The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (76 page)

I do not intend to go through
Morte Darthur
in any detail. Not only is it readily available in several editions, but I have already discussed the story-lines in the preceding chapters. I
would, however, like to highlight Malory’s sources and such changes as he made to establish the Arthurian story as we now know it, and this is set out in the following chart. I’ve used
for this the version from the Winchester Manuscript, as published in the edition called
Complete Works
(OUP, 1971), as this shows the original sequence of books.

As this analysis shows, the only story that Malory created was “The Healing of Sir Urry”, a self-contained episode of a Hungarian knight who, after killing his
opponent, is sorely wounded in a joust. The opponent’s mother, a sorceress, curses Urry that he shall wander the world, never to be healed other than by the best knight in the world. Urry is
carried everywhere in a litter by his mother and sister for seven years, until at last they reach
Arthur’s court. All the knights try to cure Urry and fail, but when
Lancelot returns from his adventures he succeeds. In this episode, coming after the Grail Quest when Lancelot has failed as the purest knight, Malory has restored Lancelot to a state of grace.
Clearly Lancelot was too important to him to have him become a lesser knight. Perhaps Malory saw himself as Urry, restored to favour years before by Sir Anthony Wydville (Lancelot) after his seven
years in prison.

Although Arthur’s world looked as if it was collapsing beyond Malory’s prison walls, Malory could at least show that an individual might be redeemed. Throughout
Morte Darthur
there is a constant fluctuation between triumph and tragedy, a rise to glory followed by a fall from grace. Worldly fortunes may be won and lost but what is more important is spiritual fortune.
Lancelot, the real hero of
Morte Darthur
, has to be redeemed even if all else fails. Lancelot is the conscience of the world that runs throughout
Morte Darthur
, and with the story of
Urry, Malory was able to restore hope for the future.

20

THE VICTORIAN REVIVAL

For nearly four hundred years after Malory the Arthurian romance went into decline. With Malory’s magnificent achievement now available in printed form, what more was
there to do? The chivalric romance in general was steadily going out of fashion. There would be a few more great works, some of which drew upon Arthurian characters or motifs, such as
Montalvo’s
Amadis of Gaul
(1508) and Ariosto’s
Orlando Furioso
(1516), but these are of marginal Arthurian interest, the last salvos in a war long won. Edmund Spenser
would use a quasi-Arthurian world to epitomise the Elizabethan world of chivalry in his
Faerie Queen
(1590), but despite Arthur and Merlin being the main framing characters, and the mood
being brilliantly evocative of the romances of old, it is clearly one step removed and not really an Arthurian work. Ironically, the character of Artegall may be based on Arthur of the Pennines,
although Spenser would not have known that (
see
Chapter 23). Miguel de Cervantes so mercilessly, yet brilliantly, parodied the chivalric romance in
Don Quixote
(1605) that it sounded
the death knell of the genre, which would not re-emerge until the time of Tennyson and the blossoming of the Victorian Pre-Raphaelite movement.

There follows a selective annotated checklist of those few works of interest in the period 1500–1800, during which time interest shifted to theatrical works, with John Dryden writing the
first Arthurian opera. Few of these works have any relevance to the medieval romances, but instead hark back to a loose interpretation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
History
. Anyone wishing
more detail on this period of Arthurian literature should consult
The Flower of Kings
by James Douglas Merriman (University Press of Kansas, 1973).

1. Original Arthurian works, 1500–1800

This list is in chronological order, and includes only new works (not translations or reworkings) which deal wholly with the Arthurian world.

Arthur of Little Britain
(London,
c
1530s). A translation by Sir John Bourchier [Lord Berners] of the French story
Artus de la Petite Bretagne
, which dates
from the late fifteenth century. The eponymous Artus is not King Arthur, but the son of the duke of Brittany who, inspired by his namesake, undertakes a series of quests to break the enchantment on
a castle and win the hand of the fair damsel Florence. Probably the earliest example of an Arthur-inspired fantasy.

I Due Tristani
(“The Two Tristans”), anon. (Venice, 1555). This romance is in two parts. The first repeats the Tristan and Iseult story, but the second deals
with their two children, also called Tristan and Iseult. After the lovers’ deaths, young Tristan is welcomed by Mark (who believes him to be the son of Tristan’s wife Iseult of the
White Hands) and becomes king of Cornwall. He is welcomed by Arthur into the Round Table and suffers the unwelcome advances of Guenevere.

The Misfortunes of Arthur,
Thomas Hughes and others (London, 1587). The earliest known Arthurian play, it was first performed before Elizabeth I at Greenwich on 28
February 1587. It follows Geoffrey of Monmouth’s basic story of Arthur, but with Mordred as the son of Arthur and his sister Anne. Amongst Hughes’s various collaborators was Francis
Bacon. The play can be found on the internet at < www.lib.rochester.ed/camelot/hughes.htm > The most recent printing is edited by Brian Jay Corrigan (Garland, 1992).

The History of Tom Thumb,
R.J. (usually treated as Richard Johnson) (London, 1621). One of the earliest English fairytales, not overly Arthurian but set in the time of
King Arthur, which was obviously regarded in the seventeenth century as the “good old days”. Merlin helps a barren couple have a child, the dwarf
Tom Thumb, who
becomes an adventurer at Arthur’s court. Available in many sources, including
The Classic Fairy Tales
, edited by Iona and Peter Opie (OUP, 1974). Henry Fielding freely adapted this for
his play
Tom Thumb, a Tragedy
(London, 1730).

