Origin and Function of Lancelots Anonymity

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The South Central Modern Language ssociation

The Origin and Function of Lancelot's Anonymity in Chrétien's "Le Chevalier de laCharrette"Author(s): Ernst Soudek

Source: The South Central Bulletin, Vol. 30, No. 4, Studies by Members of SCMLA (Winter,1970), pp. 220-223Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of The South Central ModernLanguage AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3187999Accessed: 07-04-2016 13:21 UTC

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220 STUDES BY MEMBERS OF SCMLAWNTER 1970

blanc," d'importance minime, et dont le contenu est, quant

a lui, presque insignifiant. Chaque personnage lui avait

pourtant attribu6 des qualit6s diff6rentes, 6ph6me'res.

Le mouvement de description achev6, les personnages

s'effacent d'eux-mgmes. Le temps qui s'6tait fait et d6fait

semble avoir retrouv6 sa temporalit6. L'auteur apparailt

et jette un regard circulaire sur cette chambre, cette

maison, cette ville qu'il a cr66es, et sa vue se brouille a

vouloir en pr6ciser les contours. Il n'a pas transcrit un

monde, il en a cre6 un, tout comme il a cr66 une r6alit6,

"une r6alit6 mat6rielle ne pr6tendant a aucune valeur

all6gorique." A la demibre ligne du r6cit, il laisse derriere

lui la ville tout entibre. II disparalit. La ville reste. L'artiste

ne cree donc pas en vain.

L'influence de Kafka, comme celle de Sartre, sur Alain

Robbe-Grillet est ind6niable. Sa "vision," cependant,

semble etre un h6ritage direct du Cubisme. Dans le nou-

veau roman comme dans 1' "6cole" cubiste, I'int6r&t glisse

imperceptiblement de la chose d(crite ou repr6sent6e au

mouvement meme de description ou de repr6sentation.

Nous avons finalement accept6 en peinture l'id6e d'un

monde aux qualit6s spatiales multiples: notre point de vue

varie si nous consid6rons les choses de pres, de loin, en

motion ou immobiles, d'un seul coup d'oeil, ou successive-

ment, sur plusieurs plans. En litt6rature comme dans les

arts plastiques, nous voyons maintenant un effort de nar-

ration directe de l'experience immediate-en train de se

faire-une exaltation temporaire du mouvement de per-

ception, fragment de temps d6mesur6ment magnifi6.

Tout comme le peintre moderne, le nouveau-romancier

cherche moins a 6tre compris qu'a 'tre sincere vis-a-vis de

lui-mbme. L'image qu'il nous pr'sente n'est pas absolument

"vraie": elle est conforme " ce qu'il voit, a ce que son

h6ros voit dans certaines conditions, sous Yemprise de

certaines 6motions.

Rejetant I'6tiquette de Chosiste, Robbe-Grillet insiste

sur raspect humaniste de sa m6thode: les choses ne sont

rien d'autre que des choses. "Le regard apparait aussit6t

comme le sens privil6gi, . . . et demeure notre meilleure

arme.

C'est donc grace au d6tachement voulu de ce regard,

et a cette description optique d6lib6r6ment d6pouill6e de

toute sympathie envers les objets que rhomme se libere

de la fascination presque malsaine qu'il 6prouvait pour

eux. Robbe-Grillet atteint presque cette impersonnalit6 sur-

humaine dont revait Flaubert. Il n'est plus permis d'en

douter, la vieille ambition de l'auteur de Madame Bovary,

"bAtir quelque chose 'a partir de rien, qui tienne debout

tout seul sans avoir a s'appuyer sur quoi que ce soit

d'ext6rieur rl'oeuvre" est devenue la raison d'6tre du

nouveau roman

5Ibid., p. 65.

THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF

LANCELOT'S ANONYMITY IN CHRETIEN'S

"LE CHEVALIER DE LA CHARRETTE"

