancelot, and all for

religion she says! Religion! He was usually Osiris and she was always Isis (Enemy of

God, 448-49).

The worship of Isis involved the re-enactment of the Isis myth; the rebirth of her slain husband Osiris through “laying with the fragments” of his body (442). The re-enactment of this myth during certain periods, in this case the “right” moon, requires physicality: sexual

43 intercourse. Guinevere’s sexual intercourse with Lancelot or the druids Dinas and Lavaine is ritualized through its connection with religion.

This ceremonial aspect to Guinevere’s adultery in The Warlord Chronicles facilitates a link to Malory despite its physical aspect. Scala illuminates Malory’s ambiguous description of Lancelot’s love for Guinevere. Throughout the passages that convey the interaction and love between Lancelot and Guinevere, Scala argues that the language and description Malory uses is ambiguous, implying that their relationship might not be physical in order to maintain

Lancelot’s heroism (387-388). This is especially evident when Mordred and Agravaine burst into Guinevere’s room to ambush Lancelot; Malory mentions that they were “together” and explicitly states that he refuses to elaborate, arguing that love was of a different nature in the era of the Romances (II, 460). Kennedy states that “...in Malory's version of events, the immediate consequence of their more hotter love is not flagrant adultery.” (75), which suggests indiscretion being the problem rather than adultery (76). In Le Morte D’Arthur,

Malory deliberately avoids physicality in the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere to maintain Lancelot’s heroism.

However, contrary to Malory’s perceived intentions, there are implications that

Lancelot’s love of Guinevere is physical. This is evident when Lancelot sneaks into

Guinevere’s room during their stay with Meliagaunt:

So to pass upon this tale, Sir Launcelot went unto bed with the queen, and he took no

force of his hurt hand, but took his pleasance and his liking until it was in the dawning

of the day; and wit ye well he slept not but watched... (II, 438).

The words “pleasance and liking” suggest more than simply laying together. A far more striking example, however, occurs in the conception of Galahad. Lancelot is tricked into having sexual intercourse with Elaine, which leads to the conception and birth of Galahad.

However, as Scala points out, the deception is only possible due to Lancelot’s love and desire

44 for his queen (392), implying that his love is not only abstract, but also contains a physical element.

Lancelot’s physical desire for Guinevere is even more implied in the Grail Quest, where it is regarded as sinful. One lady describes Lancelot as follows: “‘Ah, Lancelot,’ [...]

‘as long as ye were knight of earthly knighthood ye were the most marvellous man of the world, and most adventurous. Now,’ [...] ‘sithen ye be set among the knights of heavenly adventures’” (II, 299). Due to his sin, Lancelot is paralyzed, and subsequently has the symbols of knighthood taken from him, suggesting he is not chivalrous enough. Furthermore,

Malory describes that, had it not been for his love for the queen, Lancelot would have been able to achieve the Grail Quest (II, 299), therefore, his desire is his sin. The Grail Quest implies the physical element to the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere.

However, despite the sexual implications of the relationship between Lancelot and

Guinevere, Malory never describes the physical aspect, which means that the physicality is implicit. Moreover, as Kennedy writes: “[Malory] altered the narrative of Lancelot's love of

Guenever so that Lancelot does not lose his virginity until he begets Galahad and actually commits adultery with Guenever only once (in The Knight of the Cart'), an unpremeditated betrayal which he immediately and heartily repents” (65). Lancelot has sexual intercourse with Guinevere once, an act that is downplayed through its ambiguous description. Instead, the adultery between these two characters suggests a more courtly love exhibited by

Lancelot’s fighting for her worship during tournaments, which in turn implies a love that is ceremonial.

Though the nature of love and physicality is heavily contrasted between these two texts, the ceremonial aspect to the relationship between these characters connects them.

Moreover, the ceremonial element that Cornwell portrays in the physicality of his characters constitutes a clear deviation from Bakhtin’s framework of grotesque realism. This deviation

45 signifies a shift in the relationship between the physical and the ceremonial: degradation no longer subverts the ceremony. Rather, grotesque realism plays a crucial role in the ceremonial practices in Cornwell’s text.

Conclusion

Through employing physicality and grotesque realism, Cornwell departs from the Arthurian

Romances and undermines the idealized world of Malory. He applies these elements to portray a physicality that was nonexistent in Malory’s text by making grotesque realism a normalized part of the lives of the characters in his medieval world. Though he obviously uses elements from Bakhtin’s framework, Cornwell also deviates from Bakhtin in applying grotesque realism in different contexts unrelated to class and, other than two isolated examples, humour. This signifies a shift in not only the perception of Arthuriana and medieval society, but also in physicality: physicality has shifted in meaning and has become normalized.

