Fall 2003
ENGL 517
M 7-10 PM


Professor Myra Seaman
Office:      74 George St. , Room 101
Hours:     M 1:30-4; W 1-2:30; & by appt
Phone:     953-5760
E-mail:     seamanm@cofc.edu


England’s Romance with Arthur: Genre, History, Nationhood


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This course will investigate the legend of King Arthur as it was constructed in England throughout the Middle Ages. We will focus especially on how the figure of Arthur was used to establish and then promote a distinct national identity, from the early chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Layamon to the verse and prose romances of Malory and various anonymous writers of the later medieval period.


Sept 1        Introduction & Organization

In this first class we will introduce ourselves to one another, to the course, and to the cultures and concerns at the core of our upcoming engagement together.  We will leap into the early history of the land which came to be known as England, tracing its occupants and their experiences, and will get a taste of the different types of appearances Arthur made in the writing of the 6th through 15th centuries there.

Key Question 1: Visit the following sites (and any others you find intriguing as you venture to these particular locations) and investigate the facts and issues surrounding King Arthur in the Middle Ages. After you have spent a good deal of time at these sites, write a two-page summary of your observations for the class, pointing out some things you discovered, and indicating your choices for the most useful resources.
Britannia’s King Arthur page

The Arthuriana page

The Arthurian Resources page

The Camelot Project

The Arthurian Studies page of the Labyrinth website

To prepare for next week’s class discussion, read Chapter 1 (pages 1-52) of the Arthurian Handbook. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the handbook’s offerings, including the maps and chronology in the prefatory material as well as the glossary starting on page 275.  Read also two articles by Geoffrey Ashe that are available online; each article is four web-pages long. The articles are “Origins of the Arthurian Legend”   and “A Quest for Arthur.”


Sept 8        The Hunt for Arthur

In this class we will investigate the types of information available about King Arthur and will consider strategies for studying the traditions that developed around him throughout the Middle Ages, particularly in England. We will discuss the various available sources of such information and the implications of those sources. Our discussion will be inspired by, but not necessarily limited to, the ideas raised by Lacy, Ashe and Mancoff in the Arthurian Handbook as well as Ashe himself in his two online articles.

Key Question 2: King Arthur has intrigued people for centuries, yet we have precious little information about this culturally powerful figure. A consideration of the “Origins” of Arthur (as the title of the first chapter of the Arthurian Handbook makes clear) is no simple archaeological-historical pursuit of facts. Instead, what we find ourselves seeking is the “origins” of the myth of Arthur, rather than Arthur the historical man. What kinds of information and what sorts of sources of information, are available to us? What are some of the implications of relying upon such sources in our hunt for Arthur? What kinds of conclusions can we reach? What questions, in other words, are we in the end going to be able to answer, given our sources?
For next week’s class, read Arthurian Handbook Chapter II, “Early Arthurian Literature” (pages 57-133). In addition, you should read a few excerpts from a number of key early sources of information about Arthur, which are available online at the following addresses:
Annales Cambriae

Dream of Rhonabwy

Gildas’ De Excidio Britanniae

Nennius’ Historia Britonnum

Sept 15        Celtic stories and early Latin histories

We will develop ways of reading the slight presence of Arthur – or “Arthurness,” as in Gildas – in these Celtic and Latin texts, considering their purposes and audiences as well as what we might conclude from Arthur’s appearances, preparing for the way later writers build on what little evidence remained for many of them.

Key Question 3:
Consider the purposes of Gildas and Nennius in their works, based on the excerpts you read. Bearing that in mind, and the various theoretical concerns we’ve discussed in class, what do you think about the claim made in the introductory material to the excerpt from Nennius at the britannia.com Arthur page, that  “Nennius was, as one modern historian writes, ‘unrestrainedly inventive.’ His work can neither be entirely trusted nor can it be dismissed, as he apparently had access to no-longer-available 5th century sources”?

 For next week’s class, read the Arthur material in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (chapters 5-8), a much-read and much-maligned narrative history of England, written in Latin and covering the history of the British people up until the final conquering of them by the Saxons.  Also read the article “Hoel-Hearted Loyalty and the Ironization of Arthur in Geoffrey’s Historia regum Britanniae”  (e-reserve) by Carol A. N. Martin on Geoffrey’s representation of Arthur.