ERNST SOUDEJc

Rice University

The original Lancelot tradition, probably best repre-

sented by Ulrich von Zatzikhoven in Lanzelet, knew the

hero as a conventional knight who married a number of

times and who, in general, was a rather jolly fellow.' It

seems to have been the single doing of Chr6tien de

Troyes to transform this ordinary Arthurian knight into a

hero endowed with all the virtues of twelfth-century gen-

tle breeding. His various traits are developed throughout

Le Chevalier de la Charrette, but it is only at the end of

the romance that the reader has accumulated a complete

picture of their extent. What prompts his curiosity in

the early parts of the romance is not Lancelot's unswerv-

ing devotion to GueniBvre or his superb physical courage

but the fact that the hero is consistently shrouded in a

mysterious anonymity, an anonymity that develops along

two different tangents. Primarily, it is the poet who per-

sistently refuses to call the hero by his proper name. Thus

he introduces Lancelot into the action of the Charrette

simply as "un chevalier" (vs. 271) and, after the hero's

ride on the odious cart, adorns him with the derogatory

epithet "le chevalier de la charrette" (vs. 867).2 Along

the other tangent, it is Lancelot himself who consistently

veils his identity throughout his search for Guenibvre. Thus

the chdtelaine of the famous temptation scene (vss. 973

'Concerning the fixed elements in the Lancelot tradi-

tion at about 1170 (that is, before the composition of the

Charrette), see pp. 11-12 of Professor Loomis's "Introduc-

tion" to K. G. T. Webster's translation of Lanzelet (New

York, 1951), or Wendelin Foerster's edition of the Charr-

ette ("Der Karrenritter"), (Halle, 1899), p. lxvii. Ulrich

von Zatzikhoven composed his work around 1194, nearly

twenty years after the completion of the Charrette, but

his poem is based on a much older Anglo-Norman romance

about Lancelot (cf. Ulrich's own statements near the end

of his poem, vss. 9338 ff, or Werner Richter, Der Lanzelet

des Ulrich von Zatzikhoven [Frankfurt am Main, 1934],

pp. 12-16 .

2All quotations from Le Chevalier de la Charrette are

from Mario Roques' edition in "Les romans de Chr6tien

de Troyes" (Paris, 1958).



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WNTER 1970 STUDES BY MEMBERS OF SCMLA221

ff) deems it necessary to send a damsel after the courteous

knight in order to discover his identity. The girl soon

finds out that this is a vain effort. After she has been in

the hero's company for a while, she dares to ask outrightly

for his name whereupon he angrily rebuffs her:

"Foi que doi Deu et sa vertu,

de mon non ne savroiz vos point." (2006-2007)

The people of Logres, Artus' (Arthur's) subjects, who are

held captives in Goirre and whom Lancelot intends to

liberate, give the knight a hearty welcome but they, too,

are unable to deprive him of his incognito. Consequently,

he is introduced amongst them as the one

"qui nos gitera toz d'essil

et de la grant maleiirt6 .. " (2414-2415)

When a proud challenger wants to know the hero's name,

Lancelot replies only that he is the man "qui vuel passer

au Pont" (vs. 2588).

The recurrence of such episodes must have aroused in

Chr6tien's audience great eagerness to finally hear the

hero's name. However, the magic moment does not arrive

until the climactic battle between Lancelot and the queen's

abductor Meliagant, at the point where suspense is at its

highest peak.3 Fittingly, his name is revealed by Guenibvre

who instinctively recognizes her redeemer:

"Lanceloz del Lac a a non

Li chevaliers, mein esciant." (3660-3661)

The damsel who asked the knight's name from the queen

in order to revive his sagging fighting spirit, immediately

shouts it across the dueling arena:

"Lancelot

Trestorne toi et si esgarde

qui est qui de toi se prant garde " (3666-3668)

With this the hero's identity is publicly revealed. Lancelot,

upon hearing his name shouted in public and upon recog-

nizing the queen in the audience, easily overcomes his

opponent and redeems his honor.4

Chr6tien's primary reason for creating this intricate

scheme of secrecy around his hero's identity is at once

clear: it is simply to increase the suspense of his audience.

This suspense reaches its highest point during the battle

between Lancelot and Meliagant. After the revelation of

the name there cannot be any doubt about the eventual

outcome of the duel. Once it is over, Chr6tien skillfully

retards the pace of his narrative and only gradually leads

it toward a new climax, the final duel between the an-

tagonists (vss. 7005 ff).

Another reason for Chr6tien's use of the motif of hero-

anonymity may be suggested by Zatzikhoven's biographi-

cal Lanzelet. In this work, the hero enters into knightly

life unaware of his identity. The water fay who fostered

him refuses to tell him his name because of the "schamen

unt manecvalt n6t" which a mighty knight named Iweret

inflicted upon her.5 By refusing the young hero his name,

the water fay purposely baits him into a duel with Iweret

who is "der beste ritter der ie wart"-the best knight who

ever existed.6 When Lanzelet overcomes this knight, her

distress is over and she immediately sends a messenger to

the hero with the information of his name and lineage.

Thus the revelation of the name coincides with the hero's

elevation to the pinnacle of knighthood.

