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Commentary: A Response to the ARTHURIANA Issue on Adultery

1997; Scriptoriun Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/art.1997.0040

1934-1539

Maureen Fries,

Medieval Literature and History

Commentary A Response to the Arthuriana Issue on Adultery MAUREEN FRIES I welcome the chance Bonnie Wheeler has offered me ro comment on the articles in this Issue on Adultery. My chief concern about its contents is that the passionate defense oftheir position(s) has led some ofthe contributors to overstate their case(s) and, regrettably, to ignore evidence in texts themselves as well as in other sources and contexts that do not bear the weight oftheir claims. David Scott Wilson-Okamura, for instance, makes sweeping allegations about the primacy of adultery over incest in the post-Vulgate version of Arthur's unhappy matingwith Morgause, 'its basic structure and its prevailing ethos' modeled, he claims, not upon tragedy but upon biblical history, especially the story ofKing David (18). But—as Helen Adolph points out in a seminal article he cites but does not thoroughly use—incest is a 'cipher' for original sin erymologically from the Latin 'in castus' or 'unchaste' and epitomized by St. Augustine's coinage ofthe word 'Cupidiras' from Cupid's incest with his mother Venus (in opposition to St. Paul's 'caritas'). It is, additionally, a staple ingredient in Arthurian story from Geoffrey of Monmouth on; his use ofthe incest of Modred (Guinevere is, after all, his uncle's wife) marks rhe tragic turning point in Atthut's career, which he is the fitst to detail fully, and an event about which he then 'prefers ro say nothing' (Thotpe 257). Not surprising, since incest is an almost universal taboo as a crime against family as well as nature and, in this original Arthurian conrexr, feudal loyalty as well. It must have seemed, to Geoffrey, literally unspeakable, and certainly far worse than (may I say mere?) adultery. Its intended thematic force is apparent from its repetition in Arthur's sin with his half-sister, earlier chronologically but later in narrative development (Morgause is, by the way, not 'the daughter ofUther Pendragon' as WilsonOkamura has it [24] but ofYgerne's first husband, Gorlois). As Lévi-Strauss, arthuriana 7.4 (1997) COMMENTARY93 Kirk, and other scholars have shown, such repetition is chatacteristic ofmythic pattern, operating diachronically to reinforce the sense of destiny (and yes, oftragedy as well: biblical history is naturally reflected in the work ofGeoffrey and his successors, as numerous previous scholars have shown, but the major generic thrust is always toward tragedy). Arthur's incest, however 'mitigated by ignorance' (15) as is also the case with Oedipus and othet tragic heroes, exhibirs a narrative freight mere adultery (which it subsumes) could never achieve, and is unquestionably a 'graver sin' (15) than the latter as even a cursory perusal of its social consequences might indicate. Both Robert S. Stutges and Beverly Kennedy focus upon an adultery in which incest plays no part, that of Lancelot and Guinevere, but with very different conclusions. Sturges shows how the English Malory consistently undercuts 'the material reality' (passim) of the lover's actions as opposed to the French Prose Lancelot's graphic depiction of them, so that the reader's 'moral judgment ofthe lovers must. . .be permanently deferred' (61). Kennedy, on the other hand, as she has done previously in articles and a book, uses three 'hisroric' and 'ethical types of knighthood' as templates for analyzing the Morte Darthur, hete to suggest correspondingly different sexual ethic(s) for each. As is common to all ofher work on Malory, she claims that 'Lancelot does not lose his virginity until he begets Galahad and actually commits adultery with Guenever only once' (65). She also asserts that Gawain 'the Heroic Knight' feels free to attempt 'seduction or rape ofother men's women,' while the 'Worshipful Knighrs' Tristram and Arrhur who 'would never commit rape' (67) or seek sex in violation ofany oftheir social bonds, may nevertheless 'believe they can honorably [!] commit adultery,' which Lancelot the 'True Knight' thinks is always wrong (71). While Kennedy's approach to Gawain's character seems reasonable, she does not mention the circumstances surrounding the Ettarde episode that make Gawain's actions despicable. After promising he will do his 'trew parte' to gain the lady's love for Pelleas, whose death he falsely reports to her, he sleeps with her...