Sept 22        Arthur’s Father: Geoffrey of Monmouth

This week we will look at Geoffrey’s significant contribution to the Arthur legend, his history of early Britain that was relied upon for six centuries and that was the written source for the incredibly popular literary tradition of the medieval Arthurian romance. We will also consider the ways he seems to make use of Nennius, Gildas, and perhaps even the Annales Cambriae as sources.
Key Question 4:
The britannia.com page on Geoffrey claims that the Historia Regum Britanniae’s “chief impact . . .  was in changing the perceptions of the ‘civilized’ world (ie. France) about the Arthurian legend, which had previously been seen as merely the heritage of barbarians and thus unworthy of a cultured person's attention or interest.” At this point in your engagement with the written manifestation of the Arthurian legend, what is your response to this claim? I urge you to consider britannia.com’s Geoffrey material before you write your response.

For next week’s class, read the Layamon selection in your Arthurian Chronicles text. Read also Kenneth J. Tiller’s article “The truth ‘bi Arthur than kinge’: Arthur’s Role in Shaping Lawman’s Vision of History” (pdf), available on e-reserve.


Sept 29        The Shift to Romance: Layamon

With this class we trace the transition from history to romance, from a focus by writers (and, presumably readers) on Arthur as a historical figure to Arthur as a historical-mythical figure, with the mainly militaristic legend transforming into courtly romance. Layamon’s English version of Wace’s French Brut appears after Chrétien establishes the romance tradition in 1160-80, but as a translation of Wace (who wrote before Chrétien) Layamon’s work usefully marks the transition, reminding us always that the English and French traditions shared a close relationship even as the English one, for historico-linguistic reasons, was delayed and addressed a rather different audience from Chrétien’s.
Key Question 5:
Carol A.N. Martin reads Geoffrey of Monmouth’s tone through a comparison with similar passages in Wace’s Brut. Extend her analysis to Lawman’s Brut: do you find Layamon’s translation follows suit?

For next week’s class, read Marie de France’s Lais, remembering that she was writing for the Anglo-Norman court, in England, but in a French that was the language of the aristocracy in England after the Norman Conquest a century earlier.

 Oct 6        Anglo-Norman romance: Marie de France

This week we will consider the dramatic transformation of the Arthurian material of the chronicles witnessed by Marie’s lais. Bearing in mind the audiences for these works, and their apparent purposes, we will investigate the apparent cultural use of Arthur and his court represented by Marie’s work.

Key Question 6: Compare the forms, apparent conventions, assumptions, purpose, and likely audience of Marie’s lais to those aspects of Geoffrey and, if you wish, Layamon.

For next week’s class, read Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot, or The Knight of the Cart.


Oct 13        French romance: Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes is considered the founder of the courtly Arthurian literary tradition. Like Marie de France, he apparently developed his poems from abundant oral sources as well as written ones, and he introduced some new figures and places to the legend: Camelot, the Holy Grail, and Lancelot, who came to epitomize Arthurian knighthood and especially the courtly love element so central to the French tradition of Arthur. Here we see the Arthurian tradition codified.
Key Question 7:
What kind of vision of its original aristocratic audience does Chrétien’s Lancelot offer? Consider not only the representation of the poem’s hero but also the other knights, the ladies, and the dynamics of the court and its representatives as we see them.

For our next class meeting in two weeks, read two anonymous English Arthurian romances, Sir Perceval of Galles and Ywain and Gawain, based on Chrétien. These poems are in Middle English, which you will find more familiar if you have read Chaucer in Middle English, but if you have not, you will quickly develop a vocabulary and an understanding of the syntax; the poems are heavily glossed for your assistance. Read also Alan MacColl’s article “King Arthur and the Making of an English Britain” (e-reserve).


Oct 20        No class: Fall Break

Oct 27        The English Translation: Sir Perceval of Galles and Ywain and Gawain

This week we address two anonymous English romances that are closely related to two of Chrétien’s works. These poems, as is typical of the English contribution to the romance genre, focus more intensely on action and turn their attention away from psychological and courtly concerns. We will look not at what these poems might or might not be lacking, as literary works, in relation to Chrétien’s products, but instead at what they seem to offer their own particular original audiences three centuries later in England.
Key Question 8:
Ywain and Gawain is considered a relatively close translation of Chrétien’s romance Yvain, while Sir Perceval of Galles is described as bearing more marks of its English writer. Given that generalization, what do you see the writers of these two English romances as most interested in conveying to their audiences, and why? What sort of cultural work are these two writers, and the poems they translated, performing?

For our next class, read two Middle English versions of the Morte Darthur, the tragic conclusion of Arthur and his glorious Round Table. 