It is possible that Chr6tien was fond of this episode in

the life of the archetypal Lancelot. Assuming his audi-

ence's familiarity with a traditional material, he may have

wanted to incorporate the latter into his romance in a

slightly modified manner, thereby attaching great sym-

bolical significance to the first battle between Lancelot

and Meliagant. In the Charrette, Lancelot establishes him-

self as the supreme knight of the Round Table, but this

fact does not become apparent until Gauvain, the man

who in Erec is listed in first place amongst all of Artus'

knights, fails to cross the perilous water-bridge while Lan-

celot succeeds in the comparable, though more dangerous,

task of crossing the sword-bridge. Consequently, it is

possible, and even probable, that Chr6tien, in an age

when literature abounded in symbols and proleptic de-

vices, intended the revelation of the hero's identity at the

height of the battle with Meliagant, that is, long before

Gauvain's misfortune at the water-bridge becomes known,

as a subtle hint that Lancelot was about to become the

best of all knights.

A third reason for Chr6tien's prolonged interest in

veiling his hero's identity may have been his desire to

stress an essential feature of amour courtois, the ideal of

love that dominates the Charrette. Throughout the ro-

mance it becomes quite clear that Lancelot's single pur-

pose in life is to love and serve Guenievre. The queen is

the sole object of his thoughts and actions. By withhold-

ing the hero's name until the duel in front of her eyes, the

poet apparently wanted to stress the fact that Lancelot

could not exist as an entity unless he was in the presence

of Gueni4vre. Such reasoning seems entirely in line with

the ideals of the time which attributed to women a cen-

tral position in the nobility's striving toward spiritual and

physical perfection.

So far the attempt has been made to find an explana-

tion for Chr6tien's desire to veil his hero in anonymity.

In regard to Lancelot's own desire to perform his deeds

unrecognized, an explanation may be found if we turn

towards the Prose Lancelot, one of the huge biographical

romances that were written during the early thirteenth

century.7 This all-encompassing work contains a prose

version of Chr6tien's Charrette which is skillfully lodged

among a number of other aventures.8 Throughout the

3Although Meliagant's identity is revealed before the

duel, he, too, is veiled in anonymity throughout the early

parts of the romance. The anonymous challenger at Artus'

court, a stock motif in Arthurian literature, represents the

real-world social and economic threats which twelfth-

century knighthood felt encroaching upon it (cf. Erich

Kihler, Ideal und Wirklichkeit in der h6fischen Epik,

[Tiibingen, 1956], p. 78).

4It is possible that Chr6tien intended this episode as a

conscious parallel to the famous Gauvain sun myth: in the

same manner that Gauvain doubles and triples his strength

when the sun reaches its zenith, Lancelot also regains his

might when his "sun"-Guenibvre-looks upon him.

5Lanzelet, edited by K. A. Hahn (Frankfurt am Main,

1845), vs. 321.

6Lanzelet, vs. 329.

7The title Prose Lancelot is here used in the traditional

manner, that is, as a reference to volumes III to V in H.

O. Sommer's edition of the "Vulgate Cycle" (The Vulgate

Version of the Arthurian Romances, Washington, 1911).

sThis account is found on pp. 156 to 226, volume IV,

of The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances. A

more reliable edition of this section is that of Gweneth

Hutchings (Le Conte de la Charrette, Paris, 1938).



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222 STUDES BY MEMBERS OF SCMLAWNTER 1970

aventures which precede the so-called "Prose Charrette,"

Lancelot is already very eager to conceal his name from

the world. In fact, in these parts of the Prose Lancelot the

motif of the self-inflicted anonymity is so heavily stressed

that it appears to constitute an integral part of Lancelot's

concept of knightly existence. Uwe Ruberg, in a recent

article, contends that it fits the hero's conception of

knighthood always to travel and act unrecognized.9 While

the German scholar fails to elaborate his assertion, a care-

ful analysis of the parts anterior to the Conquest of the

Dolorous Garde-the aventure during which Lancelot dis-

covers his name-makes it quite clear why and how he

arrived at such a conclusion. In those parts of the Prose

Lancelot that deal with Lancelot's childhood and adoles-

cence, there is a long dialogue between the young hero and

his foster mother, the Lady of the Lake ('"la dame del

lac").1o This dialogue assumes the form of a typical me-

dieval Ritterspiegel, a guide to proper knightly behavior

in which there is a strong reassertion of the religious ideals

propagated by the military orders during the twelfth and

thirteenth century. Thus the Lady of the Lake-in whom

one can still recognize Zatzikhoven's mermaid-impresses

upon the lad over and over again that it is the prime duty

of a Christian knight to protect Holy Church and to place

the thought of Christ before any other.11 The conjecture

does not seem too far-fetched that Lancelot, as a devout

Christian and faithful servant of the Church, would find

it unnecessary to heap worldly fame upon his name and

thus make it known throughout the lands. In an age

where the summum bonum of human existence depended

solely on the good deeds of the individual, Lancelot could

rest assured that God, the ultimate judge of his ventures,

was well aware of his identity.