Cornwell deconstructs the institution of oaths and knighthood through employing degradation in the context of the feast. In Malory, the feast is ceremonial and constitutes control despite its close proximity to the earthly. Arthur’s abstinence of food before the appearance of a marvel conveys control and ritualization. Moreover, the invitation to interrupt the feast exercises control over the chaos of the outside world and simultaneously provides knights with the opportunity to uphold their chivalric ideals. In Cornwell’s text, the literal degradation of the Round Table subverts the official and controlled nature of the ceremony.

Moreover, the situation is meant to be a humorous one, which subscribes to Bakhtin’s vision on grotesque realism. The resulting chaos of what was meant to be a serious ceremony underlines a loss of control and a lack of seriousness. Moreover, Cornwell questions the use

46 of the ceremony through emphasizing the ineffectiveness of oaths: hardly anyone takes the

Round Table Oath seriously, which is underlined by the humour of the situation.

Throughout the novels, there are more examples of grotesque realism, however, these instances do not comfortably fit within Bakhtin’s framework. The characters themselves are degraded through grotesque realism, which undermines the idealized portrayals found in the

Romances. Numerous characters such as Derfel, Sansum, Galahad, Bors, and Culhwch urinate, belch, and are concerned with food. The kings are not exempt from this notion of physicality: Cornwell eliminates idealization and frequently describes these characters in a grotesque manner related to sickness, obesity and urination. However, none of these instances are humorous and are instead simply part of the world that Cornwell portrays, which is in stark contrast with the idealized world of knights in Malory. This normalization of grotesque realism indicates a shift in how medieval society is perceived in terms of physicality.

Arthur himself is heavily contrasted in the degree of physicality and degradation he displays in comparison with the other characters, which elevates him above them and still associates him with an idealized image. Arthur’s first appearance is in shining armour; though this idealized portrayal is immediately debunked by his sweaty countenance below the helmet, there are no examples of degradation involving the lower stratum of his body. Though he acquires a cold and is concerned with food, these descriptions are glossed over and not detailed. Moreover, despite his degradation through being urinated on by a boar, serving as an instance of humour, it is not his own lower stratum that is involved in the degradation.

Though Arthur is subject to a degrading instance of humour, the fact that he is not subjected to grotesque realism in comparison to other characters elevates and idealizes him. Rather, the examples of physicality Arthur displays only enforce his idealized image.

Finally, Cornwell conveys a ceremonial element to the physicality he portrays through placing it in the context of superstition, religion, and ritualization. The trilogy has multiple

47 examples that involve spitting, urinating, and touching the genitals that all occur in a ceremonial context. Moreover, despite the grotesque realism Cornwell employs, there is still a connection with Malory which is evident in the relationship between Guinevere and Lancelot.

In both texts, this relationship is informed by both physicality and ceremony; in Malory’s text, the ceremonial is conveyed through courtship behaviour as Lancelot wishes to acquire renown in her name, while the physical is, despite Malory’s avoidance of displaying sexual intercourse, still a part of their adultery. Cornwell, on the other hand, places the ceremonial aspect of the relationship between Guinevere and Lancelot in the context of cult worship of

Isis, which requires sexual intercourse. In all these cases, the link between the physical and the ceremonial establishes a desire for control reminiscent of the previously discussed feast.

Even in the gritty and grotesque world of Cornwell, physicality is still subject to ritualization that seeks to control the outside world.

Interestingly, the link between the physical and the ceremonial deviates from

Bakhtin’s framework on grotesque realism. After all, Bakhtin’s vision on grotesque realism is a means for the lower classes to undermine the ceremonial practices of the higher classes through folk humour. However, the link between physicality and the ceremonial portrayed in

Cornwell indicates a change in the relationship between these two concepts: physicality does not undermine the ceremonial, but grotesque realism is instead a significant part of these ritualized practices. Moreover, the instances of humour are few in comparison to uses of grotesque realism that do not involve laughter. In all cases, however, Cornwell seeks to undermine the idealization inherent in Malory’s world through normalizing physicality in the lives of the characters and their ceremonial practices.

Chapter 3: The Idealization and Physicality of Women

As with knights, Cornwell repeatedly engages with expectations of Arthurian fiction in his portrayal of female characters. The four primary women featured in the trilogy are Guinevere,

Morgan, Nimue, and Ceinwyn; all of them play a vital role in the plot. Sanz Mingo discusses the change in the portrayal of women in more contemporary Arthurian fiction, arguing that, in these texts, women play “a more determining role” (“Tale of Arthur”, 75). In Cornwell’s text in particular, he argues that “[e]ach of them stands out for different reasons, but all of them are the actual driving forces in the trilogy” (76). This is accomplished by giving these women agency, as is evident through Ceinwyn:

...I already knew that I didn’t want to belong to any man. I’ve belonged to men all my

life. So Nimue and I made an oath to Don and I swore to Her that if She gave me the

strength to take my own freedom then I would never marry. I will love you [...] but I

will not be any man’s possession (Enemy of God, 71).

