Ennobling Centralization:Lancelot of the Laikand the Romance of Subjection

Abstract

While it has been dismissed as mediocre, Lancelot of the Laik has recently inspired critical interest in its fusion of political and erotic elements. Comparison of its fragmentary text with its French original shows that the poem’s political section is not over-long, and that it crucially connects courtly excellence with community building. Introducing an over-meditative narrator whose erotic yearnings are selfishly confined to a private garden, the Laik-poet yokes the narrator’s growth to Lancelot’s knightly success. The Laik-poet presents Arthur as a king who depends upon greater lords submitting to him. This portrait of cosmopolitan territorial lords uniting appeals to Scottish sensibilities. Galiot, an archipelagic lord who submits to Arthur out of a spiritualized, yet secular attachment to Lancelot, further fuses the political and the erotic for a Scottish audience.