Although it is tempting to apply such reasoning to the

Charrette, it is unlikely that Chr6tien had access to a

biographical work about his hero which had already

undergone the thorough Christian revision of the Prose

Lancelot. Historically, the religious intensity of the prose

romance appears to have been the product of the realiza-

tion that amour courtois failed knighthood as a purifying

force in its aspirations toward perfection.'12 In courtly

literature, this realization began with Chr6tien's last and

fragmentary work, Perceval. In the Charrette, however,

the dominating spirit is still that of amour courtois. Con-

sequently, there must be a reason other than religious

piety for the Lancelot of the Charrette carefully to retain

an incognito.

In the prologue of the Charrette, Chritien asserts that

he obtained both matiere and sens (subject matter and

thematic essence) from his patroness, the Countess Marie

of Champagne (vss. 24 ff). It is probable that Chr6tien

had at his disposal an oral or written account of Lancelot's

life that contained a series of aventures that led up to a

rape-and-rescue story similar to that of the Charrette.x3

The part in the Prose Lancelot that corresponds to Chr6-

tien's poem grows organically out of the material pre-

ceding it while the Charrette seems to have a random

and incoherent beginning. Rather than assuming that the

author of the Prose Lancelot-who lived approximately

fifty years after Chr6tien-arranged various aventures

around the story by his illustrious predecessor, it seems

reasonable to believe that he replaced an essentially

similar, though less titillating, version of GueniBvre's ab-

duction and rescue with a prose adaptation of Chr6tien's

famous romance. Chr6tien, in turn, must have obtained

the subject matter of the Charrette fifty years earlier from

a cluster of aventures which in essence corresponded to

the one surrounding the "Charrette" story of the Prose

Lancelot. While retaining some of the essential features

of his source, Chr6tien lifted them out of the context

which originally must have rendered them quite cogent,

and simply neglected to furnish an ample explanation for

their presence in the Charrette. Accordingly, Lancelot's

anonymity is mystifying to the reader of Chr6tien's poem

but it fails to puzzle the reader of the prose version. At

one point in the "Prose Charrette," the hero himself ex-

plains why he is so intent upon maintaining the secret of

his identity. He states that he has failed to gain the great-

est honor as a knight "par ma maluaistie y ai failli."'4 At

another time, he wished that nobody had heard of his

great deeds because he considers himself full of sin."1

The theory could now be advanced that the hero's guilt

feelings are the syndrome of his conflicting loyalties, to

Artus on one hand and to Gueniovre on the other. The

text of the Prose Lancelot, however, makes it very clear

that these feelings have their origin in the episodes imme-

diately preceding the "Prose Charrette," that is, Lancelot's

abortive attempt to find the imprisoned Gauvain, his own

captivity at the hands of Morgain la Fee, and his tempor-

ary madness.16 It is in these episodes that the twenty-five

year old Lancelot fails for the first time in a quest and

to him, who by virtue of the conquest of the Dolorous

Garde had become the best knight in the world, this fail-

ure has, necessarily, to appear a severe setback, a blemish

on his honor, and reason enough to maintain an incognito

throughout further exploits.

Lancelot is by no means the only Arthurian knight who,

out of guilt or shame, hides his name from the world. Best

known amongst fellow sufferers are perhaps Yvain who,

after he has offended Laudine, roams the lands as "le

chevalier au lion," and Wolfram's Parzival who becomes

renowned as "der rote ritter" after the disaster at the

Grail castle. The anonymity of a guilt-ridden knight ap-

pears, therefore, to have been a stock motif of courtly

poets and writers which they applied freely to a number

of suitable heroes, Lancelot being only one of them.

The above conclusions shed new light on Le Chevalier

de la Charrette. It has always been considered one of the

major flaws of this romance that it appears taken out of

context.17 If its matidre-the rape-and-rescue story-was

taken from a larger biographical work, as we may safely

assume, it is likely that it was preceded by the very ele-

ments which in the Prose Lancelot make the hero's self-

inflicted anonymity appear quite reasonable. In retaining

this traditional motif, the sophisticated Chr6tien expanded

it far beyond its original scope and used it, above all, as a

dramatic device. Once he revealed his hero's identity, he

felt no need retrospectively to justify every aspect of the

motif since he could assume his audience's familiarity with

it from earlier accounts of Lancelot's life.