Moreover, Nimue and Guinevere are defined by their own ambitions, which affect the plot in significant ways. Through placing such a prominent role on women, Sanz Mingo argues that

“Cornwell has broken the boundaries of Arthuriana [...] by including four women at the centre of the political plot.” (“Women Take Over”, 165). However, it is not only through featuring women prominently that Cornwell engages with Arthurian Romances and its associated idealism, but also through twisting parallels with Malory and emphasizing the physicality of these women.

The first section of this chapter will establish connections between Le Morte D’Arthur and The Warlord Chronicles and simultaneously examine how these connections differ. The second section will illustrate the grotesque realism found in Cornwell’s women, arguing that 49 through displaying their physicality, the idealization of these females is questioned and undermined. Instead, as will become evident, Cornwell critiques the abstract and romanticized portrayal of women in the Romances through normalizing their physicality and grotesque realism.

Parallels Between Malory and Cornwell

There are remarkable parallels between the two texts in how the women interact with other characters. Though Cornwell includes relationships similar to those in Malory, he subtly twists the interactions between the characters which defies expectations. One such example is

Nimue’s usurpation of Merlin. In Malory’s text, after learning “all manner of thing that she desired” (I, 117), Nimue disposes of Merlin because of her fear and his insistence to lay with her: “And always Merlin lay about the lady to have her maidenhood, and she was ever passing weary of him, and fain would have been delivered of him, for she was afeared of him because he was a devil’s son, and she could not beskift him by no mean” (I, 118). To dispose of

Merlin, Nimue locks him up and leaves him to die. However, as Larrington points out, after disposing of Merlin she helps Arthur on numerous occasions, such as saving his life in the duel with Accolon (115). Her recurring assistance of Arthur suggests her support of chivalry.

In Malory, fear and Merlin’s sexual desire lead Nimue to dispose of him after taking advantage of his knowledge. Afterwards, she utilizes her knowledge to help Arthur.

Nimue’s motivation for disposing of Merlin in Cornwell’s text is ambition and ruthlessness. In her quest to bring back the pagan gods, she is willing to sacrifice everything.

“Cornwell’s Nimue plots against Merlin for rather personal reasons: her ambition for the wizard’s knowledge and the restoration of the ancient gods in the British Isles” (Sanz Mingo,

“Women Take Over”, 163). To accomplish her goals, Nimue imprisons Merlin and acquires the information she needs through torturing him, up to the point that Merlin loses his sanity,

50 before sacrificing him to a god. Sanz Mingo points out that “[t[he druidess thinks that Merlin is a weak man, for he refused to kill some innocents in a rite that, if completed, would have ridded the British Isles of the Christian influence” (“Women Take Over”, 163). This extremism is why Sanz Mingo defines her as a devilish woman. Nimue believes fiercely that the end justifies the means: “...to the extent of not only letting others suffer, but putting herself through all sorts of ordeals which, according to her, will put her in direct contact with the gods” (162). These ordeals will be discussed in the following section, but they serve to illustrate the ruthlessness Cornwell’s Nimue displays in accomplishing her goals.

Nonetheless, “[t]his idea mirrors the medieval tale in which Merlin is imprisoned by a woman with whom he is in love or by whom he has been deceived, as in Malory’s text” (Sanz Mingo

162). Despite the different motivations, both versions of Nimue take advantage of Merlin before imprisoning him.

In The Warlord Chronicles, Nimue’s actions conform to what Larrington defines as the traditional enchantress in Arthurian fiction. “Their actions, sudden and mysterious, unsettle accepted notions of women’s roles in chivalric society. They choose their own lovers, break with their families and use their magical powers to affect the fates both of individuals and of kingdoms” (3). The break with her family is illustrated by Nimue’s treatment of

Merlin, and the choice of her lover is conveyed through her temporary relationship with

Derfel in The Winter King. However, it is undeniable that her actions play a crucial role in the outcome of numerous events throughout the trilogy, from her presence during the battle for

Lugg Vale and the Quest for the Cauldron as well as the raid on the Sea Palace that reveals

Guinevere’s betrayal: the outcomes would have been different had Nimue not been present to provide assistance. By the end of Excalibur, she turns against Arthur and Derfel and manipulates the sea, which destroys Arthur’s army. This results in their desperate defence against Mordred’s armies. According to Larrington, the enchantress sometimes aids chivalry,

51 and sometimes hinders it (2), which Nimue’s actions and eventual opposition of Arthur perfectly illustrate.

Another parallel between the two texts lies in the rivalry between Nimue and Morgan.

