English 202
Kent-Drury

Lecture 4. Arthurian Romance: Marie de France & The Pearl Poet

Later Medieval Literature

This week, we move from earlier medieval literature of the Anglo-Saxon period to literature written after the Norman Conquest (1066 C.E.), when William the Conqueror, a Norman king, invaded and ruled England. The literature we are reading from the later medieval period differs from the earlier literature we have read (Beowulf, for example), which shows a mixture of ideas from the Germanic-pagan warrior ethic and the Christian world view of the individuals who wrote down literature that had circulated in oral performance. By the time the literature we are reading this week was written, the Christian world view dominated in Western Europe. In addition, during the time between the transcription of the Anglo-Saxon literature we have read and the time in which Marie de France and the Pearl Poet were writing, the English language went through a major transformation.

Language

Although the the Norman Conquest is generally said to have introduced Latin words into the English language, producing Middle English, this obviously did not happen overnight. Consequently, much of the "court literature" from this time was written in French (in Marie de France's case, Anglo-Norman), while the common people in England probably continued to speak Anglo-Saxon. Over time, however, the language changed into Middle English, and linguists have identified at least four distinct dialects. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written in a northern dialect, which is almost unintelligible to most English speakers today. Consequently, we will read Marie de France's "Lanval" and the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in translation.

Genres

Both "Lanval" and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are stories about knights in the court of the legendary King Arthur that can be classified as part of a new genre, which came out of the epic tradition, called romance. When we read some stories from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales next week, we will read yet another Arthurian romance in "The Wife of Bath's Tale."

Be sure that you understand the difference between the commonplace use of the word romance today (that is, as a love story) and the notion of what a romance was, as a genre, during the medieval period. Here is a comparison of the two genres:

Marie de France

No one is sure exactly who Marie de France was, but many believe she may have been Henry II's half sister. She wrote in several medieval forms, including saint's lives (stylized stories about the lives of Catholic saints). Her collection, The Lais of Marie de France, includes "Lanval." As she explains in the "Prologue" to the Lais (part of your reading for this work), she has made the choice to write in the vernacular (the spoken language of her time and place) rather than in the international language of formal writing, Latin. Note that she says that her authority to write came from God--a common at this time for men and women alike.

We have time to read only one of Marie de France's Lais, but many good translations can be found on the Internet, dealing with stories that are like fairy and folk tales, such as "Bisclavret," which is about a werewolf. If you have time, you might look for some of them.

As you read "Lanval," think about how King Arthur's court is represented. Is this a good place to be, or a bad place to be? How does it compare with attitudes in Beowulf about such matters as the lord-thegn relationship? What sort of a queen is Guinevere? Also, think about the place of the fairy folk in the story (and Lanval's lover is one of the fairy folk). Be sure you can describe the quandary Lanval faces, as well as its outcome.

The Pearl Poet

No one is sure who the Pearl Poet was, although the manuscript containing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight also contained a poem, The Pearl, believed to have been written by the same author. The Pearl is a heartbreaking story in which the speaker's daughter, whom he calls his pearl, dies.

I hope that you will find Sir Gawain and the Green Knight entertaining--it can actually be quite funny if you work to visualize everything that is happening in the poem. Here are some suggestions to make your reading easier.

Verse and Metric Form. The Pearl Poet wrote during what literary scholars call the Alliterative Revival. Although English had come to rely for meaning on word order (like modern English) instead of inflections (word endings such as those used in Anglo-Saxon), during the alliterative revival, poets once again began using heavy alliteration; that is, the repetition of initial consonant sounds (remember "Caedmon's Hymn"). Here is the first stanza of SGGK from page 222 of your book:

The siege and the assault being ceased at Troy,
The battlements broken down and burnt to brands and ashes,
The treacherous trickster whose treasons there flourished
Was famed for his falsehood, the foulest on earth,
Aeneas the noble and his knightly kin
Then conquered kingdoms, and kept in their hand
Wellnigh all the wealth of the western lands.
Royal Romulus to Rome first turned,
Set up the city in splendid pomp,
Then named her with his own name, which now she still has:
Ticius founded Tuscany, townships raising,
Longbeard in Lombardy lifted up homes,
And far over the French flood Felix Brutus
On many spacious slopes set Britain with joy

        
And grace;
    Where war and feud and wonder

    Have ruled the realm a space,

    And after, bliss and blunder

    By turns have run their race.