9Uwe Ruberg, "Die Suche im Prosa Lancelot," ZfdA,

XIIC (1963), 122-157.

loThe Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, III,

112 ff.

11" . Mais les armes que il porte & que nus qui

cheualiers ne soit ne doit porter ne lor furent pas dounees

sans raison. . ... Li escus qui au col li pent & dont il est

couers par deuant . senefie que autresi quil se met entre

lui & lescu . autresi se doit metre li cheualiers deuant sainte

eglise encontre tous malfaiteurs . ou soient robeor ou

mescreant." (The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Ro-

mances, III, 114.)



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WNTER 1970 STUDIES BY MEMBERS OF SCMLA223

12This theory constitutes a major theme of Erich Kohler's

"Habilitationsschrift," Ideal und Wirklichkeit in der hffi-

schen Literatur.

13A simplified version of the rape-and-rescue theme is

also present in Lanzelet. There, however, no love relation-

ship exists between Lanzelet and the queen.

14The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, IV,

167.


179.


88-154.

17Cf. Wendelin Foerster, Der Karrenritter (Halle,

1899), p. lxxxiii.

MILTON AND MILLET

AMY LEE TURNER

University of Houston

John Milton's final twenty-six lines of Paradise Lost

(Book XII, 624-649) and Jean Frangois Millet's painting,

"The Angelus," are similar in subject matter; but the

poetry and the painting differ in aesthetic qualities. This

essay argues that even though the artists were two cen-

turies apart in time, lived in contrasting social back-

grounds, yet still expressed the same subject matter, it is

how each handles his media that determines the quality

of his art.

Milton, a seventeenth-century Teutonic Englishman born

in London, and nineteenth-century Millet, a Norman (Teu-

tonic Frenchman) born on the coast of Brittany, are two

hundred years apart. Milton died in 1674; Millet, in 1875.

The former was Protestant all his life; the latter, Roman

Catholic. But in an ecumenical age like ours the common

point about both the poet and the painter is that each

upheld the classical-Christian traditional values, the old

verities of the humanities. Both thought that in some sense

human experience was worthwhile, that man as a "doing

and suffering" creature was a fit subject for their respec-

tive arts. "Man's fate is, in fact, directly or indirectly, the

sole subject of art," and "[art] is worth while because man

and his destiny are worth while."' Both thought of man

as only a part of a tremendous world order, not as a sepa-

rate being, an island. Both loved nature and linked human

joys and sorrows to the changes of the natural world.2

Since "public belief is an aspect of language" and since

the twentieth century is often called the "age of disinte-

grating public belief," writers and painters have invented

new technical devices to compensate for this loss. Crafts-

manship is very important to them. "Mere craftsmanship

is independent of all beliefs, but . . art is more than mere

craftsmanship."3 All works of art show forth the artist's

beliefs and his understanding of the tradition in which he

works. Both Milton and Millet thought aesthetic signifi-

cance was a human significance.

In the seventeenth century Milton shared with his age

his belief in the importance of man in an ordered uni-

verse. "The essential and tragic ambiguity of the human

animal" is the theme of Paradise Lost as a poem,4 and

with quiet dignity the last twenty-six lines reduce the

universal human motives to their primary elements: man

should have some work to do, someone to love, something

to look forward to-work, companionship, religious hope.

So spake our Mother Eve, and Adam heard

Well pleas'd, but answer'd not; for now too nigh

Th' Arch-Angel stood, and from the other Hill

To thir fixt Station, all in bright array

The Cherubim descended; on the ground

Gliding meteorous, as Ev'ning Mist

Ris'n from a River o're the marish glides,

And gathers ground fast at the Laborer's heel

Homeward returning. High in Front advanc't,

The brandisht Sword of God before them blaz'd

Fierce as a Comet; which with torrid heat,

And vapor as the Libyan Air adust,

Began to parch that temperate Clime; whereat

In either hand the hast'ning Angel caught

Our ling'ring Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate

1David Daiches, A Study of Literature for Readers and

Critics (New York, 1964), p. 83.

2Douglas Bush, "Paradise Lost" in Our Time (Glouces-

ter, Mass., 1957), pp. 29-57; Julia Cartwright [Mrs. Henry

Ady], Jean Frangois Millet: His Life and Letters (New

York, 1896), p. 391.

3Irwin Edman, Arts and the Man: A Short Introduction

to Aesthetics (New York, 1939), pp. 94-95; Daiches, pp.

135, 221, 224-225.

4Daiches, p. 217.

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Origin and Function of Lancelots Anonymity