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Problems of Aesthetic Versus Historical Criticism in La Mort Le Roi Artu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler*
Affiliation:
Central Michigan College Mt. Pleasant, Mich.
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Extract

The purpose of this paper is to give an example of the manner in which aesthetic criticism may also serve the needs of historical and philological criticism. As an example of procedure, a specific Old French prose romance is to be studied from an aesthetic as well as from an historical point of view. One main question will be raised with regard to each episode of the romance: “What is the purpose of this episode in the context of the narrative?” While the episodes have meaning in themselves, many episodes will acquire additional meaning from their position among the others. Consideration will be given the structure of the romance as a source for the understanding of the entire plot. This method of approach, the derivation of meaning from structure, may be said to follow a principle of aesthetic criticism. If the results obtained by such an approach seem acceptable, the method can be justified on aesthetic grounds. More difficult to settle, however, and the main concern of this inquiry, is the problem of whether or not such a method can lead to the finding of data valuable not only to the aesthetic critic but also to the historian and the philologist.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 65 , Issue 5 , September 1950 , pp. 930 - 943
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1950

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References

1 J. Frappier's Etude sur la Mort le roi Artu (Paris, 1936) will be referred to as Frappier, Etude. La Queste del Saint Graal was edited by A. Pauphilet (Paris, 1923). The same author's Etudes sur la Queste del Saint Graal (Paris, 1921) will be quoted as Pauphilet, Etudes. Vulgate versions, ed. H. O. Sommer (Washington, 1908–16), i-vIIi. Frappier's conclusions as to authorship of the Mort (Etude, p. 146) are here accepted.

2 Far fetched, to modern thinking, this interference of the pope is closer to the conditions of the early 13th century, the interdict pronounced because of Philip Augustus' refusal to take back his lawful wife Ingeborg in 1200, the two excommunications of Frederick II, the German Emperor (1227, 1239), the interdict in England from 1208–14, the excommunication of Otto IV in 1210 (C. M. H, vi, 89,102, 233–235, 288,314). As for the interdict in England and the excommunication of King John, see also Chronica Monasterii de Melsa, ed. E. A. Bond (London, 1866), i, 342 f. Melsa is Meauxin England (in Holderness, east of Beverly). Should this Melsa have any bearing on Meaux in France where Arthur received the news of the Roman invasion (p. 180)? The Chronica written by abbot Thomas Burton shows interest in Celtic legends such as the entry into St. Patrick's purgatory by the knight Owen (pp. 138–149), where Owen is received in an Earthly Paradise by two archbishops, in a scene the tone of which is not too distant from Lancelot's reception by the arcevesgues de Cantorbieres and a friend in the ermitage (Mori, p. 233).

3 Morgain seems to have the features of a foster-mother and of a jealous mistress in her relationship with Lancelot. She is very much like La Dame du Lac, the foster-mother of Lancelot in Prose Lancelot (Sommer, iii, 118), and when she succeeds in imprisoning him, she says this is her revenge because he rebuffed her (Sommer, v, 215–218). Cf. R. S. Loomis, “Morgain La Fee and the Celtic Goddesses”, Speculum, xx (1945), 189, and Helaine Newstead, “The Traditional Background of Partonopeus de Blois”, PMLA, lxi (1946), 936–937. For another story of Lancelot's imprisonment by Morgain see Sommer, iv, 123–128.

4 M. M. Davy, Les Sermones universitaires parisiens (Paris, 1931), pp. 82–88.

5 Le Thomisme (Paris, 1945).

6 Speculum, xvn (1942), 11 and passim.

7 Mediasval Studies, vi (1944), 1 ff.

8 St. Augustine's philosophy is the basis for Neoplatonic Augustinianism ever since St. Anselm. The Augustinianism of the 12th and 13th centuries is, however, “l'augustinisme vulgaire … conglomérat de tous les platonismes alors connus, rassemblés autour du platonisme augustinien” (Gilson, Le Thomisme, p. 73).

9 This figuralism is not allegorization. The figures are not abstractions made up to teach a lesson, but they do not really exist apart from their signefiances because the mode of thought of Neoplatonic Augustinianism has never solved the problem of positive existences made by, but distinct from God. The relevant studies of Leo Spitzer are too numerous to be quoted here for this purpose. See also Erich Auerbach's contributions in Archiwm Roma-nicum, xxn (1938),436ff.,in Speed, xxi (1946), 474 ff., in Mimesis (Bern, 1946), and recently in “The Concept of Préfiguration in certain Mediœval Texts”, a paper read before the MLA in Detroit, 1947.

