Malory 2: the Lancelot and Gareth Segments; Galahad, Launcelot and the Grail
Malory’s Sources—what he kept and what he left out:
Keeping in mind that both Caxton’s and the Winchester manuscript’s order of Malory’s text do not vary. We can infer that he probably intended his readers to encounter the section Vinaver called "The Tale of King Arthur" before the "Roman War," the "Lancelot," and the "Gareth" narratives. These sequences allow the reader to assume the following three "historial" events precede Lancelot’s and Gareth’s adventures: Arthur’s earliest days include Gawain’s earliest battles and his kin-hatred for Pellynore and his sons based on the killing of King Lott; Balyn’s series of testing combats which culminate in disasters he brought upon himself by "taking the adventure God sends" but failing to moderate his response to challenges until too late in the combat; and Arthur’s conquest of Rome, mainly by the aid of Gawain, who has become the most powerful of Arthur’s knights, though the young Launcelot and Tristan have arrived at court, and Launcelot already has done important deeds (invented by Malory) in the war against Rome (113).
The Launcelot episodes are selected from widely separated episodes in the enormous Prose Launcelot. Malory apparently has chosen them because their juxtaposition with each other enable him to create a "Launcelot" quite different from the love-besotted knight in the French romance. This strategy seems far more "authorial" than his loyal translation of the Suite du Merlin for the earlier "Arthur's early kingdom" episodes. What values do the episodes turn upon, often announced by the protagonist, himself?
The Gareth episodes occur in no known source, but "analogue" tales very like this one occur in two popular English romance types, the "Fair Unknown" and the Gawain-romances like "Weddyng of Gawain and Dame Ragnelle" and "Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle." If Malory achieves "authority" by selection and juxtaposition of the Launcelot episodes, while changing some of their core statements of value about "courtly love," the Gareth episodes appear to be a free recombination of elements of both tale types. Chaucer uses the same technique when he braids together three unrelated fabliaux to create "Miller's Tale" (the "second Noah's flood," the "misdirected kiss," and the "branding"). Similarly, once the "Fair Unknown" plot's encounter with the outrageous opponent has satisfied the Chiding Damsel's demands in the "Red Knight of the Red Laundes" combat, audiences expecting "Fair Unknown" ending will be surprised and perhaps confused by decision to spare the outrageous opponent and the tale's refusal to end with a wedding at this point. Could this tale be read as comedy like "Miller's Tale"?
The final string of episodes I selected, Malory-like, to give you a picture of how Launcelot became Galahad's father in the Prose Tristan and how Galahad's career overshadows Launcelot's in the Quest del Saint Graal ("Quest of the Holy Grail"). Conflicts between the "Grail" narrative's emphasis on chastity and the "Trystram"'s on chivalric prowess set up the narrative's deeply conflicted view of Launcelot's relationship with Guenivere. Do they "love each other"? Almost certainly. Do they "make love" in the ModE sense? Malory deliberately makes it un-provable. Why? Notice the increasing frequency of Malory's first-person intrusions into the narration to try to steer readers' interpretation of events. He has graduated from mere translator and secret forger of Arthurian events, to becoming what we would recognize as an author--"Arthur's author," if you will--but the transformation makes him profoundly uneasy.
Malory specifically has left out the conclusion of the Roman war narrative found in the Middle English Alliterative Morte Darthur, in which Mordred takes advantage of his uncle’s campaign in Italy to betray his trust, pursue Gwenyvere, and usurp the throne. Instead, Malory locates Arthur's death hundreds of pages away in the narrative "future," where he adheres to the version in the French "Morte" which includes Lancelot’s adulterous relations with Gwenyver and the quarrel and duel between Lancelot and Gawain. This means that Mordred’s treachery occurs while Arthur tries to resolve the impossible division between his two greatest knights, not at the height of his imperial expansion of British power. How does this decision affect Malory’s construction of the Arthurian past?
Serial Combat as Trial of Character:
Based on Balyn’s serial combats, in which the cause of battle becomes harder to interpret and his reasoning as to his response becomes progressively more sophisticated, we were prepared for the triple-quest of the hart, brachet and lady which put Gawain, Uwayne, and Marhalt through similar patterns of combat to try their characters. These trials also included the choice of allies and enemies, the discrimination of good from bad causes of combat, and the development of principles for halting combat.
Lancelot’s segment was extracted from the enormous mass of the Prose Lancelot with the clear intention of placing him in a similar series of combat tests (see Albert Hartung, "Narrative Technique, Character, and the Sources in Malory’s ‘Tale of Sir Lancelot," Studies in Philology 70:3 (1973) 252-68). Gareth’s serial tests occur in no known previous manuscript, though Vinaver posits the existence of one to avoid admitting Malory could have invented rather than translated such a large and coherent passage. Vinaver's reading of Malory tends to treat him as an inspired translator/editor, as much as an author, but the inconsistencies in Vinaver's view of his subject often cause him to undertake such assumptions without arguing their likelihood. Compare and contrast these two knights’ responses to their various challenges, and attempt to decide what Malory is trying to tell you about his Lancelot and Gareth. What questions does he raise in each of their tales, and how does he appear to answer them? When you have a better idea what Gareth means in Malory's value system, especially after the "Morte" proper (the conclusion of the manuscript), you might have some better idea of what it might mean to ask whether Malory created a version of the "Fair Unknown" romance especially to highlight Gareth's character, in juxtaposition with Launcelot's, just before the events of the Trystram-Grail segment in which Gareth's brothers become openly murderous.
