Politik und Liebe in der englischen Literatur des Spätmittelalters am Beispiel von Thomas Malorys Morte Darthur by Christoph Houswitschka (review)

Abstract

202Arthuriana CHRISTOPH HOUSWITSCHKA. Politik undLiebe in der englischen Literatur des Spdtmittelalters am Beispiel von Thomas Malorys Morte Darthur. Sprache und Literatur: Regensburger Arbeiten zur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, no. 36. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. 269. DM 78. IN 1975, in an essay entitled 'Malory's King Mark and King Arthur,' E.D. Kennedy broke with a long-standing tradition in Arthurian studies: attempts to understand Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthurin correspondence with fifteenth-century politics had heretofore concentrated on either actual historical parallels or specific critical renderings of political thought. Aurner (1933) and Griffith (1974), e.g., saw Malory as a supporter of the houses of Lancaster or York; Pochoda (1971) read Le Morte Darthur exclusively according to the structuring of late medieval political thought laid out in Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies. Kennedy, in his essay, presented Mark and Arthur as 'two contrasting rulers, one a tyrant, the other a king, the vices of the one set against the virtues ofthe other '(233). Christoph Houswitschka, who wants to offer a comprehensive political reading oíLe Morte Darthur, takes Kennedy's essay as his point ofdeparture, observing that Malory not only contrasts two kings and their rulerships but parallels all rulers, powerful magnates, and their various negotiations of personal as well as national goals. In addition, the author also confronts the world of Arthur with the realm ofthe Holy Grail. In his first two chapters, Houswitschka lays the methodological foundation for his investigation. He holds that literary negotiations offifteenth-centurypolitics should not be seen as mirrors, i.e., ideal depictions contrasting coeval historical reality, but as fictions employed to propagate the idea of the English common weak. Supported by other late-medieval literary treatments ofthe sovereignty theme and several applications ofthe marriage metaphor in political theory and propaganda, he establishes the ideas of friendship and sworn brotherhood and - in analogy — of love and marriage as literary vehicuL· transmitting the political concept ofthe commonprofit, the concept which binds together the puissant fellowships ofthe fifteenth-century English nobility. The third chapter discusses Malory's Sankgreal as a didactic attempt to create a national eschatology. Houswitschka shows how Malory, appalled by the political chaos of his own times, utilizes the contrast between the Arthurian world and the world of the Holy Grail to sketch a path toward a secular salvation which - in the community ofa knightly order - postulates the petfection ofthe English common weale : Malory wants to reconcile spiritual knighthood and life with the secular knighthood ofthe knights ofthe Round Table. The striving for perfection in the secular realm is no longer devalued by the contrast with the spiritual realm....Therefore, Galahad remains a stranger to the author, the embodiment ofan unattainable ideal. Malory replaces the old antagonism by theprowesse oíthe individual knight who would save and restore the whoUness of society. Malory's unwillingess to look down upon the knights ofthe RoundTable because oftheir unsuccessful questefor spiritual perfection is paralleledbyhis refusal to accept the finality ofacatastrophe such as the destruction ofthe Arthurian fellowship.(13) Reviews 203 Even in times of disorder, the common weaU can be reestablished for England via perfect knightlygovernance and the vertuous lyvyngofthe individual (Galahad) who is not swayed by the lure of singufo profit but who prefers to strive for the common profit. Chapters fourthrough tencontainsimilarlyoriginal readings oftheMorteDarthur. According to Houswitschka, Malory's most infamous deviations from his French sources are not due to his supposed disinterestedness or neglect of the famous love stories. Rather, in a complex system of inner literary references and motifs, the love stories regularly accompany the negotiations between kings and their magnates and supply essential political commentary on the reliability of these powerful men's relationships: An exemplary knight as suitor will always act exactly as he would as magnate or ruler. Infidelity in the realm of love always also damages the common profit oícrown and nobility '(100). The idea ofcommonprofit is ofvital importance for the fifteenth-century nobility whose political actions are dominated by a system ofpatronage which obliges both king and magnates to win a sizable fellowship strong enough to succeed in conflicts with other powerful lords. Magnates will only serve the king if...