In Malory’s text, Nimue undermines Morgan’s plans on numerous occasions. In Book IV, she interferes in Morgan’s scheme to kill Arthur and place her lover Accolon on the throne by allowing Excalibur to fall from Accolon’s hand (I, 132-133). Moreover, when Morgan sends her brother the poisoned cloak, Nimue warns Arthur: “Sir [...] put not on you this mantle till ye have seen more, and in no wise let it not come on you nor on no knight of yours till ye command the bringer thereof to put it upon her (I, 142)”. In Cornwell’s text, both women are druidesses under Merlin’s tutelage. Sanz Mingo argues that “[t]he rivalry between both druidesses in the trilogy is shown by making them compete to become Merlin’s favourite”

(“Tale of Arthur”, 87). This is evident through their interaction in the beginning of The Winter

King, when Morgan is furious at the prospect of Nimue being present at the High Council

(46). Even after Morgan has converted to Christianity, the rivalry still remains. When the cauldron is stolen, Nimue blames Morgan for its disappearance (Enemy of God, 265). In

Excalibur, the rivalry is evident when the reason behind Morgan curing Ceinwyn is to trump

Nimue: “The mention of Nimue might have persuaded Morgan, for she had ever been angry that the younger woman had usurped her place in Merlin’s entourage” (411-412). Throughout both texts, both women seek to trump and undermine one another.

However, in The Warlord Chronicles, the roles of Morgan and Nimue are reversed. In

Malory’s text, Morgan plays the role of the enchantress as defined by Larrington, while

Nimue is on the side of chivalry. In Cornwell’s trilogy, their roles are reversed. As Sanz

Mingo points out, Morgan has the most solutions for the good of the kingdom (“Tale of

Arthur”, 89-90), such as swapping the infant Mordred with another baby when the Tor is attacked (The Winter King, 91). Furthermore, it is Morgan who undermines Nimue through

52 curing Ceinwyn. Though the rivalry is still present, in comparison to Malory, the roles of

Nimue and Morgan are reversed.

The rivalry between Morgan and Guinevere is also present in both texts, although its nature is different. Larrington draws attention to the traditional enmity between Morgan and

Guinevere (42), which is exemplified by Malory in Book IX. Seeking to expose the adulterous relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere, Morgan has Tristram bear a shield that illustrates this relationship (I, 464). In Cornwell’s text, their enmity is of a different nature. The grotesquely scarred Morgan does not meet Guinevere’s beauty standards:

“Guinevere would let no woman be a councillor if she could not be one herself, and besides,

Guinevere hated anything that was ugly and, the Gods know, poor Morgan was grotesque even with her gold mask in place” (Enemy of God, 77). There is also a clash of religion, evident through Morgan’s snide remarks on Guinevere’s pagan worship of Isis, calling her a

“witch” and defining Guinevere’s worship of Isis as “filth” (267). Though the nature of the rivalry is different in Cornwell’s text, it is reminiscent of Malory. At the same time, the reversal of these women’s roles illustrates a departure from traditional Arthurian elements, which defies expectations.

Another manner in which Cornwell engages with Malory’s text is through Guinevere’s characterization and the portrayal of her adultery. Cornwell implies that Guinevere is partly to blame for Britain’s problems, namely through Merlin who argues “she should have been drowned at birth” (The Winter King, 199). It is because of her that Arthur breaks his oath to marry Ceinwyn, causing war between Dumnonia and the two countries of Powys and Silluria.

Moreover, Guinevere is complicit in Lancelot’s attempt to usurp the throne and his betrayal of

Arthur. The blame of Guinevere mirrors the typical portrayal of her and her adultery in

Arthurian fiction: “[i]n medieval literature women were, in most of the cases, the responsible ones for the hero’s doom” (Sanz Mingo, “Tale of Arthur”, 74). This is especially evident in

Malory’s text through Guinevere’s own explicit statement of their relationship leading to the downfall of the Round Table: “[t]hrough me and [Lancelot] hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for through our love that we have loved together is my most noble lord slain” (II, 523). It is through Mordred and Agravain’s attempt to expose their adultery to Arthur that the Round Table is divided through war.

However, Cornwell’s portrayal turns far more sympathetic in Excalibur: multiple characters insist that Arthur is partly to blame for her adultery as well. After all, it was Arthur who kept worshipping Guinevere’s beauty. The Warlord Chronicles portrays Guinevere’s adultery as a natural course of action for an ambitious and clever woman in her position, allowing her more agency.

Through representing the dynamics between these female characters, as well as some men in the cases of Nimue and Guinevere, Cornwell established parallels with Malory’s text and actively engages with expectations of Arthurian fiction. At the same time he reverses or twists expectations by giving these women a central role in the narrative.