Tristan Rules:
Tristan and Yseult, in whose narrative Malory found the story of Galahad's birth to start the "Grail" story, are the models for love and for chivalric excellence in the Prose Tristan (no surprise!). All characters within this source tend to be motivated by and evaluated by their commitment to erotic love outside marriage. The "courtly love" doctrine that Andreas Capellanus (ironically?) describes in The Art of Courtly Love is here almost a readers' handbook. Malory apparently is concerned by the narrative's persistent willingness to challenge the mores of married love, and to present as marvelous and attractive the "folie" or madness which overtakes Tristan when he thinks his love has been betrayed. To someone interested in the Arthurian narratives as a source of practical, historical chivalric values, the notion of a madman armed with deadly force would seem a poor model. Nevertheless, Malory transmits with relatively few changes many scenes which challenge the more sober view of knighthood found in his manuscript's final stages (the "Morte"), perhaps because this was a relatively early stage in his project of translation, compilation, and transformation.
Grail Rules:
In the narrative prior to the Grail's arrival, with the exception of events involving Merlin and Balyn (both part of the Grail’s universe of motivation), the narrative handled events in a historico-realistic fashion (if I may beg a question or two). That is, knights encountered opponents who posed challenges of physical strength and ethical judgment, and unless lies were told or mistakes were made, the outcome was more or less a contest fairly fought and accepted with good will. These assumptions are fundamental to Malory’s notion of the "High Order of Knighthood." Certain extraordinary requirements arise because of the Round Table Oath (75-6) which requires Arthur’s knights to avoid murder and outrage, and to defend widows and orphans.
In the Grail’s terrain, the chivalric order is beset by and defeated by another species of causation. Events which occurred centuries before led to prophecies which will determine the outcome of events in Arthurian space-time, outcomes which no ordinary knight’s judgment can predict. Actions which once would have been "worshipful" now are forbidden and lead to pain, punishment, and loss of worship. The Round Table fellowship’s ambiguous effect on kinship is made even more complicated by a pattern of fratricidal combat, sometimes combat by mistake (494-5--also see 560 and 573-4 if you want to follow this theme).
How does this basic narrative material dramatize the crisis posed for medieval nobles by the Christian faith’s doctrines? What does the mystery of faith do to the oaths and responsibilities by which the ordinary medieval society identified right from wrong? How has Malory’s treatment of Lancelot’s failure in the quest made Lancelot someone different from the knight we knew in his early career as a careful but usually successful warrior? As the Grail quest winnows the surviving knights to the "final three" of Bors, Percyvale, and Galahad, they are told the ship of faith "ys so perfite he woll suffir no synner within hym" (580). This creates an unforgiving aristocracy of salvation in which perfection is an exclusive process, leaving behind more and more knights and ladies until only a few are left. How does this appeal to the medieval noble psychology, and how does it challenge it? (This problem also appears in Pearl.)
Lancelot and Eleyne—
What religious narrative might be alluded to in Eleyne’s joyful acceptance of Lancelot in her bed? What would that make Galahad, and where does Lancelot fit in for all of this? See especially pages 479-81.
Madness, Thigh Wounds and Medieval Erotic Psychology—
After the Queen surprises Lancelot in Eleyne’s chamber (485-8), Lancelot falls into a "folie" or lover’s madness (compare Trystram's after a falling-out with Isode, 303-9). What are its symptoms, and why does the "love-maddened" knight spend his time in the forest? Malory did not have to transmit this episode--what values does it seem to contain which led him to leave it in his narrative?
The problem of values also arises when Lancelot is wounded in the thigh by a wild boar (498). What does that animal and that wound stand for? (We've met the symbolic boar in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and you’ll see it again in Chaucer’s Troilus.) How does the means of his cure decode the nature of the wound?
Damsels, Queens, and Loyalty in Love—
After Lancelot rushes madly into the forest, Eleyne gives Gwenyvere a lecture about the queen’s responsibilities to her lover which might surprise the reader (488). How would you explain it, especially given Eleyne’s role in the events which have led to Lancelot’s "folie"? As if the poor queen hasn’t had enough grief, Bors also takes her to task (489). With what does he charge her and how do you think Malory intended his readers to interpret the queen’s behavior? Does it work for you? How might Marie or Andreas have responded?
The "Lancelot" problem—
In what state do you next expect to see Lancelot—sinner, hero, lover, saint? Track what this sequence of narrative episodes has done to his character, originally a competent warrior and the "best knight" of Arthur’s Round Table, or even "in the world." One key interpretation of his changed nature comes from the damsel who tells him of his son’s arrival and his new status as "[the best] of ony synfull man of the worlde" (520). A priest who confesses Lancelot gets him to acknowledge his sin and raises the danger that his penance will be followed by a renewal of that sin (538). That judgment is expanded upon when a priest explains Gawain’s crimes and tells Gawain that Lancelot’s problem is "unstablenesse" (563). The code word is repeated by Galahad, but in that circumstance it describes "this worlde unstable" (607). Could you compare this with Chaucer’s "Lak of Steadfastnesse"? What kind of judgment is Malory making here? (You also might look ahead at Malory’s famous outburst to the people of England on p. 708.)
Gareth—
After the text has elevated Gareth as an ideal member of Lott’s family, one who knew of and avoided Gawain’s murderous behavior, one might expect him to be a major element in this part of Malory’s text. However, apart from a brief appearance (534) he is completely absent from the Grail quest. He will be enormously important to Lancelot’s and Gawain’s relationship during the final days of Arthur’s court (see 684-90). Why would Malory keep him out of sight? The answer may lie in the order in which he produced these segments of narrative--what if, when he first produced the Grail narrative, he had not yet invented "Gareth"? And if that is the case, how does Gareth come to appear, briefly, in the episode on 534? How much authorial control does this suggest Malory has over the final state of his text?