Nov 3    Two Mortes: the Alliterative and the Stanzaic

These contrasting tellings of the story of Arthur’s demise are products of the 14th century which despite their occupying generally the same historical moment vary tremendously not only in their verse form – itself significant to a reader’s perception of the narrative – but also in their representations of Arthur and his court, clearly pursuing very different purposes. We will use the good fortune of this helpful contrast to remind ourselves that medieval England, even 14th-centry England, was anything but monolithic.
Key Question 9:
The Alliterative Arthur and the Stanzaic Arthur are very different figures, produced by the unique sensibilities of the writers of these two poems. In addition to reflecting the poetic mind behind each, though, these sometimes-conflicting representations of Arthur reflect two strands of the Arthurian legend. Offer evidence to support a description of each, tying it to texts we’ve read and discussed this semester.

For next week’s class, read three significant contributions of the English later Middle Ages. The longest of these, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is available to you in an edition that provides both the original Middle English (written in a dialect whose vocabulary is a challenge to Modern English speakers) and a Modern English translation. The other two, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale and the anonymous Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, are available online. The (Middle) English of these two poems is much closer to ours, but even so the Chaucer text is offered with an interlinear translation.

Nov 10    Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale, and The Wedding
                of Sir Gawain and Dame
Ragnell 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is generally considered the finest English Arthurian poem. We will discuss what this representation of Arthur’s court suggests about the status of England at the time, in the later fourteenth century, and what our appreciation of it suggests about our preferred conception of the medieval past. Chaucer’s tale questions and critiques many elements of the courtly Arthurian tradition, while the anonymous Wedding reflects a thread of the later English tradition of Arthur that many have seen as a corruption of it.
Key Question 10:
What is your sense of the ways these three writers are making use of the Arthurian materials we have seen elements of in our reading thus far this semester? What do their different contributions suggest about the possibilities people in late-fourteenth to mid-fifteenth centuries in England saw in the well-established tradition of Arthur?

For next week’s class, read Malory’s “From The Marriage of King Uther Unto King Arthur”; “The Noble Tale Betwixt King Arthur and Lucius the Emperor of Rome”; “A Noble Tale of Sir Lancelot Du Lake”; and “The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkeney.”

Nov 17        Malory: Arthur’s beginnings, Sir Lancelot and Sir Gareth

This week we shift to the writings of Thomas Malory, whose contribution to the Arthur tradition is hugely important. At the tail end of the Middle Ages, Malory collected and translated the stories popularized by Chrétien and others, providing the English literary tradition with a more coherent product. You will probably notice a significant change in the “feel” of the text because of the shift from the verse we’ve been reading ever since Marie to the prose of Malory, which might make it initially seem closer to the early chronicles.
Key Question 11:
Malory’s source for “The Noble Tale Betwixt King Arthur and Lucius the Emperor of Rome” is the Alliterative Morte.  Consider these two versions of the story in relation to one another and offer your sense of how Malory is reworking his source material, and to what possible ends.

For next week’s class, read “The Book of Sir Tristram of Lyonesse” and “The Noble Tale of the Sangrail.”

Nov 24        Malory: Sir Tristram and the Holy Grail

In this class we will tackle the Quest for the Holy Grail, the most famous episode of the Arthurian legend but one which is perhaps best known to us today through Monty Python. We will work to determine the significance of this quest as Malory employs it, and we will get to know Sir Tristram’s brand of knighthood and what it suggests about late-medieval attitudes in England.
Key Question 12:
What vision of Christianity do you see represented in “The Noble Tale of the Sangrail”? What sort of Christian knight – an image familiar from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and elsewhere – does Galahad portray? How are the Christian virtues of humility and peace reconciled with the aggressive militarism of Arthur’s time?

For next week’s class, read “The Tale of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere” and “The Death of Arthur.”

Dec 1        Malory: Lancelot and Guinevere, and the Morte

We conclude our engagement with Malory today, with his version of the Lancelot and Guinevere affair and its suggested influence on the crumbling of the Round Table and Arthur’s kingdom. We will debate Malory’s apparent intentions in presenting the conclusion to the glorious reign this way, and we will look back over the past three weeks’ reading material and discussions to determine our sense of Malory’s vision of Arthur and his world and the way it might tell us something about late-medieval English conceptions of and attitudes toward England as a nation.

Key Question 13:
We have read other versions of both the Lancelot-Guinevere story and the tragic Morte conclusion, representatives of the stories available to Malory (who used the Stanzaic Morte for the Lancelot-Guinevere and the Morte material, though he also knew the Alliterative Morte). What sorts of choices do you see Malory making in the form of one or both of these stories? What does he emphasize, what does he neglect or present differently, and what do you conclude about his sense of what he is doing with these powerful stories?

To prepare for next week’s class, return to the readings and discussions of the semester to consider, from this point, how earlier writers like Geoffrey and Layamon now appear in relation to the later development of the tradition and its various cultural uses along the way.

Dec 8    Conclusions

Dec 15         FINAL EXAM


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