The Grotesque Realism and Degradation of Women

The Warlord Chronicles illustrates interesting views regarding the physicality versus the idealization of women:

Galahad, she said, was in love with perfection and was too fastidious to love an actual

woman. He loved the idea of women, Ceinwyn said, but could not bear the reality of

disease and blood and pain. He showed no revulsion to such things in battle, but that,

Ceinwyn declared, was because it was men who were bloody and men who were

fallible, and Galahad had never idealized men, only women (Excalibur, 144).

This passage, a view held by Galahad, exemplifies the tension between the idealized woman versus the physicality of a real one. According to Ceinwyn, Galahad regards women as an

54 ideal, but finds the physicality displayed by women repulsive which renders him unable to marry. Though it might be argued that Galahad is only one character, Merlin expresses a similar concern:

Have you ever noticed, Derfel, how you find a young woman in the height of her

beauty, with a face to snatch the very stars out of their heavens, and a year later you

discover her stinking of milk and infant shit and you wonder how you could ever have

found her so beautiful? Babies do that to women, so look on her now, Derfel, look at

her now, for she will never again be so lovely (Enemy of God, 25).

Merlin argues that a woman’s beauty, in this case Ceinwyn’s, will be diminished by the coming of a baby. The section of interest is her supposed smell of “milk and infant shit”, which lowers a woman from idealization to the physical realm. The degradation displayed in these quotes is interesting: by bringing women to the physical realm, they become less desirable. The distinction between men and women is also remarkable, underlying a double standard in the idealization of these characters.

Despite these views, Cornwell degrades his female characters in a variety of ways. In

Excalibur, the description of Ceinwyn’s illness is repulsive: “Ceinwyn’s skin had broken into boils. Every joint ached, she could not swallow, and her breath rasped in her throat” (381).

The description goes on to say that “Ceinwyn would soil the bed” (382), which involves the lower stratum of the body. The manner in which Ceinwyn is cured, however, consists of a mix of the ritual and the physical. Morgan creates a clay figure in the image of a woman, “a grotesque image [...] a woman with huge breasts, spread legs and a gaping birth canal, and in the figure she dug a hole that she said was the womb in which the evil must rest” (413), which

Derfel defines as “obscene” (413). Morgan places Derfel’s severed hand in the clay womb to pull it out through the birth canal and throw it into the fire (415). The obscene description of the clay figure has explicit ties with the lower stratum of the body, including the birth canal.

However, the ritualized nature of the clay figure illuminates a link between the physical and the ceremonial. Ceinwyn’s illness and the cure illustrate grotesque realism and degradation to the physical realm that undermines the idealization of women, yet also links it to ceremonial practices.

Morgan is defined by her physicality through her grotesque burn scars. Her first description emphasizes her ugly scarring:

Morgan, of all the weird creatures in Merlin’s house, was the most grotesque. [...] as a

young bride Morgan had been trapped in a burning house that had killed her new

husband and scarred Morgan horribly. The flames had taken her left ear, blinded her

left eye, seared the hair from the left side of her scalp, maimed her left leg and twister

her left arm so that naked [...] the whole left side of Morgan’s body was wrinkled,

raw-red and distorted, shrivelled in some places, stretched in others, gruesome

everywhere. [...] Just like a rotted apple [...] only worse (The Winter King, 18).

The detailed and graphic manner in which Morgan is described emphasizes her grotesque scarred exterior. She is usually seen wearing a golden mask to obscure her maimed facial features, which indicates that she must hide her scars in public appearances. Though intelligent and competent in conducting business at the Tor, Sanz Mingo draws attention to her loneliness: “She is very intelligent, but very ill-tempered. She feels lonely and this is probably her most characteristic feature” (“Women Take Over”, 158). It is due to her loneliness that she marries the Sansum, even if that causes her to give up her “freedom and religious creed” (157). Even then, the marriage is not consummated partly due to Morgan’s grotesque features. She does not fit into an ideal and she is therefore shunned by society; her grotesque appearance is an undeniable part of Morgan’s identity.

Nimue shifts from a positively described character to a more negative one defined by a physical deterioration. The first description is fairly positive: her body is defined as “wiry”

(The Winter King, 37), her face is “wedge-shaped”; “Nimue is neither beautiful nor plain, but her face possessed a quickness and life that did not need formal beauty. Her forehead was broad and high, her eyes dark and fierce, her nose sharp, her mouth wide and her chin narrow” (37). This is in stark contrast with the description in Excalibur, where she is much older, that is defined by physical deterioration:

Nimue looked as she had looked when I had fetched her from the Isle of the Dead. She

looked as though she had not washed, or combed her hair, or taken any care of herself

in years. Her empty eye socket had no patch, or any false eye, but was a shrunken,

shrivelled scar in her haggard face. Her skin was deeply ingrained with dirt, her hair

was a greasy, matted tangle that fell to her waist (397).