10 St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles, II, 45, Summa Tkeol., 1,47,1; Gilson, op. cit., p. 216; Sum-ma Theol., i, 65; Gilson, p. 248.

11 Contra Gentiles, 1,14; Gilson, p. 514.

12 “Non enim hoc est [distinct action of created things or persons] ex insuffkientia divine virtutis, sed ex immensitate bonitatis ipsius per quam suam similitudinem rebus communicasse vult, non solum quantum ad hoc quod essent, sed etiam quantum ad hoc quod aliorum causa essent” (Contra Gentiles, in, 701; Gilson, pp. 255–262; italics are mine).

13 Contra Gentiles, in, 69; Gilson, ibid. Frappier, Etude, p. 260, notes 2 and 3. About Chance and Divine Planning since Albertus Magnus, cf. V. Cioffari, Fortune and Fate from Democritus to St. Thomas Aquinas (New York, 1935), pp. 92–118, and Sister M. Julienne Junkersfeld, The Aristotelian-Thomislic Concept of Chance (Dept. of Philosophy, Notre Dame, Ind., 1945), pp. 64–73, especially p. 64: “When chance events are reduced to the proximate cause [the created individual's own, proper action], this cause is called chance. However,… when they are reduced to the ultimate and First Cause, it is not proper to retain the name chance.”

14 An example for application of this distinction to the problems of the common man will be given below. The terms écorce, moelle are used because they have practically become technical terms. See Leo Spitzer, R, LXLX (1946), 80 ff.

15 Cf. M. M. Davy, Les sermons universitaires parisiens de 1230–31 (Paris, 1931), pp. 82–88.

16 The condemnations of the teaching of Aristotelian Latin Averroists in 1270 and 1277, about which cf. G. Paré, Le Roman de la rose et la scolaslique courtoise (Paris-Ottawa, 1941), pp. 12–16. The beginnings of Aristotelian thinking in distinctions date back to the 12th century. Abátardis, perhaps the most significant of the early Aristotelians, in his Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, states that the intention of Divine Scripture is to teach in the manner of a rhetorical speech, i.e., by the clarifications of meanings and the removal of ambiguities—an emphasis on the real existence of distinctions. See PL,CLXXvIIi, 783–784, and R. McKeon, Speculum, xvII (1942), 20. For general reference, see also R. McKeon, “Aristotelianism in Western Christianity”, in Environmental Factors in Christian History (Chicago, 1939), pp. 206–231.

17 CMH, vi, 630. Cf. St. Thomas, Opera omnia (Parma, 1852–73), xvi, iv, 2, 3.

18 De Potentia, in, 5. Summa Theol., I, 65. Contra Gentiles, II, 6, and 15. Gilson, pp. 266, 277. Since the body has its own respectable laws, the insistence on bodily states (discussed above) would seem less surprising.

19 Gilson, p. 247, n. 3.

20 Davy, op. cit., p. 97.

21 In view of the fact that some of St. Thomas' later formulations are used here to clarify some of the positions dimly felt in the Mort, it must be insisted that luxure is clearly condemned (De Malo, 9. 15, art. 4; Summa Theol., ma nee, 53, 6) since it is the archenemy of prudence; so is, of course, adultery (Contra Gentiles, m, 124). Cf. Gilson, pp. 392, 399. Unnecessary as such note should seem with reference to St. Thomas, it seems needed because his closeness to Latin Averroism may be easily mistaken as if he had endorsed its teachings.

22 Summa Theol., ia, IIœ, 27,1. Gilson, p. 382.

23 See R. S. Loomis and L. H. Loomis, Arthurian Legends in Mediaval Art (New York, 1938), pp. 16–17, where Sommer, v,216 ff.,is related to Thomas, Tristan, ed. Bédier, i,309, n. 1. In the Mort (p. 51), Lancelot is the painter of the wall pictures shown to Artus by Morgain.

