Idylls of the King-Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur

          Of the readings we were assigned by Tennyson I chose to focus on The Coming of Arthur. The beginning quite resemble that of stories we have become very familiar with. Arthur is described as uniting the kingdom under his rule, and a brief mention of Guinevere's beauty foretold. As we have grown accustom to in mallory and D' Troyes beginnings often start like this. Then we reach the second page and a mention of werwolves is thrown into the text. It is interesting that the story starts with such a mythical creature never have to be mentioned in any readings before this era. Which lead me to believe that this reading my have more magical/mythical happens than those we are used to. They story then however veers back toward familiar territory when arthur is described as riding among his knights into battle, here is where the first mention of money is encountered. As we have previously discussed in class it seems like money shows your social standing so it was interesting that within the opening scene King Arthur is seen riding as "a simple knight, among his knights, and many of these richer in arms than he". Its almost demoralizing to describe him in this way which we are not used to seeing especially concerning King Arthur. However this does show that some of our old narrative motifs are going to come into play within the Tennyson take of this story. the story continues on with the claim that Arthur is not rightfully king and then the desire for Guinevere blooms..(sound familiar?) Also the vision dream on page 32 makes an apperence once more, but there is the difference in that it seems it wont predict the suture but maybe foretell bad or good fortune to come. What then throws the story off is that no one seems to know of Arthur's heritage which is true in pervious stories but the undertaking of finding his true lineage is dragged out for a couple pages and is much more of a scene within this book. It was in fact a factor in Guinevere's decision to mary Arthur. Which is strange because before this story everyone knew of Arthur's lineage before he wished to marry Guinevere. In this take however Guinevere does not know of his Kingsmanship and is doubtful of that to marry him because of this. Going Back to Uther's reign a new light is shed on the Igraine situation. " enforced she was to wed him in her tears and with a shameful swiftness". In mallory she was tricked by merlin but seemed not to mind, in Tennyson she is utterly against the union. While were on the topic of describing differences Mallory also had a different father figure for Arthur than Tennyson. The irregularity in this is strange because in no other story has Arthurs "father" not been Sir Ector where in this story his name is Anton.

            Moving away from differences there was a very peculiar part of this story that caught my attention. Guinevere talks of knowing the King long before this marriage proposal (no mention of Lancelot). Page thirty gives a short story told from Guinevere's point of view about how as a child she had been beaten and arthur ha come to her aid to cheer her up ad then she knew she loved him. Never before do we see the mention of intermingling childhoods before this, so this type of background information is fascinating. And sets up the premise that these two have a much stronger relationship than seen before in any novel.

I chose only one of the two stories to discuss because as you see if i were to analyze both this would become ridiculously long. =)

       

The Saga of the Mantle

I found this story to be peculiar in its context. The messenger is described as ornately handsome, which is something we are not used to from the other texts, and he comes into Arthur's court bearing this beautiful crafted robe on which he offers as a gift to the one women whom it fits best. The context behind the cloak's magical powers is then given and the women of the court each must try their hand at wearing the garment. Where this man came from and why he is making all the court's women try on this deceptive cloak is not clear. Which seems to be a reoccurring story telling tool during this era. The authors seem to keep things ambiguous almost on purpose for reasons the reader may or may not later discover. When moving from the strange context of the story to the actual oddities within the narrative i believe a good place to begin is when the queen tries on the cloak. It is strange that the king was not angered by the fact that he learns that his queen has not been exactly faithful in every way. The queen skillfully plays off her shame by making all her ladies of the court put on the cloak next so as to show that her infidelity is much less than many of the unfaithful women there. The whole concept of this garment is well devised and yet strange that its almost a test of your virginal and courtly behavior. It shows that these ideals in women were extremely important and highly regarded in society during this time. I found it slightly unfair though that after all of the women are put through this shame, why is it that the men get away without so much as a test of their fidelity? This also shows that being bound to just one woman perhaps wasn't something expected of men during that time. Men obviously followed much different moral codes than their women and were expected to uphold different values.

The saga of the Mantle

I would like to start of by saying  why are only the women being chastised here? The idea that all of these so called "noble" nights is completely faithful is not possible as we have learned from previous readings. Also I found it rather confusing that there wasn't more outrage amongst the men, specifically the king. Seeing as his wife was the very first to be seen as unfaithful yet no one other then Valven says even a word to her about her infidelity. And even then his response seemed almost like a joke "is seems to me that you are somewhat more faithful than she is, and yet you are quite alike, but there is less falsehood in you than in her." said Valven to the Queen. Now this response took me buy surprise, I would have thought at least someone in the court would have been more concerned with the QUEEN being the first person to be seen as unfaithful!

