English 65B/165B: Arthurian Literature

Week 3, Class 1

  1. Introduction

The distinctive British tradition established by Geoffrey of Monmouth is rooted not in the folk-tale of Welsh tradition nor the romance which will dominate the French corpus but in the format of dynastic chronicle history.

The concept that the kings of Britain were the dynastic heirs to the heroic civilization of Troy, passing from conqueror to conqueror, was the work of three successive authors: Geoffrey, Wace, and Layamon..

II. The Development of the Dynastic Chronicle Legacy

A. Welsh-Breton Oxford cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth, Prophetiae Merlini, Historia regum Britanniae (ca. 1138), Vita Merlini

1. Writes Historia in the clear Latin of 12th century British historians,

the language of "serious" scholarship, freeing it from vernacular constraints of Welsh/Breton provincial culture, presenting it in the universal medium to educated classes of all Europe.

2. Purports to cover the history from the arrival of the founding father Brutus, great-grandson of Aeneas, to the voluntary exile of Cadwallader in AD 689. a. It not only filled the historical lacuna from the ages before the Romans until the Anglo-Saxon domination.

b. It also captured the imagination of the whole Middle Ages.

3. Later, in the mid-thirteenth century Geoffrey’s history was turned to Latin heroic poetry, composed in Brittany: Gesta regum Britanniae, 5000 dactylic hexameters in ten books. History made Epic.

B. Wace of Jersey: training in Caen and Paris.

1. Works: Roman de Brut, 1155, dedicated to Eleanor.

Roman de Rou (Rollo), 1160, for Henry II.

    1. Roman de Brut, first full Arthurian account in vernacular, in Old Norman French, jaunty 15,000 octosyllabic lines. Vivid style. Instant success on both sides of the Channel.
    2. Fashion-conscious but intent on moral significance. While making cuts (e.g., Prophecies of Merlin), adds details, including first reference to the Round Table.
    3. While expanding sometimes and embedding chivalric elements, he basically follows Geoffrey in his depiction of Arthur, but emphasizes conquest on the Continent.
    4. Today’s Handout: Sample of Wace’s writing, from episode of Uther and Igerne’s begetting Arthur. Not the differences and added details.

C. Lawman (La3amon, Layamon) of Arley Regis

1. 16,000 lines in early Middle English alliterative verse, four-stress line

(cf. Old English poems such as Beowulf, Battle of Brunanburg, Maldon). Irony of story presented in the medium of the enemy Anglo-Saxons!

2. Prologue refers to Queen Eleanor, "who was Henry [II]’s queen"; apparently written between 1189 and 1204.

    1. Though basically following Geoffrey, adds some important elements to the tradition. Concentrates poetic talent on struggles against Saxons in Britain.
    2. Handout, p. 2, comparison in Lawman of same Uther episode in Geoffrey and Wace
    3. Selection from Battle of Badon to sample Lawman’s qualities as poet,