24 Summa Theol., ia, iia, 27, 2. Gilson, ibid.

25 Frappier, Etude, p. 203.

26 Mordret's incestuous birth was thought an invention of the author of the Mort to make the finale more dramatic. Cf. J. D. Bruce's Evolution of Arthurian Romance, I, 441, n. 214, and “Mordred's Incestuous Birth”, in Mediaeval Studies in Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis (New York, 1927), pp. 197 ff.; and also Frappier (Etude, p. 203), who thinks that the reference to Mordret's birth in Agravain (Sommer, v, 284–285) stems from the Mort, the Quesle having no allusion to the trait. The Mordret tradition is obscure (cf. E. Brugger, ZRP, LXIII [1943], 298). For the rôle of Artus in the Mort seet R. S. Loomis, Arthurian Tradition and Chriétien de Troyes (New York, 1949), pp. 198–199; “La Mort Artu presented him [Artus] in the role of a tragic hero, the victim of inexorable doom, brought about by his incestuous begetting of Mordred. …”

27 Gilson, p. 426.

28 In Dante's Inferno, Mordret occupies the lowest range, in the midst of the ice of Cain : “Quelli a cui fu rotto il petto e l'ombra con esso ul colpo per la man d'Artu” (Inferno, xxxn, 61–62). H. Hauvette in La France el la Provence dans l‘œuvre de Dante (Paris, 1929), p. 152, says: “La plaie demeurée béante laisse passer un rayon du soleil, qu'un témoin vit… sur le sol, au milieu de l'ombre du corps.” Thus, Dante becomes an interpreter of Artus’ world: sunlight and utter darkness. See also Frappier, Etude, pp. 252–253.

29 Mort, pp. 225–226. For the tradition, see especially Layamon's Brut, ed. F. Madden (London, 1847), in, vss. 28600–641, and Frappier, Etude, pp. 177–183.

30 Cf. F. Lot, Etude, Chap, iii, Du Procédé chronologique (mainly about the Lancelot propre). For chronology in the Charrette episode of the Lancelot propre, cf. J. J. Tan-querey, Medium JEmm, xii (1943), 1–17. For the Mort, however, the chronology is vaguer (cf. Lot, op. cit., p. 63, Frappier, Etude, pp. 351–360).

31 About the Latin topic, see E. R. Curtius, “Zur Literaturasthetik des Mittelalters”, ZRP, Lviii (1938), 143–151, 172–180, and also his Evropaische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter (Berne, 1948), pp. 106–113.

32 Aristotle, De Generalione el Corruptione, ii, x (336 b. 1), and St. Thomas' Commentary to Aristotle's De Generalione el Corruptione, x, x, 4 and xi, xi, S. Even the human seed putrefies in the womb. Cf. Aristotle's History of Animals, vii, iii. We know about a translation of De Generalione et Corruptione from Greek into Latin (before 1162), and about Gerard of Gremona's translation of the treatise from the Arabs (before 1187). Cf. J. de Ghellinck, L'Essor de la littérature latine au XII' siècle (Brussels-Paris, 1946), n, 24, 26, and for bibliography to Aristotelian tradition, n, IS, n. 3. See the often used figura of vermis (for Christ) born from the Earth, out of putridity, in Alanus de Insulis, Distinctiones Dictionum Tkeologicalium in PL, ccx, 997. Isaiah, 45:8, interpreted by Haymo, PL, cxvi, 944 and by Herveus, PL, CLXXXI, 431. For a comprehensive treatment, see J. E. Hankins, “Hamlet's ‘god kissing carrion’: A Theory of the Generation of Life”, PMLA, LXTV (1949), 507–516.

33 Frappier, Etude, pp. 258–288.

34 W. S. Heckscher, Die Romruinen (Wtirzburg, 1936), pp. 33 ff., and the same, “Relics of Pagan Antiquity in Mediaeval Settings”, Journal of the Warburg Institute, i (193738), 204–220. For Ruins in the Palace of Fortune, see Alain de Lille's Anticlaudianus, PL, ccx, col. 557–560 (viii, i), and H. R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1927), pp. 126 ff.

35 R. S. Loomis, “From Segontium to Sinadon—the Legends of a Cité Gaste”, Speculum, XXII (1947), 520–533 (p. 532). In view of the fact that one of the important examples given by Loomis from Renaud de Beaujeu's Bel Inconneu is also connected with the disenchantment of a princess who had been transformed into a wyvern, one might ask if the Ugly Damsel theme is related with the theme of New Life out of Ruins.

36 Journal of the Warburg Institute, I (1937–38), 216.