Lanval: De France

In this story I find it interesting how the main focus on the beginning is less on the characters and more on the money and the gold. They talk about how now he is rich and how he will give money to everyone strangers or friends and how he was giving rich gifts and how he was being generous. The second thing that intrigued me was how he denied the queen and she knew the king would believe the lie so she lied to make it seem like he wanted her and she refused and he spoke badly to her making the king make him fight to prove himself. Again in this story the queen is lethal and puts him in a position where it is very easy for him to be killed.

De France: Wealth and Money

The story of Lanval was a totally new addition on our readings in some ways, and very similar in others. One pattern that I noticed in this text that did not appear nearly as much in Malory or De Troyes was the idea of money and wealth. Although Malory and De Troyes probably both reference money in some way, it does not come up very often at all. In fact, the only scene in which money is truly memorable is in Malory's take on Launcelot's relationship with Elaine, when he essentially bribes her to leave him alone. He offers a great quantity of money in this scene, but Elaine does not take it and no further mention is made of Launcelot's riches. In the Marie De France piece, however, many references are made to signify how rich the knights are, and a much greater emphasis is placed on wealth. In just a few short pages, money, wealth, riches, or land are mentioned 6 times explicitly. This pattern begins on 35, when De France introduces Lanval by saying, "He belonged to King Arthur's household, but he had spent all his wealth, for the king gave him nothing, and Lanval asked him for nothing." (35). Although other texts may have mentioned that a particular knight had come from a poor or wealthy household, De France focuses much more on the idea of Lanval's relationship with the king involving (and revolving around?) money. Such a focus did not seem to exist in the other pieces. De France also emphasizes the monetary values of the objects in this story, whereas in the past, the object's magical tendencies might be more important. For example: "They led him to the tent, which was beautiful and luxurious: neither Queen Semiramis, however much wealth, power and knowledge she had, nor Emperor Octavian could have afforded even the flap of the tent." (36). Why this shift from money as simply existing to money being "a big deal"? The most obvious shift seems to come on page 37, after Lanval has found his love, De France tells us: "Lanval gave rich gifts; Lanval pardoned prisoners; Lanval outfitted jongleurs; Lanval performed noble acts. There was neither stranger nor friend to whom Lanval would not give money." (37). Here, the implication is that Lanval has become a true and noble knight. But the qualities of "what a good knight should be" seem to have changed slightly. Lanval is not just noble and strong...but he is also a good money lender? What is the importance of such a trait to a knight? This seems to be a very interesting pattern that sets De France apart from Malory and De Troyes.

De Troyes: Reoccurring Events

While reading I have noticed many objects coming back into the story or that have been a constant throughout the story. One thing that I noticed was that everyone is so open and welcoming whenever they come to the door, the lady had him in and created a rape scene, then the family took the nights in and groomed his horse. Each and every time there is not a question about letting them in. The second pattern that keeps occurring is the whole cart dilemma, someone tries to put him to shame for riding in the cart over and over again.  However he stands up to it. but I thought those two things reoccuring made for a nice pattern to find within the story.

De Troyes: Personified Emotions

One point that I noticed from the De Troyes writing was the personification of emotions. I vaguely remember discussing this idea in British Literature, although I can’t remember fully the significance of it. I do feel that De Troyes’s use of the capitalized and personified emotions speaks to his writing taking place earlier than Malory’s. It becomes extremely common in the section we read for today (more so than the earlier chapter). For example, on 242, he writes Launcelot’s internal struggle by using Generosity and Compassion as battling emotions. He says, “He wishes to content them both: Generosity and Compassion demand that he satisfy them both, for he is both generous and merciful.” (242). He continues to say "One wants him to give the head to the girl who asked for it; the other urges pity and kindness." (242). This literally gives the reader an image of two characters, Generosity and Compassion, fighting with/over Launcelot. Similar instances of such personification appear throughout De Troyes's story. He also uses Love, Cowardice, Nobility, Hatred, etc to better explain his story. Although I cannot remember the exact analysis from British Literature, I feel as though De Troyes makes these emotions seem much more prominent by making them into characters and giving them actions. Instead of saying "Launcelot was jealous," he creates an overwhelming feeling of Jealousy by devoting a character to the emotion.