In this passage, Derfel underlines Nimue’s physical deterioration through emphasizing the state of her body. This physical degradation is in stark contrast with the portrayal of idealized women in the Romances.

Moreover, Nimue’s physcial degradation is linked to her spirituality. Her perceived connection to the gods is defined by acquiring The Three Wounds; injuries, two of which are physical, that she believes she must endure to reach her goals. “‘The Wound to the Body,’

Nimue explained, ‘the Wound to Pride,’ and here she touched herself between her legs, ‘and the Wound to the Mind, which is madness’” (The Winter King, 42). Early in The Winter King, her eye is gouged out and she is raped by Grundleus (43), which represent the Wound to the

Body and the Wound to Pride respectively. The loss of her eye results in a permanent scarring of her face, which is physical, yet the rape is, of course, tied to her genitals and therefore the lower stratum of the body.

Nimue’s final Wound to the Mind is madness, which is accompanied by physical degradation, but also contains a religious element. “In the Middle Ages, madness was seen as the point of intersection between the human, the divine, and the demonic. It was viewed

57 alternatively or simultaneously as possession, sin, punishment, and disease, and it confirmed the inseparability of the human and transcendent" (Thomas Neely 318). Considering one of the three perceived requirements to connect with the gods is madness, madness is connection to the divine. However, in this case, Nimue’s connection of the divine is also determined by physical degradation; not only in regards to the Wounds to her Body and to her Pride, but also to her Madness. When Derfel finds her on the Isle of the Lost – an island where the mad are sent – her hair is “filthy”, and she initially attacks Derfel when he comes to save her: “She sprang towards me, hissing, teeth bared, one eye a livid red socket and the other turned so that the white of its eyeball showed. She tried to bite me, she clawed at me [...] and afterwards she slashed her long nails towards my eyes. [...] She was spitting, drooling, fighting and snapping with filthy teeth at my face” (The Winter King, 339). The description continues mere pages later: “I could see now that Nimue’s hair was matted with dirt and crawling with lice, her skin was filthy and she had lost her golden eye” (341). This instance links Nimue’s physical description to religion and the deterioration of her mind

Derfel explicitly refers to the Isle of the Lost when meeting the older Nimue in

Excalibur, drawing similarities between both descriptions in terms of physical – and mental – deterioration. Therefore, Nimue’s physical state works in tandem with her mental state. In the case of the older Nimue, she is primarily driven by accomplishing her religious goals no matter the cost. Sanz Mingo draws attention her extremism: “Nimue is a fanatic representative of druidism and, along with Bishop Sansum and Meurig, the Christian king, she becomes one of the most negative characters at the end of the trilogy because they all symbolize the extreme and dangerous ideas of each faith” (“Tale of Arthur”, 86). In the case of Nimue, her physical degradation represents not only her mental state, but also her fanatic druidism that is pushed towards extremity, establishing a link between physicality, insanity, and religion.

As stated in the previous section, it is Nimue who most suitably plays the role of the enchantress: a woman who sometimes supports chivalry, but also goes against the established order. Her role as an enchantress and her later portrayals of madness facilitate a remarkable connection to the madwoman trope. As Showalter writes: “[t]o feminists, the madwoman is a heroine, a powerful figure who rebels against the family and the social order; and the hysteric who refuses to speak the language of the patriarchal order, who speaks otherwise, is a sister”

(8). Nimue goes against the established order, not only through her later actions against

Arthur, but also through her physical degradation that defies beauty standards. But, as

Donaldson argues, the madwoman trope is inherently problematic: “However it is romanticized, madness itself offers women little possibility for true resistance or productive rebellion” (101). Rather than a means for rebellion, Nimue becomes an extremist example of

Druidism who fails her mission.

Finally, Guinevere poses a remarkable example of the relationship between idealization and physicality. Throughout the trilogy, Arthur idealizes her, which Cornwell portrays as partly the reason for her betrayal. As Nimue tells Derfel in Enemy of God: “She’s no whore, Derfel. She’s a strong woman who was born with a quick mind and good looks, and Arthur used the looks and wouldn’t use her mind” (452-453). Guinevere is even more explicit regarding Arthur’s idealization of her: “‘He worshipped me, Derfel,’ she said tiredly,

‘and that is not the same as being loved.’ [...] ‘And being worshipped, Derfel, is very tiresome” (Excalibur, 124); she does not want to be worshipped (248). Through Guinevere,

Cornwell critiques the idealization of women.

Guinevere’s physicality, however, is inherently tied to her ambition. As Sanz Mingo points out, “Guinevere plays with her femininity in order to get what she wants” (“Tale of

Arhur”, 80). For example, in Excalibur Guinevere admits to having lain with Gorfyddyd to further her ambition: “... I wanted gold, honour, position [...] But I didn’t get them from him.

