ENGL 1111W Essay 1 PDF

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Essay regarding the identity of the Arthurian knight and its defining qualities, referencing many Arthurian knights' stories from medieval times when they were written....

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Name ENGL 1111 Essay 1 Feb. 17, 2020 A Threefold Identity: Love, Brotherhood, and Honor The identity of the Arthurian knight is both a social construct and a personal psychological characterization. Three defining qualities make up the essence of a knight’s identity: the unending drive to attain honor and glory through adventure and chivalrous acts, the brotherly love between the knights of the court, and the willingness to do anything and everything that a hero’s lady would ask of him. The first attribute – the necessity of achieving honor and proving one’s great knightly prowess – is a deep-rooted social construct that contrasts honor and shame. It defines a knight’s place in the court and in the hearts of the people. But, all three attributes are entirely determinant of a knight’s view of himself – a psychological construct. More often than not, our heroes’ actions simply alternate between achieving honor and glory and doing whatever will please the desires of the knight’s beloved, and back and forth, and back and forth, until the story is resolved. This provides a great deal of evidence that a knight’s personal view of himself is the driving force of all his actions, not what others think of him. First and foremost, The Knight with the Lion (Yvain) and The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot) are two stories unequaled in their ability to represent the lengths that Arthurian knights will go to in order to display their valor through adventure and tournaments. In Yvain, immediately at the start of the tale, he is setting off on an adventure to avenge his family’s honor. He succeeds in this endeavour and falls in love with the beautiful wife of the knight he had just slain. Yvain is unwavering in his persistence to marry this lady, yet, within a month, he decides to leave and go tourneying and earn greater honor at the bidding of his brother-figure, Gawain.

Understanding this to be a key part of his identity, like any other knight, Laudine gives him a year to go adventure and earn honor before he must return to her. Yvain’s love seems so palpable that he would never overstay this deadline; however, he does so without even a second thought. He was so caught up in the thrill and adventure of Arthur’s court that he neglected his love for his wife until one of her handmaidens arrives and announces that his wife now hates him. Yvain’s grief drives him to insanity, although he is eventually healed. When his senses return to him, the shame of his time as a madman and a disloyal husband hits him full force, so he does what any sensible knight would do: he goes looking for adventure to redeem himself. During this time, Yvain leads an army to fight off an evil count, kills a giant to rescue Gawain’s niece and nephews, saves Lunete’s life by defeating three knights who had wrongly accused her of treason, slays two demons in order to free three hundred enslaved seamstresses, and defends a maiden’s claim of her land in a duel at King Arthur’s court – all remarkable, chivalrous acts that mark Yvain as one of the bravest, most honorable knights in Camelot. Lancelot is no less incredible – if anything, he is even more extraordinary. He is fearless in his quest to rescue the queen, performing acts that include defeating multiple knights who challenged him, including Meleagant, twice; lifting the stone slab “without the least difficulty,” a stone so large and heavy that it was said to need at least seven large and very strong men to lift it (Chrétien, 231); and crossing the Sword Bridge with bare hands and feet, despite the pain it inflicted. Later on, Lancelot participates in a tournament where he performs so valiantly and with so much battle prowess that all of the ladies swear that they will not take a husband for a year if

they cannot have him. At the conclusion of the story, Lancelot refuses to allow Gawain to fight for him against Meleagant, despite his time in confinement and the pain and weakness it had caused him. Lancelot fights the duel himself and successfully defeats and kills Meleagant. The next key attribute of an Arthurian knight is brotherly love, which, interestingly enough, is shown towards Gawain in the tales of both Yvain and Lancelot. Yvain displays his great companionship with Gawain for the first time when he allows Gawain to convince him to leave his newly-wedded wife while the two knights went off adventuring together. Even more symbolic of their bond, though, is their encounter at Arthur’s court at the end of the romance. Both Yvain and Gawain swear to be the champions of two sisters in a quarrel over their father’s land, and the two, who are like brothers, duel. Chrétien says that the two were so close that had one just spoken, the other would have recognized his voice and the fight would never have taken place. In the end, though, it all worked out. The knights were incredibly evenly matched and eventually revealed their identities and were reconciled with tremendous joy. Each says that they will concede the battle to the other with great persistence; the extent of their love for one another is so great that they are both willing to endure the shame of defeat. This might be the ultimate sacrifice that one knight could make for another, epitomizing the brotherly love between these two great knights. In The Knight of the Cart, Lancelot also displays great affection for Gawain. Twice after monumental moments with his love, the first being his long-awaited reunion with the queen and the second the consummation of their relationship, he leaves immediately after to go seek Gawain and ensure that he is safe. Gawain also displays his love for Lancelot when he offers to stand in his place in the fight against Meleagant, since Lancelot cannot be found. Even when

