Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 02

by Unknown

Whether the Arthurian legends as a whole have found their final and adequate expression in Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King,' or whether it was already too late, when the Laureate wrote, to create from primitive ideas so simple a poem of the first rank, is not within the province of this essay to discuss. But manifestly, any final judgment in regard to the treatment of this theme as a whole, or any phase of the theme, is inadequate which leaves out of consideration the history of the subject-matter, and its treatment by other poets; which, in short, ignores its possibilities and its significance. With respect to the origin and the early history of the Arthurian legend, much remains to be established. Whether its original home was in Wales, or among the neighboring Celts across the sea in Brittany, whither many of the Celts of Britain fled after the Anglo-Saxon invasion of their island home, no one knows. But to some extent, at least, the legend was common to both sides of the Channel when Geoffrey wrote his book, about 1145. As a matter of course, this King Arthur, the ideal hero of later ages, was a less commanding personage in the early forms of the legend than when it had acquired its splendid distinction by borrowing and assimilating other mythical tales.

It appears that five great cycles of legend,--(1) the Arthur, Guinevere, and Merlin cycle, (2) the Round Table cycle, (3) the Holy Grail cycle, (4) the Launcelot cycle, (5) the Tristan cycle,--which at first developed independently, were, in the latter half of the twelfth century, merged together into a body of legend whose bond of unity was the idealized Celtic hero, King Arthur.

This blameless knight, whose transfigured memory has been thus transmitted to us, was probably a leader of the Celtic tribes of England in their struggles with the Saxon invaders. His victory at Mount Badon, described by Sir Launcelot to the household at Astolat,--

"Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke
The pagan yet once more on Badon Hill,"--

this victory is mentioned by Gildas, who wrote in the sixth century. Gildas, however, though he mentions the occasion, does not give the name of the leader. But Nennius, who wrote in the latter part of the eighth century, or early in the ninth, makes Arthur the chieftain, and adds an account of his great personal prowess. Thus the Arthur legend has already begun to grow. For the desperate struggle with the Saxons was vain. As the highly gifted, imaginative Celt saw his people overwhelmed by the kinsmen of the conquerors of Rome, he found solace in song for the hard facts of life. In the fields of imagination he won the victories denied him on the field of battle, and he clustered these triumphs against the enemies of his race about the name and the person of the magnanimous Arthur. When the descendants of the Saxons were in their turn overcome by Norman conquerors, the heart of the Celtic world was profoundly stirred. Ancient memories awoke, and, yearning for the restoration of British greatness, men rehearsed the deeds of him who had been king, and of whom it was prophesied that he should be king hereafter. At this moment of newly awakened hope, Geoffrey's 'Historia' appeared. His book was not in reality a history. Possibly it was not even very largely founded on existing legends. But in any case the chronicle of Geoffrey was a work of genius and of imagination. "The figure of Arthur," says Ten Brink, "now stood forth in brilliant light, a chivalrous king and hero, endowed and guarded by supernatural powers, surrounded by brave warriors and a splendid court, a man of marvelous life and a tragic death."

Geoffrey's book was immediately translated into French by Robert Wace, who incorporated with the legend of Arthur the Round Table legend. In his 'Brut,' the English poet-priest Layamon reproduced this feature of the legend with additional details. His chronicle is largely a free translation of the 'Brut d'Engleterre' of Wace, earlier known as 'Geste des Bretons.' Thus as Wace had reproduced Geoffrey with additions and modifications, Layamon reproduced Wace. So the story grew. In the mean time, other poets in other lands had taken up the theme, connecting with it other cycles of legend already in existence. In 1205, when Layamon wrote his 'Brut,' unnumbered versions of the history of King Arthur, with which had been woven the legend of the Holy Grail, had already appeared among the principal nations of Europe. Of the early Arthurian poets, two of the more illustrious and important are Chrestien de Troyes, in France, of highest poetic repute, who opened the way for Tennyson, and Wolfram von Eschenbach, in Germany, with his 'Parzival,' later the theme of Wagner's greatest opera. The names of Robert de Borron in France, Walter Map in England, and Heinrich von dem Türlin in Germany, may also be mentioned.

In divers lands, innumerable poets with diverse tastes set themselves to make new versions of the legend. Characteristics of the Arthurian tale were grafted upon an entirely different stock, as was done by Boiardo in Italy, making confusion worse confounded to the modern Arthurian scholar. Boiardo expressly says in the 'Orlando Innamorato' that his intention is to graft the characteristics of the Arthurian cycle upon the Carlovingian French national epic stock. He wished to please the courts, whose ideal was not the paladins, but Arthur's knights. The "peers" of the Charlemagne legend are thus transformed into knights-errant, who fight for ladies and for honor. The result of this interpenetration of the two cycles is a splendid world of love and cortesia, whose constituent elements it defies the Arthurian scholar to trace. Truly, as Dr. Sommer has said in his erudite edition of Malory's 'La Morte d'Arthur.' "The origin and relationship to one another of these branches of romance, whether in prose or in verse, are involved in great obscurity." He adds that it would almost seem as though several generations of scholars were required for the gigantic task of finding a sure pathway through this intricate maze. And M. Gaston Paris, one of the foremost of living Arthurian scholars, has written in his 'Romania': "Some time ago I undertook a methodical exploration in the grand poetical domain which is called the cycle of the Round Table, the cycle of Arthur, or the Breton cycle. I advance, groping along, and very often retracing my steps twenty times over, I become aware that I am lost in a pathless maze."