He knew exactly what I wanted [but] he never intended to pay my price” (247). She also intended to utilize another man, her then-betrothed Valerin, to kill Gorfyddyd and crown

Valerin king of Powys, making her queen; she abandoned that plan after meeting Arthur. Her ambition is also evident in the reason for having intercourse with Lancelot in Enemy of God: to further her own goal of becoming queen when Arthur proved unwilling to ascend the throne. She uses her own body to further her ambition of acquiring power, which is evident by

Nimue’s explanation:

Put yourself in Guinevere’s place, Derfel. She’s quicker than all of you put together,

but any idea she ever had was put before a pack of dull, ponderous men. [...]

Guinevere was right all along. Arthur should have been King. She knew that. She

wanted that. She would even have been happy with that, for with Arthur as King she

would have been Queen and that would have given as much power as she needed. [...]

She is a clever, quick-witted lady and [Arthur] wanted to turn her into a milch cow. Do

you wonder she looked for other excitements? (Enemy of God, 453)

Nimue blames Arthur for not answering to Guinevere’s ambitions. This not only once more critiques Arthur idealization of her, but also underlines the fact that Guinevere is an ambitious and clever woman that was not satisfied in a subservient position. Moreover, she willingly utilizes her physicality and sexuality to reach her goals.

Conclusion

In Cornwell’s text, female characters are at the centre of the narrative. He establishes parallels with Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur through engaging with expectations of how female characters are to interact with other characters. The usurpation and imprisonment of Merlin by

Nimue mirrors Malory’s text, even though her motivations relate to ambition and ruthlessness rather than repulsiveness. Moreover, the rivalries between Nimue, Morgan, and Guinevere are

60 represented in both texts, even though Cornwell reverses these relationships. In Malory,

Nimue frequently undermines Morgan’s schemes against Arthur and his knights, while in The

Warlord Chronicles it is Morgan who foils Nimue’s plans against Derfel and Arthur.

Guinevere and Morgan are hardly on any positive terms in both texts. In Malory, Morgan seeks to expose Guinevere’s adultery. By contrast, Cornwell’s text bases their mutual enmity on more personal reasons: Guinevere cannot abide Morgan’s grotesque appearance, while

Morgan scoffs at Guinevere’s religious practices. The parallels between these texts are different, yet nonetheless present. However, through twisting these parallels, Cornwell defies expectations.

Another parallel lies in Cornwell’s portrayal of Guinevere, and subsequently, her adultery. In Le Morte D’Arthur, the fall of the Round Table is caused by the affair between her and Lancelot, placing part of the blame on Guinevere. In The Warlord Chronicles,

Guinevere is also the reason for a number of Arthur’s problems, such as breaking his oath to

Ceinwyn which led to war with Powys, and her complicity in Lancelot’s betrayal of Arthur.

However, Cornwell portrays Guinevere as a more sympathetic character, whose ambition combined with Arthur’s idealization of her were what led her to her actions.

Through degradation, Cornwell conveys a tension between the idealization and physicality of women. Several characters convey the notion that a woman’s physicality is repulsive. However, Cornwell’s degradation of the women central to the plot invokes the notion that physicality is an inherent part of womanhood, providing a less idealized portrayal of women. Ceinwyn becomes degraded through her illness, and Morgan through her grotesque scars resulting from a fire. Nimue, on the other hand, is degraded through her physical deterioration that is closely linked to her mental state and her fanatic druidism.

Moreover, her physicality is connected to her link to the gods through the acquisition of the

Three Wounds. Guinevere’s physicality is illustrated by her utilization of her sexuality to

61 accomplish her goals. Interestingly, Guinevere’s ambition and means of acquiring power conveys a tension between idealization and physicality, indicating that the two clash with one another. Through portraying the degradation of women to the physical level, Cornwell critiques the idealization of women prevalent in Romances.

Furthermore, though Cornwell utilizes aspects of grotesque realism in his portrayal of women, similarly to what has been discussed in the previous chapter, it does not comfortably fit into Bakhtin’s framework. Cornwell establishes connections between physicality and the ceremony, which is evident in Ceinwyn’s cure and Guinevere’s adultery. This indicates a relationship between physicality and the ceremony rather than one subverting the other.

Finally, Cornwell does not employ grotesque realism to erase class boundaries or for the sake of humour, but rather utilizes physicality to comment on Malory. Through degrading women to the physical realm, Cornwell questions the idealization of women and underlines that their physicality is an inherent part of their lives, deconstructing their romanticized versions in

Malory’s text.