Lancelot returns, Gawain wants to fight for him, although Lancelot will not allow it. This reunion is also a very tender moment. Their joy and affection for one another is so great that it is said that “Gawain would not have wanted to be chosen king, there and then, if it meant losing Lancelot (Chrétien, 290).” Lastly, but possibly most importantly, these romances exemplify just how much knights are willing to endure in order to satisfy the desires of the women they love. When Yvain falls madly in love with the widow of the knight he had just slain, his identity becomes so entirely wrapped up in his love for this woman, Laudine, that he says to her that if she decided to execute him, he would never disagree; he would even go so far as to thank her. Later in The Knight with the Lion, when Yvain foolishly neglects his wife and overstays the period of absence that she gave him, he leaves Arthur’s court at once and goes into the forest and begins to live “like a madman and a savage” for a lengthy period of time (Chrétien, 330). That was an incredible shame, yet, to him, the shame of how he had hurt his beloved was even greater and his mind could not bear it. When he is healed of this madness, he goes adventuring and refuses to stop or even to rest until he regains his honor and the love of his wife. Even after his reunion with Gawain and reconciliation at Arthur’s court, Yvain departs in secret to return to his lady and make amends with her. His adventuring and recompense of honor are only complete when he is once again on the best of terms with his love. As immense as Yvain’s dedication to his lady is, it is miniscule compared to the loyalty that Lancelot displays to his love, Queen Guinevere. At one point along his journey, as Lancelot is riding along, “his thoughts [are] so deep that he [forgets] who he [is] (Chrétien, 216).” He literally forgets his identity as a brave, powerful Arthurian knight – his entire identity is solely

defined by his love for this woman and his longing to be with her. Despite multiple encounters with other women and one in particular even requiring Lancelot to sleep in the same bed as her, Lancelot refuses to be with any other woman that the one whom his heart belongs to. At a later point in the story, Lancelot is once again traveling, lost in thought over his love for Guinevere, saying that “no one could describe anything that is prompted by Love as contemptible” and “there is no doubt that he who obeys Love’s command is uplifted, and all should be forgiven him (Chrétien, 261).” These ponderings explain one of the great paradoxes of this story. It is troubling how such an honorable and God-fearing knight could commit this terrible, adulterous act with the queen, yet this explains how Lancelot justifies it. If love drives him to do something, then it could never be the shameful, dishonorable, sinful thing to do because love is above all else. This belief could explain the final, key way in which Lancelot displays his love for Guinevere, although it is still perplexing. The primary component of a knight’s identity is to always earn honor and never shame and, yet, countless times, Lancelot unabashedly performs terribly shameful acts for his love. First and foremost, despite the immeasurable shame of riding in a cart, Lancelot hesitates only two steps before climbing in, believing it to be his only way to rescue the queen – and the only thing that he regrets about it is his split second of hesitation. While Lancelot’s act of riding in the cart is the central point of the shame he is willing to bear for Guinevere, three other moments also display this. When Lancelot sees Guinevere for the first time in the story, he is so captivated by her that he refuses to look away and fends off Meleagant’s blows from behind his back – another shameful thing to do. Twice, when Lancelot and Meleagant are fighting, King Bademagu requests that the queen spare his son’s life.

Guinevere grants this and the instant that Lancelot hears, he completely ceases attacking or defending himself at all, despite the fact that Meleagant continues to strike him. Once again, Lancelot readily accepts physical harm for the sake of his beloved. Finally, at the tournament near the end of the story, Lancelot is showing off his great battle prowess to all in attendance when the queen sends one of her ladies to tell him to “do his worst.” Without hesitation, he does so. The bravest, most magnificent knight at the tournament suddenly converts into the most shameful, cowardly man present. Queen Guinevere immediately knows who he is because no one else would have so unquestionably, unfailingly shamed themself just because she asked it. No two romances could better display the three crucial aspects of an Arthurian knight’s identity. Both Yvain and Lancelot are the best of the best in saving damsels in distress, never running from a challenge, defeating other knights, and showing the utmost honor. Both are loved and esteemed highly by King Arthur and all his people and show heart-warming brotherhood with Gawain. But, most importantly, both would do anything for the ladies they love, even at the expense of everything they value most....