Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools Zdeňka Dvořáková C. S. Lewis’s and T. H. White’s Appropriation of the Arthurian Legend Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Filip Krajník, Ph. D. 2017 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature I would like to thank my family and friends for their patience and encouragement. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 5 2. C. S. Lewis–the Space Trilogy–That Hideous Strength ............................................ 9 2.1. General Introduction to Author’s Life and Work .................................................. 9 2.2. Lewis’s Arthurian Bibliography and Sources ...................................................... 16 2.3. Christianity, Celtic Elements, and the Characters of That Hideous Strength ...... 21 2.4. Social Criticism in the Space Trilogy .................................................................. 33 3. T. H. White–The Once and Future King ................................................................. 45 3.1. General Introduction to the Author’s Life and Work ........................................... 45 3.2. T. H. White’s Autobiographical Features in The Once and Future King ............ 49 3.3. Social Criticism in The Once and Future King .................................................... 59 4. Comparison of the Novels ....................................................................................... 69 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 74 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 78 Resumé (English) ............................................................................................................ 80 Resumé (Czech) .............................................................................................................. 81 1. Introduction The Arthurian subject matter has for centuries been in focus of literary critics and scholars as a legendary material which has been revisited numerous times by different authors, be it via poems, drama, or novels. Even though there might had been a real person on whom the legend was based, historical importance of his deeds had been transformed to a literary version of King Arthur which is nowadays generally known. Since the first literary explorers of the topic can be traced back to the sixth century, and the area has not yet been exhausted, a vast variety of sources and approaches to the legend has appeared throughout the ages. A development can be discerned from works written to please members of royal families in the middle ages, through works supporting political ideals, for example of the Tudors, up to modern appropriations where the main aim is to please the readers in general. As Stephen Dunn notes that “Among the recurring myths of western man, adapted by each succeeding age to its own needs and tastes, one of the most persistent is the Arthurian cycle” (365). Not all modern adaptations of the Arthurian legend are merely fictitious pieces of art without any further purpose. Such modern appropriations, whose authors dare to critically comment on the affairs of the twentieth century and combine the real world with the Arthurian legend, shall be discussed in this thesis. Apart from the oldest appearances of King Arthur, for example in the Welsh tale called Culhwch and Olwen, there had been many other literary works that influenced modern Arthurian writers. The base of the version of the legend that is widely known nowadays comes from Geoffrey of Monmouth, who included the character of legendary King Arthur in his Historia Regum Britanniae in the twelfth century. Even Geoffrey of Monmouth had been part of the tradition of appropriating the legend for political 5 purposes since he wrote such a pseudohistorical account of British history to which his Anglo-Norman audience could relay. The popularity of King Arthur can be seen also in other works by authors of the twelfth century; like Wace (Roman de Brut) or the French Chrétien de Troyes, who in his Lancelot, le Chavalier de la Charrette (Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart) invented the Arthurian plot as we know it nowadays. Later, in the fifteenth century, Sir Thomas Malory brought together the English and French traditions, with his Le Morte d’Arthur, which was first published in 1485. Malory’s compilation of the existing stories and his own added material has become an important source of inspiration for many authors, without the exception of the authors this thesis focuses on. The list of modern Arthurian literature is overly extensive to be included in a thesis. It was, therefore, necessary to define a limited corpus of works. It is possible to find an example of an appropriation of the Arthurian legend in almost every literary genre nowadays, although the legend had traditionally been adapted mostly in dramatic works or poems. However, the renown of the legend has differed through centuries. The majority of literary critics and historians have focused on the first literary versions of the legend and the Middle Ages; therefore, modern adaptations of the Arthurian theme allow more space for further exploration. No sooner than by the end of the nineteenth century, had the prevalence of Arthurian drama declined and novels became the new focus of modern writers of the Arthurian subject matter (Lupack xxxiii). Elizabeth Brewer has observed that “the impact of World War II increased a general interest in myths developed by various scholars and writers,” including the Arthurian legend (19). Because of the increasing popularity of novels and the incredible amount of works with Arthurian motifs published, the twentieth century was selected as the time frame of focus for this thesis. 6 As has already been suggested, novels, in which the Arthurian motifs were used by the authors to comment on their current social or political surroundings, are the subject of this thesis; namely works by Clive Staples Lewis and Terence Hanbury White. The aim is to carefully examine the texts and provide examples of the social commentary that the authors probably wanted to share with their readers; furthermore, autobiographical features included in the novels shall be analysed, since the author’s personal engagement might have influenced the appropriation of the legend. Specifically, the discussed novels are That Hideous Strength (1945), by C. S. Lewis, which is the final part of his Space Trilogy; and The Once and Future King (1958) by T. H. White. The Once and Future King is a compilation of four novels of which the first three had at first been published separately; however, White decided to revise the first three and publish them together with the fourth novel in one book. In addition, White intended to publish The Book of Merlyn (published posthumously in 1977) which is generally referred to as the concluding part of The Once and Future King. The novel contains a commentary on World War II, however, since the final published version was not revised by T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn is not discussed in this thesis in such detail as The Once and Future King. On the other hand, Lewis and White differ in the approach to the actual employment of the material of the legend. Lewis sets his story in modern settings and, even though the character of Merlin is essential for the plot, there are not many other Arthurian characters present in the story. Then again, by this approach, Lewis represents a certain way in which the legend was appropriated in the twentieth century—instead of re-writing the legend, he works with the connotations that his readers would recognize. In other words, Lewis works with a concept that Martin Moynihan calls the “idea of Arthur” (1). Nonetheless, the novel is part of Lewis’s Arthurian bibliography and, apart 7 from Christian apologetics, contains significant amount of cultural criticism, as shall be analysed in the subsequent chapters. In contrast, T. H. White took the story of the legend and set in Gramarye—a fictitious country resembling Britain—yet with British kings alluded to as mythical or legendary. White directly concentrates on King Arthur’s story which is in his novels inextricably tied to the author’s contemporary surroundings mainly by Merlin’s remarks. The thesis is divided into three parts, each of the first two sections focuses on one of the authors mentioned above, C. S. Lewis and T. H. White. Their life and other work that had a certain impact on the novels in question are provided as background information and other subchapters are focused on the cultural criticism in the novels. The aim of the thesis is to provide evidence that some authors of the twentieth century follow the tradition of appropriating the legend in order to comment on the current social situation. Further, the paper attempts to answer the following research questions: Are there any changes that the authors made in comparison with their predecessors or sources? What techniques do the authors use to transmit their ideas about the current affairs? 8 2. C. S. Lewis–the Space Trilogy–That Hideous Strength 2.1. General Introduction to Author’s Life and Work