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The Chameleon Principle: Reflections on the Status of Arthurian Studies in the Academy

2007; Scriptoriun Press; Volume: 17; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/art.2007.0039

1934-1539

Richard Utz,

Ancient Egypt and Archaeology

THE ROUND TABLE"1 3 Henri Rey-Flaud, La névrose courtoise (Paris: Seuil, 1983); and Le chevalier, l'autre et la mort: les aventures de Gauvain dans Le conte du Graal (Paris: Payot, 1999). 4 Julia Kristeva, Histoires d'amour (Paris: Denoël, 1983), trans. Leon Roudiez, Tales ofLove (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987). 5 Lancelot-Grail: The OldFrenchArthurian VulgateandPost-Vulgatein Translation, 5 vols., gen. ed. Norris J. Lacy (New York: Garland, 1993). 6 Bryan Reynolds, TransversalEnterprisesin theDrama ofShakespeareandhis Contemporaries: Fugitive Explorations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). The Chameleon Principle: Reflections on the Status of Arthurian Studies in the Academy RICHARD UTZ As an historian of the disciplines of medieval philology, medieval studies, and medievalism, I am used to a certain amount of 'cloaking.' After all, I often abandon recognized academic work on the so-called 'nitty-gritty' of literary or linguistic study 'proper' for the somehow 'improper' realms ofmeta- or paraliterary observations. In order to be accepted by those who stay within the established boundaries ofliterary and linguistic study, I have to make sure that the grail keepers at the gates delimiting those boundaries (journal editors, publishers, bibliographers, indexing specialists, conference organizers, hiring committees) realize that I am capable ofwearing two hats: one that makes me recognizable as one oftheirs (Uther Pendragon's normal headgear, so to speak), and one that I may put on when I write 'on' linguistic and literary study (Merlin's camouflage gear). Securely grounded in this, my own, academic role playing experience, I should like to propose that the status ofArthurians in the academy is intimately entwinedwith the interdisciplinary, international, and non-class specific nature ofArthuriana on the one hand and with the history of the academic study of literature and language on the other. What 1 would like to suggest, then, is thatArthurians, in order to survive in the competitive scientistic habitat ofthe academy, tend to practice a form ofchameleonic mimicry. Alrhough Arthurians investigate what maywell be the largest thematically unified body ofsecular literature in what is commonly universalized as the western tradition, they often shift academic identities until they are hired and/or tenured, upon which time they feel at liberty to uncloak and reveal themselves as the motley-colored 'saurian reptiles' they often are.1 I should like to make three short observations to support my thesis and historicize the current situation: 1) The study ofArthurian texts suffers from the separation ofacademic from nonacademic readingand interpreting practices accompanying the birth ofthe modern university in the early nineteenth century. Thus, while Arthurian texts themselves thrive and reach large reading audiences nonspecific to social class and education, 112ARTHURIANA the very popularity of these texts appears to be an obstacle to their open and acknowledged study at the university. The career paths ofTolkien scholars in the contemporary academy (I am thinking for example ofJane Chance, Verlyn Flieger, Tom Shippey) provide an illuminating parallel. 2)The separation ofserious academic 'work' from the non-academic enjoyment of Arthurian literature by more or less educated dilettantes and journalists (those who write on the quotidian matters ofthe 'jour' instead ofproducing 'lasting' texts for posterity, i.e., scholarship) begins—at least for English Arthuriana—during the Renaissance, when proponents of the New Learning (commencing with Polydore Vergil and Roger Ascham) expose the mythographic nature of foundational Arthurian texts from Geoffrey ofMonmouth's HistoriaRegum Britanniae through Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur and attack the problematic morality propagated by medieval romances as unfitting for the ideal ofthe educated gentleman. John Leland's and Michael Drayton's desperate attempts at bridging the emerging chasm between the popular/national attraction ofArthuriana and Renaissance scientism are fascinating case studies which demonstrate this process.1 3)While recent and current cultural climates outside the academy and the advent of postmodernism in the academy would allow for scholars' reading and studying of the various historical and contemporary popular Arthurian traditions, the longue durée ofacademic mentalities still suggests to scholars that they select those areas, periods, genres, or authorswithin their respective disciplines commandingsufficient cultural capital for findingjobs, securing promotion and tenure, or obtaining a book contract with a publisher. Those who would advertise themselves as Arthurians run the risk offinding themselves 'unrecognized' by...