Key: alliteration is marked in boldface, the bob is underlined, and the wheel is in italics.

Because this verse is sometimes hard to understand, I'll add that it is about the "lineage" of the Britons as they imagined it and fits them into the history of the classical epic past. Troy, of course fought a war with the Greeks because a Trojan prince had stolen Helen, the wife of the Greek prince Menelaus. When Greece sacked Troy, one Trojan prince, Aeneas, set sail and, after stopping in Carthage in Northern Africa, sailed on to Italy, because it was his destiny to found the Roman empire. A descendant of Aeneas, named Felix Brutus, supposedly accidentally killed his father and had to leave Italy for England (Brutus is the origin of the ethnic identification Briton, as well as of the place name itself, Britain). Note that this founder of Britain is saddled with a heinous crime--not a good start for the new nation!

Structure of SGGK. Here are some guidelines about the structure of SGGK, as well as questions you should be able to answer after you read the poem.:

In Part 1, we find Arthur's court celebrating Christmas, when they are interrupted by a visitor who stops by to play a game. As you read, think about these questions.

1. What exactly is the game?
2. What exactly does the visitor and his horse look like (pay particular attention to all of the colors--what do they remind you of today?)
3. What sort of a king is Arthur? How is he the same or different from the picture of Arthur we get from contemporary film?
4. Given what you know about what lords and thegns are supposed to do based on Beowulf, what's wrong with Arthur's court and his knights?

Part 2 begins with a medieval convention called a reverdie, which is a description of the passage of time through seasonal descriptions. Then Gawain sets out from Camelot to face the challenge he had accepted the previous Christmas.

1. Pay particular attention to the description of Gawains clothing. What do they tell you about him?
2. Think about Gawain's equipment, especially his shield. What is on it? What does it mean?
3. What is the countryside like in Wales, through which Gawain travels before coming to Bercilak's lodge?

Part 3 is easiest to follow with some guidelines about the structure. As we learned from the PowerPoint on the Medieval Renaissance World View, the number "three" is very important as it represented the Trinity. Part 3 of SGGK is divided into three parts, each of which is also subdivided into three parts. After Bercilak invites Gawain to stay until he must go and meet the Green Knight (who lives nearby), Bercilak decides to go hunting and leave Gawain being to rest. Before they go, however, the two men agree that Bercilak will give to Gawain whatever he gets from his hunt, while Gawain agrees to give Bercilak everything he gets. Both men are honor-bound to do this. Part 3 is structured based upon three days of hunting

1. Day 1--Bercilak goes hunting, the scene shifts back to Gawain in bed, then back to the hunt, after which there is an exchange, as agreed.
2. Day 2--Bercilak goes hunting, the scene shifts back to Gawain in bed, then back to the hunt, after which there is an exchange, again as agreed.
3. Day 3--Bercilak goes hunting, the scene shifts back to Gawain in bed, then back to the hunt, after which there is an exchange, not quite as agreed.

Questions to think about in Part 3:

1. How does the difficulty and prey in Bercilak's hunt relate to what happens when Gawain is in bed?
2. What exactly happens while Gawain is in bed? What if he succumbed to the offers he receives while he is there (that is, what would he have to give Bercilak that night)?
3. What do you make of the last exchange? What should Gawain have done? What does he do instead? What would you do?

Part 4, the concluding chapter of SGGK, describes what happens when Gawain meets the Green Knight to fulfill his challenge.

1. What sort of a place is the Green Chapel? (Note that in Celtic folklore, wells, holes, lakes, and caves were all passageways to other worlds and especially likely to result in an encounter with magic and/or the fairy folk.)
2. How does the Green Knight ratchet up the tension on Gawain before the completion of the "game"?
3. Why are there three blows? Why is the result of each one different?
4. How does Gawain come out, in terms of defending the honor of the court (which a good hero of romance should do), by the end of the poem? Did he live up to the symbolic meanings of his shield?

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