Introduction : The Saracen as Narrative Knot

Abstract

Introduction The Saracen as Narrative Knot Jacqueline De Weever It is an honor to guest-edit this issue ofArthuriana on Saiacens, a subject made spectacularly relevanr to us by cutrent events in the Middle East and in London in 2006, but also a subject growing in importance to medieval studies in English for the last twenty years. Arthuriana has already tackled some ofthe ptoblems posed by Palomides and lesser Saracens appearing in Malory's Morte Darthur in several issues (Summer 2001, Winter 2002, and Summer 2006) so that the dissonances discussed in this issue are not entirely new to Malory students. Much remains, nevertheless, to be uncovered by precise analysis and examination, and we hope that the essays in this issue will furthet refine and enlarge discussion of the subject. Hugh Kennedy observes rhat for studies of Late Antiquity, 'of all the dividing lines set up between academic disciplines in the Western intellectual tradition, the frontier between classical and Islamic studies has proved among the most durable and impenetrable,' and the same may be said about the frontier between medieval English and French studies and Islamic studies.' The situation is, of coutse, different in Spanish intellectual ttaditions because of the history ofMuslim dominance from rhe year 711 to the beginning ofthe Reconquest in the eleventh century. Spain in the medieval centuries as a subjecr ofstudy was almost never offered to students as an adjunct to English medieval studies the way Old French, Middle High German, and Old Norse literatures were offered. Perhaps it was overlooked, as Hugh Kennedy proposes for rhe study ofLateAntiquity, because ofbarriers encountered in learning a new alphabet, new language, and new culture, none ofwhich could be traced to the mythical Indo-European heattland ot to Sanskrit. Yet one encounters those called Saracens (Muslims) in the main themes of the French chansons degeste and theit Middle English translations—for example, Old French Fierabrás and its Middle English translation, The Sowdone ofBabylone and ofFerumbras his Sone who Conquerede Rome. In medieval vetnaculat narrative the Saracen becomes the knot to be untied and functions as Bakhtin's 'chronotope,' that is, one of 'the organizing centets for the fundamental narrative events of the novel. The chronotope is the place where the knots ofnarrative are tied and untied. It can be said without ARTHURIANA 16.4 (2006) INTRODUCTION qualification that to them belongs the meaning that shapes the narrative.' This is certainly ttue ofthe Saracens in romance or epic where their reason for being is to otganize and to dominate time and space as well as to unravel the meaning ofthe whole enterprise of the poem's narrative. The Saracen's entrance complicates the action that ensues because he or she upsets the established notions ofchivalric or romantic behavior. The Saracen princess of rhe chansons degeste challenges the ideals ofbeauty depicred in the heroine's blazon and the ideals ofbehavior in her treachery to her own people when she is awhite Saracen. Marriage to the Frankish knight resolves the dilemma. When black and a knight in the enemy ranks, as Amiete is in Fierabrás, she challenges the very notions ofknighthood. How does the reader or audience in the medieval period comprehend, intellectuallyand emotionally, a ferocious black woman knight? The very idea seems preposterous, yet some medieval vernacular writers have been remarkable in theit conception of the black Saracen woman knight. The untying of the narrative knot comes with the death of such a figure.3 Spenset*s Britomart in the Faerie Queene (1590) is almost a century away. For fifteenth-century readers, Palomides in Malory's Morte Darthur complicates and compels re-definition ofboth love and war. Indeed, the knot of Palomides's love for La Beali Isode is never untied since there is no resolution. Taking refuge in attempting a definition, we find Saracen: aword no longer in use to denote Arab peoples but a wotd with a long life and distinguished pedigree. By Malory's time in the fifteenth century, popular culture as well as lirerary culture associated the word specifically with the peoples of the Middle East, now defined as West Asia.4 The reader of this Introduction to an issue on Saracens in Malory should...