The Birth of Merlin,
attributed to William Rowley (London, 1662). First performed in 1622, this play was posthumously published as a collaboration with William
Shakespeare, but it is now believed that Rowley’s collaborator was probably Thomas Dekker, though it was written as a sequel to
Hengist, King of Kent
(1615, also known as
The Mayor
of Queensborough
), by Thomas Middleton. A motley jamboree-bag of a play about Merlin’s role in the defence of Britain against the Saxons, more humour than history. Merlin’s mother
is called Joan Goe-Too’t, and there’s a courtier called Sir Nichodemus Nothing. The play was adapted with new material by R.J. Stewart, Roy Hudd and Denise Coffey, available as
The
Birth of Merlin
(Element, 1989), whilst the original is on the internet at < www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/rowley.htm >

King Arthur, or the British Worthy,
John Dryden (London, 1691). A dramatic opera with music by Henry Purcell. An original work with only passing obligation to earlier
sources, it has been described as more of a fairy extravaganza. Arthur and the Saxon chieftain Oswald battle against each other and against various perils to both win control of Britain and the
hand of Emmeline, daughter of the duke of Cornwall. There are some imaginative scenes of sorcery including the summoning, by the Saxon magician Osmond, of an ice demon, the “Cold
Genius”, who can only be thawed by love. It was the most popular of Dryden’s plays in his day. The latest printing is in
The Works of John Dryden
, edited by Vinton A. Dearing
(University of California Press, 1997).

Prince Arthur
(London, 1695) and
King Arthur
(London, 1697), Richard Blackmore. Two heroic verse poems intended to produce a national epic and written to celebrate
William of Orange’s victory over the Catholic James II in 1689. The first part draws parallels between William (Arthur) and James II (the Saxon Octa). As in Dryden’s opera, they fight
for the hand of the Princess Ethelina (Queen Mary, a symbol of England). The
second book equates Arthur’s battle against King Clotar with the British rivalry with Louis
XIV. Blackmore, who was a moderately better doctor than a poet, received a knighthood for his efforts, but his works, considered too long-winded by most, faded into obscurity.
Prince Arthur
was reprinted by Scolar Press, 1971. Both poems are on the internet at < www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/blakpa1.htm > and < www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/blakka1.htm >

Merlin, or The Devil of Stonehenge,
Lewis Theobald (London, 1734). A comic operetta with music by John Galliard. The first Arthurian Christmas pantomime, full of effects
and melodrama and depicting Merlin as the villain.

Merlin in Love,
Aaron Hill (London, 1760). Scarcely Arthurian, but an interesting depiction of Merlin as an old wizard with a long beard, dressed in a robe and wielding a
magic wand, perhaps the earliest portrayal of what became a standard image. Apart from Merlin it has no Arthurian connections. Merlin tries to steal Columbine from Harlequin, and is turned into an
ass. Described as a “pantomime opera”, it was probably written as early as 1740, as Hill died in 1750.

Arthur, or the Northern Enchantment,
Richard Hole (London, 1789). A verse romance which takes many liberties with Geoffrey’s
History
. It follows the conflict
between Arthur and Hengist, and is influenced by Dryden’s play. The same applies to the gothic play
The Fairy of the Lake
, by John Thelwall (London, 1801).

Vortigern,
William Henry Ireland (London, 1795). Passed off by Ireland as a newly discovered play by Shakespeare. It follows Vortigern’s life as described by
Geoffrey of Monmouth. It was staged at Drury Lane on 2 April 1796, but had such a foul reception that it closed after one performance. The play may be found on the website <
www.vortigernstudies.org.uk >

2. Dawn of the Romantics

After Malory’s
Morte Darthur
, the best-known Arthurian work is Alfred Tennyson’s
Idylls of the King
, which catapulted the Arthurian story back into
public consciousness and inspired the Victorian romantic fascination with the subject.

There were signs of a revival before Tennyson, the interest growing out of the late eighteenth century gothic revival from Germany. Tales by authors such as Ludwig Tieck
and Baron de la Motte Fouqué, about brooding haunted castles and doomed knights, became all the rage. These works were not Arthurian, although it would not have taken much to make them so; a
good example is Fouqué’s long supernatural fantasy of the Crusades,
Der Zauberring
(“The Magic Ring”, 1813). Their predecessor Christoph Wieland had started this
movement, and amongst his works are
Merlin der Zauberer
(“Merlin the Magician”, 1777) and
Geron der Adelige
(“The Noble Geron”, 1777), the latter a blank verse
adaptation of
Guiron le Courtois
(see
Palamedes
, page 377–8).

Walter Scott was fascinated by German romanticism, and mimicked it so well that some of his anonymously published works were believed to be translations from the German. He spent time editing a
new edition of
Sir Tristrem
(Edinburgh, 1804), based on a thirteenth century work attributed to Thomas of Ercildoune. He incorporated an Arthurian story, “Lyulph’s Tale”,
into his episodic verse romance
The Bridal of Triermain
(Edinburgh, 1813), which tells of Arthur’s seduction by the witch Guendolen, who swears revenge when Arthur leaves her. Years
later their daughter Gyneth arrives at Camelot, and reminds Arthur of his pledge that, should he have a daughter, she would marry the bravest of the Round Table knights. A tournament is declared
which Gyneth turns into a bloodbath, until Merlin stops it and places Gyneth in a deep slumber in an enchanted castle. The next tale, “Sir Roland de Vaux”, is set in the twelfth century
with the eponymous knight in search of the enchanted castle. He wakes Gyneth, à la Sleeping Beauty. The story is available on several websites including <
www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/trierma.htm >