Conclusion

At first glance, Cornwell and Malory portray different Arthurian worlds. Le Morte D’Arthur is defined by a Romantic tradition and its concern with the exploits of knights. In a setting involving the chivalric ideal, there is no room for the ‘base’ bodily functions. Cornwell, by contrast, portrays a grittier medieval world in The Warlord Chronicles that has a historical basis. Considering both worlds are so different, it might be difficult to justify a comparison.

However, both Malory and Cornwell exhibit similar values, indicating a relevance of the struggle of the medieval knight even today. In both texts, the body plays a significant role in the acquisition of renown through battle. Both knights and soldiers risk their bodies to injury and death, which is the only manner in which they are able to gain renown. Through establishing value systems that are difficult to attain, both texts problematizes these systems.

Furthermore, in both texts the characters – especially Arthur himself – are defined by their impulsiveness and passionate personalities which lead to disastrous public consequences.

Finally, both texts hold similarities between the portrayals of its female characters, creating situations and relationships that, despite the changes and reversals that Cornwell employs, mirror one another. Regardless of their different settings, both texts hold common ground on these topics, indicating that these values are universal.

Cornwell deviates from the romanticized knights in Malory’s text through his portrayal of physicality. Through including aspects of Bakhtin’s grotesque realism, Cornwell degrades characters who were, in Malory’s text, defined by abstract and ceremonial values. In

Malory, the feast is ceremonial and exercises control over chaos and the earthly, ritualizing the consumption of food by Arthur’s abstinence until he has heard a marvel. In Cornwell, by contrast, this ritualized aspect causes the ceremony to be degraded through loss of control.

Moreover, both soldiers and kings exhibit grotesque realism and the lower stratum, freely

63 urinating, belching, eating, and spitting. The kings are described in a grotesquely physical manner that underlines their physical deterioration. These examples are in stark contrast with

Malory’s idealized version of the Arthurian world, therefore, Cornwell undermines the romanticized and idealized knights through applying grotesque realism. Moreover, this indicates a shift in the perception of medieval society. Throughout the centuries many texts ascribed to the Romantic Arthurian tradition exemplified by Malory, but Cornwell deviates in his portrayal by explicitly including grotesque realism.

Cornwell’s utilization of grotesque realism to deconstruct the idealization of Arthurian characters is also apparent in his portrayal of female characters. Cornwell draws attention to examples of several characters who consider a woman’s physicality repulsive, but proceeds to degrade his noteworthy female characters in a variety of ways. Ceinwyn is degraded through illness, Morgan through her scars, Nimue through her physical deterioration connected to her religion and madness, and Guinevere utilizes her physicality for her ambition. Through the degradation of female characters, Cornwell critiques the idealization of Arthurian women, which is enforced by the tension between idealization and physicality embodied by Guinevere herself.

However, as has become evident, Cornwell’s use of physicality does not neatly fit into

Bakhtin’s framework. Though Cornwell clearly uses elements of degradation to deconstruct the characters, it is not employed in the same context in which Bakhtin applies grotesque realism. According to Bakhtin, the lower classes utilize grotesque realism to subvert the ceremonial practices of the higher classes to erase boundaries between class, which is accomplished through laughter. However, Cornwell does not erase such boundaries, considering grotesque realism is never employed in the context of class. Moreover, on multiple occasions Cornwell conveys an inherent relationship between the ceremonial and the physical, using the lower stratum as a vital element to rituals that are meant to control the

64 outside world. Finally, there are few instances in which grotesque realism is applied for the sake of humour. The two examples that invoke laughter are in the minority compared to situations in which grotesque realism is invoked to illustrate the physicality of the characters.

This deviation in portraying grotesque realism indicates a shift in the perception of physicality. In Bakhtin’s framework, grotesque realism is a tool for subversion of the ceremony and the higher classes through laughter. In Cornwell’s case, physicality is a part of life as well as the ceremony, which is in stark contrast with Malory’s romanticized world. In conclusion, the perception of grotesque realism and physicality of medieval society has shifted from their nonexistence in Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, to being a tool for class- related and ceremonial subversion through laughter in Bakhtin’s framework, to, in the end, become a normalized part of the lives of the characters as well as their ceremonial practices in

The Warlord Chronicles.

However, Arthur himself is an exception to degradation, which elevates him to an idealized position. His initial portrayal is reminiscent of an idealized knight, and though seemingly debunked through his sweaty appearance, there are no explicit examples involving his own degradation or lower stratum of the body. Though he has physical aspects, these aspects only enforce his idealization. Moreover, these examples are far less physical in comparison to other characters, signifying that he is elevated compared to the rest of

Cornwell’s world. Though The Warlord Chronicles exemplifies a shift in the perception of medieval society and grotesque realism, Arthur remains idealized. Despite his flaws, he is the source of the text’s value systems. With that in mind, perhaps it is no surprise that, no matter the shift in his surroundings, Arthur remains a romanticized ideal.

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